Michaela DePrince's Coppelia

Modern Films Coppelia

 

Modern Films Coppelia BBC 2 18:15 27 Dec 2022  and iPlayer

On the evening of 27 Dec 2022, the BBC broadcast Modern Films' Coppelia in the UK. Readers who missed the transmission can still catch it on the iPlayer.  It was choreographed by Ted Brandsen and has much in common with his production for the Dutch National Ballet which I reviewed in Brandsen's Coppelia on 12 Dec 2016.  The main differences are that the score is by Maurizio Malagnini and not by Leo Delibes and it is very much shorter.  Most of the dancers are or were in the Dutch National Ballet and some of the designs seem to be the same.

For me, the main attraction of this film was that it featured Michaela DePrince. Because I have strong connections with Sierra Leone, I took an interest in her even before she joined the Dutch National Ballet (see Michaela DePrince 4 April 2013). When I learned that she had joined the Junior Company I flew out to Amsterdam to watch her dance (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013  25 Nov 2013).

DePrince introduced me to the rest of the Junior Company which included some outstanding dancers. Through them, I got to know the rest of the company which has given me enormous pleasure over the last 10 years.  Some of its members have become dear friends and acquaintances and I have made many more friendships among its regular ballet-goers.  I am therefore grateful to her not only for her performances but also for the introduction to the company and its fans. 

DePrince is now in Boston which is a lot further away.  Modern Films' production was one last chance to see her with members of the Dutch National Ballet.   She danced Swan, the lead role in the film. Traditionally the heroine is called Swanhilde though, in Brandsen's stage production, she is known as Swantje. Daniel Camargo who has also crossed the Atlantic but was formerly a principal of the Dutch National Ballet danced Franz.  Dr Coppelius was danced by Vito Mazzeo.  Swan's friends were Nancy Burer, JingJing Mao and Sasha Nukhamedov, Franz's were Timothy van Poucke, Sam Sjouke and Edo Wijnen and Igone de Jongh was the ballet teacher.  Darcey Bussell, one of the few cast members not to be in HNB danced the mayor.  Floor Eimers, Giovanni Princop and Rachel Beaujean were also in the film.

I enjoyed it more than Scottish Ballet's Coppelia but not as much as English National or Birmingham Royal Ballet's or indeed Ted Brandsen's stage version.  I think that is because all those companies retain Delibers's score which contributes so much to the ballet.   It was lovely to see DePrince again as well as other members of HNB.  I am not sure that I would have liked it as much had the cast come from any other company.

Steps and the Steppe

Sukhbataar Square, Ulaanbaatar

Surprising-but-not-really-surprising is a piece on the BBC World Service's Business Matters programme, about a ballet class in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia.

Presenter Roger Hearing seems rather surprised that there is such a thing as ballet in Mongolia. However, having visited the country myself nearly 20 years ago, nothing would surprise me about modern Mongolia. (My first meal in what was supposed to be the middle of nowhere was ... pasta and fresh spinach sauce and cappuccino, in a cafe that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Manchester's Northern Quarter!)

My delicious dinner aside, should it really be unexpected to find ballet in a country that was for decades a satellite state of the USSR/Russia? As is pointed out more than once in the piece and subsequent chat, ballet - along with other classical art forms such as opera - is a legacy of that time.

In addition, the country has already produced at least one dancer known beyond Mongolia: Altan Dugaraa, who became a leading dancer with Boston Ballet (more here).

The piece informs us that ballet is one of the fastest-growing ways of spending their leisure time for Mongolians, but there are precious few other revelations, unless hearing a (presumed un-athletic) (male) presenter grunt through a couple of exercises at the barre counts as a revelation. But if you want to hear genuine Mongolian people talking (a little) about why they do ballet, their bit of the programme starts around the 36.30 minute mark: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172w0prlm4lbxd.

Grimm - an Interesting Collaboration

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One of the highlights of the Dutch National Ballet's opening night gala in 2015 was an extract from Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which was performed by Ernst Meisner's Junior Company and Marco Gerris's ISH Dance Collective. In The Best Evening I have ever spent in the Ballet 13 Sept 2015 I wrote:

"When we returned to the auditorium images of falling snow were projected on to the stage. Before the house lights dimmed two dancers dressed as lions were in the auditorium. Then I recognized some of the beautiful young dancers from the Junior Company on stage. The beat was compelling. The dance an amalgam of ballet and hip hop. It was Narnia, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Ernst Mesiner and Marco Gerris. A collaboration between the Junior Company and ISH Dance Collective. That was the highlight of the show for me. When Ernst visited the London Ballet Circle he mentioned the possibility of bringing it to the UK. It would be wonderful if that were ever to happen. Particularly if it could be brought to Leeds or Manchester."

Last month I was lucky enough to meet Marco Gerris after the Junior Company's fifth anniversary show. I told him how much I had enjoyed the extract of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe that I had seen at the gala. I mentioned my review including including the last sentence.

Marco asked about Leeds and Manchester so I told him about  Northern Ballet, Phoenix Dance Theatre, the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, the Centre for Advanced Training and the Arts Council's plans to make Leeds a centre of excellence for dance.  I also mentioned The Lowry and its CAT, Northern Ballet School, Manchester City Ballet, our theatres and our city's links with English National Ballet,  I hope to have planted a seed that may one day lead to our seeing Marco's work in this country. I am aware that the Dutch National Ballet has been in touch with the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre but nothing has come of it so far.

Unfortunately, we are unlikely ever to see Narnia again. Apparently, the company was unable to obtain the rights it needed to re-stage Narnia (see Narnia becomes Grimm).  However, Ernst and Marco have created a new ballet called Grimm which is touring the Netherlands with great success.  According to the Dutch National Ballet's website:

"GRIMM is about two boys who find themselves in a fantasy world, where they meet Red Riding Hood and the wolf, the seven dwarves, Rapunzel, Snow White, the witch, Cinderella and other fairytale characters in succession. They get mixed up in exciting adventures, in which all sorts of elements from well-known fairytales are jumbled up in a lively parade of fairytale characters. As in all fairytales, a big role is played by love and jealousy, friendship, tyranny, intrigues and the battle between good and evil."

There is a British connection in that the score was contributed by  Scanner (Robin Rimbaud).  Unfortunately, the tour ends this week so I will be unable to see the collaboration this time but I will certainly catch future ones.

Although it has nothing whatsoever to do with ballet, I should mention that the BBC has started to broadcast a series of three programmes by Misha Glennie called The Invention of the Netherlands.  The first episode was about the low countries' early history and the Dutch Republic's war of independence against Spain.  It jolted me into thinking just how little I know of the country.  I have made scores of visits to Amsterdam over the years for business or pleasure but save for a weekend in Rotterdam with a lawyer friend who drove me around South Holland including Oudewater where, as in Pendle, they had witch trials I had never been anywhere else.

I was reminded by the programme of the Netherlands' diversity.  In Frisia, for example, the locals speak a language that is even closer to English than Dutch. In Baarle-Nassau in Brabant there are pockets of Belgium that are surrounded by Dutch territory (some just a few square yards in size) and in some places pockets of the Netherlands within Belgian enclaves on Dutch soil.  I think this may be the year for a coach or motoring holiday of one of our nearest neighbours.

Get smart - Dance!

DANCING is good for the body, we all know that, but could it be good for the mind too?

An interesting experiment on BBC TV’s The Truth about Getting Fit suggests it could.

At Coventry University, a group of salsa dancers were asked to do a series of mental tests before and after a 30-minute salsa session, led by salsa instructor and exercise scientist (yes, really!) Dr Pablo Domene.

The tests covered the dancers’ ability to make decisions and avoid distractions; their ‘working memory’ and ability to recognise patterns, and, finally, their ability to anticipate moving objects.

The results were revealed by Cognitive Scientist Professor Michael Duncan. He said that in the anticipation test, which looks at perception and cognition together, the group’s performance as a whole was eight per cent better after the salsa session than it had been before.

In the visual discrimination tests - the ones relating to being able to make decisions without being distracted - the group did 13 per cent better.

The best results of all, though came in the working memory tests, which, according to Prof Duncan, measure: “the ability to hold different bits of information in our heads to allow us to get the job done, from following a recipe to holding a conversation”. In those, the group’s performance improved by 18 per cent after their salsa session.

“I’ve never seen an improvement like this for any other activity, including running and cycling,” Prof Duncan told presenter Dr Michael Mosley.

“Most types of exercise have a positive effect on cognitive performance but with something like salsa you have to think about the pattern, you have to think about staying in time with the music, so that actually requires a lot of cognitive manipulation. And when the dance is going on, you are physically exercising yourself too.”

Or, in other words (ie mine!) take your brain dancing and it’ll work a lot faster and better.

Certainly, Dr Mosley was impressed. “People say that they don’t have time to exercise,” he said, “but what this research suggests is that exercise makes you more productive, so you get more out of your day.”

BBC Young Dancer Ballet Final

I don't usually watch a lot of television. Not even when there is ballet on the box. But I made an exception tonight because I had recently seen Oscar Ward and Uyu Hiromoto in Ballet West's Swan Lake in Greenock (see Ballet West at the Beacon 13 Feb 2017). As it happened I saw a lot of other familiar faces in the programme such as Samira Saidi, Ed Watson, Cassa Pancho, Darius James, David Nixon, Shobana Jeyasingh, Jonathan Barton and Natasha Watson. I even glimpsed Janet McNulty in the audience. There were also a lot of familiar places such as the Riverfront Theatre in Newport, Taynuilt and, of course, the Lowry.

There were five fine young dancers:  Ryan Felix, Jade Wallace, Rhys Antoni Yeomans, Uyu Hiromoto and Oscar Ward. Each of their performances thrilled me and I would have hated to have had to pick a winner. I loved Jade's typewriter dance, Oscar and Uyu's pas de deux, the solo that Natasha Watson created for Oscar but someone had to win and Rhys was indeed a worthy winner.

Rhys will compete with the winners of the contemporary, street dance and South Asian dance. If it was difficult to choose a winner from five ballet finalists I have no idea how one could possibly compare a street dancer with a South Asian dancer. Just for once I think I got some real value from my licence fee.

Ballroom Bitz

Strictly Come Dancing’s Oti Mabuse and fellow professional ballroom dancer Alex Hixson talk weight issues, injury and €2000 dresses in The Conversation on the BBC World Service.

What I found particularly interesting was South African Oti Mabuse talking about being a member of “the only black family doing Latin and Ballroom” as apartheid was coming to an end: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04dnmp2

Of Bikes and Busses

Bicycles in Buenos Ares

Photo Lars Curls
Source Wikipedia
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On 23 Oct 2016 Chris Marney tweeted:

"Thinking of Christopher today 18 yrs on and proud to continue his work everyday #GableLegacy."

The "Christopher" Marney had in mind was, of course. Christopher Gable. He founded the Central School of Ballet which has a performing company called Ballet Central of which Marney is artistic director. I admire Marney's work very much so I tweeted

"And Gable's work could not be in better hands @chrismarney. Missing him too."

Christopher Gable became artistic director of Northern Ballet in 1987 which was just after I returned to the North of England to practise at the Manchester bar. He held that appointment until his death on 23 Oct 1998 (see Christopher Gable on Northern Ballet's website). it was during his directorship that my late spouse and I started to follow that company. In that time Gable created or commissioned some of my favourite works for that company.

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Gable's successor as artistic director of Northern Ballet is David Nixon and I have asked myself whether I could say the same about Nixon as I had tweeted about Marney.  I think I can safely say that I can. I admire much of Nixon's work - though not everything. I am not, for example, the biggest fan of his version of Swan Lake with its bikes in the opening scene (see Don't Expect Petipa 5 Jan 2016 and Up the Swannee 17 Mar 2016) and I can't say that his Beauty and the Beast is my favourite ballet with its old bus (see Jane Lambert Ballet and Intellectual Property - my Excuse for reviewing "Beauty and the Beast" 31 Dec 2011 IP Yorkshire). But Nixon has created some fine work for the company such as A Midsummer Night's Dream (see Realizing Another Dream 15 Sept 2013), Cinderella (see Northern Ballet's Cinderella - a Triumph! 27 Dec 2013) and The Great Gatsby (Life follows Art: the Great Gatsby 8 Mar 2011) and has commissioned more such as Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre (see Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre: the best new Ballet from the Company in 20 Years 2 June 2016).

According to Northern Ballet's website, Nixon is working on a new ballet called The Little Mermaid which is inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale and the company has commissioned Casanova from Kenneth Tindall and The Boy in Striped Pyjamas from Daniel de Andrade. I hope to learn more about those works when Nixon appears at the London Ballet Circle on 28 Nov 2016 to talk to Esme Chandler (see the Events page of the Circle's website). This is quite a challenging time for the company as two of its "premier" (that is to say, principal) dancers are developing careers elsewhere. I shall be interested to hear what, if anything, Nixon has to say about that as well.

Those who want to hear Nixon speak should make their way to the Civil Service Club on Great Scotland Street off Northumberland Avenue next to the Nigerian embassy before 19:30. The meeting will be open to the public at a charge of £5 for members of the Circle and £8 for everybody else. The meeting will take place on the 1st floor and there is a bar downstairs which serves hot meals to those attending the Circle's meetings. Very handy for those like me who have a train to catch from King's Cross and I particularly recommend the fish and chips. The nearest underground stations are Charing Cross and the Embankment.

As the Circle has set out Nixon's career in some detail I shall not embarrass him or weary my readers by repeating it beyond noting that he has achieved much on both sides of the Atlantic and that he enjoys a formidable reputation as a choreographer. director and dancer. I would have attended Nixon's talk anyway but my resolve has been reinforced by his remarks on Front Row (BBC Radio 4) last night. He was interviewed by John Wilson with Luke Jennings of The Guardian in a short section about 15 minutes into the programme entitled New, but always old, ballet. 

Wilson began by playing a recording in which Tamara Rojo had opined that dance needed to change in order to survive in a digital age in the context of Akram Khan's Giselle, remarks which were vaguely endorsed but not developed by Jennings. He then turned to Nixon and suggested that he was "playing safe" reminding the audience that Northern Ballet was dancing Beauty and the Beast in Norwich. Nixon replied with the entirely reasonable point that ballet needs an audience to survive. In answer to Jennings's contention that ballet needs to be relevant to its age and Wilson's remark that Beauty "was not breaking any moulds" he made another equally valid point that Beauty and the Beast appeared just after the credit crunch and contained plenty of allusions to austerity that were raw in his audience's experiences in 2011. He added that ballet is a language that takes dancers 8 years to learn which can be used to tell any story and express any emotion and that there was still room for classics as well as new work.

Jennings, whose review of Mary Skeaping's Giselle had been headlined A Giselle to cry for 14 Jan 2007 (see English National Ballet's other Giselle 22 Oct 2016), seemed to argue that works like Akram Khan's Giselle with its elements of Kathak and contemporary would attract whole new audiences. With all due respect I just don't see it. It may be innovative but not in the way that Nijinsky's L'Après-midi d'un faune and Le Sacre du Printemps were over 100 years ago. If audiences want experimentation they will go to NDT or Rambert or, on another plane, Sir Matthew Bourne. If they want cultural interaction they will go to Alvin Ailey or indeed Phoenix in the same building as Northern Ballet who do it so much better. Akram Khan's Giselle is interesting, it is not without merit and is certainly worth seeing but let's get a sense of proportion. It is not the choreographer's or the company's best work and it is nowhere near the best Giselle.

Classical companies like Northern should stick to what they do best which is to present fine theatrical experiences following a 400 year classical tradition that are nevertheless still relevant to modern audiences. That does not preclude classical companies from creating abstract masterpieces such as Chroma or Angels in the Architecture but there must be balance by which I mean there must always be room for Petipa and Ashton. Having heard Nixon yesterday, I think he understands that. It is for that reason that I say that Gable's Northern Ballet (like Ballet Central) is in very good hands.

La Bayadère Intensive Day 1: There's Life in the Old Girl Yet

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I hesitated before signing up for Jane Tucker's La Bayadère intensive at KNT  even though I had voted for it when Karen Sant polled us on what we wanted to learn because I was not sure that I would be able to do it. Much as I had enjoyed last year's Swan Lake (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3) and this April's Romeo and Juliet (see We had a stab at that! KNT's Romeo and Juliet Intensive Workshop for Beginners 9 April 2016) they nearly killed me and now I am a year older, slower, stiffer and generally wonkier. Truth to tell, my anxiety that I might no longer be up to it is the only reason why I did not bite Hannah Bateman's hand off when she advertised her Ballet Retreat in Leeds earlier this year.

I am really glad that I did sign up for Jane's intensive because I had a whale of a time yesterday. Although I am as stiff as a board this morning with aches and pains in muscles and joints that I never knew existed despite soaking in a hot bath followed by a cold shower I am buoyed up by two news items.  The first was the 97 year old dentist and entrepreneur featured on How to Age. The second was the story on The World Tonight about Doreen Petchey from Reading who has just passed her RAD Grade 6 exams at age 71 (see Congratulations Doreen 12 Aug 2016 on the RAD website and the video clip on her (Britain's oldest ballerina: 71-year-old passes Grade 6 exam). I might add in passing that there are lots of ladies of that age or older in Annemarie Donoghue's Over 55 class at Northern Ballet in Leeds and that at least 4 members of that class regularly attend Jane Tucker's improvers' class in Leeds on Wednesday evenings which is definitely not for wimps.

Our intensive started with 30 minutes of floor exercises on Pilates mats at 10:00.  We then had 90 minutes of class which consisted of a full barre and the usual centre work which took us through to noon.  Between noon and lunch we learned our first bit of repertoire which was the second shade's solo dance from the last act of the ballet. The first and the last bits were easy enough but I got a bit lost in the middle but Jane seemed to be reasonably satisfied with our effort overall.

We broke for lunch at 13:30 and I found a Japanese restaurant behind The Dancehouse that Gita the Eater had discovered in April.  I really love Japanese cuisine having been to Japan three times but although there are lots of places that claim to be Japanese restaurants there are very few that would pass muster in Tokyo. This is one of the very few that would. I refuelled on tempura and rice with plenty of green tea.

After lunch we ran through the second shade's solo again and then started on the descent into the kingdom of the shades. Jane had already taught us a version of that dance which I had struggled to master in her improvers' class in Leeds and the Romeo and Juliet intensive in April.  It was a considerable relief to find that she required us to do the version that appears in the video. Yoshie led us out to the centre of the studio and we followed her in height order. The first bit consisted of a sequence of arabesques followed by a right tendu with our arms in 5th which was just about doable but then an almost interminable couru which we did on demi punctuated by a développé and two descents to the floor which I dared not risk for fear of never getting up again. I couldn't do them in cygnets last year either.

We repeated the dances that we had learned before Karen who filmed us with her tablet.  Our day finished with 20 minutes of floor exercises. I left the Dancehouse just after 16:15 to begin the trek back to Brockholes which turned out to be surprisingly smooth once I had caught a through train from Oxford Road to Huddersfleld.

The first thing I did when I arrived home was to run a hot bath. Jane's advice last year of a hot bath followed by a cold shower was the best tip I have ever picked up from a ballet class and it really works. I was going to give alcohol a miss last night but when I heard about Mrs. Petchey I felt compelled to drink her health in Argentine Malbec. If she can do grade 6 at age 71 I should be able to finish this course at age 67. And perhaps I should have a shot at the RAD exams too. If I passed them I might eventually be allowed to turn up to Chelmsford Ballet's company class. I am looking forward to another year of classes with Annemarie and Jane in Leeds and Karen and Ailsa in Manchester. Maybe there's life in the old girl yet.

Dancing, dreaming, dying

Source BBC Online (c) 2015 BBC, Reproduced under licence

EVEN if you have never heard of Adel Euro, chances are you’ll be aware of the manner of his death.

Adel was one of 280 (and counting) people killed when a shopping mall in Baghdad, Iraq, was bombed at the weekend.

Adel (his stage name) merits a mention on a blog about dance because he was making a name for himself as a hip hop/street dancer – despite all the risks that go with that in somewhere like Iraq.

I hadn’t heard of Adel until the other night, when the BBC World Service’s Outlook programme marked his murder by re-broadcasting an interview they did with him late last year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p040hyy8

What shines out through the interview (even through a translator) is Adel’s sheer love of and determination to dance. His first real encounter with dance was a video of Michael Jackson. “I felt like I was born then,” he says.

His family warned him off dancing because of the danger it put him in: it is seen as a sign of homosexuality, which is illegal in Iraq. (That’s in the parts under government control, of course – in areas held by Daesh/Islamic State, gay men have been thrown to their deaths from buildings because of their ‘sin’.) How lucky are we in places not like Iraq to be able to dance how we want, where we want, when we want (no matter how well or badly that may be)!

In the interview, Adel recounts how he was arrested by the police while dancing in a park; he was released when he managed to convince them he was practising martial arts! (Martial arts are ‘manly’, so OK for men to do.)

In the end Adel wasn’t killed because of his dancing; he died because he happened to be at a shopping mall when some murderous inadequates decided to detonate a lorry-load of explosives there.

Which is sadly ironic, given the hope for the future that he reveals at the end of the interview. “One day,” he says, “I’m going to leave Iraq and go to a place where people love dancing, not fighting.”

Adel Euro RIP.

The Red Shoes

Publicity Photo for the Red Shoes

 Author Ballerinailina

Source Wikipedia

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If you are already a balletomane or film buff you will know all about The Red Shoes choreographed by Sir Robert Helpmann and featuring Moira Shearer, Ludmilla Tchérina and Léonide Massine. If you are not a balletomane you will perhaps begin to understand the condition if you watch the film. You have the chance now and for the next 6 days to watch it on BBC iPlayer. You can also download a short talk on the film by Deborah Bull.

Although the film carries a notice that it is a work of fiction and that any resemblance with individuals living or dead is purely coincidental the parallels between the film character Boris Lermontov and the impresario Sergei Daghilev are overwhelming. Diaghilev introduced the British public as well as much of the rest of the world to the Russian imperial ballet. However, he did much more than that. He surrounded himself with brilliant young artists and composers as  well as dancers from around the world and employed them to create the most dazzling productions. Ballet is not just choreography and dancing. It is the synthesis of many arts - drama, music, painting et cetera - the product of something that is so much greater than its component parts. That is what attracted me to ballet nearly 60 years ago and it is also why I just can't see enough of the stuff.

In her talk Deborah Bull lists so many reasons why one should dislike the film such as the outrageous attitude to women and its outlandish clichés and yet she loves the film as I do. One of the reasons she gives is its authenticity and she mentions a missed step by Moira Shearer which only a dancer would recognize. Certainly that point eluded me until Deborah Bull mentioned it but then I am not a dancer in the way that she is. But I also recognize authenticity in the film from the perspective of the humble theatre goer. Ballet is life for us just as it is for the dancers.

Red Shoes was made 6 months before I was born which makes it a very old film. It contains shots of the old fruit market and the stone staircase up to the amphitheatre and the upper and lower slips that I remember well. The accents are clipped.  Yet this film remains fresh. It is one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen. My favourite by a country mile.

Post Script

Deborah Bull talked about authenticity from a dancer's perspective and I alluded far more vaguely to authenticity from the audience's perspective without giving an example. I have just thought of one. Shortly after Pavlova died the theatre in which she was due to perform presented the ballet as scheduled but instead of her a spotlight traced her steps around the stage. For those who were there it must have been one of the most poignant moments of their lives. The gesture was repeated in The Red Shoes after the heroine still in costume and wearing the red shoes threw herself in front of a train.

Food and Ballet

Gita Mistry's Dessert in Honour of Isaac Lee-Baker

Photo Gita Mistry

Food has lots of connections with ballet. It is of course fuel for the lifts and jumps that delight an audience, But a good meal also complements a memorable evening in the theatre. Sometimes it is part of the scenario of the ballet as in The Taming of the Shrew where Petruchio starves Katherina into submission. Occasionally a great dancer inspires a chef to create a great dish as happened when Anna Pavlova visited New Zealand. Something like that happened on Saturday when my friend Gita Mistry and I saw The Great Gatsby in Bradford (see Northern Ballet at its best: The Great Gatsby in Bradford).

Gita is an artist in her own right. She is a chef who won the BBC's Eating with the Enemy contest a few years ago. She won over 4 of the country's top food critics.  She is also a dancer who has performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and other venues. She has even kept me company at the barre more than once.

Like me Gita was impressed with The Great Gatsby. She particularly enjoyed Nixon's choreography with its soaring lifts, the dancers' virtuosity and passion, the costumes which accounted for a fleet of pantechnicons parked outside the Alhambra. One particular dancer stood out for her - Isaac Lee-Baker who danced the hapless Wilson in the ballet. She was so impressed with his performance that she created the dessert that appears above in his honour.

We had intended to courier it to Quarry Hill tomorrow but temptation got the better of us. It was scrumptious. I mean seriously scrumptious.  I might add that it had far too much cream and sugar than is good for a dancer so we really did Isaac Lee-Baker a favour by keeping it beyond his reach.  But Gita has shared her recipe in DanceFood - A Dessert for Isaac Lee-Baker 16 Nov 2014 Gita Mistry Food.  And if Isaac really wants to throw caution to the wind I am sure that Gita could be prevailed upon to make another just for him.

Over the next few weeks Gita and I will be exploring the relationship between food and dance in all its aspects. I can't promise any new dishes but there will certainly be plenty of tips and useful information.