Kia Ora! The Royal New Zealand Ballet in Leeds

Royal New Zealand Ballet: "A Passing Cloud", Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, 4 Nov 2015


The Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa which means the Land of the Long White Cloud which perhaps explains why the name of the Royal New Zealand Ballet's mixed bill was A Passing Cloud. I saw it last night at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds. The company played to a packed house which included one of this country's best choreographers as well as a fair number of dancers and dance students. Judging by the whoops and ululations with which each curtain call was greeted I would say that this visit to the UK by New Zealand's dancers is every bit as successful as last month's visit by its rugby players.

The show consisted of four works by the following choreographers:

• Javier de Frutos's The Anatomy of a Passing Cloud
• Andrew Simmons's Dear Horizon
• Neil Ieremia's Passchendale, and
• Andonis Foniadakis's Selon désir.

These are four very different pieces with very different moods each of which tugged on a different emotion in a different way.

Before I saw Aotearoa-New Zealand for myself in 1996 I imagined it as a parallel Britain on the other side of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. They speak our language, play our sports (often much better than we do), live by similar laws and there are odd bits of architecture in Christchurch and Dunedin which reminded me of home but their seasons, climate, terrain and vegetation could not be more different. If you want a crash course in what makes New Zealand special and distinctive you could do worse than attend this ballet.

The first ballet paid tribute to the people who first settled New Zealand. They were Polynesians whose achievements in exploration and navigation were comparable to the Vikings. They settled in Hawaii and Easter Island as well as New Zealand and just about every island in between.  They have a beautiful rhythmic language and haunting music all of which was used by de Frutos in his ballet. But although the music and verse was  Polynesian every jump, step and turn was classical.  Petipa would have recognized it all. Well almost all. This was a happy piece. Lots of primary colours. A great deal of jumping and plenty of joy. The audience loved it and none more than me.  Anatomy formed part of Made to Move when it was first performed two years ago and you can get a taste of it in the first frames of this YouTube video.

The next two works were drawn from Salute which were the company's contribution to New Zealand's World War I commemoration. As the first work drew smiles the next two drew tears, particularly Passchendale  which was about fighting, gas and death. In both ballets the music was provided by the New Zealand Army band who showed tremendous musicality. I wish we could have seen them as we did the works and colliery bands in Mark Baldwin's Dark Arteries last week (see Cock a Doodle Doo - Rambert's Rooster 27 Oct 2015).  Now that I think of it Mark Baldwin comes from the Antipodes, doesn't he.

I was reminded of another Rambert work momentarily in Selon désir in that Foniadakis like Jeyasingh in Terra Incognita had dressed his boys in kilts but that was where the similarity ended.  Selon désir was an explosion of energy. Thrilling to watch it must have been exhausting to dance. This work will form part of the company's Speed of Light  programme in the new year. All I can say is that the folks back home in New Zealand are in for a treat.  Set to Bach's St John's and St Matthew Passions, this work soars. As I had been stranded in Geneva by fog on Monday night I was amused to see that this work like Bruce's Rooster was first shown at the city's Grand Theatre (see Geneva Nutcracker 26 Oct 2015).

The Royal New Zealand Ballet has left Leeds for High Wycombe where I plan to see its Giselle on Saturday. Then Canterbury, the Linbury and Italy. If you get the chance to see these wonderful dancers grab it with both hands.

Scotland the Brave

Scotland

Source Wikipedia

Some of the most interesting new work over the next few months is likely to be performed in Scotland. Scottish Ballet will tour Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen between the 25 Oct and 10 Oct with a triple bill consisting of Javier de Frutos's Elsa Canasta, Bryan Arlas's Motion of Displacement and Sophie Laplane's Maze.  The company will dance Cinderella which its artistic director, Christopher Hampson, created for the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2007 in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness in December and January. In April and May Scottish Ballet will dance David Dawson's new Swan Lake in those same venues in the Spring.

I am looking forward to all those works. I am a great fan of Christopher Hampson and was very disappointed not to have the chance to shake his hand when he visited Leeds on 20 June 2015 (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015). I loved his Hansel and Gretel (see Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel 23 Dec 2015), Four for Ballet Central (see Dazzled 3 May 2015) and Perpetuum Mobile for Northern Ballet (see Between Friends - Northern Ballet's Mixed Programme 10 May 2015). Hampson described his Cinderella as a study of grief in the Narrative Dance in Ballet discussion. Having seen two excellent but very different versions of Cinderella from Ballet Cymru and the Dutch National Ballet I shall be very interested in Hampson's interpretation of the story.

However, the performances to which I am looking forward even more than Cinderella are Laplane's Maze and Dawson's Swan Lake. Why those two in particular? Well Laplane is a dancer who has caught my eye more than once. Like Constant Vigier who contributed to Tell Tale Steps in Leeds last June she comes from France. Not long ago I would have struggled to name a woman choreographer other than Ninette de Valois and Bronislava Nijinska. Now there are several coming through strongly in this country and abroad. My interest in Dawson has been stimulated by his Empire Noir which I saw in Amsterdam in June (see Going Dutch 29 June 2015). Dawson has spent a lot of time with the Dutch National Ballet and he must know van Dantzig's Swan Lake very well. I wonder how much (if anything) of van Dantzig's style has rubbed off on to him.

I have had some other good news from Scotland which is that The Byre theatre will reopen today. I remember the original Byre which was literally a byre or cow shed. There was a notice in the auditorium requesting patrons in the front row to refrain from resting their legs on the stage. The Byre was forced to close for financial reasons early in 2013 and I feared that that great St Andrews institution might be lost forever. One of the shows that was to have been performed at The Byre was Ballet West's The Nutcracker but that had to be cancelled when the theatre went dark and I saw Ballet West at Pitlochry instead (see Ballet West's The Nutcracker 25 Feb 2013). It would be lovely if Ballet West could return to St Andrews. It may be too late for them to book a slot for 2016 but perhaps they can return with La Sylphide in  2017. The Byre would make a good venue for other companies such as Chantry Dance, Ballet Cymru, Ballet Black and maybe even Scottish Ballet. I was on the steering committee of the first St Andrews arts festival which brought that company to St Andrews on 15 Feb 1971 though the venue was the Buchanan and not the Byre.

It was at St Andrews that I learned to dance and appreciate ballet. I had spent my first 18 years without setting foot on any kind of dance floor not even a discotheque.  I think my first time on my feet was the Celtic Society's bejants' ceilidh when I was dragged protesting to make a third for the dashing white sergeant. Later I discovered ballet and took my first lessons in St Andrews. The first company that I got to know and love was Scottish Ballet (then called Scottish Theatre Ballet) and that company still has a special place in my affections and I am proud to be one of its Friends.