Sir Frederick Ashton created Birthday Offering to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Ballet. I was reminded of Ashton's ballet yesterday when I attended Ballet Cymru's performance ofThe Sleeping Beautyat Theatr Clwyd in Mold for two reasons. First. Ballet Cymru is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Secondly, the show took place on the birthday of one of the dancers.
Ballet Cymru employs no more than a dozen dancers at any time, yet still manages to stage full-length productions. Last year, it presented Giselle which impressed me greatly (seeBallet Cymru's Giselle 3.0 14 June 2025). In previous years, I had been impressed by its Romeo a Juliet (see A Romeo and Juliet for our Times7 Nov 2016) and its Cinderella (see Ballet Cymru's Cinderella Second Time Round3 June 2018. Wherever possible, Ballet Cymru places its ballet in a Welsh setting, often introducing characters from the Mabinogion or Welsh folklore. The stage never seems empty because dancers fill more than one role, sometimes challenging gender stereotypes, as in last year's Giselle, where half the wilis were men.
Choreographers Darius James and Amy Doughty applied that formula to Perrault's tale with great success. Several members of the audience took to their feet at the curtain call while every solo or pas de deux was greeted with cheers and sustained clapping from the back of the stalls.
In accordance with tradition, the ballet consisted of a prologue and three acts. The prologue and Act 1 followed Perrault more or less, but Act 2 was quite different. The last Act was called a "Celebration" rather than a wedding, but it was very much the same idea.
James and Doughty introduced a new set of characters. The sleeping beauty was called Seren (which means "Star" in Welsh) rather than Aurora. Her parents were Modron (Protector of the Earth) and Gwilym, who is described simply as Seren's Dad. Aurora and her parents did not seem to be royalty, and Elen (Protector of Light), Gwydion (Protector of the Forest), Rhiannin (Protector of Animas) and Dyrnwyn (Protector of Fire) were no fairies. Arianrhod (protector of the Moon) performed more or less the same role as Carabosse. There was no lilac fairy, but Modron seemed to enjoy similar powers. There was one completely new character called Brân. He was Seren's childhood friend, and it was he who woke Seren from her slumbers.
Despite the different characters and changes to the story, I was glad to see that much of Petipa's choreography had been preserved. Even though there were no fairies, the Protectors danced something close to the fairy variations. Beth Meadway had taught those dances to Powerhouse Ballet when she was still with Ballet Cymru (see Sleeping Beauty Workshop19 March 2023). A variation of the rose adagio was performed in Act 1. There were still bluebirds in the Celebration even though their costumes were a different colour. The only significant absence was the white cat and Puss 'n Boots. Ballet Cymru has dancers who would enjoy that divertissement.
Gwenllian Davies danced Seren. 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 saw in that talented young artist what Shakespeare must have imagined."
She never fails to delight, and she performed magnificently last night. She was partnered gallantly by Karmal Singh,who danced Brân. He is athletic and energetic and evidently trained in the Russian tradition. The other lead female role was Madron, which was danced by Isobel Holland. In many ways this was an even more demanding role than Seren's because Modron combines both mother and Lilac Fairy. She danced that role with flair and grace. Mika George Evans, who danced Arianrhod, also impressed me. She is an accomplished character dancer, and I look forward to seeing her in other character roles. I also commend Jacob Hornsey, who danced Gwilym, Maya Roueche, who danced Elen, Joe Burdett, who danced Gwydion, Siân James, who danced Rhiannon and Oliver Bocero, who danced Dyrnwyn.
Credit is also due to Chris Illingworth for his lighting designs, Frank Duffy for his projected images and Angharad Spenncer for Seren's costumes. Other sets and costumes seem to have been designed by members of the company.
Before the show, the audience was treated to a curtain raiser by the students of Ysgol Ty Ffynnon. They are part of the Duets programme, which introduces dance to children throughout Wales, particularly those in inner cities and rural areas who might otherwise not experience it. This is a two-year programme, and I was impressed by the skills that the students had acquired since I last saw them. After their show, the students were conducted to the back of the stalls where they formed the liveliest and most enthusiastic section of the audience.
Wales has a very distinct folk dance tradition as Ameer discovered in this Hansh video for S4C, There is a very broad foundation on which to build a dancing nation.
I described Darius James and Amy Doughty's new production in Ballet Cymru's Giselle 3.0and 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.
Scene from Act Two of the Original Performance of Fisekke
Ballet Cymru GisellePontio 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.
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 Dreamthe 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.
"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 Reimagined9 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.
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 1takes 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 Gisellewhich 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 musicI 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 artat 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 Circle29 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 Giselles15 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.
Standard YouTube Licence Ballet Cymru Rome a Juliet31 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 Times7 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 Newport14 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.
Standard YouTube Licence Ballet Cymru CinderellaWaterside Arts Centre, Sale 2 June 2018, 19:30
I expected great things from Wales's national ballet company (seeBallet Cymru 2018 Summer Tour 21 April 2018). I was not disappointed. Cinderellais the best work in Ballet Cymru's repertoire and their Cinderella is (in my humble, northern, rustic opinion) pretty well the best anywhere. But then what do I know? After all, I have only seen Ashton's, Bintley's, Bourne's, Gable's, Hampson's, Nixon's, Ratmansky's, Wheeldon's and probably one or two others that I have forgotten. While I love nearly all those other works, Darius James and Amy Doughty's is the one I love best.
There are four reasons why I love James and Doughty's version so much. The first is that it is very pure. The libretto sticks closely to Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's story which is actually quite short and very tight. So, too, is the ballet. As I noted in Ballet Cymru's Cinderella15 June 2015:
"This is a very tight production that adapts well to touring with ingenious costume and stage design and lighting. It is dramatic and poignant in parts but also witty. It is exactly the right length. It tells the story in full but does not drag for a second. It makes maximum use of the company's small but very talented troupe of dancers."
That brings me on to the second reason why that ballet is so good which is that James and Doughty give every character his or her moment in the spotlight. Let me give just one example. In the first act Cas (Cinderella's stepbrother) spins Seren (her stepsister) spectacularly around the stage. Those names lead me to the fourth point. The ballet is very Welsh by which I mean that it is free of frippery and frivolity like a Calvinist chapel but, like the singing that might emanate from such chapel, emotionally very strong. And most Welsh of all (the fourth reason why I love this ballet) is Jack White's simple, moving, beautiful score.
There have been a few changes to the production since 2015. The company relies heavily on its lighting design to set the scene and there seem to have been some new projections. There seem to be fewer voice overs from the Grimms' text. The ballet opens with the words:
"Dear child, remain pious and good, and then our dear God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you."
But I can't remember any others which is a shame because I think they were useful cues for the audience in the performance that I saw in Lincoln. I think there may have been some minor changes to the libretto. I remember a chair in which Cinderella's mother died which seems to have disappeared but I do not remember a bike for Prince Madoc or his chum Maldwyn which seems to have added this time.
The biggest change of all, of course, is in the dancers who have joined the company. Beth Meadway was an enchanting Cinders. Before the show I noted on Facebook that she comes from Hull, the city of Xander Parish and Kevin O'Hare. Xander picked it up and reacted with a "like". Well, all I can say is that they would both have been proud of their fellow codhead. Another dancer who impressed Gita, in particular, was Eka Mastrangelo. Gita, who has studied Indian dance as well as ballet, noticed how Eka moved. "She must have studied Bharatanatyam" remarked Gita during the interval. And so it transpired when we met the cast briefly after the show. Eka also confirmed that she worked with her eyes which help to tell the story in Indian dance. Gita also had a fair old chinwag with Alex Hallas who comes from Baildon near Bradford, another city that has produced more top class dancers. I congratulated Isobel Holland who doubled as Cinderella's dying mum and the bird that looked after her and Maria Teresa Brunello who danced Seren.
It was good also to see again the dancers we already knew: Robbie Moorcroft who danced Prince Madoc, Miguel Fernandes who danced Maldwyn and Dan Morrison who danced Cinderella's father.
Much as I love this ballet there is one aspect that saddens me deeply. The last time I saw it was a rehearsal of the second act that the company performed in its studio for the members of the London Ballet Circle (see Ballet Cymru at Home5 Oct 2015). Maldwyn was danced by Mandev Sokhi who died a few days later. Mandev was a beautiful dancer. What was particularly poignant last night is that he had connections with Cheshire. He certainly trained there - possibly at the Hammond. In Remembering Mandev Sokhi 27 Nov 2015 I wrote:
"Mandev will be remembered tonight far beyond Newport and indeed well beyond Wales for he danced wth Ballet Cymru in every part of the United Kingdom."
I suggested two practical ways of remembering him one of which was to attend an even that has now passed. The other is still available and that is to become a Friend of the company. Ballet Cymru is a national treasure not just of Wales but of the whole United Kingdom and we owe it to ourselves to help it grow and flourish.
If you you live in Northwest England and missed the show last night you can still catch it tonight in Preston, Otherwise you will have to travel. But like a restaurant in the Guide Rouge with three rosettes, this show is well worth the journey.
