Life with the Ribbon

Kimberley Hattersley-Barton and the Cast of Life with the Ribbon

© 2025 Kimberley Hattersley-Barton,  All rights reserved. 

 

Kimberley Hattersley-Barton and Friends Life with the Ribbon Unity Hall, Wakefield, 18:00 10 May 2025

For several years, I attended Jane Tucker's improvers class at Northern Ballet.  Although I had studied ballet for many years, I had never been very good at it even when I was young.  I had become even worse by the time I was taking Jane's classes because of the ravages of old age.  Nobody ever said anything to me, but I felt very much like Danny Kaye's ugly duckling.   But there was one young woman who always made me feel welcome, even though she was one of the better dancers.   Her infectious smile and occasional cheery wave across the studio immediately put me at my ease and emboldened me to persevere.  I shall always be grateful to her for her encouragement.

I learned that the young woman's name was Kimberley Hattersley-Barton and that she had been ill for much of her life.   It was only when she posted a notice on Facebook about a charity gala at the Unity Hall in Wakefield that I discovered the precise nature and full extent of her illness.  In her 27 years, she has already had no less than 5 cancer diagnoses, the first of which was when she was just a few months old. The purpose of the gala was to raise funds for three charities, Willow, Beads of Courage and When You Wish Upon a Star.  Each of those charities improves the lives of young persons who are suffering from serious illnesses.

For those who don't know Wakefield, Unity Hall is a prominent 3 storey building off Westgate.  Wakefield's main thoroughfare.  I have learnt that the building used to be the central stores of the Wakefield Industrial Society, which seems to have been some sort of cooperative society. Possibly because the building had been used as a storehouse, there is a cavernous space on the top floor which has been turned into an auditorium.   It was in that space that the gala took place.

The gala consisted of songs and dance routines arranged in two parts and interspersed with speeches and conversations.   There was rather more song than dance, but the dance contributions were impressive.  A troupe of young women referred to in the programme as the "Gala Dance Team" opened and closed the show. They also danced at several other points during the evening. If I am not mistaken, they are the women dressed in pink kneeling in the front row of the photo.   Kimberley joined in at least one of the Gala Dance Team's routines.  There was a remarkably talented young artist called Meg Finan who danced El Tango de Roxanne from Moulin Rouge as a solo.   She also danced to Bring Him Home from Les Misérables sung by Tyler Warren.  Finally, contemporary dance students from the Academy of Northern Ballet performed Revolve. 

Halfway through the first part, a ballet teacher and former dancer called Nic Smart, introduced himself as Kimberley's mentor, who had become a close friend.  Ballet is a tough and demanding discipline.  I once overheard Fiona Noonan (the teacher who led me back to the barre) tell another student that ballet is a tough taskmistress willing you to fail.   The physical and mental skills required to master the art form are valuable life skills.  Dance is obviously important to Kimberley.   It may well be one of the reasons for her resilience

Although this is primarily a dance blog, I must acknowledge the singers, who were also excellent. In the first part of the show, Jemma Alexander sang Let's Hear It for the Boy from Footloose and Take Me or Leave Me from Rent as a duet with Laura Pick.  In the second, she sang As If We Never Said Goodbye from Sunset Boulevard as a solo and For Good from Wicked as a duet with Laura Pick.  Laura Pick also sang No Good Deed and Defying Gravity from the same musical. Michael Markey sang All Coming Back to Me and Oh What A Night.   Aimée Good and Isabel Canning sang That's Life together.   Aimée Good had known Kimberley at secondary school, and she paid a very moving tribute to her former schoolmate. Isabel Canning sang Don't Rain on My Parade from Funny Girl.  Elliott Lee sang Stars from Les Misérables and You'll Be Back from Hamilton.   Tyler Lee sang Power of Love from Back to the Future.  Finally, Matthew Roddis belted our Cry Me A River in part 1 and Sweet Caroline in part 2 so compellingly that he brought many audience members to their feet.

The Life with the Ribbon gala was a resounding success, for which its producer, Kimberley, deserves much of the credit.   Everything had been rehearsed well.  The show ran to time, each item following on slickly from the one before.   The applause that the artists received at the curtain call was thunderous.  A lot of happy people descended onto Westgate that evening,

Top Cats: the NSCD and Northern Ballet Academy End of Year Show

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Leeds CAT End of Year Show, 24 June 2017, 15:00 Riley Theatre, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Leeds


In The Lowry CAT 27 May 2016 I wrote:

"There are in England nine Centres for Advanced Training in Dance ("CAT") which identify children and young people with exceptional talent for dance and develop them through contact with leading dancers, teachers and choreographers."

According to the What are CATS? page of the Dance CATs website, there are now 12 and two of them are in Leeds, namely the Academy of Northern Ballet and the Northern School of Contemporary Dance ("NSCD"). Yesterday the Academy and NSCD held end of year shows at the NSCD's Riley Theatre. As I am a Friend of the Academy as well as the company, I support it in every way I can. Thus, I found myself at the matinee performance at 15:00.

Yesterday's visit was my first to the NSCD and, consequently, I did not know the layout of the theatre when I booked my ticket over the internet.  I had selected D7 in the stalls thinking that it would give me a good view as it was pretty close to the stage. It turned out to be a restricted view because the audience is seated in a semicircle in very solid upright, wooden chairs that are more like church pews than seats in an auditorium. As a result, I had a grandstand view of the wings at stage right but I could see hardly anything of stage left. That was only a problem in the last piece, Echo by Matthew Slater, because the work opens with several dancers' supporting another standing upright. It was a very impressive sight which must have required a lot of practice by the dancers and their choreographer.

The programme consisted of 10 works half of which were presented by the Academy and the other half by the NSCD.  The show opened with Greeting which had been created by Yoko Ichino, Cara O'Shea and Siobhan Camkin for all the Academy's students to music by Ottorino Respighi from La Boutique Fantasque. It introduced the Academy and was the first opportunity for the audience to see the capabilities and discipline of those talented young people. Next came Headspace by the NSCD students who were equally impressive in their genre. The work was choreographed by Krista Vuori of Frantic Assembly and was described as "An exploration into the questions we ask ourselves and thoughts that randomly enter into our mind everyday." There was some speech some of which was inaudible but that did not matter too much because it was a dance piece and the sentiments were clear enough from the dancers' movements. The rest of the show alternated between ballet and contemporary dance and ended with Slater's Echo.

All the contributions were good and I enjoyed them all but there were three works that stood out for me particularly.  One of these was Headspace which I have described above.   Another was The Reel scene from La Sylphide which Cara O'Shea had adapted skilfully. It was pretty faithful to Bournonville's choreography but, whenever I see dancers with folded arms, I ask myself whether that great choreographer had ever actually seen Highland or even Scottish country dancing. Not once since I was dragooned into making up the numbers for a Dashing White Sergeant at the Celtic Society's bejants' ceilidh have I ever seen anyone in Scotland dance like that but I think only someone as august as Bourne (Sir Matthew that is) dare contradict Bournonville (see Sir Matthew Bourne's Highland Fling Montage on YouTube). The last that stood out was Echo which was a perfect way to end the show.

One of the functions of the CATs is to prepare their students for vocational training. The programme listed the destinations of this year's final year students and they are very impressive. Two are off to Northern Ballet School in Manchester which celebrates its 40th anniversary today. Congratulations! Many of my favourite teachers at both KNT and the Academy trained there. Others are going to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, The Hammond School, Trinity Laban, Urdang Academy and many other famous institutions. And to remind us that dance provides great mental, as well as physical, training, one of the students is on her way to med school at Cambridge (Caius I presume). I wish each and every one of those students well in his or her career and look forward to seeing at least some of them on stage again.