Gavin McCaig in Conversation with his Friends

Gary Sutherland / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Not far from Taynuilt lies the port of Oban from where McBrayne ferries depart for Mull on the way to Iona.  I had passed through the port countless times but never bothered to stop until two years ago when I attended a performance of Highland Fling at the Atlantic Leisure Centre. It was then that I discovered that there was a lot more to Oban than a waystation to or from the Hebrides. Some of the best fish and chips in the United Kingdom are to be had in the city's many chippies.  For anybody wondering why I call Oban a city, it is because it has two cathedrals including Sir Gilbert Scott's magnificent St Columba's by the seashore.  However, the most impressive landmark in the whole of Oban is the colonnade on Battery Hill known as McCaig's tower.

I had a question about the tower up my sleeve in case I ran out of things to say when I interviewed Gavin McCaig of Northern Ballet for Stage Door on Sunday but I didn't need it for the conversation flowed like water. Gavin McCaig is a very interesting chap as well as a very congenial one. I had interviewed him for Terpsichore soon after he had joined the company in 2014.  He has come a long way since then and while he might not have reached the very top of the greasy pole he has certainly gained considerable elevation.

I began the interview by asking him whether the success for which he must have aimed when he was at ballet school had turned out to be all that it was cracked up to be.  Disarmingly he replied that he had not set his sites on any particular outcome when he was at ballet school. There is stiff competition to enter any company particularly one in the UK.  His ambition was simply to get a job in ballet.  He had begun to follow Northern Ballet when he was at the English Ballet School.  He remembered trips to Woking and other theatres within the vicinity of London. Joining Northern Ballet was everything he could have hoped for.

I mentioned some of the roles in which he had impressed.  John Brown in Cathy Marston's Victoria in which he had been shot and St John in Jane Eyre which is another Marston work.  I had followed the company to London to see it in Richmon in 2016 and pronounced it the best work form the company that I had seen in 20 years.  He seemed well suited to Marston's choreography, I suggested.  He said that he enjoyed working with Cathy Marston for whom he had a particular regard.  I agreed mentioning how much I had admired Snowblind when the San Francisco Ballet came to London and how much I was looking forward to seeing what she makes of Mrs Robinson.

However, he had excelled in other choreographers' works.  I mentioned his performance as Athos in The Three Musketeers in which he had particularly impressed me.  While accepting the compliment he drew my attention to a role that I had not mentioned. Early in his career, he had been one of Friar Lawrence's acolytes in Jean-Christophe Maillot's Romeo and Juliet.  The friar and his acolytes were on stage when the curtain lowered and it was an exceptionally moving experience as the orchestra played the last few barres of the score.  I mentioned that I was a fan of Maillot having also seen the Bolshoi's performance of his Taming of the Shrew.  I asked whether he had visited Leeds.  Gavin replied that he had and that he had spent 3 days there.

In his interview in 2014, Gavin had expressed an interest in choreography.   I mentioned a choreographic workshop to which he had contributed a ballet.  I had admired the work very much particularly the take on Mr Nigel Farage's "You're not laughing now" remark with the hollowly cackling cast,  Again, he acknowledged my compliment graciously.

At this point we had the first question from the audience,  Amelia Sierevogel asked about some of the memorable costumes he had worn.  He mentioned the one with lots of buttons and others where there had been what can best be described as little local difficulties.  Elaine Berrill and Janet McNulty also intervened and Amelia asked a follow up towards the end.   He was asked what advice he would give to a young man particularly in view of prejudice against male dancers.  He acknowledged it was there and the answer was to persist,  There was one time when he thought he might give up and he actually left the class for a while.   I am glad to say that he had another think and resumed his studies,  The question on motivation and overcoming inhibitions had arisen a few days earlier in a Q&A with his class in Portugal. Janet was aware that he had done a lot of running and asked how that was affecting his legs and feet.  He replied that a certain amount of tension in those muscles was good.

As it appeared that Kevin Poeung was in the same room as Gavin I asked whether it would be possible to say "hello" to him. Kevin appeared and greeted us,   I asked them how they were coping with the lockdown.  While they were appalled by the casualties they had made the best of it.  They had a chance to appreciate their home, carry out some DIY and enjoy some quality time which would not otherwise have been available with a busy schedule,

I asked about Gavin's plans for the future.  We discussed his award-winning film on the company's digital dance platform. He was learning business finance to qualify for a managerial role in the performing arts.  I asked about roles he hoped to perform.  He had mentioned Simon in David Nixon's Swan Lake on the company's website.   He explained that was because of Simon's personality, As he had mentioned that he would like to dance the big classical roles in his 2014 interview I asked whether he retained any ambitions in that regard.   He replied that he had already danced the lead in The Nutcracker in Montana a few months ago which he had enjoyed but he was not sure that he was ideally suited to the great Petipa roles.

We finished with an appeal for contributions to the Academy of Northern Ballet.  I have placed a donate button to the ACADEMY OF NORTHERN BALLET PARENTS ASSOCIATION on my Facebook page.   Alternatively, donors can call the Academy on 0113 220 8000 or email academy@northernballet.com.

Birmingham Royal Ballet and Ballet Black's Mixed Programme at Sadler's Wells

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Birmingham Royal Ballet and Ballet Black (A Brief Nostalgia, The Suit and Nine Sinatra Songs) Sadler's Wells 30 Oct 2019 at 19:30

As a fully paid-up Friend of Ballet Black and a big fan of Birmingham Royal Ballet and Cathy Marston, I decided to nip down to London on Wednesday to see their combined triple bill. I say "nipped" with some caution. It was easy enough to get down to the Smoke but coming back was quite a different matter. The East Coast mainline has deteriorated considerably since its re-nationalization by LNER and it is now a shambles. It took an hour for the 23:30 from King's Cross to amble from Doncaster to Leeds by way of Pontefract and goodness knows where else with the result that I arrived home at 04:00 yesterday morning.

Happily, the show made it all worthwhile. I arrived at Sadler's Wells just in time for a talk by Kit Holder of Birmingham Royal Ballet, Tom Harrold who had composed the score for the first work, A Brief Nostalgia, and Cassa Pancho, founder and artistic director of Ballet Black.  I am very glad that I did because Tom's talk prepared me for A Brief Nostalgia and helped me appreciate it properly.  He explained that he was a Scottish composer living in Manchester and this commission had been his first work for the theatre. The ballet was a collaboration between the Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Queensland Ballet. The companies had chosen Jack Lister, to choreograph the work and Tom described their long-distance collaboration.  Lister had wanted to express a mood that is expressed in Portuguese by the word saudade.  Deborah Jones's programme note described it as "a delicate, complicated feeling that has melancholy and pain built in but also has room for the beauty of remembering emotions, people or objects of personal value." She added that an American academic had offered "a word for 'the presence of absence," as an apt translation.

In the questions and answers that followed, a member of the audience asked why the ballet was entitled "A Brief Nostalgia". I guess he meant why a ballet addressing such a nuanced and complex topic should have been given such a prosaic title. Tom could not really answer the question but warned that it was quite a "dark ballet".  "Oh dear!" I thought to myself as I remembered what The Suit is all about. "Happen we are in for a right barrel of laughs."

The piece when it came to be performed was not too bad. It was certainly not as miserable as a marital breakdown and a suicide.  For a start, I liked the score and I was even more impressed with the lighting design for shadows on the sets exaggerated the dancers' line and movements. There were also some dramatic moments such as when the cast dashed in and froze in arabesque. It was the lighting which actually punctuated the phases of the ballet. It began at ground level while the later scenes lit up the space above the artists' heads.

There were six pairs of dancers: Brandon Lawrence with Delia Matthews, Matthias Dingman with Maureya Lebowitz, Tzu-Chao Chou with Momoko Hirata, Max Maslen with Samara Downs, Lachlan Monaghan with Alys Shee and Kit Holder with Beatrice Parma. The only downside with the lighting is that it was hard to make out who was who on stage. The only one that I could identify positively before the reverence was Brandon Lawrence and that is only because I have seen a lot of him lately. They all danced well and richly merited the applause with even a few Russian style growls.

The work that I had come primarily to see was The Suit.  I am a big fan of Ballet Black both for their outstanding artistry but also for their work in bringing ballet to every section of our community including those that have not been represented in ballet proportionately.  I am also a fan of Cathy Marston having seen her Jane Eyre and Victoria for Northern Ballet and Snowblind for the San Francisco Ballet recently and, of course, The Suit at least four times.  Of her works that I have seen live, The Suit is by far the best in my humble opinion.  However, I have seen a lot of videos of her work in Berne which I should like to see on stage.

It is one respect a very depressing work.  It starts happily enough with Philomom, the husband, José Alves, and Matilda, his wife, Cira Robinson in marital bliss. The alarm clock sounds and Philemon has to go to work. He gets up, shaves, showers and dons a suit with the rest of the cast playing washbasins, showers, wardrobes and mirrors. He says goodbye to his wife still in her nightie and absent-mindedly leaves his briefcase behind. The next few minutes show his commute to work. He meets all sorts of folk such as stylish ladies like Isabella Coracey and Sayaka Ichikawa, one of whom earns a wolf whistle. and little old ladies bent double over their walking sticks such as Marie-Astrid Mence, in real life probably the youngest members of the troupe. Suddenly, it dawns on him that has left his case behind. He returns to the house and finds it is not all it should be. Matilda is still in bed but she is not alone.

Philip Feeney's music changes dramatically from regular rhythms to sounds more akin to sirens. He freezes.  His home is shattered. Momentarily he is broken. When he recovers his composure he is a changed man.  Matilda may have deceived him but she must have been bored looking after the home while Philemon was in the city. When good-looking Simon, Mchuthuzeli November, paid her attention it would have required a lot of resolve to resist him.

Simon had darted out of the house in his underwear leaving his suit behind. It was through that suit that Philemon exacted his terrible revenge. For the rest of the marriage, he tortured his wife with the garment forcing her to treat it as an honoured guest even taking it for walks around the neighbourhood. Everyone would have known that she had erred.  She felt scorn and shame. For a brief moment, there seems a to be a chance of reconciliation but his anger gets the better of him and he shoves her away.

She wanders the home desolate and then spots the tie. She wraps it around her neck connecting the end to a beam. There then follows one of the most chilling scenes possible in theatre. That beautiful woman perishes before our eyes and then rests lifeless. I had seen that ballet four times and know that Cira springs back to life for the curtain call but I can't help shaking and feel the tears welling up in my eyes.  No, this is not a comfortable ballet to watch.  In fact, it is shocking.  But it is compelling watching.

We needed cheering up and that is just what we got with Twyla Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs.  Each of the girls is beautifully dressed and coiffed wearing heels instead of pointe shoes.  Karla Doorbar who accompanied James Barton in his last performance with the company wore the most scrumptious costume.  Before the show Kit Holder told the audience that this was to be Barton's last appearance with the company and invited us to give him an extra burst of applause which we did.  I was sad for a while but then overjoyed to learn that he has not retired but is on his way to Glasgow to join Scottish Ballet. Readers will tire of my saying that that was the first company that I got to know and love. They will know that I am an even bigger fan of Scottish Ballet than I am of BRB,  Far from saying goodbye I look forward to seeing more of him in his new company.

I have never really listened much to Frank Sinatra but I have heard a lot of his music in lifts, waiting rooms and on the telephone waiting to be put through to the right extension in the course of a lifetime.  There is something comforting in the banal and the artists of the Birmingham Royal Ballet made us forget the horror of the previous piece with their wit, their charm and their virtuosity. Although the ballet is called Nine Sinatra Songs we actually got eight for My Way is played twice. The first time with three couples - Rachele Pizzillo, Emma Price and Yaoquian Shang with Rory Mackay, Edivaldo Souza da Silva and Alexander Yap.  The second time was the finale with the whole cast.

I have followed Ballet Black for as long as I have kept this blog and seen them grow. Watching them perform in one of the world's premier dance auditoriums with de Valois's foundation I thought they had come of age,  Interestingly one of the audience members had reminded me of their appearance of the pyramid stage of Glasto.  That must have earned them a lot of fame but I think the shows at The Hippodrome and Sadler's Wells would have given them even more kudos.

Later this month Ballet Black will perform Pendulum, Click! and Ingoma in Oxford, Stratford, Leeds and York in the next few weeks, I described that triple bill as stunning when I saw it at The Barbican earlier this year.   I recommend it strongly.

San Francisco Ballet in London

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The San Francisco Ballet  The Infinite Ocean, Snowblind and Björk Ballet 1 June 2019, 14:00 Sadler's Wells

The San Francisco Ballet was founded in 1933 which makes it one of the oldest ballet companies in the United States. It was founded by William, Harold and Lew Christiansen who were born in Utah.  They were the first American company to dance Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.  Balanchine was an important influence but he was not the wellspring of inspiration. There have been plenty of other influences from around the world including Buornonville, Ashton and van Manen   Helgi Tomasson, the company's artistic director since 1985, was born, trained and began his career in Iceland.  The San Francisco Balet is therefore different from the companies on the East Coast and in many respects much more interesting.

The company has brought a portfolio of new work to London which includes many ballets by British choreographers such as David Dawson, Cathy Marston, Arthur Pita and Liam Scarlett.  Having seen Jane Eyre, The Suit and Victoria I am something of a Marston fan. When I heard that Marston had been commissioned to create a work for the San Francisco Ballet to be premiered on my 70th birthday I seriously considered a trip to San Francisco as a birthday treat to myself. Happily, I did not have to cross the Atlantic because the company has brought Marston's new ballet to London.

The new work is called Snowblind.   It is a one-act ballet which forms part of a triple bill.  The other works in the programme were Edwaard Liang's The Infinite Ocean and Arthur Pita's Björk Ballet.  I do not recall seeing anything by Liang at all but I have seen Arthur Pita's Dream within Midsummer Night's Dream for Ballet Black at least 8 times plus once in rehearsal and I love it to bits.

Although I must have seen the San Francisco Ballet when I was a graduate student at UCLA in the early 1970s because I spent much of my time watching ballet, I do not have a clear recollection of them as I do American Ballet Theatre, the New York City Ballet and the Dance Theatre of Harlem. I do not think they were as well known or well regarded in those days as they are now. I had seen many snippets of their performances on YouTube as they were one of the Royal Ballet's partners on World Ballet Day.  I knew they were good but I did not know that they were that good until I saw them in the flesh yesterday.  Some of their physical feats - particularly by the women - were amazing.  In The Infinite Ocean, for example, there were several scenes where they on pointe with their lower legs ramrod straight but their upper legs forming a perfect 90 degrees but their upper bodies bolt upright. That must have been so uncomfortable, yet they kept it up for some time.

The title of Liang's work was inspired by a Facebook message from a friend who was suffering from a terminal illness:

“I will see you on the other side of the infinite ocean.”

According to the programme notes, Liang lost his father to cancer at the age of 13. His ballet is an exploration of the time between life and death.   I was expecting something morbid but it was far from that.  The ballet opened with the dancers clad in gold and white walking slowly towards a golden orb like the sun to the music of Oliver Davis played on a Stradivarius violin by Cordelia Merks.  I was reminded a little bit of Macmillan's Gloria which was also set against a slope though I only noticed it in the last moments of Liang's piece when one of the dancers suddenly dropped behind it.  There were 12 dancers in the piece including duets by the principal dancers, Sofiane Sylve with  Tiit Helimets and Yuan Yuan Tan with Vitor Luiz.  The impression I formed was that each character was facing his or end in a different way, some with resignation, others with serenity and yet others with regret.  Something that we all have to think about but never do.

Snowblind is a narrative ballet inspired by Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome of which I regret to say I had never heard until I read about it in the programme notes.  It appears to be a very simple story of a husband with an infirm and ever demanding wife in a  remote farmstead who falls in love with a young woman he employs to care for his wife with predictable consequences. The set is very plan.  There is a bed for the wife and a chair for husband.  The husband meets the young woman at what appears to be a square dance.  She is resplendent in red while all the rest are in featureless grey.  For her score, Marston approached Philip Feeney who arranged the music with pieces by Amy Beach, Arthur Foot and Arvo Pärt. The husband, Ethan, was danced by Ulrik Birkkjaer, the wife by Jennifer Stahl and the woman in red by Mathilde Froustey.  A hallmark of Marston's work is what I call the dance equivalent of the chorus in classical Greek drama.  I had first seen that technique in Jane Eyre and she used it very effectively in The Suit.  The ballet opened with the chorus bending in the wind like snowflakes in a blizzard.   This is the best work from Marston that I have seen so far - or perhaps, less pretentiously, the work I have enjoyed most.   She appears to be very busy with new commissions.  I look forward very much to seeing her next one.

I guess that Pita chose a ballet on the music of one of Iceland's most popular entertainer because Tomasson also came from that country.  It opens with miniature golden palm trees that eventually fall to the ground with a thud.   Some of the women appear to be wearing yashmaks at one point which must be as far from Iceland as one can get.  The man with a very long fishing rod wears a tragedy mask but then fishes up a comedy mask from the orchestra pit which he wears on the back of his head.  I was reminded of Pita's Dream several times as I watched Björk Ballet.  The fishing rod made me think of Damien Johnson's butterfly net.   Also like Dream was the sudden juxtaposition of classical and popular music, the glittering costume of one of the female dancers and quirky interludes like the dropping palm trees.  Pita's quirkiness and sense of fun shone through.  I described the ballet on twitter as "the icing on the cake, the piece de resistance, the real McCoy for it was all those things.  The perfect end to a very log but also very enjoyable programme.

The Liang, Marston and Pita part of The San Francisco Ballet's season ended last night and I fear we shall have to fly to San Francisco if we are ever to see those works again. However, the company remains at Sadler's Wells until 7 June.  There is a lot more to see and if I lived in London and did not have to labour in the law courts for a living I should have seen them.

Another Look at Victoira

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Northern Ballet Victoria 6 April 2019 Curve, Leicester

"How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear Queen!"  The Oxford Essential Quotations attributes that remark to A Laugh A Day Keeps the Doctor Away by the American humorist, Irvin S Cobb which was published in 1924.  It is said to have been overheard at a performance of Antony and Cleopatra in which Sarah Bernhardt played Cleopatra.

The conversation is probably apocryphal but the reason why the quotation is remembered is that the home life of Queen Victoria was unremarkable.  Of course, there was sex.  How could it be otherwise with 9 children? But it was almost certainly within marriage notwithstanding speculation over her relationships with John Brown and Abdul Karim.  Queen Victoria gave her name to an age of momentous cultural, economic, political, scientific, social and technological change throughout the world but, as a constitutional monarch, she had very little to do with any of that.

According to "Creating Victoria" in the programme the idea of a ballet about Queen Victoria was David Nixon's.  He asked Cathy Marston whether she would be interested in making such a work, Evidently, someone mentioned the TV series for Marsrion spent part of a weekend watching a recording of the series before deciding to accept.

To make a full-length ballet about a home life that is a byword for respectability and normality must have been something of a challenge. Marston responded to that challenge by selecting incidents from the queen's life that she had recorded in her diary.  Those incidents were presented not as they had happened but as they had been perceived by Princess Beatrice upon reading her mother's diary for the first time. An impression was given that some of those incidents bordered on the scandalous for there were for there were several scenes where Beatrice tore pages from the diary.

On the whole, I think Marston's approach worked well, particularly in the second act.  There were moments of great beauty such as the passionate duet of the queen and prince consort towards the end. There were also some comic moments such as the childbirth scenes with Mlindi Kulashe delivering baby after baby.  Some of the scenes in the first act were still lost me even though I had seen them before and had read and digested the synopsis.  Someone - I could not work out who it was - drew a revolver and shot John Brown. I could find no reference to that in the synopsis.  It certainly did not happen in real life for Brown died in his bed in Windsor.  I had a vague recollection from my criminal law studied that Queen Victoria survived an assassination attempt because it was from that incident that we have got the M'Naghten rules but it seems to have nothing to so with that. I concluded that the assassination must have been an analogue for character assassination. There were several other analogues in the piece such as the ritual kissing of the queen's feet.

The cast I saw in Leicester was almost the same as the one I saw in Leeds (see A Great Send-off for a Great Lady 17 March 2019).  Abigail Prudames was the queen, Joseph Taylor the prince consort, Pippa Moore was Beatrice and Kulashe doubled as John Brown as well as an obstetrician.  All the cast danced well but I particularly enjoyed their interaction with a curious piece of furniture that I can best describe as a Victorian round sofa and their tussle over the red dispatch boxes.  Everybody in the show danced well and it would be unjust for me to select any for special praise,

Steffen Aarfing's set worked well.  A semicircular structure doubled as a gallery in a palace and the stacks of a library.   I am not quite so satisfied with the costumes.  The queen's white gown with its blue sash was effective. The red and cream costumes of the corps were less so.  Philip Feeney's score was pleasant enough. It was said to be derived from the music of the period.   I am sure that must be so but I struggle to remember a note of it even though I have heard it twice.

Though the auditorium was far from full the audience seemed to appreciate the show.   There was some cheering and the curious masculine growls that one sometimes hears in live streaming from the Bolshoi and even Covent Garden.   Several folk in the stalls rose to their feet which does not happen quite so often in England as in other countries.  I think Northern Ballet can chalk up Saturday evening's performance as a success.

The ballet's tour continues to Edinburgh, Cardiff, Milton Keynes and Belfast and it will be streamed to cinemas throughout the nation on 25 June 2019.  I think it is worth seeing and probably more than once since I appreciated it more the second time around.   Marston is a master of her craft and while I still prefer The Suite and Jane Eyre I appreciate Victoria.   Her many fans (of whom I am one) can look forward to her Snowblind which the San Francisco Ballet will bring to London at the end of May and beginning of June.  We will have another chance to see The Suit in Birmingham in September

A Great Send-off for a Great Lady

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Northern Ballet Victoria, Leeds Grand Theatre, 16 March 2019, 19:30

Victoria may have been the title rôle but the star of last night's show was Pippa Moore who danced Princess Beatrice. That is not because the ballet is really about someone other than the character in the title like Coppelia or Don Quixote.  Queen Victoria has a very substantial role in Cathy Marston's ballet and it was danced beautifully by Abigail Priudames whom I admire greatly. But last night was the night the company and its audience said goodbye to Moore who is, for the time being, Northern Ballet's last remaining female premier dancer and one who enjoys great respect and affection.

At the end of the performance, Moore was presented with an enormous bouquet of flowers. Something that does not happen very often outside London (see Flowers for Dreda 9 June 2018). David Nixon came on stage and gave the best speech that I have ever heard him make (I have heard more than a few from him over the years) and handed Moore a picture of herself as Beatrice. I am a hard-bitten patent lawyer and I have seen some great moments in the theatre but I could feel the tears welling up inside me. Several members of the audience including yours truly rose to out feet.  Just as well that the curtain fell when it did because I am not sure for how much longer I could have contained my emotions.

The show in which Moore and Prudames danced was Cathy Marston's Victoria, a co-production between Northern Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada. The score was by Philip Feeney and the sets and costumes were designed by Steffen Aarfing.  There was some stunning choreography in the ballet of which the duets between the queen and John Brown, danced by Mlindi Kulashe, and the queen and Prince Albert (Joseph Taylor) were perhaps the most striking. I was particularly struck by the invocation of the saltire as the queen splayed her arms in open fifth and legs second in defence of Brown.  There were other touches that I loved like the relevés to convey excitement when Victoria met Albert for the first time.

However, regular readers of my blog will by now have sensed a "but" coming.  I cannot deny it is there but I don't want to exaggerate it.  Victoria was still a work of considerable merit.  I am a great fan of Cathy Marston even though I have not seen much of her work on stage. Most of her works that I have seen have been on YouTube.  When I saw Jane Eyre in Richmond in 2016 I described it as "the best new ballet from the company in 20 years." I think I was even more impressed with The Suit when I saw it for the first time (see Excellence - Ballet Black's Double Bill 17 March 2018). Though I admired it very much, Victoria did not have the same effect on me as Jane Eyre or The Suit.

I have asked myself "why?" as there was a lot of good in this ballet.  I think the weakness lies in the libretto.  This was a very complex story but I don't think that was the main problem.  It is never easy to create a ballet around a recent historical figure as Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Anastasia shows.  The only choreographer to have pulled it off in my humble opinion is Ted Brandsen with his Mata Hari  (see Brandsen's Masterpiece 14 Feb 2016). I think he succeeded because he kept the story simple with hardly any flashbacks, unlike Anastasia and Victoria.  Had I not read the synopsis I would not have had a clue as to what was going on and I think that would have lost me.

My only other criticism (and it is a minor one) is of the costumes for the corps.  They were clad in a stripey top and what appeared to be a red skirt for dancers of both genders.  From row P of the stalls, they looked like a crocodile of schoolgirls on an outing.  When I read the programme properly on the train to London later this morning I shall probably discover the significance of that apparel.  All I can say that it was less than obvious yesterday.

But this was still a magnificent evening. I would not have missed it for the world.  It is still a fine ballet and Cathy Marston is still one of my favourite choreographers.  I saw Anastasia when it was first staged in 1971 and have never had a desire to see it again. Unlike Anastasia, I am going to give this ballet a second view.   I am sure it will go down well at Sadler's Wells. It has already had a good press.  I have very heterodox tastes having no time whatsoever for The Favourite despite its many awards and nominations.  So see Victoria for yourself. Don't let my niggles at the plot and costume designs put you off

Jane Eyre at the Lowry

The Lowry Theatre, Salford, Greater Manchester

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Northern Ballet Jane Eyre 9 June 2018, 19:30, The Lowry

Yesterday, Northern Ballet gave their last performance of Jane Eyre of the current run at the Lowry Theatre.  It was also the last opportunity to see Dreda Blow and Victoria Sibson dance with the company. I attended the show for two reasons.  The first is that although I had never met either dancer I had seen them on stage many times. I wished to express my appreciation for all the pleasure that they had given me over the years. The second reason is that a dancer's farewell performance is often one of his or her best for he or she wants to leave on a high with the public wanting more. That in turn lifts the rest of the cast who also give of their best.

That is what happened yesterday.  Northern Ballet gave one of the strongest performances that I have ever seen from them.  They did so on one of the most spacious stages upon which they regularly perform.  They fielded a cast that included many of my favourite dancers in the company.  And, as I have said many times, Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre is by far the best work in their current repertoire.

As I have described the work already in Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre: the best new Ballet from the Company in 20 Years 2 June 2016 and Jane Eyre Second Time Round 18 April 2018 I shall avoid detail about the libretto, characters, designs and score. Edward Rochester was danced by Javier Torres who was my male dancer of the year last year (see 2017 in Retrospect 7 Jan 2018). Jane Eyre as an adult was, of course, danced by Dreda Blow who gave the strongest performance that I have ever seen her give in that role. Jane's younger self was danced by Antoinette Brooks-Daw and her tormenting cousins by Abigail Prudames, Abigail Cockrell and Matthew Koon. Mlindi Kulashe was a chilling Mr Brocklehurst (he plays baddies particularly well) and Ailen Ramos Betancourt an equally unpleasant Aunt Reed.

The novel, Jane Eyre, divides naturally into three parts yet the ballet splits into just two.  I think it would benefit from an interval immediately after the attempted bigamy scene.  Two much is funnelled into the second act. Valuable bits of the choreography such as the dance between Rochester and Blanche Ingram (Abigail Prudames) and Mr Rivers's proposal is overlooked even third time round.  That is because there is just so much going on and the senses can only take in so much.  Incidentally,  I have to congratulate Sean Bates for his role for his portrayal of Rivers as a kindly, sensitive but nevertheless lacking soul who would have driven Jane nuts.

The most important characters from the governess phase of Jane's life are the playful Adèle (danced charmingly by Rachael Gillespie) and the deranged Bertha.  Though her appearance is a short one it is probably the most important role in the ballet after Jane herself and it needs a fine dance actor.  The company had none better than Victoria Sibson. I had seen her in that role in Richmond and she had impressed me then but her performance last night was even stronger.  She threw herself into the last duet with Torres as the flames her flickered around her.  Strands of her hair - a gorgeous red - her whirling dress - merging in the flames. What a glorious way for her public to remember her!

The crowd clapped and cheered of course and quite a few of us rose to our feet but it was not quite the send off that I had expected when I penned Flowers for Dreda yesterday.  The Lowry's architecture does not lend itself to flower throws but I did expect massive bouquets for Blow and Sibson and possible one or two others. But then I reflected that this is a northern company and extravagance of that kind is not a northern thing to do. David Nixon entered the stage and gave a very good speech recalling some of her finest performances.  It clearly affected Dreda for she gave him a big, tight hug. Instead of flowers which would have faded in days he gave her a framed photo of herself.  From what I could glimpse from the centre of the stalls she was in red in full flight. "Something that will last" I thought. "She can hang it in her front parlour, perhaps." A sensible Northern gift from us no-nonsense northern folk.

Another thought that occurred to me as I stepped outside the theatre was that the company had come home.  Manchester was where it was born and it is sad that it ever felt it had to leave us. It now has a magnificent studio and theatre complex at Quarry Hill, of course, that it shares with Phoenix to their obvious, mutual, artistic benefit. But the Grand with its pillars and narrow creaky stairs and possibly raked stage never quite does it justice. The Lowry, on the other hand, certainly does. It is possible for a company to have more than one home as several American companies do.  I hope we shall see more of Northern here perhaps working with our CAT. The Lowry is not too far from Leeds. I spotted several of the great and good from Leeds sitting near me in the stalls.  Indeed, I chatted to one of my favourite artists from that city in the interval.  It is encouraging that Northern Ballet will return to the Lowry next year with Gatsby.  I hope it puts down some very deep roots there.

Ballet Black's Standing Ovation at the Nottingham Playhouse

Anish Kapoor's Sky Mirror outside Nottingham Playhouse

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Ballet Black  Double Bill (The Suit and A Dream within a Midsummer Night's Dream) 16 May 2018 19:30 Nottingham Playhouse

Ballet Black received a well deserved standing ovation last night.  Such appreciation is commonplace in many parts of the world but not in this country - at least not outside political party conferences.  There were whoops and cheers from the audience as well as claps.  Ballet Black are obviously doing something right.

Yesterday's performance was very polished.  As I said in my review of the company's performance  at the Barbican, I had been worried that Damian Johnson might be irreplaceable but José Alves has performed the male lead roles in both The Suit and A Dream within A Midsummer Night's Dream admirably.  Like Johnson he dances with authority but he does so in his own way and just as impressively.

I particularly admired his performance as Philemon in The Suit.  Returning home to pick up his briefcase he finds his wife in bed with Simon. His countenance is like a book. First the disbelief.  "Is this actually happening?" The the shock as he collapses to the floor. The surge of anger that leads to the cruel humiliation of Matilda.  The role of Philemon was created for Alves and it is hard to imagine anyone else dancing it as well.

The wife was danced by Cira Robinson who is truly a ballerina in the traditional sense  and I think this is her finest role.  It would be impertinent of me to compliment her on her virtuosity or her dramatic skills for, as I say, she is a ballerina.  What do I mean by that?  The best way of putting it is that in most performances the artists portray their character but a truly fine artist - a ballerina - can become that character.  And so it was last night as Tilly was pushed beyond endurance.  My body shook as that beautiful woman in a simple blue dress convulsed and then hung still. Tears were welling up uncontrollably even though I knew she would snap back smiling and full or life for the curtsy just seconds away.

Seeing The Suit for a second time I noticed some interesting touches that I had missed before like dancers representing mirrors, wash basins or items of furniture.  By focusing on details such as old lady crossing the street and bumping into passers by, Marston seemed to conjure a crowd.  Mthuthuzeli November danced Simon, the owner of the suit. The rest of the company danced the chorus, commuters and passers by.

The Suit was a chilling but compelling work that left our emotions raw.  Pita's Dream applied the balm.  Yesterday must have been the sixth or maybe seventh time that I had seen that work and it never fails to charm me.   I always find something new.   Whereas The Suit focuses on Philemon and Tilly, everyone has an important role in Dream.  Robinson was Titania, of course, and Alves became Obron. Isabela Coracy amused us as Puck in her scouts uniform and green beard liberally scattering her glitter and dragging dancers by their legs around the stage. Sayaka Ichikawa and Marie-Astrid Mence charmed us as Helena and Hermia. Their Demetrius and Lysander were November and Ebony Thomas. Grunting and swaggering small wonder the girls preferred each other. November also played the one role that Shakespeare never envisaged, namely Salvador Dali in the quest for his missing moustache.

Ballet Black are about to visit Scotland where I took my first ballet class and was introduced to what is now Scottish Ballet.  One of their venues is Dundee Repertory Theatre which is just 12 miles from St Andrews where there is a Dance Club of over 100 members that I helped to found nearly 50 years ago (see St Andrews University Dance Club's 50th Anniversary Gala 5 May 2018). Should any of those students still be in town on 6 June 2018 I strongly recommend their crossing the Tay to see this show.

Fifty years after that first class at St Andrews, I attended class with the undergraduates of Ballet West (see Visiting Taynuilt 4 May 2018). A few days before my visit Scottish Ballet held a workshop at Taynuilt when they visited Oban to dance Highland Fling. Taynuilt is quite a trek from any of the venues where Ballet Black are to perform but I do hope that at least a few of the excellent young men and women I met last month can make it to Dundee, Inverness or Glasgow.

My next opportunity to see Ballet Black will be on 19 Nov when they will return to The Lowry.  They can expect a very warm welcome there

Jane Eyre Second Time Round

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Northern Ballet Jane Eyre 13 April 2018, 19:45  Lyceum, Sheffield

The first time I saw Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre I described it as "one of the best new ballets I have seen all year from any company and it is the best new work from Northern Ballet for many years if not decades" (see Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre: the best new Ballet from the Company in 20 Years 2 June 2016). I saw it again in Sheffield on Friday and I am still of that view.

Jane Eyre is a very long read.  It consists of 38 chapters and was first published in 3 volumes.  There is a good summary of the story in Wikipedia.  Although it cannot have been easy to compress a book of that length into a two act ballet, Marston preserved its essence in her libretto.  Most of the characters of the novel are reproduced in the ballet.  Marston has also invented a set of male characters called the "D-men" who are danced by some of the company's most experienced members. They haunt Jane at critical moments of her life.  In that regard, they perform a role similar to that of the chorus in Greek drama.  I noticed a similar use of such characters in The Suit (see Excellence - Ballet Black's Double Bill 17 March 2018).

Many of the dancers I saw at Richmond in 2016 were in Friday's performance in Sheffield though some had different roles. Dreda Blow danced Jane as an adult on Friday as she had two years ago. Jane as a girl was danced by Rachael Gillespie who had been Adèle last time.  Victoria Sibson, who had been Bertha Mason in Richmond, was Aunt Reed in Sheffield. However, there was a different Rochester.  Joseph Taylor performed that role on Friday.

Each and every member of the cast performed well.  Blow is the only Jane I know.  The last time I saw her I wrote:

"Blow is a fine dancer but I have never seen her dance better than she did tonight."

I can only say the same about her performance on Friday.  Taylor delivered a confident and convincing performance as Rochester.  Gillespie is one of my favourite dancers in the company and her portrayal as the young Jane did not disappoint me.  However, the performance that impressed me most in Sheffield was Mariana Rodrigues's as Bertha.  She makes only a couple of brief appearances but her role is a key one.  The attempted bigamy scene has a lot in common with the mad scene in  Giselle and if she is ever cast as Giselle I should be very interested to see what she makes of it.  I think she is an artist to watch and I will make a point of looking out for her.

Once again I admired Patrick Kinmonth's sets - especially the Pennine backdrop with its dry stone walls. Also his costumes, especially Bertha's ragged dress.  The more I hear of Philip Feeney's music the more I like his work. He also wrote the score for The Suit  which was another successful collaboration with Marston.

I concluded my review of the performance in Richmond with the hope that the ballet would be revived as I had hoped to see it again.  I am very glad that Jane Eyre is back in Northern Ballet's repertoire and that it has been staged in major venues this time.  I am particularly glad that it is coming to the Wells and Lowry for I think it will do well in both of those theatres.

Excellence - Ballet Black's Double Bill

Ballet Black  The Suit and A Dream within Midsummer Night's Dream Barbican Centre 16 March 2018, 20:00

After seeing extracts of Cathy Marston's The Suit and Arthur Pita's A Dream within Midsummer Night's Dream at Ballet Black's rehearsal studios on 25 Feb 2018, I wrote that I was confident that this year's tour would be Ballet Black's most successful yet (see Visiting Friends - Ballet Black at Home  7 March 2018).  And so it has proved.  I don't think I have ever seen them dance better. I don't think I have ever seen their audience more thrilled.

I was led to Ballet Black by Sarah Kundi whom I admired greatly when she danced in Leeds. When she left Ballet Black I was desolate. How could the company be the same without her?  But it did and became even better (see Ballet Black is still special 7 Nov 2013).  A few years later it lost another of my favourite dancers, Kanika Carr with her beautifully expressive face and laughing eyes. Again, I felt bereft but the company recruited beautiful new dancers and was stronger still.  And then Damian Johnson, my male dancer of the year for 2017, returned to the United States. How could Ballet Black ever recover from his departure? For a moment I feared they couldn't (see Ballet Black post Johnson - Still a good performance but something was missing 19 Nov 2017).  But it has for last night's performance was outstanding.  Walking back to my hotel I realized that Ballet Black is like a living thing, greater than the sum of its parts and capable of regenerating itself even after it loses an important member.

Cathy Marston's The Suit is based on Can Themba's short story which was made into a powerful film in 2016 and stage play, Briefly it is about a husband who punishes his wife's infidelity by treating her lover's suit as though it were a living guest placing it at the table for meals and taking it outside for walks. The wife can endure only so much of this humiliation before she hangs herself on her lover's tie. Set in apartheid South Africa her oppression is compounded by the repression of the state. The austerity under which even highly educated Africans were obliged to live was represented by skeletal furniture and a percussive score.  Particularly effective was the crumbling wall of sound that accompanied the mind shattering discovery of a stranger in the marital bed.

The wife, Matilda or Tilly, was danced by Cira Robinson.   Perhaps her finest performance in any ballet and certainly the most dramatic.  José Alves was Philemon her husband.  Another stunning performance. Simon, the lover, the owner of the suit was Mthuthuzeli November.  The rest of the company danced neighbours in Sophiatown.   In the programme they are described as a "chorus".  The use of a chorus is a technique that I noticed in Jane Eyre, the other Marston ballet that I have seen recently.  The choreographer will no doubt correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is the balletic equivalent to Greek drama. I find it very effective.

After that stage suicide - not the first I have seen in the last few months (Las Hermanas in Northern Ballet's MacMillan Celebration and English National Ballet's Le Jeune Homme et la Mort in Tamara Rojo at Last! Le Jeune Homme et la Mort and La Sylphide) we needed a bit of cheer and Arthur Pita provided it with A Dream within A Midsummer Night's Dream.  This was the fifth time that I have seen that ballet and I love it.  I love Isabela Coracy's playful Puck in boy scout uniform, Titania's infatuation with Bottom (November), the delicious girlishness of Hermia and Helena (Marie Astrid Mence and Sayaka Ichikawa) and Oberon's grunting with his butterfly net. Alves danced Oberon beautifully, with gravitas tempered with levity.  I love the music and although I am still not sure how Salvador Dali fits into the story I love him and his moustache too.  In this staging of the work November glides in with a Dali dead.  I love the music, particularly the Yma  Suma and the stately Handel with the girls in classical tutus at the beginning and the end.

I had originally planned to see the double bill tonight and had a ticket for the centre stalls but on learning of the talk I asked the theatre to exchange it for whatever it had for yesterday so that I could attend the discussion.  Actually I did very well for I was in the centre of row B of the gallery commanding a great view of the stage with the most vocal and appreciative section of the crowd.  I am so glad that I stayed for the talk because Cira Robinson was magnificent.  She spoke about her art with passion.  I have always admired her. Yesterday my respect increased 200%. But there was another treat. Arthur Pita was in the audience and he spoke how Shakespeare had inspired his Dream and his love for every piece of the score.

Finally, on the way out to Silk Street I spotted some of the dancers. If they read this review they would have known how much I loved last night's performance. But yesterday I could tell them in person and that was so much more satisfying.

Visiting Friends - Ballet Black at Home

The View from outside the Feathers

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The day before I left for Amsterdam while the Beast form the East was still stalking its lair I visited Ballet Black for a rehearsal of extracts from Arthur Pita's  A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cathy Marston's The Suit which the company will present at the Barbican between 15 and 17 March 2018. Every performance of that show is now sold out but the company will take it on tour to Newbury, Hatfield, Bristol, Nottingham, Inverness, Dundee and Exeter in Spring and no doubt Leeds and other venues in the North in the Autumn (see the Performances page of Ballet Black's website).

Pita's Dream is already a favourite with audiences and critics. I raved about it in 2014 when I saw it no less than 4 times in London, Southport, Nottingham and Leeds (see Extra Special - Ballet Black at the Linbury 26 Feb 2014  27 Feb 2014 and the links to other reviews and articles). The Suit also promises much with music by Philip Feeney and designs by Jane Heather.  As I don't want to spoil the anticipation of either ballet, all I will say at this stage is that Cira Robinson delighted me again as a regal Titania and Isabela Coracy as a playful Puck, Marston's work is dramatic and I was reminded of Jane Eyre and Rochester in the duet and the demons from Marston's work for Northern Ballet in the extract that was performed for us.

The rehearsal took place in Ballet Black's new studios at The Feathers Association in Lisson Grove. That's not a part of London that I know well and as Hull Trains delivered me to King's Cross with a couple of hours to spare I explored the neighbourhood.  It is largely residential with few places to eat though I managed to find a cafe a few hundred yards from the studios that served some excellent Moroccan specialities for a very reasonable price. The Feathers is positioned on a bridge above the railway tracks leading to Marylebone station from which the above photo must have been taken.

The visit was a special event for Friends of the company.  If you are not already a Friend, Thandie Newton, the company's patron, lists some of the benefits of membership:

"Internationally recognised for its vital message of giving black and Asian dancers the professional opportunities they merit based solely on their talent and dedication, Ballet Black continues to amaze. As a Friend, you will be making a valuable contribution to the sustainability of this small yet hugely significant company and will support its ongoing commitment to aspiring dancers and to its ever increasing and loyal audience. In return, Ballet Black will welcome you behind the scenes to watch Company rehearsals under the exceptional eye of Artistic Director, Cassa Pancho as well as with acclaimed guest choreographers. You will receive quarterly newsletters to keep you up-to-date about news, events and performances so you will never miss out."

After the show, the company invited us for tea and biscuits in their office where the dancers joined us. It was very pleasant to see them all again.  The only one I did not already know was Ebony Thomas who had impressed me in Leeds in November and I took the opportunity to introduce myself to him.

I am confident that this year's tour will be Ballet Black's most successful yet.  I shall watch the show on Friday 16 after which there will be a post show talk.   The next day there will be an open rehearsal and workshop as part of the Barbican OpenFest.  According to the blurb:

"Cassa Pancho (Artistic Director of Ballet Black) will conduct a Ballet Class for all ages on the Barbican Freestage, prior to Ballet Black's open rehearsal and performance on Saturday evening in the Barbican Theatre. This workshop is free and open to all, no prior experience necessary."

I can hardly wait.

Happy Birthday Terpsichore! My Best Memories of the Last Four Years

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I started this blog with a review of Ballet West's performance of The Nutcracker at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre on 25 Feb 2013 so Terpsichore is four years old today. Many happy returns, old girl.  Long may you flourish. She has certainly grown a bit since then. When I started her Terpsichore received 269 page views in the whole of February 2013. Admittedly it was a very short month though one in which I wrote 5 articles. This month she has already received 23,222 hits and there are still three more days to run.

I thought I would celebrate Terpsichore's birthday by recalling some of the highlights of the last 4 years. These are events that mean a lot to me though perhaps maybe not so much to you.  It has taken me a long time to compile this list because there have been 887 posts since 2013. Eventually. I drew up a long list of 37 posts. It has been painfully difficult to decide what to include and what to leave out.

Memory #10:  My First Performance

I will get rid of the personal stuff first.  One of the most exciting things that happened to me was to dance on the stage of the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in the studios of Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance Theatre before a capacity audience on the 28 June 2014 (see The Time of My Life 28 June 2014). My daughter manquée and her son and husband were in the audience. The many weeks of rehearsals, the wait in the wings, the first notes of the music, leaping into the lights and the explosion of applause.  So delicious!  I have danced in a couple of shows since then but nothing beats the first performance. I don't know how we did. Mel reviewed our performance in The Dance DID go on - Northern Ballet Academy Show 2014  29 June 2014 but I think she was too kind.

Memory #9:  Jane Eyre

I have been following Northern Ballet from the day of their first performance.  I can't claim to have been there because I was at university in St Andrews in 1969 but I felt a distinct sense of pride as a Mancunian when I read about them in Dance and Dancers. It was only when I came back to the North in the 1980s that I got a chance to see them regularly. And I think that was their golden age because it was the time when they were directed by Christopher Gable. I was reminded of that time when I saw Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre at the Richmond Theatre in June (see Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre: the best new Ballet from the Company in 20 Years 2 June 2016).

Memory #8:  Miracle in the Gorbals

My favourite work from Northern Ballet is Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man in which Christopher Gable danced with Moira Shearer. Gillian Lynne had danced in Sir Robert Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals during the second world war.  In 2014 she was commissioned to recreate it for the Birmingham Royal Ballet.  I saw it in Sadler's Wells as part of the Shadows of War triple bill and reviewed it in A Second Miracle 23 Oct 2014. Really gripping stuff.  Great performances by César Morales as the Christ-like stranger, Iain Mackay as the minister, Elisha Willis as the prostitute and Delia Matthews as the suicide victim,

Memory #7:  Li Cunxin's La Sylphide

La Sylphide ought to be our national ballet as it is set in Scotland A place rather like Taynuilt I would have thought. First performed in 1832 it is one of the oldest ballets in the repertoire.  It has a lovely score by Løvenskiold. Its plot that is far less spooky than Giselle - indeed, it is timeless as it is based on male inconstancy. It is performed quite frequently on the Continent but how often do we see it here. Scottish Ballet has Sir Matthew Bourne's Highland Fling which Ballet Central is about to take on tour (see Ballet Central returns to Leeds but it's not really the same thing. We had to wait for a company on the other side of the world to bring this work to London (see A dream realized: the Queensland Ballet in London 12 Aug 2015).

Memory #6: Cuthbertson's Giselle

I have seen some great Giselle's in the last four years by English National Ballet (Mary Skeaping's rather than Akram Khan's), the Royal New Zealand National Ballet and, of course, the Royal Ballet with Natalia Osipova and Lauren Cuthbertson in the title roles.  It was the latter that really spoke to me last year, That is why I chose that great ballerina as my outstanding female dancer of 2016.  I once heard her speak to the London Ballet Circle after which I had the opportunity to tell her how much I admired her work. One can blog away till the cows come home but nothing beats telling an artist to his or her face how much you enjoy his or her performance.

Memory #5: Mukhamedov's Nikiya

Another ballet that ought to be performed much more frequently in England is La Bayadḕre. I love that ballet. I have even tried to learn a little bit of the choreography without much success despite the heroic efforts of my splendid teacher, Jane Tucker, and an enormous effort by me (see La Bayadere Intensive Day 3: No Snakes 17 Aug 2016),  A few weeks ago I was able to visit Amsterdam to see how the ballet should be performed (see Dutch National Ballet's La Bayadere 14 Nov 2016). The title role was danced by Sasha Mukhamedov and she was outstanding. I wrote:

"Mukhamedov had danced Nikiya with Daniel Camargo in an extract from La Bayadere at the opening night gala on 7 Sept 2016 (see Dutch National Ballet's Opening Night Gala - Improving on Excellence 8 Sept 2016) and she had impressed me with her grace and sensitivity. She showed those qualities again yesterday and I became an even bigger fan."

Nobody could be happier than I when I learned of her elevation to principal a few weeks later. I wrote in Sasha Mukhamedov's Elevation to Principal 10 Jan 2017 "just as Fonteyn is my Marguerite and Sibley my Titania she will always be my Nikiya."

Memory #4: Sibley with Crisp

And talking of Sibley who is my all time favourite ballerina bar none - even more than Fonteyn, Fracci and Seymour whom I also had the great honour of watching in my youth - I got the chance to hear her speak and recall her triumphs with Clement Crisp on 2 Feb 2014 (see Le jour de gloire est arrivé- Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School 3 Feb 2014), The event was organized by the London Jewish Cultural Centre which later staged a recreation of MacMillan's Le Baiser de la fée in Pavlova;s sitting room (see A Minor Miracle - Bringing Le Baiser de la fée back to Life 2 June 2014). My mother saw Pavlova dance in Leeds in 1912 and although she must have been a very little girl the impression made by that great dancer never left her and that story has been handed downs to me (see In Leeds of all Places - Pavlova, Ashton and Magic 18 Sept 2013),

Memory #3: Stars of the Future

I like to look forward as well as back which is why I like to see shows by Ballet Central, Manchester City Ballet and Ballet West but possibly the best concentration of young talent in the world is the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company.  I remember when I first saw them for the first time at the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam on 24 Nov 2013. I had come to see Michaela DePrince about whom I had already written a lot of articles. When she actually appeared on stage I was overwhelmed. As I wrote at the time: "She is quite simply the most exciting dancer I have seen for quite a while." DePrince has risen through the ranks of the Dutch National Ballet like a rocket and she us already a soloist.

However, DePrince is not the only outstanding young dancer in Amsterdam. Each and every one of Ernst Meisner's recruits is impressive. Cristiano Principato, for instance, shows enormous promise as a choreographer. His compatriot, Emilie Tassinari, combines strength with grace. I have the good fortune to have met some of those artists on a few occasions and  I follow some of them on twitter and Facebook and they are as gracious off-stage as they are on the boards. Last Summer I attended a charity show at Trecate in North West Italy in which Cristiano had recruited several of his chums from Amsterdam as well as contemporaries from Milan and Vienna.  It was a magnificent gala and I got to know several of the artists slightly better (see From Italy with Love 1 Jul 2017).

There are, of course, outstanding young dancers in this country and I saw something very special in Gwenllian Davies's performance as Juliet in Newport last bonfire night (see A Romeo and Juliet for our Times 7  Nov 2016). Her company, Ballet Cymru, is very fortunate to have a whole company of young stars. I saw another sterling performance by Anna Pujol a few weeks later in Ballet Cymru's "Sleeping Beauty Moment". It goes without saying that talent is not confined to Wales. I got the same goosebumps that I had when I first saw Michaela DePrince when I saw Uyu Hiromoto in Ballet West's Swan Lake earlier this month (see Ballet West at the Beacon 13 Feb 2017). Hiromoto is from a school that has trained more than a few Genée medallists and the only British finalist at Lausanne in recent years.

Memory #2: The  Mighty Scots

Scottish Ballet was the first ballet company that I got to know and love and it occupies a special place in my affections. I think it would occupy such a place even if I had got to know Scottish Ballet very recently because its director, Christopher Hampson, is a choreographer I particularly admire. I also admire its dancers of the present as well as those of the recent and more recent past.  Scottish Ballet has contributed by far the greatest proportion of memories to my long list. It is a dilemma to know what to include and what to leave out. Hampson's Hansel & Gretel which I saw in 2013 and 2017? How about Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Streetcar Named Desire?  Pastor's Romeo and Juliet perhaps? Hampson's Cinderella with the magnificent Bethany Kingsley-Garner in the title role.  If I have to make a choice for favourite Scottish ballet I think it must be David Dawson's Swan Lake which I saw in Liverpool (see Empire Blanc: Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2016). Peter Darrell would have been proud of them.

Memory #1: The Bolshoi's Shrew

On a warm August evening in my favourite theatre I experienced something magical in the Bolshoi's performance of Jean-Christophe Maillot's The Taming of the Shrew (see Bolshoi's Triumph - The Taming of the Shrew 4 Aug 2016). I enjoyed it so much that it was my ballet of the year last year. I wrote in The Terpsichore Titles: Ballet of 2016 30 Dec 2016 I wrote:

"There have been so many fine new ballets this year. The Tempest by David Bintley, David Dawson's Swan Lake, Ted Brandsen's Mata Hari and Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre not to mention shorter works such as Chris Marney's To Begin, Begin, Wayne McGregor's Multiverse and Carbon Life. In any other year I would have chosen any of them as my ballet of the year. But Jean-Christophe Maillot's Taming of the Shrew made a special impression on me and it would have been unjust not to recognize it."

I think that says it all.

I have had a lovely time reminiscing about ballet over the last 4 years. I hope my readers have enjoyed reading about the memories as I have enjoyed writing about them. But there is plenty more to come.  An exclusive interview with Kenny Tindall on Casanova, David Murley's report on Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's workshop at the Barbican, Joanne Goodman on Ballet Black's new season and maybe even a special report from Miami as we have a team member out there.  So come back soon,

The Terpsichore Titles: Ballet of 2016

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John Cranko is my all time favourite choreographer and my favourite of his ballets is and has always been The Taming of the Shrew (see Cranko's "Taming of the Shrew": Now's our chance to see one of the Ballets everyone should see before they die 21 Sept 2013). But in January I was introduced to another ballet also called The Taming of the Shrew to which I took an immediate shine (see Competition for Cranko: The Bolshoi's Taming of the Shrew streamed from Moscow 25 Jan 2016);

When the Bolshoi visited Covent Garden I was in the audience for the British premiere. It was an extraordinary night and the applause exploded. Especially when Jean-Christophe Maillot appeared to take his curtain call. In Bolshoi's Triumph - The Taming of the Shrew 4 Aug 2016 I wrote:

"The Bolshoi Ballet has always been respected in this country but until last night I don't think it has ever been loved. There are many reasons for that, not least the fact that the company was seen as an instrument of Soviet soft power during the cold war coming to London as it did in the year the tanks rolled into Budapest. That may have changed with the London premiere of Jean-Christophe Maillot's The Taming of the Shrew for the audience really warmed to the show. Standing ovations are quite rare in the Royal Opera House but when Maillot appeared to take a bow several members of the audience (including yours truly) felt compelled to rise."

Cranko remains my all time favourite choreographer and Shrew had my favourite of his works but, as I said in my review, there are features of Maillot's production that I think I prefer.Cranko's work and Maillot's are very different but each has its strengths.

There have been so many fine new ballets this year. The Tempest by David Bintley,  David Dawson's Swan Lake, Ted Brandsen's Mata Hari and Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre not to mention shorter works such as Chris Marney's To Begin, Begin, Wayne McGregor's Multiverse and Carbon Life. In any other year I would have chosen any of them as my ballet of the year. But Jean-Christophe Maillot's Taming of the Shrew made a special impression on me and it would have been unjust not to recognize it.