Ballet Cymru at Theatr Clwyd - "Llongyfarchiadau"

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Ballet Cymru Giselle Theatr Clwyd, Mold, 8 July 2025  20:00

I have been following Ballet Cymru for well over 12 years, and have seen some great shows including Romeo a Juliet at the Riverfront on 5 Nov 2016 and Child's Christmas in Wales and Tiger Eggs at the Pontio Centre in Bangor on 1 Dec 2018. Last night's performance of Giselle by Ballet Cymru at Theatr Clwyd in Mold was exceptional.  I think it was the best performance by Ballet Cymru of anything that I have ever seen them do.  It was also one of the best performances of Giselle by any company that I can recall in 65 years of ballet going.  Over that time, I have seen some of the world's best artists in that ballet.

I described Darius James and Amy Doughty's new production in Ballet Cymru's Giselle 3.0  and The Days I went to Bangor - Ballet Cymru's Relaxed Performances.  James and Doughty have stripped Giselle to its essentials, emphasising its drama in much the same way as David Dawson did with Scottish Ballet's Swan Lake (see Empire Blanc: Dawson's Swan Lake, 4 June 2016).  That places a lot of responsibility on the virtuosity and storytelling capabilities of the artists who dance the three principal characters, Giselle, Albrecht and Myrtha.  Happily, Gwenllian Davies, Kamal Singh and Jakob Myers were more than equal to the challenge, and they were supported brilliantly by the rest of the cast.  The result was an exciting but also very polished performance.

Yesterday, the title role was danced by Gwenllian Davies.   I first saw her in Romeo a Juliet in 2016 and wrote:

"One of the reasons why I loved the show so much was Gwenllian Davies's remarkable performance as Juliet. Davies is in her first year with the company and this is her first job. Consequently, she is barely older than Shakespeare's Juliet. As I told her after the show, I have seen some of the world's greatest dancers in the role including Lynn Seymour and more recently Alina Cojocaru and Viktoria Tereshkina, but never have I seen a more convincing Juliet. Davies danced with passion and energy and, for a while, I Slovak saw in that talented young artist what Shakespeare must have imagined."

Since then, Davies has danced with the Opera Baltic Ballet in Gdansk, where she performed Giselle as well as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Clara and the offering in The Rite of Spring.   Her performance as Giselle impressed me even more than her performance as Juliet.   

It comes as no surprise to learn that Singh attended the Vaganova's Russian masters' programme in 2019 because he dances like a Russian.   He showed enormous strength and achieved great elevation - virtuosity tempered with consummate grace.  One of the tests of a male dancer is the degree to which he enables his partner to shine.  In that respect, Singh was a perfect partner for Davies.  Singh is also an accomplished dance actor, projecting all the emotions from arrogance to repentance.

The queen of the wilis is one of the great female roles.  Until yesterday, I would have regarded the idea of a male Myrtha as absurd.  Yet Jakob Myers somehow made it work.  Not only that, he injected another level of horror into that role.  In a romantic tutu, he appeared as something unnatural - indeed diabolical.  Myers is also a virtuoso, and I had been impressed with his performance as Albrecht in Bangor.  Yesterday he gave me the creeps, which I believe to have been his and the choreographers' intention.

Everyone in the cast danced well, particularly Isobel Holland in the peasant pas de deux and Sanea Singh as one of Giselle's friends in Act 1.  Holland is also an artist I have followed for a long time and I am now a fan of Sabea Singh.

The ballet was danced to Adolphe Adam's score recorded by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Mogrelia.  The sets and costumes were designed by Darius James, and the lighting by Chris Illingworth.  

The evening began with a performance of a dance routine by schoolchildren from Ysgol Tŷ Ffynnon in Shotton called Finding Peace. Accompanying programme notes stated that the dancers would explore the vast emotions that Giselle experienced from love and happiness to anger and devastation. They would take the audience on a journey of trust, heartbreak and betrayal to eventual peace. Their performance was offered under the Duets scheme, which I mentioned in my review of Ballet Cymru's performance in Bangor. As I said in that article, it is a project that deserves the widest possible support.

This was the first time that I had visited Theatr Clwyd since its extensive renovation.  It is a very impressive undertaking.   It is not completely finished.  For example, a new restaurant to be run by Bryn Williams is expected to open later in the year.  As it was not available yesterday, a friend and I visited a very good gastro pub just a few hundred yards from the theatre called Glasfryn.   Although the traditional industries of Northeast Wales were mining, steel making and heavy industry, there is also some spectacularly beautiful countryside with a lot of historic buildings and archaeological sites to visit.  Yesterday we visited Chirk Castle, which is just over 20 miles from Mold.  Other places in the neighbourhood that are worth visiting are Flint Castle, Erddig Hall and the city of Chester.

The Days I went to Bangor - Ballet Cymru's Relaxed Performances

View of Bangor University and the Pontio Centre

Author Andrew Woodvine  Licence CC NY-SA 2.0  Source Wikimedia Commons

 

Ballet Cymru Giselle relaxed performance Pontio Centre 14 Jun 2025

The great David Plumpton knows that there are two ways to revive me when I am flagging in class.  One is to play Khachaturian's adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia from Spartacus. The other is to play The Day We Went to Bangor  (see Our Anniversary Company Class 26 May 2029 and Magic 26 May 2024 Powerhouse Ballet),  Bangor occupies a special place in my affections, not least because it reminds me so much of my alma mater, which Andrew Lang celebrated in his Almae Matres.  

Just below the main university buildings lies the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre. It is important not just for the University and the city but also for Wales. I have tried to explain its importance in Ballet Cymru's Dylan Thomas Programme: The Company's Best Work Ever 12 Dec 2018, Ballet Cymru at the Bangor Pontio Centre, 24 Nov 2019, Ballet Cymru's Outreach Work 8 Jun 2020, Ballet Cymru's DUETS Programme and why it is important, 14 Feb 2022 and Dance for Parkinson's in the Pontio Centre 2 Feb 2023).

Yesterday, the Pontio Centre hosted Ballet Cymru's relaxed performance of their new production of Giselle, which I reviewed in Ballet Cymru's Giselle 3.0.  A relaxed performance is designed for very young children and some adults who, for one reason or another, are inhibited from sitting in a darkened auditorium for 2 hours or more watching a full-length ballet.  The idea of a relaxed performance is best explained by Birmingham Royal Ballet in their Cinderella Relaxed Performance page and their YouTube video.

I have attended two relaxed performances by Ballet Cymru:  yesterday's Giselle and last year's Romeo a Juliet, which I did not get around to reporting. Those shows are a vade mecum to the appreciation of ballet.  Between 1964 and 1976, the Royal Ballet operated a relaxed performance programme called "Ballet for All" which toured village halls, factory canteens and other makeshift auditoriums around the country. It brought ballet into the lives of 70,000 people a year, according to Wikipedia.   I think my love of ballet was ignited by one of those performances.

Yesterday, the Pontio Centre was thronged with children and their parents, though there were more than a few unaccompanied adults like me. They mobbed Louise's exhibition spot to touch the pointe shoes, Myrtha's twigs, Giselle's headdress and other props from the performance. They gathered around a screen showing the storyboard as though it were an ice cream van.  Some were jumping, humming snatches of the score and attempting pirouettes and arabesques. When the artists appeared in costume, I was reminded of the entry of Micky and Minnie in Disneyland.  I met several and congratulated them.  I also firmed up the arrangements for Powerhouse's visit to Mold, Ballet Cymru's workshop in Leeds and Isobel Holland's masterclass.

Bangor could be regarded as the intellectual and cultural capital of Welsh-speaking Wales.  Last year, only a handful of the dancers introduced themselves and their characters in Welsh.  This year they all did so llongyfarchiadau mawr to them.   Ceris Matthews once described Ballet Cymru as "the pride of Newport and the pride of Wales."   I could not agree with her more.

Ballet Cymru's Giselle 3.0

Scene from Act Two of the Original Performance of Fisekke

 

Ballet Cymru Giselle  Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre, Bangor 13 Jun 2025 19:30

Yesterday I saw Ballet Cymru's third production of Giselle.  Their first production was in 2006 when they were known as Independent Ballet Wales (see Ballet at the Bridport Arts Centre, BBC website, Oct 2006).  Their second was livestreamed from Lichfield Cathedral on 5 Jul 2021 (see Giselle Reimagined, 9 Jul 2021).  I later saw it in Leeds and Newport and even danced a bit of Darius James and Amy Doughty's choreography for a workshop that Ballet Cymru held for Powerhouse Ballet when they visited Leeds (see Ballet Cymru's Giselle, 10 Nov 2021).  Their latest version was premiered in Newport on 16 May 2025 and is now touring the United Kingdom (see Ballet Cymru's New Giselle, 8 Jun 2025).  I was not in Bridport to see Giselle 1.0, but I did see and liked Giselle 2.0.  In Giselle 3.0, Darius James and Amy Doughty reverted to Adolphe Adam's original score and much of Petipa's choreography, albeit with a simplified libretto.   I thought it worked very well.

The versions of Giselle that big national companies perform, such as Peter Wright's, Rachel Beaujean's or Mary Skeaping's, require a lot of dancers for such roles as the vignerons and hunters in Act 1 and the wilis in Act 2.  Ballet Cymru is still not a big company so the story has to be tweaked if it is to be told successfully.  That is probably why James and Doughty dropped such characters as Giselle's mother who warns her daughter of the likes of Albrecht and the consequences of too much dancing for a girl with a dicky heart, Bathilde (Albrecht's betroathed) who presents Giselle with a necklace just before Hilarion exposes Albrecht or Moyna and Zulma in Act 2 aptly described by Susan Dalgetty-Ezra as "Myrtha's sidekicks".  But they did keep a lot of the essentials, including the peasant pas de deux and the mesmerizing arabesques from Act 2.  They set Act 1 in a Welsh village and Act 2 in a forest, and they dressed their wilis, including the men, in romantic tutus.

Isobel Holland, who had danced Myrtha powerfully in Giselle 2.0, was equally impressive in the equivalent role in Giselle 3.0.  If I am not mistaken, her makeup and costume in Giselle 3.0 were similar to her costume and makeup in  Giselle 2.0.   I gave her my loudest clap at the reverence.  Also impressive were Mika George Evans in the title role and Jakob Myers as Albrecht.  They are both athletic dancers, and they came into their own in Act 2.  I once saw Carlos Acosta and Natalia Osipova in Giselle, and Evans and Myers reminded me strongly of their performance.  Jacob Hornsey elevated Hilarion's role into a major part of the drama, which cannot have been easy, as he is portrayed as a bit of a churlish chump in most productions.   The same is true of Wilfred, Albrecht's squire. James Knott, who danced the equivalent role as Albrecht's friend, made that a much bigger role.  It is not clear from the cast list whom I should congratulate for the peasant pas de deux bit they delivered one of the highlights of my evening.

Before the show, the audience was treated to a performance by local ballet students called Duets.  It is part of a programme that offers dance training to children in rural or former mining, steel-making or heavy industrial communities who would otherwise be unable to receive it.  Immediately after their performances, the children are led to any vacant seats in the auditorium where they watch the company.  Until Wales gets its own national ballet school with connected associates schemes, it is the best way to identify and promote talent and ambition in that nation.  It is good not only for Ballet Cymru and Wales but also for all the other ballet, contemporary dance and theatre companies in the rest of the UK and beyond.  It is a project that deserves the widest possible support.  

Jack White - Composer of Ballet Cymru's "Cinderella" and "Stick in the Mud"

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A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure and privilege of interviewing the Welsh composer Jack White for the Menai Science Park (Bangor University's science park at Gaerwen on Ynys Môn or the Isle of Anglesey). The occasion was World Intellectual Property Day, with the theme IP and Music: Feel the Beat of IP.  My interview with Jack formed part of a webinar which I chaired and reported in Best World IP Day Ever on 8 May 2025 in NIPC Cymru.  The science park very kindly made a YouTube video of my interview entitled Jack White and Jane Lambert.

Jack told me that he was a Newport man.  He was born and went to school in that city.  He read music at Somerville College, Oxford and carried out his doctoral research at Cardiff University.  He first came to my attention when I saw Marc Brew's Stuck in the Mud in Llandudno (see An Explosion of Joy 21 June 2014).  Jack wrote the score for that work, and I have been one of his fans ever since.  My second opportunity to hear Jack's work was in Cinderella, which I reviewed in Ballet Cymru's Cinderella on 15 June 2015.  I loved his score.  Although I admire Prokofiev's score very much, I can understand why Darius James and Amy Doughty commissioned a new score from Jack for their production.  As I said in my review:

"it fitted the ballet like a glove. An arranger or even a musicologist would have had to have taken a meat cleaver to Prokofiev and the result might have been no more satisfactory than the operation on the feet of Cas and Seren."

I wrote a feature on Jack on 6 May 2017. 

Since that feature, Jack has won the Manchester Chorale's contest to find a new work to celebrate its 40th anniversary.  His winning entry, When Voices Rise, was recorded in St Ann's Church, Manchester and appears on the choir's YouTube channel.  This is my favourite work from Jack.   As I said in the interview,  I particularly enjoy the crescendos and cadences in the piece.

Jack is doing a lot of work for choirs now by adapting well-known songs like Love a Lady Tonight for choral use which he mentions in more detail in my interview. 

 

Sleeping Beauty Workshop

© 2023 Powerhouse Ballet: all rights reserve

 

Beth Meadway is one of Ballet Cymru's most experienced dancers.  She joined the company in 2017 and has performed many of the leading female roles in the company's repertoire.  She danced Helena and the wall in Dream which toured the country last year (see Ballet Cymru at its Best 13 Nov 2022).  Just before Christmas, I saw her in A Child's Christmas in Wales and Terms and Conditions at the Pontio Centre in Bangor.  After the show, I invited her to give  Powerhouse Ballet an online Post-Christmas class and a workshop in Leeds in the New Year.

As we are keen to develop our repertoire and need pieces that we can rehearse quickly in case we are invited to perform at short notice Beth offered to teach us three of the fairy variations from the Prologue of The Sleeping Beauty.  Each of those solos is very short.  Last Autumn's Giselle showed that we have members east and west of the Pennines who could perform solos.

Our workshop took place at Dance Studio Leeds on 12 Feb 2023.  It consisted of a full 90-minute class with a thorough barre and the usual centre exercises.  After a short break, Beth played us the music for the Fairy of the Crystal Fountain and then showed us the choreography. She taught us two more variations in the workshop.

Beth comes from our region.  She was born in Hull and trained in Leeds before she went to Central. She also attended Northern Ballet's Pre-Profesional Programme after she graduated.  It is a joy to watch one of our own establish herself in a very competitive occupation.   Beth was one of the trainers when we hosted Ballet Cymru's Dylan Thomas and Giselle workshops at Yorkshire Dance in 2018 and 2021 and she delivered two great online workshops for us during covid and after Christmas.  We look forward to her continued success and - if she can spare us the time - working with her yet again.

Ballet Cymru at its Best

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Ballet Cymru Dream Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, Leeds 19L30

Yesterday I saw Ballet Cymru's Dream for the third time and I think it was their best performance of that ballet yet.  There were two reasons for that.  The first is that the performers and audiences are more familiar with the work.  They know what makes us laugh (and cry) and members of the audience who have seen it before know what to look out for.  As I said in Croeso i Ŵyl Dream on 9 July 2019:

"Shows often grow as they tour the country and I think that has happened with Dream. It was already a good show when I saw it in Mold on 29 May but it was even better yesterday."

The second reason is that the ballet was performed in a theatre in Northern Ballet and Phoenix's studios that those companies use for their own shows before an audience that knows and appreciates dance.

The Stanley and Audrey Burton's lighting and projection equipment enabled the company to make full use of James and Doughty's projection and Charles Illingworth's lighting designs.  The company has always made ingenious use of those projections to create a sense of space.  For example, their Romeo and Juliet is set not in 15th-century Verona but in contemporary Newport.  The scene of the rumble between the Capulets and Montagues is instantly recognizable as the pedestrian walkway under the approach road to the bridge over the Usk.  Well, despite the Greek music in the mechanicals' play, I felt transported not to an Athenian wood or even Warwickshire or South Wales but to New South Wales where Cobwebs or rather their makers are to be feared.  The giveaway was the image of Sydney Harbour Bridge which I once walked across not to mention the gum trees and pyrotechnics in another scene.  A reminder that Ballet Cymru has a strong link with Australia as well as Wales in Amy Doughty and Robbie Moorcroft.

Every dancer excelled last night and it would be wrong to single any out for special praise.  It was hard not to adore Kotone Sugiyama who danced a feisty Hermia.  Especially as she wiped her hands after knocking Demetrius (Jacob Hornsey) cold.   Hornsey must also be commended for his performance as Bottom.  Also, I loved Sanea Singh as Puck.  An interesting contrast to Ballet Black's Isabela Coracey who also dances Puck in Arthur Pita's Dream within a Dream.  Llongyfarchiadau calonnog to Caitlin Jones whom I think I remember from Swan Lake in Glasgow and Greenock the last full-length ballet that I saw live on stage before lockdown.   She has created the role of Lysandia and made it her own.  Moorcroft who dances Oberon and Helena's dad is always a pleasure to watch as is Isobel Holland his Titania.  A special cheer for Beth Meadway and not just because she is one of our own.  Her main character was Helena but she was also Wall and any artist who can bring to life a structure of cereal boxes has a very rare gift indeed.  Her little dance at the curtain call for Pyramus and Thisbe was greeted with thunderous applause.

The company's patron, Cerys Matthews, once described Ballet Cymru as "the pride of Newport and the pride of Wales."  But not just of Wales.   They have performed three very different works, Child's Christmas, Giselle and now  Dream in Leeds.   I think it is safe to say that we have taken them to our hearts.  And Yorkshire folk are not known for wearing their hearts on their sleeves.  

Croeso i Ŵyl Dream

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Ballet Cymru Dream Theatr Clwyd 28 May 2022 19:30 and Lichfield Cathedral 8 July 2022 19:30

The words "Croeso i Ŵyl Dream" were projected onto the wall of Lichfield cathedral last night.  They mean "Welcome to the Dream Festival".  An announcer introduced Darius James and Amy Doughty's Dream as part of the Lichfield Festival's Shakespeare celebration. 

The more one studies A Midsummer Night's Dream the more one finds layers of meaning.  Sometimes it takes a derivative work to reveal those hidden layers.  At first sight, Shakespeare's comedy contains multiple unconnected plots but in fact,. the quarrel between Titania and Oberon, the lovers in the woods, the mechanicals' play and indeed Pyramus and Thisbe are connected. They show the border between reality and the magical, or, if you prefer, the imagination, to be a shadowy one.   The choreographers revealed that interconnection in many ways from the casting of Isobel Holland and Robbie Moorcroft as Hermia's mum and dad as well as Titania and Oberon to their ingenious use of Frank Moon's score and Chris Illingworth's lighting and projections.

James and Doughty are not the first choreographers to transpose A Midsummer Night's Dream to dance.  Frederick Ashton,  Jean-Christophe Maillot, David Nixon and Arthur Pita have all created work that had been inspired by the play,  However, James and Doughty are perhaps the first to tell the full story of the play in all its complexity.  They seem to have revisited Shakespeare's text and created a libretto that summarizes every essential.   As Mendelsohn's score would have limited their opportunity to do that they commissioned a new score from Moon.   They did very much the same in Cinderella and that is perhaps their unique contribution to choreography.

Their summary was not a dry and slavish transposition.   They inserted their own humour like the puppy dog pose to represent Helena's infatuation and the space suit and balloon to indicate the man in the moon,  Indeed, just as the fitting of the slipper is the funniest part of James and Doughty's Cinderella, the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe stole the show.   A mop turned into a lion's mane, a dustbin lid transformed into a breastplate and a collage of cereal packets representing bricks on a wall were hilarious. touches.

Although several of my favourite artists in Ballet Cymru seem to have left Ballet Cymru the company retains plenty of talent left.  Moorcroft and Holland performed their roles as king and queen of the fairies regally and as Hermia's parents tenderly.  The super-talented Beth Meadway brought Helena to life in a way that I have never seen before.  I shall be reminded of Meadway whenever I see the play again regardless of medium.   Sanea Singh was an excellent Puck, Kotone Sugiyama an adorable Hermia, and Jacob Hornsey a memorable Bottom.  Caitlin Jones created a new character Lysandia imaginatively,  I also congratulate  Jacob Myers, Samuel Banks and Jethro Paine for their performances as Moth, Cobweb and Mustard Seed, particularly for their mocking adulation of Bottom while he was still a donkey.

Shows often grow as they tour the country and I think that has happened with Dream.   It was already a good show when I saw it in Mold on 29 May but it was even better yesterday.   Darius James told me that it will be performed in Leeds in the Autumn and that he will give Powerhouse Ballet a workshop based on the ballet.   I look forward to both very much indeed.

Ballet Cymru's DUETS Programme and why it is important.

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The dancers in this film are students at Moorland Primary School in Cardiff and Ysgol Ty Ffynnon on Deeside. They participated in Ballet Cymru's DUETS programme. DUETS stands for "Delivering Unique and Exciting Training Strands".  It is a collaboration between Ballet Cymru, theatres, schools and community dance groups across Wales to bring ballet to children who would not otherwise have an opportunity to learn it.

I mentioned the programme in my review of Ballet Cymru's Giselle on 10 Nov 2021:

"Wales has a strong dance tradition as you can see from this grasshopper dance but it does not yet have a national ballet school or comprehensive nationwide facilities for developing balletic talen. There are good ballet teachers in the main towns and cities but most of Wales is rural. Ballet Cymru's Duets Programme goes some way to filling that lacuna."   

Before Giselle, children on the DUETS programme demonstrated what they had learnt in a very short time which earned them considerable applause from the Riverview Theatre audience.

I wrote about Ballet Cymru's work with local schools in Gwynedd in Ballet Cymru - Even Better than Last Year on 6 Dec 2019 and in How the Pontio Centre and M-SParc complement each other in the Social and Economic Development of Northwest Wales on 5 June 2020 in NIPC Wales.  My Welsh teacher from Nant Gwrtheyrn emailed me to say that her husband who is the headmaster of Llanllyfni School had appeared in that video, adding "Byd bach!!!" which means "small world."  

The dance authority that covers Llanllyfni and the Pontio Centre is Dawns i Bawb which means "Dance for Everyone".  It is one of Ballet Cymru's partners in DUETS.  Look up its YouTube channel for films like 'The Jungle' on refugees or "Dawnsio'r Degawdau" ("Dance the Decades") which addresses dementia as the companion film explains.  There are also some fun films like "Dosbarth Dawns i Bawb" ("Dance Class for All"), "Migldi Magldi Dolig" ("Christmas Migldi Magldi") and Dydd Mwsig Cymraeg 2021 (Welsh Music Day).

Some of the children from Llanllyfni, Cardiff or Deeside may be inspired to become performers or teachers but most will not.  However, their lives will be enriched by dance which is why DUETS is important.

Ballet Cymru's Giselle

Author Sian Trenberth Photography   © 2021 Ballet Cymru - all rights reserved

 

Ballet Cymru Giselle Riverfront Theatre, Newport 6 Nov 2021 19:30

On its home page Ballet Cymru proclaims:

"We are a ballet company who like to do things a bit differently. We enjoy finding new ways to make what we do exciting, innovative and relevant."

Nothing exemplifies that better than their new Giselle which was premiered at Lichfield cathedral and online on 8 July 2021 (see Giselle Reimagined 9  July 2021).  They are a small but important company which spends much of its time on the road.  Many of their venues are small auditoriums with limited ranges of stage equipment.  Ballet Cymru's artistic directors, Darius James and Amy Doughty, have taken the essentials of some of the world's great ballets and refashioned them for a small cast that is constantly travelling before audiences that may not see a lot of ballet.  They succeeded spectacularly with their Cinderella and Romeo a Juliet.  Their Giselle is a similar success.

Making such adaptations often requires adjustments to the libretto, characters and score.  For example, the mesmeric effect of rank upon rank of artists in white romantic tutus approaching each other in arabesque as the music reaches a crescendo is difficult to achieve with a small cast on a tiny stage playing recorded music.  Moreover, most modern audiences are unfamiliar with Rhineland folk tales about forest maidens who die before their wedding day.   Most of us have seen or at least heard of horror movies about the undead who crawl out of their tombs at night.  That is why there were zombies crawling about the stage instead of wilis en pointe in Act II.

If you replace wilis with zombies you probably need a new score.  James and Doughty commissioned Catrin Finch to adapt Adam's music. Finch had previously contributed the music for Celtic Concerto and The Light Princess and it was through those works that I first learned about her.  I have started to explore her other work. I was lucky enough to meet her at a reception at the Riverfront Theatre after the show.  I hope to write more about her work in this publication later.  Finch kept important parts of Adam's score such as the overture to Acts I and II and passages from the made scene but the greater part of the work was her own.  Some of it was very dramatic such as the percussion to indicate a heartbeat.

Apart from substituting zombies for wilis, James and Doughty kept the story more or less intact.   It unfolds with great clarity.  In keeping with their mission to make everything they do exciting, innovative and relevant James and Doughty set the ballet in contemporary Wales rather than the medieval Rhineland.  As there are not too many lords of the manor in Brexit Britain, Albrecht is no longer a noble, Merely a married man playing the field away from home.  He does not carry a sword but he does keep something in his wallet that enables Hilarion to denounce him.  The main character changes are the introduction of male as well as female zombies and Cerys, a besty for Giselle instead of an over solicitous mum,

I have now seen the ballet three times - once on-screen on 8 July, once live at the Stanley and Audrey Burton in Leeds on 4 Nov and again live in Newport on 6 Nov.   Each performance was a different experience. The company danced well in Lichfield and Leeds and must have made a lot of friends in both places but their performance in Newport before their home turf was of a different order of magnitude.  After a performance of TIR some years ago, their patron Cerys Matthews described them as "the pride of Newport and the pride of Wales".   She won a peel of polite applause for that remark.  On Saturday, it was palpable.  The crowd in the Riverfront have learnt to appreciate ballet and taken their home company to their hearts.  Just like the crowd in the Grand has adopted Nothern and the Hippodrome BRB.  Ballet Cymru has put down roots that may one day blossom into a mighty national company with its own school.

The cast was the same in all three shows.   Beth Meadway danced Giselle with grace and poise.  It was as if she was born for that role. Tall with an expressive countenance, there were instances when she was on pointe in Act II that reminded me of the lithographs of Grisi.  Andrea Battagia is a powerful athletic dancer but he is also a fine dance actor capable of expressing the subtleties of Albrecht's personality and his many emotions.  Isobel Holland, one of the most pleasant individuals one could ever hope to meet in real life, was a convincing personification of decay and evil as the lead female zombie.  So, too, was Robbie Moorcroft - again congeniality itself in real life - who created the new role of lead male zombie.  Two newcomers to the company impressed me particularly: Yasset Roldan as Hilarion and Hanna Lyn Hughes as Cerys.  I shall follow their careers with great interest. All the members of the company danced well in all three performances and I offer all of them my congratulations. 

James designed the sets and video projections.   These were ingenious and set each of the scenes effectively.   I particularly admired the churchyard scene just before dawn.  Ballet Cymru relies heavily on such projections but these were particularly good.   The opening scene of an ECG flashed onto the gauze together with the percussion and the cast's jumping like cardiac muscles warned the audience at the start that Giselle had a weak heart. James's designs were accompanied by skilful lighting design by Chris Illingworth and the imaginative costumes of Deryn Tudor.

Wales has a strong dance tradition as you can see from this grasshopper dance but it does not yet have a national ballet school or comprehensive nationwide facilities for developing balletic talent.  There are good ballet teachers in the main towns and cities but most of Wales is rural.   Ballet Cymru's Duets Programme goes some way to filling that lacuna.   Before Saturday's show, several young local schoolchildren on that programme presented a short demonstration of what they had learnt in a very short time.  They drew rapturous applause after which most of them watched Giselle in the row in front of me.  Ballet Cymru's investment in its nation's youth will create, at the very least, an eager and informed audience for dance and possibly even some of the next generation of the world's principals.

Giselle Re-imagined

Lichfield Cathedral

Author Nina-no Licence CC BY-SA 3.0 Source Wikimedia

 

Ballet Cymru, Giselle Livestream from Lichfield Cathedral, 8 July 2021 19:30

Ballet Cymru is not a big company.  If one consults the dancers' page as I tried to do yesterday because there were several artists in the cast I could not recognize, Ballet Cymru appears to have only four members.  Yet Ballet Cymru is capable of staging major full-length classical ballets and often doing them better than many bigger and better-resourced companies.  its Romeo a Juliet is one of the best and its Cinderella is definitely the best - much as I admire the Hampson and Wheeldon versions for Scottish Ballet and HNB.  

Those productions are successful because Darius James and Amy Doughty rethink those ballets for a small cast on the road. They are innovative without being gimmicky.  Their works are of our time yet remain anchored in the classical tradition.  Most importantly, though their artists are from Australia, Bermuda, Italy and Yorkshire, the company is unmistakably Welsh.  Here are two examples of how they work.   If a score does not quite work for them they have the courage to commission a new one.  As often as not, that commission will go to a Welsh composer such as Jack White or Catrin Finch. Another example is how they tell a story.   Romeo a Juliet is set not in renaissance Verona but post-industrial Newport.   The brawl between Montagues and Capulets in Act 1 takes place in the pedestrian underpass to the River Usk.  It is broken up not by a duke but by flashing blue lights.  

James and Doughty applied that formula to their new Giselle which was premiered at Lichfield Cathedral last night.  Although I saw it only on screen I have no doubt that it was a spectacular success.  The camera caught the front row of the audience who rose to their feet at the curtain call. Standing ovations are de rigeur in some parts of the world, but in Lichfield they are rare.  I know that city well because I attended prep school there.

As I knew that James and Doughty had commissioned Finch to write the music I was surprised to hear the opening notes of Adam's overture but it was quickly followed by percussion as the cast entered the stage and shortly afterwards (and my memory may be playing tricks on me here) Bugeilio'r Gwenith Gwyn.  As I tweeted last night Finch's arrangement of Adam with her own work and traditional Welsh airs was one of the reasons for the ballet's success.

The ballet followed the familiar story but with some modern twists.  There are not too many peasants in Newport these days so there was no peasant pas de deux.  Fox hunting is illegal in Wales so there was no ducal hunting party.  Young Welsh women can learn about the men they encounter from their smartphones nowadays so there was no petal picking. But there was still a Giselle danced by Beth Meadway, an Albrecht (Andrea Battaggia), a Hilarion (Yasset Roldan), a Berthe (Hanna Lyn Hughes) and a Bathilde (Natasha Chu).  Other artists, described in the cast list as "friends", were  Robbie Moorcroft, Joe Powell-Main, Madeleine Green, Jakob Myers, Sanea Singh and Jethro Paine.  Chu and Lyn Hughes also appeared in the crowd scenes. 

We at Powerhouse Ballet hold all the dancers of Ballet Cymru in high regard but we have a particular affection for Meadway. She taught us In my craft or sullen art at the Dylan Thomas workshop when Ballet Cymru visited Leeds (see More than a Bit Differently: Ballet Cymru's Workshop and the Launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle  29 Nov 2018 Terpsichore).  She also gave us one of the best online company classes ever last year.   Above all, she is a North Country lass - just like most of us.  I already knew that she could dance but I had never seen her act before.  She is at least as good an actor as she is a dancer.  She did not just dance Giselle.   She made us believe that she was Giselle.

Tall and dashing, Battagia was cast well as Albrecht. It was easy to see how Giselle's head was turned by him.  He did not carry a sword but he did have some sort of ID that he carelessly left in a wallet in his coat pocket.  I have always felt a bit sorry for poor old Hilarion.  If anyone deserves to die it is Albrecht and in Dada Masilo's version, he does (see  A Brace of Giselles 15 Oct 2019 Terpsichore).  James and Doughty stick to tradition and he perishes in a horrible way. Roldan danced his role with verve and passion.   The choreography gives him opportunities to demonstrate virtuosity and he took full advantage.  Berthe seems even younger than her daughter which may be why she is described in the cast list as "Giselle's friend".  There is a poignant moment as Berthe comforts Giselle when she first experiences heart trouble.   It is also Berthe who tries to revive Giselle at the end.   

In any production of Giselle, there is a contrast between acts 1 and 2.   In this production, the contrast was marked by the absence of pointe work in act 1.  The women wore soft shoes and turned on demi.  In the spirit world, Myrtha and Giselle were on pointe.  No doubt to emphasize their lightness like Taglioni in La Sylphide or Grisi in the first Giselle.  The wilis were the scariest I have ever seen.   The friends in act 1 became spirits in act 2.  They, therefore, included men who were particularly threatening.   They crawled over their graves like serpents.   No graceful arabesques or penchés.   They were led by Isobel Holland.   The tension between Holland and Meadway was palpable.   Holland like Meadway is an excellent actor. She also taught us at our Dylan Thomas workshop.  We at Powerhouse know that she is delightful in real life but as queen of the wilis she was grisly and venomous.  

The set was simple but robust which will be ideal for touring.   Essentially rectangular slaps with reflective surfaces. As in their other ballets. Ballet Cymru relied on projectors to create scenery or change mood.   One background - ancient Celtic and Latin crosses - was simultaneously beautiful and unsettling. All credit to the lighting designer, Chris Illingworth.  Congratulations also to the costume designer, Derek Tudor.  Myrtha's was stunning.   The women's skirts with their layers of material must have been a joy to wear.

I look forward to seeing this show on stage very much.  A screen is all very well but it is two dimensional and ballet has depth.   If Ballet Cymru ever offers this choreography as a workshop we should love to learn it.   Once this third wave has subsided we shall learn the Coralli-Perrot-Petipa version of the dance of the wilis but the James and Doughty version would be such fun.

KNT's Day of Dance Tomorrow

The Dear Old Dancehouse

One of the highlights of my year is KNT's Day of Dance.  It offers a chance to train with some of the best teachers and performers in the business.  Last year, for example, I took classes with   Alex Hallas of Bale Cymru and  Jane Tucker of Northern Ballet Academy.

Another Day of Dance will take place tomorrow and I regret to say that I only learned of it a few minutes ago when I tried to check in your some online classes for the coming week. According to KNT's Class Manager app, the following are available:

• 11:00 - 12:30 Beginner/Pre-Intermediate Ballet 
• 11:00 - 12:30 Intermediate/Advanced Contemporary 
• 13:00 - 14:30 Intermediate/Advanced Ballet
• 13:00 - 14:30 Pre-Intermediate Contemporary 
• 19:00 - 20:30 Beginner/Pre-Intermediate Ballet 
• 19:00 - 20:30 Beginner/Pre-Intermediate Contemporary
• 20:30 - 22:00 Intermediate/Advanced Ballet  
• 20:30 - 22:00 Intermediate/Advanced Contemporary 

All the classes for tomorrow's Day of Dance are priced at £10.

Sadly it won't be quite the same as last year because we are exiled from the Dear Old Dancehouse as a result of the public health emergency but we shall still have excellent teaching.  Above all, we can still wave at each other over Zoom even if we can no longer embrace.

Plagues don't last forever.  There is every chance that medicine will eradicate or at least contain this virus as it has done with so many other infections.   One day this horrible scourge will be nothing more than a horrible memory.  I wish everyone a great weekend.

Ballet Cymru's Outreach Work

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On 29 Nov 2019, I attended a performance of Ballet Cymru's Three Works: Wired to the Moon, Divided We Stand and Celtic Concerto at the Pontio Centre in Bangor. You will find my review at Ballet Cymru - Even Better than Last Year  6 Dec 2019.

Before the show, local schoolchildren staged a performance of work that they had created with artists of the company in the foyer of the Pontio Centre.  Yesterday, Ballet Cymru released a video of that collaboration on YouTube which I have embedded in this blog.

Few companies in the UK do as much outreach work as Ballet Cymru and our little ballet company has already worked with them and their artists.  On 28 Nov 2018, we learned some of Darius James and Amy Doughty's latest choreography in a workshop on Dylan Thomas's poem In My Craft or Sullen Art  (see More than a Bit Differently: Ballet Cymru's Workshop and the Launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle  29 Nov 2018).  Earlier this year in almost our last event before lockdown Alex Hallas gave us one of our best ballet experiences ever when he gave us an excellent class and taught us some of his own choreography. Alex's workshop took place after my birthday nearly all of which was spent in arguing a trade mark case in the IP Office and driving through the rain from Newport.  I, therefore, celebrated my birthday on the day of my workshop and it turned out to be one of my best birthdays ever.

Immediately after Alex's workshop, there were requests for a similar one.  I have therefore asked Beth Meadway to give us a repertoire workshop as soon as possible after our studios reopen. Beth has already worked with us in the Dylan Thomas workshop and she will give us an online class on 27 June.

Ballet Cymru's artists have already done much to raise dancers' morale through the lockdown with their short video clips. We look forward to seeing them on stage just as soon as this emergency ends.

Ballet Cymru - Even Better than Last Year

Author Sian Trenberth Photography Ltd
© 2019 Ballet Cymru: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Ballet Cymru (Three Works: Wired to the Moon, Divided We Stand and Celtic Concerto) Pontio Centre, Bangor 30 Nov 2019, 19:30

In my review of 12 Dec 2018, I described Ballet Cymru's Dylan Thomas programme as "the company's best work ever" but I think this year's triple bill was even better.  I say that because Dylan Thomas's words as read by Cerys Matthews eclipsed the dance whereas this year the focus was on dance. 

The three works that Ballet Cymru could not have been more different: Celtic Concerto, an exquisite classical work by Darius James and Amy Doughty, Patricia Vallis's cotemporary Divided We Stand and Charlotte Edmond's innovative Wired to the Moon. The company performed all three works with flair. Ballet Cymru is undoubtedly a company in the classical tradition but it can shine in other styles as well.

In my preview of Ballet Cymru's appearance in Bangor, I linked to a YouTube film of the company's inaugural performance of Celtic Concerto in Newport in 2013.  Readers will appreciate the beauty of Catrin Finch's score, the exuberance of the choreography and the elegance of the costumes and lighting.  The women in black tutus and the men in matching leotards.  The cast has changed since then with highly talented young recruits like Beau Dillen, Joshua Feist and Oliver Wilkinson-Smith.  I first saw that work at Sadler's Wells exactly four years ago. I like it even better now than I did then.

I saw Divided We  Stand in Made in Wales on 22 March at the Dance House in Cardiff.  That was the end of course performance of the Pre-Professional Programme.  If I am not mistaken, Patricia Vallis has added to that work.  There is dialogue and real needle in some of the duets.  The choreographer trained in Rotterdam and New York which explains why I was put in mind of both NDT and Joffrey by her work.  Everyone danced well but there was an exchange between Alex Hallas and Beth Meadway that seemed to express perfectly the message that I drew from the work, namely a new harmony eventually emerges from confrontation.  The score was by Henry Purcell that suited the narrative precisely.  

In the programme, Wired to the Moon is said to have been inspired by functioning systems and how they respond to changes in their environment and shows us "how technology is an extension of our world and in this increasingly interconnected works we must exist in balance." Well, maybe. To me, the work seemed to have more in common with tide and beaches. There was a beach on the front page of the programme, some of the artists removed their trousers as if preparing for a swim, white boxes on stage suggested crests of waves or breakwaters. For a while, I was puzzled by the title then I realized that the moon actuates our tides and I suppose that it is a kind of system.  Katya Richardson's score was dramatic and Eleanor Bull's designs were thought provoking.  The dancing was, of course, superb.

I enjoyed all the elements of the triple bill, perhaps Celtic Concerto and Divided We Stand slightly more than Wired to the Moon because I had seen the first two works before and understood them better.  Although the company performed all three works equally well I think Celtic Concerto showed the artists to their best advantage.  They are a classical company and it is in that style that they are (in my eyes at least) most beautiful.

I saw the show with a member of staff of M-SParc and her 12-year-old daughter.  My guest's daughter had studied ballet for a while but she had previously seen only one live performance.  She was thrilled by Ballet Cymru and delighted to meet Darius James, Patricia Vallis and the cast after the show.  Several of the dancers asked whether she would like to dance professionally to which she said she would.  She told me that she would resume her classes with renewed enthusiasm.  She was not the only young student to have been inspired by Ballet Cymru. Just before the performance, pupils from the local schools performed a curtain-raiser in the foyer.  I missed most of it but I caught a scene on the balcony and those students were very good. Alex Hallas, who had rehearsed them, told me that quite a few of the children including several boys intended to join local classes. 

Most if not all major ballet companies in the UK have associates and outreach programmes but none seems to be as close to their local communities and young people from those communities as Ballet Cymru.  When I told Patricia Vallis what my guest's daughter had said to me, she replied: "That is such wonderful news! That is one of the reasons why we do what we do!"  It is yet another reason why I love Ballet Cymru so.

A World-Class Company for a Changing Nation

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Ballet Cymru Rome a Juliet 31 May 2019 Riverfront Theatre, Newport

This is the third time I have seen Darius James and Amy Doughty's Romeo a Juliet and each time I see it I have found something new. Last night I saw two exceptional talents: Danila Marzilli, one of the finalists in the ballet category of the BBC Young Dancer of 2019, for the first time; and Beau Dillen whom I had seen two months earlier in Made in Wales. Marzilli danced Juliet in the second professional performance of her life (the first being the previous night) and Dillen the nurse, standing in for Krystal Lowe at the very last moment.

To give a young dancer straight out of ballet school the leading role is an incredibly risky thing to do both for the dancer and the company. James and Doughty did that once before with Gwenllian Davies the last time I saw Romeo a Juliet and it worked spectacularly well (see A Romeo and Juliet for Our Times 7 Nov 2016). It also worked last night with Mazilli. Mazilli is very accomplished technically but she can also act. The despair in the bedroom was palpable after Romeo had taken flight and her parents, grief-stricken with the loss of Tybalt, were piling on the pressure for her to marry Paris. So, too, was the fear as she considered whether to take Friar Larence's potion.  So, also, was the agony of finding Romeo's body in the Capulet family grave.  These and all the other thoughts and feelings fleeting through young Juliet's consciousness were communicated with considerable eloquence.

In most versions of Rome and Juliet and, of course, the play the nurse is much older than Juliet and her social inferior.  In James and Doughty she is a confidante.  In previous performances by this company, she has been called Cerys.  In last night's show, she was referred to simply as "Juliet's friend." As such, she adds a dynamic to the narrative that actually enhances Shakespeare.  She recognizes Romeo at her parents' ball and tries to lead Juliet away.  She tries to intercede with Juliet as she rejects Paris. It is she who finds Juliet stone cold the morning of her wedding. This is a role that requires maturity and authority which is why it is usually performed by one of the company's most experienced dancers. Dillen is the company's apprentice yet she filled that role magnificently.

Romeo was danced by Andrea Maria Battagia who performed that role the last time I saw the ballet.  He is everything a male lead should be.  A virtuoso who thrills with his solos but nevertheless displays his ballerina like the setting of a precious jewel so that she dazzles.  I think we owe a lot to Battagia for the way he partnered Mazilli last night, much as he did with Davies in 2016. Battagia can also act.  For the first time ever I saw Romeo as a flawed hero. Possibly because he despatched Tybalt and Paris with plebian knives rather than gentlemen's swords.  A whiff of brexit Britain rather than renaissance Verona.

That brings me on to another quality of James and Doughty's work. It is set in our time and our country.  The first time I saw the work I noted Tybalt's dragon tattoo and the substitution of Cerys as a confidante of Juliet in place of the nurse (see They're not from Chigwell - they're from a small Welsh Town called Newport 14 May 2013).  Instead of a duke, the brawl between the Capulets and the Montagues is broken up by the flashing lights and shadowy figures of the Gwent Constabulary. The knifings of Mercutio and Tybalt took place not in the Piazza of Verona but underneath the flyover of the exit lane from the bridge over the Usk.   I recognized the setting in the projections against the backdrop. Again there were the flashing lights of the Heddlu.

Talking of Tybalt it is always a delight to watch Robbie Moorcroft swagger on stage. Our hearts go out for Miguel Fernandes as Mercutio, the cub of the Montague pack with something to prove. Romeo tried to hold him back but too late.  He takes on the wily Tybalt who knifes him.  His bravado after his first wound is one of the most heart-rending scenes of classical dance. The second knifing turns Romeo and Juliet from a saccharine romance into drama. Romeo has to get involved.  He then has to go on the run. There is no way this story could end otherwise than badly.

Lord and Lady Capulet danced by two of my favourite dancers, Alex Hallas and Beth Meadway, added yet another quality to the work. Other productions show a tearful, vengeful Lady Capulet but her husband's role is usually minor.  Not in James and Doughty's work. They are sleek, powerful, authoritarian - and Northern. It just so happens they are both from Yorkshire. I could almost hear them:

"Now listen up, our kid. There's nowt wrong with Paris. You could do a lot worse than wed him. I know he's not much to look at but he's got brass and he's not wanted by the law. Not like that Romeo Montague. Ooh, I do hope they catch him, lock him up and throw away the key. How could you even look at him after what he did to Tybalt?"

And with her friend joining in, is it any wonder that Juliet buried her face in a pillow before quaffing Friar Lawrence's potion and eventually killing herself?

Everyone in this show danced well.  Joshua Feist was a perfect Paris, another recent recruit whose career I shall follow with interest. Isobel Holland was an impressive Friar Lawrence. Much closer to Shakespeare than the manipulative cleric in Jean-Christophe Maillot's version of the ballet. Maria Teresa Brunello was a convincing Benvolio.  Not easy to dance a role of the opposite gender.  Holland and Brunello are to be congratulated for that alone.   Especially as there are some in ballet who would not countenance it.   I recently met a teacher and choreographer who was scandalized by my learning to dance the bronze idol in an adult ballet intensive.

James and Doughty have big plans for their company.  They are touring China soon where I am sure they will be admired.   They hope to employ their dancers on full-term rather than short-term contracts.  Ballet Cymru reminds me a lot of Scottish Ballet when they first moved to Glasgow 50 years ago.

Like Scotland in the 1970s, Wales is changing fast.  I sense a growing sense of nationhood.  The National Assembly now makes primary legislation.  The Supreme Court already sits in Cardiff and there are calls even from Unionists for a separate Welsh court system.   Until a few years ago the economy of the North was largely rural and that of the South was not unlike that of the American rust belt.  The economy is changing rapidly into one that is knowledge-based.   I see signs of that transformation every time I visit M-Sparc, Aber Innovation or the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre.  The entrepreneurs, innovators and creative folk who are driving that change need the arts and expect the best.  They demand world-class dance and Ballet Cymru is delivering it to them.

Made in Wales

© 2019 Sian Trebart: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of Ballet Cymru

Ballet Cymru Made in Wales Dance House, Cardiff, 22 March 2019 19:30

One of the reasons why the Dutch National Ballet is so strong is that it provides "a stepping stone for young dancers to make the leap from the Dutch National Ballet Academy to The Dutch National Ballet, Holland’s largest ballet company."  That stepping stone is the Junior Company and it has launched the careers or some of HNB's most exciting young dancers such as Michaela DePrince, Martin Ten Kortenaaar, Riho Sakamoto and Sho Yamada.

I have often argued for a British junior company and I think I may have found one at Rogerstone in South Wales.  Rogerstone is a small town near Newport where Ballet Cymru is located.  One of Ballet Cymru's initiatives is a Pre-Professional Programme for "talented, aspiring and highly motivated young dancers with bold ambitions." Like the Junior Company, the Pre-Professional Programme is "designed to facilitate the transition from full time training into professional company life in a focused, nurturing environment."

Last Thursday, I was lucky enough to meet those motivated young dancers and to watch them rehearse. There are 13 of them:

• Natalia Cimpeanu
• Beau Dillen
• Kibyusa Forcos
• Anais Gentjens
• Colleen Grace
• Emma Ikavalko
• Caitlin Liston
• Renan Alvez Manhaes
• Sophie Morris
• Guilia Machado Rossi
• Michaela Skuce
• Naomi Stientstra, and
• Ann Wall.

They come from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Romania, the UK and Ukraine and have trained at some of the world's top ballet schools such as the Australian Conservatoire, Ballet West, English National Ballet School, the International Dance Academy of Berlin, Kiev State Choreographic College, the National Ballet School of Finland, Northern Ballet Academy, the RAD Academy, Royal Ballet School of Flanders, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School and the State School of Municipal Theatre in Rio de Janeiro.  

They have all done well to have progressed as far as they have. Awareness that they have achieved a lot gives them confidence and poise in their dance but there is no cockiness about them. They are 13 of the most likeable young people that I have ever met or am ever likely to meet.  When we discussed connections I told Sophie Morris, who had graduated from Ballet West, that I had attended the first year undergraduates' class with Jonathan Barton and that I have dined out about it ever since. They laughed heartily imagining the honour to have attended such a class but also the exertion it must have required of me (see Visiting Taynuilt 6 May 2018).

The piece the dancers rehearsed for me was an excerpt of As We Are choreographed by Emma Lewis who had been teaching them when I arrived.  They were to perform it the following evening at the Dance House in Cardiff. Ballet Cymru had very kindly offered me a ticket to the show which I had declined as I had to be in Leeds to set up Powerhouse Ballet's company class on Saturday morning.  After watching those angels move I just had to see them again even if though it would mean driving through the night to Yorkshire.  I asked whether I could change my mind about the ticket and, happily, I could.

The Dance House is behind the Wales Millennium Centre, an auditorium that I had visited once before to see Ballet Cymru's Little Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs (see Ballet Cymru's 'Sleeping Beauty' Moment  5 Dec 2016). It is very close to the National Assembly for Wales and reminded me of The Quays near Manchester with its waterfront, pubs and restaurants and expensive looking flats and townhouses. The Dance House is the home of the National Dance Company of Wales which is a frequent and very welcome visitor to the North of England.

The Cardiff Dance House is somewhat smaller than ours in Manchester but it appears to be very well equipped.  The auditorium reminds me of the Stanley and Audrey Burton in Leeds and the Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler's Wells in that it is a very intimate space.  The front row is within inches of the dancers.

We saw five pieces on 22 March 2019:

• Excerpts from Child's Christmas by Darius James OBE and Amy Doughty 
• As We Are by Emma Lewis
• Concerto Junkins by Alex Hallas
• Ex Situ by Jack Philps, and
• Divided We Stand by Patricia Vallis.

Each work was introduced by a short video from the choreographer just as the Junior Company's shows.

The Child's Christmas is very familiar to me as I had seen it in Leeds and Bangor and described it aptly as the company's best work ever (see Ballet Cymru's Dylan Thomas Programme: The Company's Best Work Ever 13 Dec 2018). I had even danced a little bit of In My Craft or Sullen Art at Ballet Cymru's workshop in Leeds on 28 Nov 2018 (see More than a Bit Differently: Ballet Cymru's Workshop and the Launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle 29 Nov 2018). When the words "Not for the proud man apart" I felt myself bracing as I had been taught to do in the workshop.

I loved all the works but one that made a particularly deep impression on me was Alex Hallas's Jenkins Concerto.  That is partly because I like Carl Jenkins's music and in particular, The Armed Man and Dies Irae which formed the bulk of Hallas's contribution, partly because it was an opportunity for Renan Alvez Manhaes (the only gentleman on the course) to show his potential which is considerable and partly because the ballet enabled all the artists to shine.  Not an easy work but, I should imagine, an immensely satisfying one to perform.

Hallas, a Yorkshireman, has impressed me several times in Ballet Cymru's Cinderella and the Dylan Thomas double bill and Ballet West's The Nutcracker.  He attended our reception in Leeds after Ballet Cymru's workshop and he taught at KNT's Day of Dance in December. I have booked him for a workshop for Powerhouse just as soon as he is free. Maybe he can teach us some of his Concerto Jenkins or other choreography.

Even though I had to stop for an espresso at every service station between Cardiff and Sheffield and arrived so full of caffeine that I could not sleep once I made it to my bed in Holmfirth at 05:45, I would not have missed the evening for all "the cats in Wales standing on a wall" with a 6 foot drift of snow. Or, indeed, even a fire in Mrs Prothero's parlour.

Powerhouse Ballet January Update

Fiona Noonan

On 16 Sept Terry Etheridge held a workshop in Leeds where he created a beautiful ballet for us.  He invited not only the dancers he had selected for the piece at an audition that we had held the previous day but also everyone who had attended the audition. It was a glorious day and it was then that we became a company. We had come from different adult ballet classes from across the North of England and North Wales. Although we had been very courteous to each other we had flocked to our own groups. All this changed at the workshop. Everyone chatted to everyone else. I sensed that some real friendships were being formed.

Those friendships were reinformed the very next week when Yvonne Charlton visited us in Liverpool.  I described her visit as Our Best Day Yet in a post to the company's website.  I wrote:

"I have already received requests to bring Yvonne back to the UK. In response to those requests, I have asked her whether she would like to license us to perform her work so that we could add it to out repertoire. She has no objection in principle and is prepared to return for an audition and workshop similar to the one we did with Terry Etheridge in Leeds."

Yvonne is coming back on 23 Feb 2019 when she will take the company class ar the Dancehouse Studios between 13:30 and 15:00. The next day she will teach us one of her ballets at Dance Studio Leeds between 09:00 and 14:00. Her music is Morning Mood from Grieg's Peer Gynt.  Alena Panasenka, one of Northern Ballet's accompanists, will play for us.

Yvonne has to catch a plane to Amsterdam immediately after her workshop so she cannot coach us but Fiona Noonan has very kindly agreed to do so. Fiona was the teacher who led me back to ballet after many years and I shall always be grateful to her for that.  She attended Terry's audition on 15 Sept and danced with us at our workshop with Ballet Cymru on 28 Nov 2018 (see More than a Bit Differently: Ballet Cymru's Workshop and the Launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle 29 Nov 2018). Last Saturday Fiona gave us an excellent company class.  It was one of the hardest classes I have ever done because we started with centre barre to develop our strength.  However, it paid dividends when we tackled pirouettes and a balancé, pas de bourré, pirouettes, dedans and dehors enchainment.

Many of the members of our company train regularly at KNT Danceworks which holds classes in the Dancehouse's studios every day of the week except Sundays and public holidays. KNT's principal is Karen Sant and she gave us one of our best company classes ever on 1 Dec 2018.  KNT is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary with a gala at the Dancehouse on 4 May 2019 the tickets for which are already on sale.  Karen has kindly invited Powerhouse Ballet to premiere the ballet that Terry Etheridge has created for us at her gala as her special guests.  As KNT has been listed in several publications as one of the top adult ballet classes in the UK this is a singular honour which I acknowledged on the company's website on 25 Jan 2019.

We now have to rehearse in earnest and our next rehearsal is fixed for 10 Feb 2019 at 15:00 at York St John University. We will of course also hold rehearsals of Morning Mood and Fiona will suggest dates, times and venues after Yvonne's workshop,  As we are as much a North Wales company as a Northern English one we are planning a day-long workshop in Mold which Martin Dutton of the Hammond has already agreed to teach.  We shall hold company classes at the end of each month and I have already booked our Jane Tucker for our anniversary class.

If our debut goes well we shall convert into a charitable incorporated organization and seek funding from Arts Council England and maybe the Arts Council of Wales, the National Lottery and other organizations.  As part of our social mission, we shall perform at hospitals, care homes and other institutions whose residents do not get many opportunities to watch dance.

Several readers have asked, "what has happened to my dance reviews?" The fact is that I have not seen any ballet since Birmingham Royal Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker in the Albert Hall. Talk about Dry January. I have been so busy with Powerhouse I have had little time for anything else.  But all that will change as of tomorrow when I shall see Scottish Ballet's Cinderella in Newcastle and Saturday when I shall see The Nutcracker by Ballet West in Stirling.