Local Hero

Author Tim Green Licence CC BY 2.0 Source Wikimedia Commons

Huddersfield Station

 

The Birmingham Royal Ballet's website and programmes used to state: "Huddersfield is not as famous in the world of classical dance as St Petersburg, Paris or London, but it was the birthplace of David Bintley - one of the most consistent and significant forces in British ballet."  After attending  Deborah Weiss's online interview of Andrew McNicol for the London Ballet Circle on 7 May 2025, I looked up the McNicol Ballet Collective and found that it was based in Huddersfield.   IMHO the Collective counts as another significant contribution from Huddersfield to the world of classical dance.

Andrew McNicol is a freelance British choreographer and Artistic Associate at English National Ballet School.  He has created work for companies and ballet schools around the world, including the Royal Ballet, Northern Ballet, the Royal Ballet of Flanders, the Joffrey Ballet, the Tulsa Ballet, the Royal Ballet School and the English National Ballet School.   He founded the McNicol Ballet Collective in 2021.

The McNicol Ballet Collective describes itself as "a creation-based ensemble of extraordinary artists at the peak of their creative powers, alongside emerging talent primed to showcase their brilliance and artistry."  They create works for the stage and screen and have launched a learning programme called "Compositions and Configurations."

I discovered that the Collective has a mailing list, so I subscribed to it.  Yesterday, I received my first newsletter.  It started with a note of thanks from McNicol to those who had attended the Collective's shows, made donations or engaged with it on social media.  Since its formation, the Collective had presented 4 ballets to critical acclaim, premiered a new ballet called Liquid Life and commissioned a new score from Jeremy Birchall. There is also a link to the Collective's Insight Event with the Royal Academy of Dance.   

For those who want to learn more about McNicol and his project, I recommend Trevor Rothwell's write-up of Deborah Weiss's interview on the London Ballet Circle website and the Insight Event video.  Apart from asking McNicol why he chose Huddersfield as his base during that interview, my only contact with him was at the Tell Tale Steps Choreographic Laboratory  10 years ago.  I remember struggling to get a word in edgeways at the panel discussion.   I welcome McNicol's initiative in setting up the Collective and I will do my best to support it.

Tell Tale Steps - Choreographic Laboratory

During this month Kenneth Tindall has been participating with Ludovic Ondiviela, Constant Vigier and Andrew McNicol with dancers of the Northern Ballet in a choreographic laboratory called Tell Tale Steps. Their work has been streamed to the public and you can watch the first and second weeks work on YouTube (see Choreographic Laboratory Live Stream 5 June 2015 and Tell Tale Steps, live session 2 (Fri 12 June)). The choreographers have also made video diaries which you can see at Choreographic Laboratory, Week One Video Diaries and Choreographic Laboratory, video diaries week 2.

The work will culminate in a full day session at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre on 20 June which will consist of company class, a brown paper bag lunch, a panel discussion on narrative ballet and a sharing of the work by those four choreographers. Again, the work will be streamed over the internet over Northern Ballet's YouTube channel.

Regrettably this all day session coincides with the last day of Birmingham Royal Ballet's short season of The King Dances and Carmina Burana in Birmingham which is reconstruction of one of the earliest spectacles in ballet and of enormous cultural and historical significance (see The King Dances 23 May 2015) and that Saturday is the only day I can traipse down to the Midlands but Team Terpsichore hopes to be represented in Leeds by another contributor. If that is not possible I shall certainly watch and comment on the video recording.

Tindall, Ondiviela, Vigier and McNicol are enormously talented and they are still quite young. There is every chance that they will become influence British ballet in the way that Cranko, Darrell and MacMillan did when I was young. Such concentrations of talent and potential are very rare in ballet. Such opportunities should be seized and savoured.