Evolve in Leeds

I try not to have any favourites in the dance world or at least not to how favouritism but I have a particularly soft spot for Scottish Ballet which was the first company that I got to know and love. One of my favourite dancers in that company was Eve Mutso and one of the most beautiful performances that she has ever given is not on a stage but in the short video A Dancer's Journey. Do cluck that link, ladies and gentlemen. Your effort will be amply rewarded.

The film is made for Dancers' Career Development ("DCD") which helps "dancers to make the often difficult transition from professional dancing to a new career by giving them the confidence and skills they need to keep working beyond dance." According to its website, DCD is the only organization of its kind in the UK and it is a world leader in dancer transition.

DCD is holding a one-day workshop called EVOLVE in Leeds on 15 May in conjunction with Northern Ballet to explore "life after a dance career, offering practical tools, insight and inspiration" (see EVOLVE Leeds Workshop 23 April 2017 Northern Ballet's blog). DCD has come to Leeds once before and you will see what happened last time in Dancers’ Career Development: EVOLVE Leeds #1.

If you want to come, here's what you need to know:

"DCD supported dancer Anna Nowak, formerly of Company Wayne McGregor will be amongst speakers sharing her own story.
One to one coaching sessions will also be available on Tuesday 16 May!

• Date: Monday 15 May 2017 (followed by one to one coaching sessions on Tuesday 16 May)

• Time: 9:00am - 4:30pm

• Venue: Northern Ballet, Quarry Hill, Leeds, LS2 7PA

• Facilitated by: Jo Wright, DCD Coach

• Price: Early bird: £30 (until 30th April), Full price: £35 - includes lunch and refreshments throughout the day. (Please contact us on 020 7831 1449 if cost is a barrier to you attending. Limited subsidised places are available)."

Here is a link to the booking page if you want to come.

Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance Theatre's premises are incredibly easy to reach as they are literally just across the road from Leeds's bus station, a 10-minute walk from the railway station (though if you don't know your way around Leeds I would recommend a bus as folk have been known to get lost) and there is plenty of overpriced parking on the waste ground behind Northern Ballet and the music school and West Yorkshire Playhouse. The local authority has the cheek to charge up to 22:00 for parking on that desert.

I've got a modest suggestion which I shall try to follow. Just as some airlines encourage us to pay for a tree whenever we book a flight, how about making a small donation to the DCD when we book a ticket to the ballet? Those swans and shades and mirlitons have already given us so much in terms of classes, rehearsals and injuries. The performing phase of their careers is limited. They have so much more to give in the post-performance phase. It is in our interests as theatregoers (and probably also in the interests of the nation) for us to give a little back.

Scottish Ballet's Cinderella

@jelterps @scottishballet Enjoy the performance!

— Christopher Hampson (@HampsonChris) December 19, 2015

You bet I will. Merry Christmas to all at @scottishballet especially to Matthew Broadbent who is greatly missed. https://t.co/VCvjNVJYH0

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) December 19, 2015

Scottish Ballet, Cinderella,  Festival Theatre, Edinburgh 19 Dec 2015

While just about every other company in the United Kingdom is staging The Nutcracker this Christmas (see All those Nutcrackers 11 Dec 2015) Scottish Ballet presents Cinderella not as "a rags-to-riches story that offers a girl a way out of the ordinary" but as a study of grief and loneliness. But it is not only Cinderella who is lonely, as the choreographer, Christopnher Hampson, explains in his interview with Alan Morrison in the programme notes. So, too, is the prince and they each find a way out of their loneliness by finding each other.

Such a prince has to be very sensitive and Hampson chose Christopher Harrison to dance that role. Having previously seen Harrison as Romeo and Stanley in A Streetcar named Desire (Scottish Ballet's Timeless Romeo and Juliet 18 May 2014 and Scottish Ballet's Streetcar 2 April 2015) which are strong male roles. It was something of a revelation that he does sensitive but he can and he did it very well. His bride, Bethany Kingsley-Garner whom I had previously seen as Gretel and the the Sugar Plum (see Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel 23 Dec 2013 and Like meeting an old friend after so many years 4 Jan 2015), was a more obvious fit. She was a delightful Cinderella -not too good to be true - she appreciated the attention from the dressmakers when they came to prepare her stepsisters and stepmother for the ball.

The other stars in Hampson's Cinderella are those step sisters and for those roles he chose the company's female principals, Eve Mutso and Sophie Martin. These are magnificent dancers.  I saw them both in Marc Brew's Exalt earlier this year (see No Mean City - Accessible Dance and Ballet 26 April 2015). Mutso has been nominated for the National  Dance Awards for her performance as Blanche in Streetcar. It must be difficult for such graceful creatures to clown on stage but how we laughed as they struggled through their dance lesson and dress and show fittings, their gauche encounters with the prince and his courtiers and their attempts to make the slipper fit.

Hampson structured the ballet very cleverly, Each Act was preceded with a prologue with the house lights up. The mourners at the funeral of Cinderella's mother started the ballet. Two flunkies dusted a chandelier before Act II. Matthew Broadbent, one of Leeds's favourites when he was at Northern Ballet, laboured at his last as the bossy royal shoemaker. For me it was such a delight to see him again. The transposition of the grasshopper (Jamiel Lawrence) for the scornful dancing master and moths and spiders for the shoe and dressmakers is another example of Hampson's ingenuity. They mirrored the real world with fantasy.

There was some novel choreography. The grasshopper's dives which startled Cinderella first time and then amused her at the next delighted me. So too were the back to back lifts in the final pas de deux between Cinderella and her prince which were surprisingly graceful. There was Martin's can-can as she tried to interest the prince and Mutso's duet with the courtier struggling to retain his dignity with this she monster.

The sets and costumes for this performance were stunning. They were designed by Tracy Grant Lord who had originally created them for the Royal New Zealand Ballet's production of Hampson's Cinderella in 2007. The were among the best that we have seen since the days of Diaghilev. The designs are almost an integral part of the libretto. For instance, the rose tree that Cinderella plants by her mother's grave with its leaves that become a face and are almost a continuing presence of her mother.

There is so much to like about this production. Even the programmes are to be treasured for their fine paper, rich colours, striking designs and high quality printing. The Festival Theatre is a delightful venue with a restaurant that serves some of the best meals and snacks that I have ever savoured in Edinburgh. Despite the Forth Bridge closures the Edinburgh season is pretty close to fully booked but the show will shortly tour Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness though, sadly, not the rest of the country.  It was well worth a trek from Yorkshire. Knowing what I now know, I would travel from the Lizard or cross seas or even oceans to see it again.

I began this year with a review of Darrell's Nutcracker and it is fitting that the last ballet that I will see this year is Hampson's Cinderella. Scottish Ballet connects me with my days at St Andrews which were the happiest of my life. I try not to have favourite companies. I love English National Ballet, the Dutch National Ballet, Rambert, the Royal and Birmingham Royal Ballets, Ballet Black, Ballet Cymru, Northern Ballet, Phoenix and many others with a passion. But Scottish Ballet was my first love and you know what they say about the first love being the love that is never to be forgotten.

Ballet Cymru Am Byth

Embedded pursuant to a standard YouTube licence


It is not often that my heart leaps when I see the nominations for the National Dance Awards but it did this time when I read that Ballet Cymru has been nominated for the best independent company award (see Judith Mackrell's National Dance Awards 2015 nominations: ice dance, flamenco and independent companies celebrated 29 Oct 2015 Guardian Dance Blog). I am very fond of that company. Last month I visited them at their studios in Newport (see Ballet Cymru at Home 5 Oct 2015). Next Friday I will be in Newport for the première of Traces Imprinted, the new work by Marc Brew, which will be performed with TIR and Celtic Concerto.

One of the reasons why I like Ballet Cymru is that they worked with wheelchair dancers and others in Stuck in the Mud. Marc Brew choreographed that work to a score by Jack White who has composed the music for Cinderella which you can hear above. Brew has also created work for Candoco Dance Company which has been nominated for the Outstanding Company award. That is another company that admire. Founded in 1991 it describes itself as "the company of disabled and non-disabled dancers". This is a company with first class productions which also manages to provide first class outreach opportunities for the general public. It is up against English National Ballet, New Adventures and Northern Ballet for that award. Even though I would normally support any of those three companies for that award I am rooting for Candoco on this occasion.

Three of my favourite male dancers, Steven McRae, Vadim Muntagirov and Ed Watson are up for the best male dancer category and I am conflicted because I cannot choose between them as I like them all. I have seen superb performances by all of them this year but the one that touched my heart was Muntagirov's pas de deux from Swan Lake with Daria Klimentova at Northern Ballet's Sapphire gala in Leeds on 14 March 2015 (see Sapphire 15 March 2015). I never thought I would ever see them dance together again and they were the highlight of my evening.

The choice is slightly easier for best female dancer. After seeing her Juliet in the Albert Hall last year it has to be Alina Cojocaru (see Romeo and Juliet in the Round - Saturday 14 June 2014 20 June 2014) though I am also a great fan of Alessandra Ferri and Marianela Nuñez. I am delighted to see Laura Morera in the outstanding female performance category for her role as Lise (see The Best Fille Ever 18 April 2015 and my flat footed attempt to congratulate the ballerina in Laura Morera 25 Aug 2015). I am also pleased for Eve Mutso to be nominated for her performance in A Streetcar Named Desire. I saw Luciana Ravizzi dance the role when I saw the ballet (see Scottish Ballet's Sreetcar 2 April 2015) but I have seen Mutso in other works this year and she never fails to delight me.

I would have expected Streetcar to have been nominated for best classical choreography as well as Darius James's Cinderella but what do I know? However, I was delighted to see nominations for David Bintley's The King Dances and William Bracewell's performance in that work. For me the performance of that work to celebrate Bintley's 20th anniversary as artistic director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet and its 25th anniversary in Birmingham was was one of the highlights of the year (see In Praise of Bintley 21 June 2015).

I am conscious that I have not mentioned a lot of people who deserve mention. As I come from the North of England I take particular pleasure in Kenneth Tindall's nomination for two categories as well as Northern Ballet's and Tobias Batley's for outstanding company and best male dancer respectively. I congratulate everyone and every company that has been nominated, I thank them all for their work and wish them all well for the future.

No Mean City - Accessible Dance and Ballet

In an Explosion of Joy 21 Sept 2015 I wrote:

"If a dancer contracts an illness or suffers an injury that confines him to a wheelchair then it is the end of his career is it not. Not necessarily. Yesterday I saw a dancer in pointe shoes - I think it was Suzie Birchwood but if I am mistaken I apologize - as beautiful and graceful as any, approach a stage in a wheelchair. She was lifted onto the stage and danced. She thrilled us - not as one who had overcome a disability - but as a dancer. She delighted us with her port de bras, her battements, her pointe work but most of all with her expression of joy."

Last night I was lucky enough to meet that wonderful dancer after she had performed with such stars as Eve Mutso and Sophie Martin in Marc Brew's Exalt at The Tramway.

This was a new work commissioned for dancers of Scottish Ballet, the accessible dance company Indepen-Dance 4 and, of course, Birchwood. The names of the dancers appeared on the cast list in strict alphabetical order without any indication of their company or rank. So good were Kelly McCartney, Hayley Earlham, Adam Sloan and Neil Price of Indepen-Dance (and of course Birchwood) that it was not easy to tell who was with which company. That appears to have been the idea for the notes in the cast list state:

"Drawing on each of the dancers' diverse experience skills and disciplines, Brew explores whether combined knowledge can exalt into movement greater than the sum of its parts, that challenges the concept of what a dancer is, who can dance and how we can create dance."

Well, clearly combined knowledge can exalt into movement greater than the sum of its parts because the performance was thrilling.  Nils Frahm's music, haunting and lilting, was interpreted skilfully by Brew. There were complex and difficult movements, especially around each of the four ladders on stage, but these elided into a continuous flow. The audience loved it for the applause at the end of the show was deafening.

I also loved Brew's thinking for ballet is for everyone not just an elite. It belongs to those with disabilities as well as those who have been trained at White Lodge and Floral Street. It belongs to those of all ages and all body shapes and sizes.  I would add that it also belongs to those of all races and cultures.  Coincidentally, the previous evening I had attended a talk in Cirencester by the restaurant critic Jay Rayner where he had comprehensively dissed some well known restaurants with pretentious menus and nonsensical jargon such as "concepts behind menus". It seems to me that such eateries get away with it because of snobbery and there is just as much snobbery in the performing arts as there is in eating.

After the show Brew told me that he had recently been appointed as a choreographer to Ballet Cymru. That is excellent news both for him and the company. It is also good news for audiences in the southern part of the UK who may see a bit more of his work.

Exalt was the first part of a double bill.  The second was Hans van Manen's 5 Tangos.  I have been a van Manen fan for as long as I have been following ballet and I love his work but I enjoyed 5 Tangos more than any of his works that I had seen before. I have been to Buenos Aires on two occasions twice and have been fascinated by the tango which is far more than a social dance style. It is a genre of music and indeed poetry as well as dance as I mentioned in my review of Scottish Ballet's Streetcar earlier this month. Van Manen paid faithful homage to that art form using music by the Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla.  The dancers - the women clad in red and black and the men in black - executed his choreography with flair. They were led by Luciana Ravizzi who had danced Blanche at Sadlier's Wells. She is a Porteña, proud and elegant and yesterday she was magnificent.  Clearly, the Glaswegians treasure her.  She received three enormous bouquets at the end of the show.

I should say a word about the Glasgow audience. Even though I am a Friend of the company yesterday was the first time I had visited Scottish Ballet's home at The Tramway. There was a buzz in the auditorium and the bar that I have felt only in London in the United Kingdom. Evidently, Scottish Ballet has cultivated an audience that understands and appreciates dance and expresses its appreciation with the same enthusiasm. The Tramway is a fine venue with galleries, film screenings and all sorts of other live performances. The auditorium appears to be at least twice as big as the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre at Quarry Hill. It is easy to reach being next door to a railway station. There is plenty of street parking nearby and Glasgow Corporation (unlike Leeds Metropolitan District Council) is not mean enough to charge on Saturday and Sunday evenings.  A whole new meaning to "No Mean City".

Scottish Ballet traces its origins (as does Northern Ballet) to Western Theatre Ballet in Bristol. I first got to know it when it moved to Scotland in 1969. It is great to see how it has flourished into the United Kingdom's other world class ballet company. By working as equals with Marc Brew and Indepen-Dance Scottish Ballet  has (n my eyes at least) added to its glory.

Object of Desire

It is nowadays a very rare treat to see Scottish Ballet in our part of the United Kingdom so we must make the most of them when they do come. They have already danced The Nutcracker in Newcastle and they are bringing A Streetcar Named Desire to Sadler's Wells for three performances at the end of this month and the beginning of next.

They are then taking it to the USA for much of May visiting racking up the air miles between Chicago, Texas, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington DC though curiously not New Orleans where the ballet is set.

My appetite for the ballet has been whetted by the conversation between Christopher Hampson and Eve Mutso in the A Streetcar Named Desire Uncut. Do watch it.

Like meeting an old friend after so many years

Scottish Ballet's The Nutcracker Festival Theatre, Edinburgh 3 Jan 2015


I'd been looking forward to seeing Peter Darrell's version of The Nutcracker all year. It's dangerous to set your heart on something that much because high expectations are rarely satisfied. But from the moment Richard Horner raised his hands it was pure delight. Like meeting an old university friend half a century on.

And in a sense that was just what it was. I was introduced to Scottish Ballet by John Steer in 1969 (see Scottish Ballet 20 Dec 2013). Darrell died in 1987 (Peter Darrell 9 March 2014) and I cannot recall when I last saw one of his ballets. Tonight I was reminded of Darrell's brilliance.  It was one of the reasons I fell in love with Scottish Ballet and why the company continues to occupy a special place in my affections.

Darrell's Nutcracker is of the traditional kind. Clara remains a child unlike the Eagling and Grigorovich versions (see The Nutcracker reference page and my reviews of Cracking! 14 Dec 2013 and Clara grows up- Grigorovitch's Nutcracker transmitted directly from Moscow 21 Dec 2014), She does not morph into the sugar plum. There are no gimmicky balloons, flying boats or expanding Christmas trees. Above all there has been no attempt to shift the location of the ballet from Hoffmann's original location to the banks of the Thames or even The Neva.

But there are some interesting features. In the prologue Drosselmeyer transformed an urchin into a handsome youth. Clara's troublesome little brother Fritz was given a toy rat for Christmas with which he tormented the women folk foretelling the battle between rodents and toy soldiers. The mice are children - girls as well as boys. The struggle was short and sweet and the nutcracker despatched the rat king without any help from Clara. One of the divertissements is a hornpipe reminiscent of Pineapple Poll danced to music that I cannot recall hearing before. Best of all were two great monkeys who parked themselves either side of Clara. They amused the crowd with antics that would not be encouraged in the drawing rooms of Morningside or Bearsden.

My seat was in the centre of the first row with a full view of the orchestra pit. I had never been so close to an orchestra before. I could see every movement of every player which was almost as fascinating as the ballet. I watched them in the "la la" vocals snow flake scene to see whether they had a choir as Festival once did. I thought I saw the woodwind players mouth the tune but I think Horner must have used a previous recording.

As advertised Erik Cavallari danced the nutcracker, Bethany Kingsley-Garner the sugar plum, Owen Thorne Drosselmeyer, Amy Pollock Clara and Remi Anderson as King Rat but Eve Mutso was the snow queen. All danced well but in many ways the biggest stars were the children from Scottish Ballet Associates and the Dance School of Scotland who showed considerable stage presence as well as good technique. Amy Pollok was a great Clara. The other big star was the designer Lez Brotherston who created a gorgeous kingdom of the sweets out of Christmas tree baubles and barricades for the mice out of outsize apple cores, boiled sweets and assorted cheeses.

The day I danced in public David Nixon stood next to me on the landing overlooking the foyer of Northern Ballet. The audience, which consisted largely of proud parents, siblings and friends of the dancers so was less than impartial, erupted in generous applause and emptied out of the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre chirping and chattering. "It's the best sound in the world" said Nixon. "They really enjoyed it". It was the same last night. The auditorium, which was packed to the gunwales, exploded with clapping and we stepped into Nicholson Street on a high. I've reviewed six productions of The Nutcracker since I started this blog and have enjoyed them all but this is the one I like best.