Salford Pioneers

Author Philip Stevens Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed Source Wikimedia

Jeremy Bentham

Ballet Black Pioneers (Then or Now and Nina: By Whatever Means) The Kowry 1 Nov 2023 20:00

Having missed the start of Then as Now in York on 13 June 2023 as a result of acute traffic congestion in that city (see Ballet Black Takes York By Storm 9 July 2023) I was determined to arrive on time for the start of Ballet Black's Pioneers double bill at the Lowry.  I arrived at the theatre car park for an 8pm curtain rise while The Archers were still on the radio.  Normally, I can park on the second or third floor of the multistorey but this time every floor was full.  I climbed and climbed until I found myself tracked in a queue of cars in front of me and at the back.  There I stayed until just after 20:00 when the queue miraculously started to flow downstairs towards the exit.   

Had I known that the Lowry would be full I would have driven straight to Media City which is a 5-minute walk from the theatre.  Plenty of spaces there and a clue as to what had happened at the theatre car. park There was a  notice addressed to football spectators about parking charges.  The Lowry is about a mile from Manchester United Football Club stadium where parking spaces are either scarce or deare.  Whatever the cause, football spectators strayed into our space on the night that beautiful Ballet Black was in town.  

Perhaps the reason I was able to park so easily in the Media City car park is that many MUFC fans have yet to discover it.  I am told that a "Welcome to Manchester" sign used to be displayed at Maine Road whenever City played United because United fans come from anywhere but Manchester.  I think there may be some truth in that story because I have noticed MUFC shops in Liverpool and Dublin airports but not in Manchester.  If I followed football (which I don't) I would support City over United as I was born in Didsbury, I understand that United were playing Newcastle and that the Magpies won.  "Serve them bloody right," I thought,

My antipathy towards United was more aesthetic than nativist.  I was reminded of Jeremy Bentham's remark in The Rationale of Reward that "the game of pushpin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry." Total nonsense, of course, but what can you expect from someone whose glass-cased, mummified remains continue to confront visitors to the University College London nearly two centuries after his death.  I am with John Stuart Mill on this one.  Football is the modern successor to pushpin.  Folk may call it "the beautiful game" but its value does not come close to ballet. 

I arrived in the auditorium at just about the same point in Will Tuckett's Then as Now as it had reached in York when I was admitted there.  It is an extraordinarily beautiful work as can be seen from the video on the BBC iPlayer.  Unfortunately, as I have yet to see the work on stage I can't review it properly.  But readers can get a very good taste of it from the recording which I heartily commend to them.

However, I did see Nina: By Wahtever Means again and that saved the day for me.  This was danced with the same energy as in York and was received equally enthusiastically but as I knew what to expect I focused on the individual performances.  Isabela Coracy's role as Nina is pivotal.  She threw every milligram of her being into that performance.  Once again her repetition of the word "power" with clenched fists was mesmerizing. Her final cry "That's it" unleashed a tsunami of applause.  Nina was my last chance to see Sayaka Ichikawa whose departure I shall miss greatly (see Cassa Pancho's announcement on Instagram on 21 Oct 2023). She danced Nina's piano mistress.  As always she danced with flair.  She is a delightful dancer and Cassa's tribute says it all.   There were great performances by Ebony Thomas as Nina's husband, Helga Paris-Morales as the young Nina and Taraja Hudson.  It was also good to see the piece's choreographer Mthuthuzeli November take a role.

Ballet Black has recruited a lot of new dancers whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting.  They include Acaoã de Casto,   Megan Chiu, Bhungane Mehlomakulu, Mikayla Isaacs and Love Katiya. They have added sparkle.  Their company is a great national treasure which has come of age this year.   It will launch a whole new tour called "Heroes" from the Hackney Empire with Mthuthuzeli November's The Waiting Game and a new piece by Sophie Laplane on 22 March 2023.  Not long to wait!

Leeds Dance Partnership Director

Leeds Arts Neighbourhood

Author Kenneth Allen
Source Wikipedia
Creative Commons Licence

In Leeds Dance Partnership 29 Nov 2016, I noted that Arts Council England had announced that it had granted £750,000 to Northern Ballet out of its "Ambition for Excellence" fund "to support the creation of the Leeds Dance Partnership." The Arts Council's press release on the award stated that Northern Ballet will be recruiting a Partnership Director to help take the programme forward.

They have not lost any time. On 12 Dec 2016 the company advertised for a "Partnership Director who will provide strategic leadership and undertake the day-to-day management and delivery of the Leeds Dance Partnership." The post is offered on an initial fixed-term contract for 9 months but is expected to last for at least 3 years. The director will be employed by Northern Ballet and report to the Partnership Board (see "Partnership Director" on the company's website).  The successful candidate will be paid £45,000 per annum pro rata the length of the contract.

According to the job description the main purposes of the post are to:

• "Lead and deliver core programme activities, ensuring the Leeds Dance Partnership makes maximum strategic impact; 

• Support the Partnership Board, facilitating and coordinating shared leadership by the networks and working groups; 

• Ensure Leeds Dance Partnership is connected, networked and communicated with/to all partners, beneficiaries and funders; 

• Secure further investment into the partnership for the delivery of a 5 year strategy; 

• Ensure funding agreements are serviced and reporting requirements are met.

The post – and the work undertaken by the post-holder – will be overseen by Northern Ballet’s Executive Director on a day-to-day basis."

The experience, skills and knowledge of the successful candidate are set out expansively if not too precisely in the "Person Specification" (sic).

Applications have to be lodged by 20 Jan 2017 and interviews will take place on 2 Feb 2017.  An application form can be downloaded here. Although I am not a big fan of this sort of project I wish everybody who applies the very best of luck.

I have a number of problems with Arts Council funding not least of which is the inequity of asking Bentham's pushpin player to lash out oodles of tax revenue to support what is, after all, a minority interest.  As I said in

Ballet as a Brand? How to bring More Money into Dance for Companies and Dancers 13 March 2014 companies, theatres and indeed individual dancers could raise far more through exploiting their intellectual assets from licensing, merchandizing and sponsorship. Companies in other countries seem to flourish artistically as well as financially without an Arts Council. There are signs that it could work in this country. Birmingham Royal Ballet, for instance, raised £102,679 through crowdfunding in just a few days for a new production of La Bayadere in the Big Give Christmas Challenge. English National Ballet and Balletboyz raised £22,847 and £22,461 for their respective Parkinsons classes.

The Increasing Cost of Friendship

On Saturday 10 Oct 2015 I discussed public funding for ballet (see How Arts Council England supports Dance 10 Oct 2015).  I mentioned Arts Council England’s analysis of its investment inlarge-scale opera and ballet in which the Arts Council announced on page 7 that it will reduce the total funding to the major opera ballet companies by 7.3% in real terms, and shrink their share of national portfolio funding to 21%.  I was, however, pleased to see on the next page that the Arts Council gave Northern Ballet a planning figure of £3.1 million from 2015-16, an increase of £550,000 per annum on its core grant.

By coincidence I received a letter from Mark Skipper DL (well, actually 2 because one was addressed to "Miss Jane Lambert" and the other to "Ms Jane Lambert") thanking me for my commitment to Northern Ballet over the years and expressing his extreme gratitude and that of David Nixon for my past and ongoing generosity.  In the next paragraph Mr Skipper mentioned the numerous cuts and budget constraints that the arts sector (though happily not Northern Ballet) has faced over the years as well as competition from touring musicals from London and abroad.  He concluded

"To preserve a sustainable future for Northern Ballet, we have to become less reliant on Arts Council funding."

Now as an old fashioned liberal I have always been uncomfortable about asking our beer drinking, football supporting fellow citizens to support my passion for ballet which I have to acknowledge is a minority interest.  As Jeremy Bentham put it:

"Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry."

I therefore applaud any initiative to reduce dependence on Arts Council England.

However, it comes as a cost for Mr Skipper's letters announced that the Friends' subscription (though not the Patrons') will rise.  For most Friends the increase is from £50 to £70 a year but for pensioners who have until now contributed £30 per year it is a whopping 133.3% as they can no longer subscribe at a concessionary rate. A price rise that contrasts with negative inflation across the board in the UK.

Now there is no question of my not supporting Northern Ballet. I have done so in one form or another ever since 1985 when I returned to the North. I do so not because I am Northern, still less because I want to attend open rehearsals or receive the other benefits advertised on the Friends and Patrons page but because I love ballet. By the same token I am also a Friend of Covent Garden even though I hardly ever get to the Royal Opera House, Scottish Ballet even though I am not a Scot and the Dutch National Ballet even though I am a Brit.  I will continue to make an annual gift to Northern Ballet and the Northern Ballet Academy to the extent that I have done in the past even if I cease to remain  a formal Friend.

The reason why I may cease to remain a formal Friend is that there are a lot of companies such as Birmingham Royal Ballet and English National Ballet that deserve my support and don't yet get it. There are also bodies like The Ballet Association, The Vic-Wells Association and Dance UK which I really should support. Similarly there are schools and students the length and breadth of the country and elsewhere who need help.  The problem with subscription hikes of this kind is that it forces us to make hard choices.