World Ballet Day - Dutch National Ballet

Standard YouTube Licence


Sometimes one can have too much of a good thing and World Ballet Day is one of those times. There's a great temptation to drop everything to watch a whole day of classes, rehearsals, interviews and shows.  This year I rationed myself to just one contribution on the day and this is it.

It will surprise nobody who knows me that I have chosen the Dutch National Ballet's slot.  I have been following that company for the last 6 years and I have watched careers blossom like cherry trees in Spring. One of the folks I interviewed as a member of the Junior Company in 2014 was Martin ten Kortenaar. He is now one of the leads in Rudi van Dantzig's Romeo and Juliet. 

The recording shows three scenes from the work:  the Dance of the Knights, the balcony scene and the bedroom scene just before Romeo takes flight.  I have seen many versions of this ballet: Lavrovsky's, Maillot's, Pastor's, James's, Nureyev's and, of course, MacMillan's but there seems to be a unique exuberance to this work. According to Ted Brandsen, the Director of the Dutch National Ballet this was the first full-length work to be created in Holland.  With designs by Toer van Schayk, it must be gorgeous.

But, so too, will be Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Frida.  I have long admired the work that she has done for Ballet Black, Scottish Ballet and other companies. This promises to be a tour de force. With Floor Eimers in the show, how could it be otherwise?

I have said many times in this blog that I can't watch Ernst Meisner's Embers without the tears welling up. I have seen it performed beautifully by different artists - Cristiano Principato and Jessica Xuan at last year's gala, Thomas van Damme and Nancy Burer and Cristiano again with Priscylla Gallo at Trecate in Italy.  In this clip you will see two new young dancers in Embers whom I am sure will go far,  They are Sebia Plantefȅve and Davi Ramos. I can't wait to see them live on stage.

Tomorrow I shall watch another clip from a favourite company that performed yesterday.   A Russian company other than the Bolshoi or Mariinsky perhaps. Or maybe an American company that is not from New York.  There is no shortage of choice.

All Hail to the Lone Star Dancer

Texas is often called the "Lone Star State" because of the design of its state flag which harks back to the days when a number of English-speaking settlers adopted a flag that consisted of a single star for an insurrection that resulted in Texas's secession from Mexico in 1836 and its eventual absorption into the United States in 1846. Sadly when it joined the Union it did so as a slave state which prolonged one of the most egregious outrages of human history that ended only after a particularly tragic civil war and was followed by the systematic oppression and marginalization of former victims of that outrage and their descendants that have continued until our own times.

However, that is only part of the picture for that state of nearly 28 million people has contributed much to humanity in the arts, science, technology, government, industry and commerce. One of the more illustrious of those 28 million is the dancer Damien Johnson who celebrated his 10th anniversary with Ballet Black at the Nottingham Playhouse last night. We were alerted to the celebration by the cast sheet that urged the audience to

"celebrate our Senior Artist, Damien Johnson's 10-year anniversary with Ballet Black at the final curtain call after Red Riding Hood." 

We did indeed celebrate with a standing ovation for that fine dancer when the company's founder, Cassa Pancho, entered the stage and presented Damien with a massive bouquet of flowers. It was the first time in over 50 years of ballet going that I have seen such recognition for a premier danseur noble as opposed to a ballerina in this country (though it is often done in Russia and other countries) and, as a feminist, I hope it will not be the last.

Yesterday's performance was memorable for me not just for Damien's celebration or even the company's performance but because Cassa introduced me to Anabelle Lopez Ochoa as we were taking our seats for Little Red Riding Hood.  Annabelle had created that ballet for Ballet Black but she has also choreographed A Streetcar Named Desire for Scottish Ballet (see Scottish Ballet's Streetcar 2 April 2015), Reversible for Danza Contemporanea de Cuba (see Danza Contemporanea de Cuba at the Lowry 19 Feb 2017) and many other works. Earlier this year, she held a workshop at the Barbican in February which I was actually invited to attend and I was very tempted to do so. Had I been a stronger and more skilful dancer I would have accepted readily but I really did not feel up to the challenge. I am very grateful to David Murley for attending the event and reporting back to us in Red Riding Hood Workshop at the Barbican with Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa and Ballet Black.

As Is often the case, I enjoyed Ballet Black's mixed bill the second time even more than I did when I first saw the show (see Ballet Black Triumphant 7 March 2017). I think that is because I noticed details that I had missed before such as the humour in the show like the mewing of the wolf cubs as they harass Grandma, the swooning of the she-wolves as they encounter the Big Bad Wolf's, BBW's gestures such as the swinging of his pyjama string tail and Grandma's battering of BBW with the flowers that he had just given her, I also appreciated the other two works more, particularly Corder's House of Dreams as his Baiser de la Fée which I had seen in Birmingham the night before was still fresh in my memory (see Birmingham Royal Ballet's Three Short Ballets: Le Baiser de la fée, Pineapple Poll and Arcadia 22 June 2017). Indeed, I was going to compare and contrast the two works had it not been for Damien's celebration. I had even toyed with "Cordered" as a headline for today's post.

I look forward to seeing Ballet Black again in November when they will venture out of the Beautiful South for a night in Derby on the 15 and two in Leeds on the 17 and 18 where we shall ply them with Taddy Ales, Bradford naans (not all that different from Yorkshire puddings) and parkin. They won't get any of that in their other venues.

Ballet Black Triumphant

Standard YouTube Licence


Ballet Black, Triple Bill: Michael Corder House of Dreams, Martin Lawrence Captured and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa Little Red Riding Hood Barbican Centre, 4 March 2017, 19:45


We have already been treated to an excellent lead review by Joanna Goodman who attended the Barbican on Friday, 3 March 2017 (see Joanne Goodman Sexy wolf stole the show!  5 March 2016). I saw the show the day after and these remarks are my recollections of, and reflexions upon, that evening.

I have to pick my words very carefully when I write about Ballet Black. That is not because I denigrate them. It is because they seem to get better and better every time I see them. When I say that I risk prompting a response from their artistic director and founder, Cassa Pancho: "But you always say that!" To which I reply "but it's true." So I shall say the same again at the risk of a similar reprimand from Cassa. Ballet Black danced on Saturday night better than I have ever seen them dance before.

I enjoyed all three pieces very much.

I was charmed particularly by Michael Corder's House of Dreams because of its score, its choreography and its costume designs. The music was by Debussy: Prélude (1st movement od the Suite Berganasque for piano), Des Pas sur la Neige (Preludes for piano, book one, No. 6), La Fille aux cheveux de lin (Preludes for piano, book one, No. 8) and Passepied (4th movement od the Suite Berganasque for piano) recorded by Pascal Rogé. The choreography was very pure and reminded me a lot of August Bournonville. There were two couples: Damien Johnson with Sayaka Ichikawa and Jacob Wye with Marie-Astrid France. The costumes which had been designed by Yukiko Tsukamoto were elegant: each man's shirt was the colour of his partner's skirt and her top the colour of his breaches. Altogether, a delightful start to the evening.

Martin Lawrence's Captured was quite different and, I think, intended to be unsettling. The music was from Shostakovich String Quartet No 11 in F minor Op 122. Shostakovich has written some delightfully tuneful compositions but this was not one of them. As Lawrence wrote in the programme notes, the piece was written at a time was "fragile and nervously agile". He added:

"There are real moments of restriction and tension within the choreography and music, which tug the four dancers through the space."

Those four dancers were José Alves, Isabela Coracy, Cira Robinson and Mthuthuzeli November. The company had danced Captured in 2012 which was just before I started to follow Ballet Black. Lawrence wrote that the piece had originally been made for Robinson but that the addition of the other three had allowed him to view the work with fresh eyes and thus breath new life into it.

The highlight of the evening was Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Red Riding Hood. I am a bit of s fan of Ochoa having enjoyed her Streetcar Named Desire for Scottish Ballet (see Scottish Ballet's Streetcar 4 April 2015) and, more recently, Reversible danced by the Cuban contemporary dance company (see Danza Contemporanea de Cuba at the Lowry 19 Feb 2017). She will also contribute to the Dutch National Ballet's Dutch Doubles next year. I can immediately think of two other Little Red Riding Hood ballets, the divertissement in the last act of The Sleeping Beauty and Ballet Cymru's (see Ballet Cymru's Summer Tour 22 May 2016). Ochoa's work was nothing like either of those previous works. As Joanna said on Sunday, it was "a non-violent interpretation, no one is eaten, shot or cut open as in various gothic versions." It did not stop it from being tremendous fun and November with his ropey, rogueish tail had us in stitches. But there were two other stars in my book - Robinson of course in her red outfit and whoever danced granny. The disguise was so good I really couldn't tell. I think it was Johnson but it could have been Wye. Whoever he was deserved a medal for his pointework.

At the curtain call November treated us to an impromptu gallop that drove us all to our feet. British audiences are very slow to stand up - though at least we don't flounce out of the auditorium during the reverence unlike some folk (see Attending the Ballet in Florida: Miami City Ballet's Program Three 6 March 2017) - but this time we gave them a standing ovation, and did we roar.

Ballet Black deserved that applause. They are a national treasure. I can't praise them enough. Yes, maybe Cassa is right. I shall have to be more circumspect in my next review. But only because the English language has run out of superlatives.

Ballet Black has announced future performances of this programme in North Finchley, Winchester, Worthing, Birmingham, Ipswich, Winchester and Nottingham. No appearances in the North have been mentioned just yet but we usually see them in Leeds in November. I do hope they get round to somewhere in Greater Manchester or Merseyside with this programme this year as they have a growing fanbase here.

Danza Contemporanea de Cuba at the Lowry

Andrés Ascanio and Heriberto Meneses
in Reversible

Photo Johan Persson
Reproduced with kind permission of the Company 

Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, Triple Bill, The Lowry, 17 Feb 2017

"Every cloud has a silver lining" so they say.  Some compensation for missing Made in Amsterdam and Juniors Go Dutch (see Thinking of Amsterdam 18 Feb 2017) was the opportunity to see Danza Contemporanea de Cuba at the Lowry. We might well have missed them altogether had we not seen them this weekend for their tour takes them just about everywhere in the UK except where we live or can reach conveniently.  The circumstances that caused us to cancel our trip may actually have done us a favour.  The Netherlands are just across the North Sea and are as easy and often very much cheaper to reach as many parts of our own country. We can see the wonderful Dutch National Ballet more or less any time. Cuba, however, is several thousand miles away and quite a different country. We don't get a chance to see its national contemporary dance company quite so easily.

The company was quite different from any that I had ever seen before. They seemed to move quite differently. I couldn't put my finger on it until a question and answer session after the performance when Miguel Iglesias, the company's artistic director, explained that classical and classically trained dancers move from their solar plexuses whereas his dancers moved from their hips.  They were unbelievably daring, especially in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Reversible which explored gender differences and stereotypes and the relationships between the sexes with men wearing skirts and the women trousers and not all that much else.

The evening started with Reversible which was choreographed by Annabelle López Ochoa who had choreographed Scottish Ballet's Streetcar Named Desire (see Scottish Ballet's Streetcar 2 April 2015) and has contributed a new ballet called Little Red Riding Hood to Ballet Black which will be premiered at the Barbican nxt month (see Beautiful Ballet Black 14 Jan 2017). Reversible began with a man and a woman hoisted shoulder high with their supporters around. The man and woman try to dress but then discard their garments.  In a strange half lit scene, a sort of ritual is conducted between the two groups. It is a very short piece - barely 30 minutes - but a lot is squeezed into that time. The score consisting of music by the composers I listed in Double Latin.  Seventeen dancers performed that work. A great start to the show.

The Listening Room created by British dance maker Theo Clinkard had a score that was audible to the audience but each of the dancers heard very different ones through headphones.  I would not have guessed that had it not been for the Q and A which was chaired by Clinkard.  Asked by a member of the audience to explain his work, Clinkard replied that he wanted the dancers to communicate what they were hearing solely through the movements of their bodies. An interesting suggestion by Janet McNulty whom we sought out in the second interval was that it represented modern social life (or rather the lack of it) with people glaring into their 'phones and motioning incommunicado in their headphones. That interpretation worked for me just as well as Clinkard's. The music was Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings by Steve Reich who had composed Drumming III which had been used by Ballet Black (see Ballet Black made my Manchester Day 28 June 2016). The music that the artists heard was all sorts. There was a lot going in that piece - perhaps a little too much - but the work ended with a solitary figure moving ever closer to the front of the stage as the curtain descended and them lying on his side to give one last farewell.

In the questions and answers, a gentleman who introduced himself as a Cuban national and asked part of his question in Spanish asked why there was not more Cuban material.  "A fair point," I thought, given that the first two works had been contributed by an Amsterdam based and English choreographer. Having said that the dancers seemed to have naturalized both of those pieces and made them their own.  The Cuban contribution was Matria Etnocentra wby George Céspedes.  It started out rather with what appeared to be troops drilling on a parade ground with a red star on each of the dancer's uniform but it quickly transformed into a celebration.  A very exuberant work reminding me in its exuberance of Edward Lynch's NightLife at the Flamingo which I reviewed in There's a reason why Phoenix was my contemporary company of the year 11 Feb 2017. In the end, this was my favourite work though I liked the other two pieces very much too.

A lady in the audience who said she was Guatemalan told us how proud she was even though she was from another Latin American country. Several audience members expressed their appreciation of the work and asked for more Cuban content rather than less. This company has visited England twice before in the last 6 years but I had never seen them. I think the reason is that I could not quite associate contemporary dance with Cuba. That is because Cuba is a socialist and hence command society well suited to ballet but perhaps not quite so tolerant of a dance form that is inherently individualistic and self-expressive.

Yet this is a company that has existed since 1959, the year Dr Castro and his revolutionaries swept into Havana. One of the audience members, another Spanish speaker, asked Miguel Iglesias how he felt after the death of Castro. Visibly moved (so much that Laura Rios who was sitting next to him offered the director her support) Iglesias described Castro as the country's father figure who had underscored his parents' values. On Castro's death, I acknowledged the late president's contribution to ballet in his country (see Castro and Cuban Ballet 28 Nov 2016). It seemed he made a similar contribution to contemporary dance too. Before the Q & A I was going to ask whether there was an equivalent in contemporary dance of Alicia Alonso in ballet. Listening to Iglesias I realized that I had the answer to that question and he was talking to me.