Central School of Ballet's Summer Performance

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Central School of Ballet Summer Performance 18 July 2019, 19:30 Bloomsbury Theatre & Studio

Central School of Ballet has trained some excellent dancers.  They include Sarah Kundi who stole the show as far as I was concerned with her hilarious performance as Cinderella's stepmother in the Albert Hall (see Cinders in the Round 13 June 2019).  Hannah Bateman was at Central too.  She is my favourite at Northern Ballet.  So, too, was Rachael Gillespie whom I also admire greatly.  The School trained Kenneth Tindall whom I described as "a many sided genius", and, of course, its current artistic director, Christopher Marney, who is my favourite living British choreographer.  Central was founded by Christopher Gable whom I first saw as Romeo with Lynn Seymour ar Covent Garden.  I saw him again many years later in A Simple Man and it was that performance that attracted me to Northern Ballet as it is now called.  His term as artistic director was that company's golden age.

Yesterday, I got a chance to see some of those who will follow in the footsteps of those great names in Central School of Ballet's Summer Performance.  That is not the same as the annual tour that the performing company, Ballet Central, make each spring and summer.  The Summer Performance offers a chance to see the first and second-year students as well as those in the third year.  Though there is some overlap, the programmes are different.  Ballet Central visits about 20 theatres up and down the country between March and July,  The Summer Performance takes place only at the Bloomsbury Theatre & Studio on the 18 and 19 July.

Heidi Hall, the Director, opened the show with a talk about the School and the performance.  She reported that the £9 million appeal had been successful and that the School hoped to move into its new premises after Christmas.  Funds were still needed, she reminded us, and she invited everyone in the audience to join its "Friends" scheme.  She promised a great show and that was exactly what her young artists, the choreographers, staff and technicians delivered.

The show consisted of seven works divided into two acts:

• Jenna Lee's Rock 'n' Roll  
• Calvin Richardson's Dying Swan
• Louse Bennett's Twin Figures
• Sandrine Monin's Hidden
• Thiago Soares's Vossa Sinfonia
• Leanne King's All in Four, and
• Christopher Marney's Carousel Dancers.

I liked all of the works, particularly Lee's Rock 'n' Roll, Richardson's Dying Swam, Monin's Hidden, Soares's Vossa Sinfonia, King's All in Four and Marney's Carousel Dances most of all.

I became a fan of Lee when I saw her ballroom scene from Romeo and Juliet in 2017 (see Triumphant 1 May 2017) and my admiration of her work grew still more when I saw Black Swan at Stratford last year (see Half a Show is Better than None 16 July 2018). I enjoyed her Rock 'n' Roll best of all.  Set in a 1950s US diner or maybe a high school hop, the girls wore the most gorgeous full-skirted dresses with yards of tulle petticoats while the boys wore white tops and black bottoms.  The action revolved around a jukebox that played the fifties pop of my childhood.  It was fun to watch a turns on pointe to Little Richard.  I hope and suspect that it was fun to do those turns.

Next came Richardson's Dying Swan danced by Joseph Beretta.  Like Michel Decombey's which was danced elegantly by Javier Torres in Northern Ballet's 45th-anniversary gala (see Sapphire 15 March 2015), this was a solo for a male. Pavlova died nearly 20 years before I was born so I never saw her dance Fokine's work but my mother did when she was 3 years old and it made such an impression on her that she could describe every detail of the choreography up to the day she died (see In Leeds of all Places - Pavlova, Ashton and Magic 18 Sep 2013).  I have seen it performed twice by a modern ballerina - once by Elena Glurdjidze in the Gala for Ghana and a few years earlier by Marianela Nuñez of which I have no recollection at all.  Though I like Decombey's work as performed by Torres, Richardson's work was closer in spirit to Fokine. He took no liberties with the score.  Had Fokine created a version for a man I think it would have been like Richardson's.

Twin Figures by Louise Bennett was set to Boreslav Martinu's concerto for piano and cello.  A very energetic work, it offered plenty of opportunities to the first-year students to demonstrate their virtuosity. Some 20 dancers took part.  Clad in blue and green the effect was quite mesmeric.  It was a good piece to take us through to the interview.  At that point I tweeted:

Thoroughly enjoyed first act of @csbschool's annual performance, particularly @JLchoreographer's "Rock 'n' Roll" and Richardson's "Dying Swan". Looking forward to work by @_TSOARES @chrismarney and Leeds's own @sandrinemonin. Well done to all artists in Act I.

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) July 18, 2019

I dubbed Sandrine Monin as "Leeds's own" because I first got to know her work through Phoenix Dance Theatre for whom she created Calyx from Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal in 2018.  Deep currents ran through Calyx as they did for Hidden which she created for the second years.  Figures move about the stage their heads slightly bowed as though they were automatons.  I got the impression that the work was inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis because that was the feel of the piece and the narrative that was communicated to me - but I could well be wildly wrong.  The music which was contributed by Rusconi and Martinu added to the sense of mechanistic desolation.  A very thoughtful piece that needs to be seen again and probably more than twice.

Thiago Soares's Vossa Sinfonia was delightful.  It started with Beethoven, continued with Ernesto Nazareth, then Heitor Villa Lobos and Noel Rosa and finally back to Beethoven.  Its juxtaposition of Beethoven with recent composers reminded me a little of Arthur Pita's Dream within Midsummer Night's Dream.  The piece was the nearest we got to a classical work and in that regard, it would have done credit to Balanchine.

Leanne King's All in Four for the first years was a joyous work.  The girls were barefoot.  They wore long flowing skirts their hair in ponytails. They danced to Monteverdi's Beatus Vir (which I think means "blessed man" rather than "blessed be" as stated in the programme) arranged by Philip Feeney.  Feeny actually played the piano accompaniments with a keyboard and took a bow at the end. As a work of dance, it was my favourite of the evening.

Ballet is, of course, more than just dance.  It combines dance with drama, music, costumes, sets and more.  It grabs all the senses. That is why I described Carousel Dances as the piece de resistance in my tweets.  I saw several dancers who I think will go far.  The man who played the male lead, the female lead and the mistress of ceremonies to note just three.  There were plenty of circus thrills such as snake charmers, men crashing through hoops and acrobatics all forming the background to a romance.  Choreographed to tunes by Rogers and Hammerstein that we all know, it was the perfect end to a great show.

There will be one more performance tonight at 19:30.  If you are anywhere near Bloomsbury tonight and there are any tickets to spare go see this show.  It is one of the highlights of my year so far.

Half a show is better than none

Stratford Circus Theatre

Author Andy Roberts
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Ballet Central Black Swan et cetera  14 July 2018 19:30 Stratford Circus Theatre, Stratford, East London 

Ballet Central is the touring company of Central School of Ballet.  Its members are final year students on the degree course. Many of my favourite dancers and two of my favourite living British choreographers, Chris Marney and Kenneth Tindall, trained there.  Its tour of the UK during the second quarter of the year is one of the highlights of my calendar.

The lucky old South saw a lot of Ballet Central this year.  But their only appearance north of the Trent this year was in Leeds on 29 April and that was the day that Scottish Ballet danced Highland Fling in Gurn and Effie Land and the evening before I had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to attend class with Ballet West in Taynuilt and the 50th anniversary gala of the St Andrew's Dance Club which I helped to found many years ago.  I couldn't possibly miss all that even for Ballet Central.

I had hoped to see Ballet Central in London but alas alack the last train north by our wonderful, renationalized railway now leaves King's Cross at 22:00.  I tried ticking them off on twitter and you can see where it got me:

Unfortunately we're limited in terms of the number of services we can run, as the majority of track and line maintenance takes place at night. I appreciate this is frustrating if you want to visit London and avoid staying the night. ^JC

— London North Eastern Railway (@LNER) July 15, 2018

The Stratford Circus Arts Centre is a delightful theatre which reminds me of the Linbury but it is at least half an hour's trek to King's Cross whether you take HS1 from Stratford International or the tube. The tube was particularly awkward on Saturday because Bank was closed.  I looked into minicabs and black cabs but they could have been help up in traffic.   The only safe way to make the rattling Donny Choo-Choo was to

leave the Circus at 20:29 

without the chance of a shine.

Never mind!  Half a show was better than none and the but of the show that I did see was well worth the journey.

Wendy McDermott described the show in an excellent review when it visited Leeds (see Ballet Central in Leeds 31 May 2018).  I saw Jenna Lee's Black Swan and the extracts from Wayne McGregor's FAR and Kenneth MacMillan's Valley of Shadows.   I missed Christopher Gable's Cinderella which is one of my favourites in Northern Ballet's repertoire that I long to see again.  I felt so cheated as I left the theatre during the interval.   I have never walked out of a show before. Not even a bad one. To leave a good show was nothing short of heartbreaking. Although I am not a big fan of Sir Matthew Bourne's The Sleeping Beauty - the curtain climbing baby gives me the creeps - I would have loved to have seen the fairies' prologue once more.  

I comforted myself with the thought that I had at least seen Jenna Lee's Black Swan.   I like Lee's work a lot. I had enjoyed her ballroom scene from Romeo and Juliet  last year (see Triumphant 1 May 2017).  Her Black Swan combining scenes from the film and the ballet is even more ambitious.  It opened with a bad tempered ballerina banging her pointe shoes on a table thereby interrupting Philip Feeney who was at the piano playing Tchaikovsky.  The ballet continues with rehearsals and performance and ends with the removal of yesterday's black swan by her successor.   An interesting touch which might be followed in other Swan Lakes is the presentation of a white feather.  Even more dramatic perhaps than the flickering Odette in the seduction scene.

Like Wendy I saw Ayca Anil as the black swan. Wendy was impressed by Anil's technique and I agree with everything that Wendy said about that.  However I also thought she was a pretty good dance actor as was her prince, Saul Kilcullen-Jarvis.  He represented a very complex character, a bit like the prince in David Dawson's version.  The action flashed back to the ballet with clips from act 1 and act 3.  Echoes of familiar choreography and music as well as some innovation.  The entrance of the black swans with their arms in open 5th was particularly effective.  

Dante Baylor's costume designs, especially the red headdress for the women and the geometric piping of the prince's doublet were impressive.   There was a lot - probably too much - for the senses to take in on seeing this ballet for the first time.  I would love to see it again.

 In FAR - Company Wayne McGregor - 2010 - Behind the Scenes McGregor explains how he drew inspiration from Diderot's Encyclopedia and, in particular, his drawings of the human nervous system. Diderot showed how it was the brain that made the body work.  The brain is represented in McGregor's piece by an array of tiny lamps representing neurons.  Those neurons control movements of the body which are sometimes convulsive.  Ballet Central showed two scenes from an hour long work.  There was a duet by Rita Lee and Aitor Viscarolasaga Lopez and a group scene with Rishan Benjamin, Aoibh Ní Riain Broin,  Hitomi Nishizawa,  Hikari Uemura, Olivia Van Niekerk, Harris Beattie, Thomas Harden and Kevin Memeti.  Not an easy piece to dance, I should have thought, particularly with Ben Frost's multilayered score.  Again, I need to see this work again - and perhaps more than once - to appreciate and understand it fully.

The extract from Valley of Shadows was a beautiful dance for four: Mical Klara Coxill, Saul Kilcullen-Jarvis, Jamie Wallis and Scot Baldie set to Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence. This scene shows the Finzi-Contini family in the seclusion of their garden before their lives are shattered by deportation to a concentration camp in Germany.  Wendy referred to sad and dark undertones and that is because we know what happened to the family.

Knowing that I would have to leave early to catch the rattling Donny choo-choo I booked a seat in the balcony which would have allowed me to slip out before the end of the performance with minimum noise and fuss.  It allowed me to spot who was in the audience and I spotted more than a few friends and acquaintances.  That made it even harder to leave the theatre.

Finally a message for Heidi Hall and Chris Marney.  There are approximately 25 million people who live north of the Trent and we can't all squeeze into the Stan and Audrey on a Sunday night.  We have some lovely theatres such as the Keys and Aldridge at the Lowry, the Atkinson at Southport, the Waterside in Sale, the Cast in Doncaster, the Library in Sheffield and indeed the Lawrence Batley here in Huddersfield.  Do stay with us a little longer when you go on tour next year.

Ballet Central in Leeds

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Wendy McDermott

Ballet Central  2018 Tour 29 April 2018, 19:30 Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, Leeds

It’s been a turbulent time for Ballet Central since their unimaginable announcement via social media that their tour vehicle and its contents had been stolen. The vehicle contained everything from their production equipment to over 100 unique handmade costumes. Being able to see the tour and how much work had gone into making this a professional production then to hear of their plight was pretty shocking. Since then those that follow Ballet Central will know that much of what was stolen had been retrieved and also, thanks to the generosity of many they’ve managed to raise several thousands to help pay for replacements.

I saw Ballet central perform, for the first time I might add, at the Stanley & Audrey Burton theatre in Leeds.

The show was made up of five pieces in two Acts: ‘Black Swan’ by Jenna Lee, ‘Far’ by Wayne McGregor, ‘Valley of Shadows’ by Kenneth MacMillan, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ by Matthew Bourne and finally ‘Cinderella’ by Christopher Gable.

I think it’s fair to say that many will know of Swan Lake even if never having had the pleasure of seeing it. What Jenna Lee gave us in Black Swan was something very different, yet still referencing the classical ballet loved by so many with Tchaikovsky’s music and the beautiful swans (who looked marvellous in their black tutus). The mood was much darker, echoing the film The Black Swan. In this version however, it was not the ballerina that experienced the hallucinations, it was the Prince, confused and a little disoriented by what he was experiencing. Ayca Anil danced the principal role. Her technique seemed solid, the développés clean with extensions reaching the heights that we see in professional ballet companies of today. I thought her ports de bras were lovely, as were the swans' dancing in the corps, with their elegant swan arms, and I thought the acting of her character expressed the sultriness befitting of a temptress.

The second piece in the programme was a complete contrast of contemporary choreography. At times there was so much happening on the stage between the 10 dancers I didn’t know who to watch however there were dancers that stood out with their stage presence alone. As with most, if not all art, it’s subjective; contemporary is not a style that I personally favour, however if its premise is to showcase the movement of body and mind in fusion then this choreography does that. The Guardian (Luke Jennings to be precise) wrote of the piece when it appeared on stage:

“Muse too intently on notions of embodiment and you stop seeing the living bodies in front of you. They're the story, ultimately.”

It was a challenging piece for young dancers but on comparing clips from the original, they all performed with confidence and flare, speed and agility given that these students are on the cusp of their professional careers, potentially joining companies with both classical and contemporary repertoire, they need to be able to show their depth and breadth of skill in both styles. This choice of piece allowed them to do just that. There were three dancers that, for me anyway, particularly shone. Again, it was as much about their stage presence as their technique and quality of movement. Luckily one of those dancers has their photograph in the programme so easy to identify.

Act I closed with Valley of Shadows by MacMillan. Yet another personally unknown piece, though reading the synopsis it has very sad and dark undertones, the programme describing it as “the fate of an Italian Jewish family under fascism, Nazi occupation and the horrors of the death camps.”
Being a cast of four, the spotlight was on all the dancers. The cast had the fantastic fortune of being coached by Alessandra Ferri and Guy Niblett, who were original cast members when it was first performed at Covent Garden in March 1983. What a luxury for these dance students to inherit the experience and knowledge of these dancers to have it passed down to them. We had already seen Ayca Anil in the opening excerpt so her performance was assured, this time it allowed the male dancers the chance to show off their skills, in particular their partnering skills and they all performed with aplomb.

After the interval of 20 minutes, Act II opened with an excerpt of The Sleeping Beauty (Fairies Prologue). Gone were the tutus of the classic work, instead we saw costumes worthy of comic superheroes, of beautiful colour and imagination. It was a showcase indeed for the six dancers on stage and each deserved and duly received acknowledging applause from the audience, appreciative of the individual performances. Even the Princess Aurora as a baby in her cradle received applause in her own right as the crying baby which only added to the characterisation, humour and lightness of the whole piece.

The finale of the night was Christopher Gable's Cinderella and the audience were treated to a 30 minute shortened piece of this well known fairy tale. Despite the story depicting the ill treatment of Cinderella by her step mother and children, the performance felt just as much a celebration and in some ways echoed the journey that a dancer takes throughout their student life. The celebratory dance by the cast of apple pickers and wedding guests was light, airy and quite joyous to watch. In particular the green colour in the costumes reflecting the fresh apples that they had harvested that day expressed the emotion and worked well on stage, as if to say that the whole cast had now come of age in their early training careers and ready to advance into professional performers and spread their wings far and wide. Both the young and older Cinderella were emotive and expressive and i’m sure they, and all the touring company of 2018 will have careers to be proud of.

I’d like to give a mention to Rishan Benjamin and Harris Beattie as my own personal ones to follow in the future. There was another young woman in Far that unfortunately i’m unsure of her name. Looking at the cast list it was possibly Hikari Eumura (but perhaps Ballet Central would like to confirm?).

Finally, congratulations to all the performers and all those behind the scenes for making a thoroughly enjoyable evening of dance theatre.

Triumphant

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Ballet Central, Mixed Programme, Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre 28 April 2017

Ballet Central has aways been good and, having met Christopher Marney at several Ballet Black and London Ballet Circle events, seen him speak, and, most importantly, watched him work I expected great things from his first season as the company's artistic director. I had been dazzled by Marney's dancing as Count Lilac in Sir Matthew Burne's Sleeping Beauty.  I have been awed by his choreography, particularly War Letters which he created for Ballet Black. On Friday I discovered his prowess as an artistic director. All I can say without gushing hyperbole is that Friday's mixed bill greatly exceeded my highest expectations.

We were presented with a varied programme arranged in three parts:

• Jenna Lee's ballroom scene from Romeo and Juliet;
• Malgorzata Dzierzon's new piece Sleepless; and
• Liam Scarlett's Indigo Children.

After a short interval, we were treated to 

• the triumphant return of Solor in the first act of La Bayadḕre;
• Christopher Bruce's fascinating Mya; and
• Michael Pink and Christopher Gable's spine-chilling Dracula.

After another interval, the programme ended with a major part of Sir Matthew Bourne's Highland Fling, a witty but slightly disturbing reworking of La Sylphide.

Lee's ballroom scene was a beautifully crafted classical piece though with original reinterpretation of some of Prokofiev's most popular music. It is very dramatic and very clever. In that regard, very like Marney.  It was very different from the work that appears on Lee's YouTube channel and website which

"..... pushes the boundaries of classical ballet, by fusing world-class ballerinas with more modern art forms such as break dancing and beat boxing, providing a world of professional bespoke entertainment for any event."

Cira Beautiful Misfits featuring one of my very favourite dancers from Ballet Black and Conflux with a beatbox Swan Lake are examples. Commissioning Lee to revisit Shakespeare and Prokofiev where Lavrovsky, Cranko and MacMillan already walk tall and create a 20-minute work to open the show was an imaginative and risky but, as it turned out, spectacularly rewarding step. I long to see the rest of the story. I wonder how Lee would rework the bedroom scene when Romeo or the conflict of emotions when Juliet learns that her husband has dispatched Tybalt. I do hope someone commissions that talented choreographer to finish the ballet.

Lee had the perfect Juliet in Amy McEntee. She seemed born for that role. An actor and storyteller at least as much as a dancer. she enchanted us with her knowing glance to Romeo and galvanized us with her expression of horror as Romeo squared up to her brother.  Central has trained a disproportionately large number of my favourite dancers and choreographers, including Marney himself. I think we saw several future stars on Friday one of whom is definitely McEntee.  

Dzierzon's Sleepless was a complete contrast. Beginning with a huddle of dancers in subdues lighting the work exploded into vigorous movement. Dzierzon had 10 dancers in that work - 9 on stage and one at the piano. My seat was at the far right hand of the second row next to the pianist and though I tried to concentrate on the stage I could not help my gaze returning to the composer and pianist Phil Feeney. His score was vibrant and exciting as indeed was his playing of it. But those on stage were great too. Representing the spray can wielding shadows of my youth who transformed every carriage of the New York subway, those kids darted around the stage one scribbling letters on the shirts of the others. A real frisson of subversion.

Yet another change of mood with Liam Scarlett's elegant Indigo Children to the music of Philip Glass. A work created for Ballet Black - Beautiful Ballet Black, as I like to call the company - it was lovingly re-staged by Cira Robinson and Damien Johnson. McEntee shone in this work too as did Craig McFarlane who had been her Romeo.

Although I have only seen two complete performances of La Bayadḕre I love that ballet. I have even tried to dance little bits of it.  Last Autumn I saw the Dutch National Ballet's performance of Makarova's version with the magnificent Sasha Mukhamedov in the title role. I had expected Ballet Central to perform the entry into the kingdom of the shades which is probably the best-known scene from the ballet. Instead, Marney chose the triumphant return of Solor to Golkonda which was an opportunity to show off the corps as well as Kanon Kihara and Jaume Ruiz who danced the principal roles. A word of commendation to Dante Baylor who designed the costumes. I loved those outfits: trousers and turbans for the men and pantaloons and scarves for the women.

On Friday I had complained that we had been deprived of Marney when I wrote All that was missing from this Evening's Performance was a Ballet by Marney ...... In fact, I had not read the programme carefully and, in any case, I should have recognized his mark. It was a masterly restaging of a much-loved work. May we have some more of that beautiful arrangement, please?

Christopher Bruce's Mya turned out to be my favourite work of the evening. Three dancers clad head to foot in tightly fitting, somewhat shapeless, almost colourless gowns moving to Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel (literally mirror in the mirror). But what could it mean?  The costumes reminded me of the chrysalis of a butterfly and there was a touching moment when the limbs of one of the dancers began to emerge from the constraint. An analogy with the human condition? The composer is Estonian whose nation has emerged like a butterfly from the Soviet thrall. Doesn't matter. The music is haunting. The choreography compelling. The performance enthralling.

Central was founded by Christopher Gable who was the artistic director of Northern Ballet when I returned to Manchester.  As a Mancunian in exile, I had read about Northern Ballet (then known as Northern Dance Theatre) in the dancing press but had never actually seen any of its performances. I thought I would miss Covent Garden, Sadler's Wells, the Coliseum, the Place ....... I did not do so at all, They continued to exist 200 miles away, of course, but on my doorstep was a wonderful company treating us to a succession of delicious works in that golden age of Northern Ballet. We were reminded of that golden age by Pink and Gable's Dracula. Not an easy watch but an enthralling one as Harker is first seduced then savaged by vampires. Yet another star in the making, Matthew Morrell, dominated the stage. Tall and menacing he induced teal fright, however, many times I reminded myself that this was only theatre.

The last work of the evening was act 2 of Sir Matthew Bourne's "romantic wee ballet" a Highland Fling. "Romantic" indeed with a woman hobbling about the stage her costume drenched in blood. Well, stage blood of course. It was Sir Matthew's take on La Sylphide which is one of the oldest ballets in the modern repertoire. I have often said that it ought to be our national ballet as it is set in Scotland. Bourne kept Løvenskiold's score but gave it a new twist portraying James as a drunken Glaswegian in a Highland glade cavorting with winged and kilted sylphs. I'm not sure what happened to Effie or Madge but Sir Matthew arms James with a pair of garden shears instead of a poisoned scarf with which he does even more damage. The sight of the wounded sylph was the second tummy turning moment of the evening, Dracula being the first.The sylphs get their own back on James after mourning their murdered sister for he sprouts a pair of wings in the last scene.

Marney chose this piece well. I have not always been a fan of Sir Matthew Bourne but I loved this work. I can well understand why Scottish Ballet currently performs Highland Fling but not the 1836 original. Much of the appeal of  this work lies the designs as well as Bourne's quirky humour.  Lez Brotherston, who had designed Scottish Ballet's, appears to have inspired Baylor who designed Ballet Central's production.

Sir Matthew staged that work himself. An enormous compliment to Marney but one he well deserves. Bourne would not be where he is today without an uncanny knack of recognizing talent when he sees it. He saw it in Adam Davies who danced James and Brittanie Dillion, his sylph. I don't know where they come from but they looked pretty Scottish, in fact totally Glaswegian to me. Especially the sylph with the suitcase wandering sheepishly hand in hand with James. So much to see in this work.

Ballet Central is making only one other appearance in the North on this tour.  In Whitehaven on 13 May 2017 which I can't make because I am in Move It at The Dancehouse in Manchester. However, I am determined to see this year's mixed bill again. Even though I shall have to travel I just gotta see those fine young artists again.