An Exceptional Weekend

Through following the Dutch National Ballet I made the acquaintance of the Dutch teacher and choreographer Yvonne Charlton.  Yvonne is married to an Englishman and visits this country frequently. On one of those visits, she gave Powerhouse Ballet a great repertoire class (see Our Best Day Yet  24 Sept 2018).  Our ballet mistress, Beverley Willsmer, who is not exactly known for lavish praise, rated her class as the best ever. Before I had even left Z-Studios I was overwhelmed with requests to bring her back as soon as possible.

Yvonne emerged from international arrivals at Ringway airport at 08:20 last Saturday    My former ward and her little boy, Vladimir, who had met Yvonne at the National Ballet gala in Amsterdam last September, came with me to meet her.  As she would have got up while wilis were still about in order to drive the 32 miles from her home to Amsterdam airport, the first thing we did after she arrived was to entertain her to a full English breakfast at John Lewis's at Cheadle Royal.

Yvonne's first engagement was company class at the Dancehouse at 13:30. As we had some time before that class I gave her a tour of my dear, native city.  I started with the castra of Mancunium at Castlefield from which our city derives its name.  I showed her the Lowry and some of the paintings in the permanent exhibition.  We looked out for a video of Gillian Lynne's ballet A Simple Man with Moira Shearer and Christopher Gable but the assistant at the souvenir shop could not be sure that the DVD would work on continental apparatus.

We arrived at the Dancehouse just in time for class and what a class it was.  It was certainly the most taxing that I have ever known and it seemed to challenge even our best dancers. "No! No! No! That's not how you do a port de bras," she said to one of our stars, forcing her head to well below her knees.  And Yvonne was not afraid of correcting our ballet mistress the very next day. Even the pliés were a challenge for they finished with a relevé and then a weight shift.  Frappés on demi nearly did for me but the real killer was a type of rond de jambe that required a 90-degree sweep from a demi plié.  Her centre exercises were no easier than her barre.  She set us a rolling pirouette exercise starting with a tiré, a pas de bourré and then single, double or dynamo turns.

As I was 70 a few weeks ago I had told one of my favourite teachers who regards "easy" as a 4 letter word that I was slowing down. Having survived Yvonne's class I know I can survive anything.  I told my esteemed instructor that I shall be back at the barre whenever I can get to Leeds by19:00 on a Wednesday evening.  Indeed, I am really going to work at that lady's classes.

After class, I invited my classmates to the Revolution by Oxford Road viaduct for a libation.  Almost everyone came and we were joined presently by Karen Sant and Mark Hindle of KNT.  For a birthday present Mark gave me this beautiful bouquet of flowers.  I curtseyed and tried to remove a single flower for Mark just as I had seen Sibley do for Dowell and Fonteyn for Nureyev in my youth.  That would have been a cue for Mark to raise the bloom to his nose and savour the perfume but I am not sure that modern principals do that any more.  I have certainly not seen it at Northern Ballet and I am not sure even about Covent Garden. In Holland, it is unnecessary because the boys seem to get flowers too.

After drinks, I drove Yvonne to her hotel near Huddersfield where we threw a little party.  Several good friends from Powerhouse Ballet were able to attend as you can see from the photo to the right.

The very next morning we assembled at the Dance Circle Leeds for a 5-hour workshop with Yvonne.  I arranged for Alena Panasenka, one of Northern Ballet's accompanists to play for us.  I also invited Fiona Noonan to learn any ballet that Yvonne might teach us and coach us in it until we are word perfect.

Our warm-up class after a late night was even more punishing than Saturday class but we set to work with a will. Yvonne taught us a delightful dance to the music of Morning Mood from Grieg's Peer Gynt.  We have been invited to perform this piece at Dance Studio Leeds's gala to raise money for St Gemma's Hospice on 12 Oct 2019.

Anyone who wants to audition for this piece should stay for our first rehearsal at Dance Studio Leeds on 23 March 2019.   The Eventbrite card will appear shortly.

KNT's Day of Dance: Rachael's Musical Theatre Class

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I described KNT's Day of Dance last Saturday in Vampires (19 Aug 2018).  While I was trying to dance like a vampire in Karen Sant's class Rachael Crocker was teaching this routine to our colleagues in the musical theatre class.  After we had performed our piece they invited us next door to watch them.

I described them as "very good indeed. Very slick, very polished and you could tell from the smiles on their faces that they were having a whale of a time."  You can see for yourself what I meant,

I am so fortunate still to be dancing with the graceful, athletic and generous students of KNT.  They welcome me as one of my own even though I am decades older, so much slower and far more ponderous than they are.  I am very well aware of my limitations as a dancer and am reminded of them whenever I see myself on film, especially when I get in the way of what would otherwise have been a much more polished performance.  Usually that does not matter but recently it very nearly did.

That brings me to two announcements to those who have put their names down for Powerhouse Ballet's audition on 15 Sept.   As promised I have spoken to Mark Hindle about extra coaching for the audition on 15 Sept and he has suggested a mock audition for those who want it in the Dancehouse on one of the Saturdays before the audition.   I will find out about availability of studio space with the Dancehouse on Tuesday but in the meantime it would be useful to know who intends to turn up for this session with Mark either on 1 or 8 Sept by emailing me at jane@powerhouseballet.co.uk.

The other announcement is that I have arranged for the chef whom Jay Rayner described as "Britain's best home cook" and "the greatest  Indian chef in Britain" to prepare a healthy but tasty energy giving lunch for those who show up at Dance Studio Leeds on 16 Sept 2018 to work with Terry Etheridge.

KNT Danceworks Day of Day - A Couple of Postscripts

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Two postscripts to Vampires, my write up on yesterdays' Day of Dance at the Dancehouse,

The first is that Karen has posted the video of our performance of Daethon and Arundel to YouTube which you can see above.   Remember we learned this piece in 90 minutes.  For many of us it was the first time we had heard David Hotchkiss's music or learned about his libretto.   Daethon was danced by Ruaridh Bisset and the lead vampire by Mark Hindle.

The other postscript is that Harriet Mills, who taught the advanced ballet class yesterday, keeps an excellent blog called A Ballet for Life which I strongly recommend. Harriet is a principal of the Karlsuhe State Ballet.  On 17 Nov 2018 her company will premiere a new production of Swan Lake by Christopher Wheeldon which I for one should like to see. 

If anyone would like to see it with me get in touch as soon as possible.   If there are enough of us we might be able to negotiate group discounts with the theatre, hotel and airlines.

Vampires

The Vampire

Author Philip Burne-Jones

KNTs Day of Dance at the Dancehouse was a great success.  I got some valuable tips on arabesques and développés from Rachael Crocker that everyone else seems to know but had somehow eluded me these last 50 years and I got to dance a vampire in a scene that Karen Sant had created from David Hotchkiss's music for Daethon and Arundel.  I would not have missed the day for the world.  Judging by the comments on Facebook and twitter, neither would anyone else who was there.

I had booked just two classes:  beginners and pre-intermediate ballet with Rachael from 14:00 to 15:30 and the repertoire class with Karen from 15:30 to 17:00.  There was, of course, much more than that.  There had been classes in jazz, PBT and contemporary in the morning. The prima ballerina, Harriet Mills gave a class for more advanced students at the same time as our beginners and pre-intermediate class and Rachael gave a repertoire class in musical theatre at the same time as Karen's class.

There were a lot of familiar faces from KNT but also several from Northern Ballet.  Several students had travelled considerable distances.  One from as far way as Anglesey which is where I plan to spend my long awaited and much anticipated summer holiday next week.  While I have been beating the drum for KNT in Leeds my Yorkshire friends have been spreading the word for Hannah Bateman's Ballet Retreat next weekend which I would have been tempted to attend had I not arranged a holiday.  Karen occasionally refers to us as the KNT family which sounds soppy but really isn't while a friend who attends the Ballet Retreat tells me that is how she feels about that workshop.  One of the wonderful things about events like yesterday's are the friendships and connexions that they catalyze.

Rachael's class began  with the usual barre exercises with a particular focus on relevés, retirés and balancing on demi with rapid turns.  Clearly she was getting us used to the idea of pirouettes. We did plenty of those in the centre including chassé, pas de bourré and turns in fourth.  I continue to find them difficult even though I had performed the exercise with two other teachers that week.  Rachael spotted that several of us were struggling with arabesques and pivots and diagnosed the problem as the position of the right arm. Similarly, several of us were struggling with  développés,   "Imagine your leg connected to your arms by a piece of string", she suggested. "You raise your arms from bras bas to first at the same time as you lift your leg," I tried that and it really helped.  "And as you unfold your right leg you raise your left arm," she added.

I was so pleased about what I had learned from Rachael that I mentioned it to Mark Hindle on the way into studio 1 for Karen's repertoire class.  I suspect that he was surprised that I had not worked that out for myself or learned it from another teacher some time between yesterday and my first ballet class in 1969.  Diplomatically he observed that it was one of the advantages of taking classes from different teachers.  I had already learned that from Marion Pettet of the Chelmsford Ballet. That is why the Chelmsford Ballet invites different teachers for its company classes which is what I try to do with Powerhouse Ballet.

Mark was in the repertoire class because he was lead vampire in the scene that Karen had choreographed from David Hotchkiss's score.  A recumbent Daethon (danced by Ruaridh Bisset) was ambushed by circling vampires. Most of us wore black as had been requested by Karen.  We surrounded Daethon menacingly with our arms rippling like bat wings.  We bourréd away to form several lines where we pivioted, pliéd, turned twice, joined hands, balancéd, pushed Daethon to the ground as he morphed into a vampire.  Pretty chilling choreography and at least as impressive in my humble opinion as other choreographers' Dracula.  There is only so much that can be accomplished in 90 minutes but I think Karen did justice to David's score.

We performed our piece before Rachael's musical theatre students who applauded us generously.  Ruaridh and Mark and many of my fellow vampires were superb and deserved their clapping though I am not sure that I did.   I was beginning to slow down after 90 minutes of hard exercise.  Rachael invited us back to studio 1 to show us what her class had learned.  They were very good indeed. Very slick, very polished and you could tell from the smiles on their faces that they were having a whale of a time.

I hope that Karen arranges another day of dance soon. Many others have said the said the same on Facebook.  Having said that I also enjoyed the repertoire workshops with Jane Tucker and Martin Dutton.   I hope that we shall have a few more of them too. Although I can attend Jane's class in Leeds throughout the year her repertoire classes were special.  I learned more about Swan Lake and La Bayadère from her intensives than watching scores of performances from the stalls and reading libraries of books and programme notes.

The Audition is now full

Terry Etheridge

On Tuesday our ballet mistress, Beverley Willsmer, told me that Terry Etheridge had given one of her best classes ever.  Having danced with what is now English National Ballet as well as a leading company in Germany and having trained at the Rambert, Beverley will have attended a lot of  classes.

The class for the audition is now full and we have a waiting list.   If you want to be considered for our first ballet it is still worth putting your name down on the waiting list and keeping the 15 and 16 Sept free.   I have relinquished my place at the barre to make way for a dancer with a better chance of being selected.   I shall try to move the class to a bigger studio.  Urgent matters and illnesses that prevent dancers from attending class always crop up at the last moment.

If we can't give you a place at the audition please do not despair.   We have a cracker of a class the following Saturday, the 22 Sept 2018 with 90 minutes hard graft from Mark Hindle and a further 60 minutes masterclass with our guest teacher and choreographer, Yvonne Charlton. from the Netherlands.  We have also lined up a workshop with Ballet Cymru, Wales's national classical ballet company, as well as company classes with Jane Tucker, Karen Sant and Fiona Noonan who are excellent.

If you want to discuss this article or find out more about Powerhouse Ballet send me a message on my contact form.

Powerhouse Ballet Update

Author Mark Hindle
© 2018 Mark Hindle: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the copyright owner

I wondered whether anyone would turn up to our first company class in Manchester which took place in a studio that lacked air conditioning on one of the hottest afternoons of the year.  As you can see from the photograph, we had excellent attendance.

Mark Hindle took the class and we had a great time.  After foot limbering warm up exercises he led us through a brisk barre, a delightful port de bras, pirouettes starting with quarter and half and finishing with full turns, sautés and jetés and a joyous final exercise across the studio.

Mark is a very thorough teacher with a great eye for detail.  I think most of us received at least one correction and I got four which I now record immediately after class in a small notebook that I keep in my dance bag.  One of many tips that I have picked up from fellow company class members.

I am now close to completing a draft business plan which I shall circulate to everybody who has attended class or expressed interest in the company.  I think we need to grow a little bit more before we can contemplate staging even a short piece.

Not everybody who supports the idea of a ballet company in the North of England can make company class each month.  Indeed, not everybody wants to dance in public.  We need to offer something for such well wishers.  One of the benefits that we can offer is an opportunity to hear and meet well known dancers, choreographers, composers and other important figures from dance in an informal setting.  The London Ballet Circle offers a good model.  Yesterday the well-known dance critic, Gerald Dowler, interviewed the American dancer, Chase Dansey, at the Civil Service Club.  I am in negotiations with various organizations about holding similar meetings in Leeds and Manchester and I already have a first guest in mind.  I hope to make an announcement shortly.

As I announced in Powerhouse Ballet's Leeds Company Class  26 June 2018 our next company class will be given  by Annemarie Donoghue of Northern Ballet Academy at the Dance Studio Leeds in Madgate Mills at 14:00 on 28 July 2018.  I have attended Annemarie's classes regularly since 2013 and have learned a lot from her.  Though she teaches with endless patience and good humour her classes are challenging.  She expects nothing less than the best and she draws out the best from each and every one of her students.  Like other teachers at Northern Ballet Academy, she teaches in accordance with the Ichino technique so expect a very brisk warm-up, a thorough barre, challenging centre exercises, a charming port de bras  and a joyous final exercise at the end. 

The class is filling up nicely but we still have some space. You can register for Annemarie's class by clicking this button. 

Powerhouse Ballet's Leeds Company Class

I am delighted to announce that Powerhouse's Ballet's July class will be given by Annemarie Donoghue of Northern Ballet on Saturday 28 July 2018 at 14:00 in Studio 1 at Dance Studio Leeds in Mill 6 of the historic Mabgate Mills on Macaulay Street.  As before I shall pay for the teacher and studio hire.  All you have to do is register and turn up.

Annemarie was my first teacher at Northern Ballet and I have attended more classes with her than I have with any other teacher.  I described my first class with her in Realizing a Dream 12 Sept 2013. While she appears to have endless patience and good humour her classes are anything but easy.  She pushes her students hard, expects the very best from them and consistently draws out the best.  You can see her in action in  this YouTube video of her over 55 class at Northern Ballet.

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As its name suggests, Mabgate Mills is located in Mabgate, an interesting quarter of Leeds with a rich industrial heritage.  There are several listed and historic buildings in the neighbourhood including the Mills themselves.  The studios are half a mile from Northern Ballet and a little over a mile from Leeds railway station.  The 42 run bus runs from Infirmary Street nearthe station to Lincoln Green Road which is close to the Mills.  There is free parking in the Mill yard on Saturdays.

We still have space on the June class in Manchester.  It will be given by Mark Hindle of KNT Danceworks between 13:30 and 15:00 on Saturday 30 June 2018.  There is no charge but you must register in advance.  You can do so by clicking the button below.

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Want to see a good show in Manchester this Saturday?

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Closer to home than Kibera is The Dancehouse Theatre at Northern Ballet School in Manchester. That is where KNT Danceworks and other teachers offer a whole range of classes in many styles of dance in the evenings (see the Classes page on the theatre's website). I am proud to say that I am one of KNT's students (or perhaps "family member" as Karen Sant, our principal, so sweetly puts it).

Last June KNT were due to stage Move It!, its summer show, at The Dancehouse but a problem with the ceiling forced its postponement.  The ceiling has now been repaired and the show will tale place on Saturday, the 22 Oct 2016. As the Move It! web page indicates the show will showcase everything from ballet to flamenco including some styles such as Chinese folk dancing that are not often performed in this country.

I had a chance to see KNT's contribution in one of the studios on the day it should have taken place. As the title to my review indicates It could easily have gone pear shaped ........... 19 June 2016 ".... but instead it was a howling success." The show that we shall see on Saturday will be slightly different because Mark Hindle, who danced the pas de deux with Karen, is performing in The Lion King at the AFAS Circustheater in the Hague (see Hindle at The Hague 25 June 2016) but I am told to expect the entry into the kingdom of the shades from La Bayadere which will help to make up for Mark's absence.

I took part in the winter show on 30 Jan 2016 which was One of my proudest moments (see 31 Jan 2016). It included the scene from Swan Lake that appears in the video above. Now we are not quite up to the Royal Ballet's standards just yet but remember that we all have day jobs or are reading for degrees and that we have only the evenings and weekends after a heavy working day or week to study ballet and rehearse. With those caveats I think the achievement of my classmates and our teachers is remarkable.

The show will begin at 19:00 sharp this Saturday. Tickets are on sale for only £5 from the box office on 0161 237 9753 or 0161 237 1413 or you can order them on-line from Ticketline. The theatre has a bar (as well as double rail barres) and is surrounded by restaurants including Casa Pancho (I know, the name made Mel and me smile too) which serves the best burritos this side of Tijuana. I defy anyone to propose a better night out than ballet, beer and burritos for so little expenditure in the entire Northern Powerhouse.

It could easily have gone pear shaped ...........

Water colour 1893

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Yesterday the dance classes that meet in the Dancehouse theatre's studios were due to present their summer show in the main auditorium (see Showcase and Move It at the Dancehouse 8 June 2016). Unfortunately a problem arose on Friday which our principal teacher, Karen Sant, explained in her Facebook page:

"As some of you may know, part of the ceiling in the theatre has come down so the auditorium at The Dancehouse is not safe to use. Myself and some very lovely ladies have been ringing places all morning trying to find another theatre that will have us but no one can at such short notice. There was an option to do next week (but I know that some of you aren't available) or postpone it to September (I said we can do another show by September!). I have asked Dave (theatre manager) if we can have a studio showing and he said it's fine as long as 1 - I know I'll be charged full rate for the studio - between £100 - £150 p/h, 2 - only 50 dancers allowed, 3 - 1 guest per dancer, 4 - it's okay with Richard (studio manager). I'm currently waiting for them to speak to each other to get the go ahead but I wanted to keep you in the loop."

She then asked the dancers:  "Would you be up for a studio performance tomorrow?"

Karen took a poll of each of the KNT dance classes which produced the following result:

"Okay so I've had to make a decision. Not everyone has voted but I can't leave it any longer. The majority have voted for studio performance tomorrow and show next week. However I've received lots of messages saying they can't do tomorrow and also lots saying they'd prefer to perfect the dances for September. SO studio performance tomorrow is going ahead! I will get another poll going for you to decide on show next week or show in September but tomorrow is currently the most important thing to deal with so I'm going to concentrate on that."

Not all the pieces could be accommodated in the studio but the class that I usually attend was one of those that could.

I would loved to have taken part in the show but I could not do so for a number of reasons one of which was that it clashed with the Birmingham Royal Ballet's performance in Birmingham of John Cranko's The Taming of the Shrew between 16 and 18 June 2016. Now Cranko is my all time favourite choreographer and The Taming of the Shrew is my very favourite of his works.  I have only managed to see once before in more than thalf a century of serous ballet going. Now wild horses were not going to keep me from seeing that show, especially as Elisha Willis was due to make her farewell appearance in the matinee performance (see Roz Law Birmingham Royal Ballet star Elisha Willis on ditching dancing for stitching 14 June 2016 Birmingham Mail).

The advertised performance was due to start at 19:30 which would have given me just enough time to catch the start of the show if I caught the 17:31 train from Birmingham. However, during the drinks interval in Birmingham I received a text from Karen stating that the studio performance would start at 19:00 and only a few of the pieces would go ahead.

As soon as the reverence was over I sauteed up the stairs, ran towards New Street which is hidden in a department store, dashed down the stairs and made a grand jete through the doors of the train just as they were about to close. We were packed like sardines and it was standing room only to Stafford but I aspire to be a dancer so I wasn't going to worry about that. I repeated my sautes and jetes and running in Manchester and arrived at the Dancehouse a few minutes after the show had started.

According to Karen the pieces that went ahead were as follows:

"Ailsa's pieces:
Beginner Ballet
Advanced Jazz
Josh's pieces:
Intermediate Ballet
Repertoire
Karen's pieces:
Pre Intermediate Ballet
Advanced Ballet"

I arrived just in time for the Dance of the Flowers from The Nutcracker.  All my friends were in lovely white costumes with flowers and they danced the piece so beautifully it nearly made my cry. I could not help but rise to my feet which I very rarely do even for the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden.

The next piece was a duet by my teachers Karen Samt and Mark Hindle. "Are these really my teachers?" I thought. "They are so good."  It should not have come as a surprise because I attend their classes regularly but one rarely sees one's teacher as a performer and when one does it is a revelation. I am told by those who have reached that stage that pas de deux work is very tricky for both partners: the man because he has to apply considerable strength in a controlled fashion, the woman also has to be strong, both have to keep smiling and appear relaxed; and, of course, there has to be perfect confidence between them. There were some difficult bits in the piece that Mark and Karen had chosen including a fish dive. I was so impressed by them and I am so lucky to be taught by them.

The next piece was contemporary to the music of Paint it Black.  The dancers appeared in black leotards, leggings and face masks. They were energetic and exciting.  The audience picked up on the energy and became absorbed in the dance. I've only attempted a couple of contemporary classes and not continued with that genre because I just can't recover gracefully from the floor in anything like the time required, There was some very daunting floor work and some difficult turns. Again, I felt compelled to rise after the performance.

My favourite bit of the whole show was my class.  Their piece included all the exercises that we had learned in class such as temps leves, arabesques and soutenus which were executed with precision and grace.  However, there was one move that we don't learn every day and that was where Simon Garner and Tyson Collins had to lift one of the girls - I think it was Katie but I may be wrong because my eyes were on the boys as I was so amazed by them. The dance finished in a lovely coming together and presentation to the audience. Oh I was so proud of those folks. Earlier in the day I had clapped my hands raw and roared myself hoarse for Elisha Willis. I did the same for my classmates. I couldn't stop myself.

The last class was advanced ballet and that was the most accomplished and polished. There were a lot of jumps and some difficult fast turns.  The dancers wore claret coloured shifts which flowed and rippled with their movements.  Collectively they projected grace and beauty and some individuals displayed considerable virtuosity.  They richly deserved their applause at the end.

I must have missed one of the performances as I arrived just after 19:00 and was told by the reception staff that I had missed the first 10 minutes.   Simon Garner's Facebook page shows several dancers in white shirts and bow ties. It must have been their piece.   I am so sorry to have missed their show,  If it is to be repeated next week or September I look forward to seeing it then.

Of the four shows that I have seen at The Dancehouse I enjoyed this the most. The dancers threw themselves into the show and I think they excelled themselves.  In the bar afterwards several told me they were conscious of that and that they wanted to put on a particularly good show to make up for their disappointment at not performing in the theatre. Also in the bar I learned that it was Katie Daly's birthday and that must go at least part of the way to explaining why she danced so well.   I hope she had a lovely day. I certainly had a great evening.

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....... but instead it was a howling success. 

One of my proudest moments - Dancing in Move It!

Yoshie Kimura and Jane Lambert

It is nearly 03:12 in the morning but I am not going to sleep until I have written this experience out of my system. Last night I took part in Move It, The Dancehouse's seasonal dance revue performed by students from its many and varied evening classes. I was in KNT's Beginners' Ballet piece which was choreographed by our teacher, Karen Sant. It was not the first time I had danced in public but it was by far the most enjoyable.

Karen had asked us to assemble at The Dancehouse at 15:30. She had told us to wear black leotards with a mesh dress, black tights, pink shoes and our hair in a bun. The last instruction caused me no end of grief because I have never learned how to style my hair. I spent a whole hour in front of three different transatlantic YouTube tutorials entitled "How to make a classic ballet bun" (or words to similar effect) getting precisely nowhere. Happily Gita knew how and she arranged my hair in a very tight bun within minutes.

Just as she had finished I caught my crowd proceeding with a purpose so I followed them. They led me to the auditorium of The Dancehouse Theatre where we all sat down. There were already dancers on stage performing to an infectious drum beat.  After they had finished the compère whom I had mentioned in Better than Eurovision took to the stage. Her introduction was very much as it had been last year but she said something very true about adult dance. Nobody forces us to come to class week after week as may have happened to some of us when we were children. We come because we want to not just to keep fit but because dance is enormously satisfying both emotionally and spiritually. She added that for the teachers seeing that satisfaction on the faces of their pupils is enormously rewarding. I will give an example of what she must have meant below.

The compère then called on the first piece which was Josh Moss's repertoire class (see A Pint for Josh 28 Aug 2015). They were performing the swans' entry from Swan Lake which was a bit of choreography that I happened to know from the Swan Lake intensive that I attended over last summer (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1 18 Aug 2015, Day 2 19 Aug 2015 and Day 3 20 Aug 2015). It was executed beautifully as was a Rothbart excerpt danced by my classmate from the intensive, Simon Garner, and another gent whose name I do not know.  We saw the whole of the first part of the review and a bit of the second before our cast was called back stage to do our stuff. Gita saw the whole performance so she will review the show. All I will say is that I enjoyed each and every piece and some (including the last ballet piece performed by a cast that included another Swan Lake intensive student, Yoshie Kimura, photographed with me above) enormously.

Not long into the second part of the show we were called back stage.  The Dancehouse is only the second commercial theatre in which I have performed and is quite a bit bigger that the Stanley and Audrey Burton in Leeds. There is a whole labyrinth of passages and anterooms before you get to stage left or stage right. Somehow I arrived at the right place for entry stage right. Our music struck up. The first step was a tendu with the right leg followed by a fondu and lunge. Out of my peripheral vision I caught Tyson, yet another Swan Lake intensive student doing those steps so I knew I was OK. We repeated those en croix. then some lunges left and right working through a plié in second, a soutenu, some balancés right and left, followed by three glissades to the right, a changement, more glisssades and another changement, a run, a temps levé, another run, a turn with the right hand followed by a turn with the left, some sautés, an advance forward, two awkward retirés, a port de bras and then lights followed by a curtsy and a rapid exit to the right. Or something like that! We (or rather I) made a few errors but somehow we got through that rehearsal without mishap.

Karen shepherded all the KNT evening class students to one of studios after the rehearsal where she and the other teachers put each of the casts through our paces. Being very old and rickety I had intended to do a barre with Sophie before the rehearsal but I never made it because of my struggles with my hair.  I did a few pliés in each position with side and back bends, tendus, glisses, ronds de jambe, grands battements and stretches on the upper rail of the barre of my own. I applied some make up and then it was time for our second rehearsal. We were better second time round. Several of us practised some of the steps once or twice again until we got it more or less right.

With all the KNT casts in the studio dancing, snacking, chatting, stretching it was just like a party. Some of us checked our phones. I found tweets and chukkas messages from far and near: Andrea from Basel (via Golcar), Andrew in Sheffield, Marion and Annette in Chelmsford, Mel in Budapest, Nik in New Zealand and Mark Hindle from somewhere on the high seas.  I thank them all.  After our studio rehearsal I spotted Jane Tucker who had taught our intensive. Everyone who had taken that intensive was transformed by it so her presence back stage lifted our morale to new heights. Mine particularly for I had taken her class at Northern Ballet the previous Wednesday and by some fluke I had actually managed to pull off a pirouette more or less correctly. Jane had witnessed it and the expression on her face was a joy to behold. I think she was even more delighted than I had been.

Gradually the studio emptied until there were only two casts left. Our friends from the advanced class toi-toied and chukkased us and we made our way back stage. We could hear the peels of applause for each of the other turns and then it was us. The saying "it'll be alright on the night" has some truth because a performance almost always lifts performers. I am sure we made mistakes - Gita has already mentioned one that I made - but it didn't matter. We danced like we had never danced before and left the stage elated. "We did it!" one us said punching the air once out of the audience's earshot.

Then there were photos and flowers and hugs and kisses. That was when Yoshie arranged for someone to photograph us which she posted to my Facebook page. I'm a bit taller than Yoshie so I tried to plier in first position hence my rather curious expression and pose.  Honestly, I had not been drinking. In a Facebook post before the show Karen had referred to us all as "the KNT family" and that was just how we felt. We got to know each other a little better yesterday. I certainly got to like my classmates and our wonderful teachers, Karen, Josh and Ailsa, even more. We all made our way to the bar and I am sure the celebrations must have carried on for ages.

Performances like yesterday's are very important to students at every level for ballet belongs in the theatre. Without the chance to dance it is just another way of keeping fit.  Nothing wrong with that, perhaps, but it is a bit like reading Shakespeare for an exam. The poetry and music can still emerge but it is strained. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to everyone who got me to this point - Karen, the Dancehouse, all the teachers at KNT and all the others elsewhere who got me started and have helped me on my way.

The Miracle that's wrought by tickling the Ivories of the Old Joanna

Igor Zapravadin.                          Standard YouTube Licence

Because last week's class at KNT was so good (see "So what was so great about it exactly?" 20 Jan 2016) I feared tonight's would be something of an anticlimax. In fact it was even better and one of the reasons why it was even better is that we had a pianist. There are some lovely recordings for ballet classes on the market but there is nothing like a live pianist especially when he or she plays something from a well loved ballet. I remember being transfixed by strains of Mendelssohn's Dream from the next door studio at Quarry Hill and fighting back tears as memories of Sibley and Dowell flooded back.

Although we have pianists for most of our classes at Northern Ballet we are taught to honour them. We curtsy to them in the reverence. One instructor, Elizabeth Rae, taught us to curtsy with our hands over our hearts. "You've always got to show respect to the maestro" she explained. A classmate who had studied at one of the best schools in London corroborated her. "They have real power" she warned. She told me a story about a pianist from her student days,

"If you got on the right side of the pianist he would play 'I feel pretty' for your turn. If you upset him he would serve up 'Nellie the Elephant'". 

Consequently I always make a point of thanking the pianist as well as the instructor though I would probably do that anyway.

The other reason why tonight was so good is that we had our rehearsal on the stage of the auditorium in which we are performing. What a stage it is!  I thought the Stanley and Audrey was big but The Dancehouse's is even bigger. When the house lights are up and you peer into the seating are it looks and feels cavernous.

Our rehearsal did not get off to a good start but Karen coached us patiently. We performed it in the studio a couple of times. Then Karen led us onto the stage. The first run through needed some adjustment particularly with the last movement but we practised it a couple of times before Karen called it a day.

I didn't go home immediately because some of the members of our class were in the pointe class and several of us wanted to watch them. I was quite impressed but Karen saw room for improvement. She drilled them as she had drilled us and the second time through they were even more polished.

"You must think I'm terrible" muttered Karen as she dashed past.

"Not at all" I replied. "Mark had told me you had high standards and expected nothing less than the best." 

That was true by the way. Vlad the Lad, his mum and dad, Gita and I collared my teacher Mark Hundle at the stage door of the Empire after he had danced two shows in Dick Whittington on Boxing Day and wanted nothing more than to get on with his Christmas (see a Liverpudlian Whittington 27 Dec 2015). It was Mark. incidentally, who encouraged me to dance in this show and for that I am very grateful. In that suggestion he was backed up by Mel who once saw me dance (see Mel Wong The Dance DID go on - Northern Ballet Academy Show 2014 29 June 2014).

Today we got our costumes which in my case is a mesh dress over a black leotard. I'd been worried that it might not fit because it is made by Bloch whose idea of extra large seems to me to be an anorexic stick insect. But in fact it does fit and I feel so good in it.  I shall be 67 on the 14 Feb so I am not sure how much longer I can keep dancing. But for the moment I can. And I love every minute of it.

So folks, if you find yourself in Manchester on Saturday night and feel like you need a break from assembling your Billy flat packs or a change from propping up the bar of the Lass o' Gowrie, The Briton's Protection or The Old Monkey you could do a lot worse than come to the Danchouse at 19:30  and watch us Move It.  All that entertainment for a fiver. You won't get much better value than that.

A Liverpudlian Whittington

A 19th Century Panto: Dan Leno and Herbert Campbell in Babes
 in the Wood, 1897

Source Wikipedia

Dick Whittingon, Liverpool Empire 26 Dec 2015

The first taste of ballet for many Brits is not The Nutcracker or Swan Lake in the Royal Opera House or some other great theatre but a Christmas pantomime in the local rep, town hall or community centre. A pantomime is a bit like a Christmas pudding in that it has just about everything thrown in (see the trailer for Dick Whittington at the Liverpool Empire)  A typical production is based loosely on a fairy tale or other popular story. There is a lot of singing and dancing, slapstick comedy including a lot of topical jokes some of which are quite blue and a great deal of shouting from the audience. No matter what the title of the entertainment there is always a man dressed as a woman known as "the dame", a villain, a comic, a principal girl and a principal boy who is also often played by an attractive young woman (see Pantomime Wikipedia).

Although pantomimes are performed in other English speaking countries they are most popular in the UK. They are part of the British Christmas like crackers, turkey with all the trimmings, mince pies and Christmas pud.  I remember my first pantomime very well. It was Babes in the Wood at the Palace Theatre and starred George Formby. My parents, Northern exiles, were terrified of my becoming what they called despairingly a "cockney clod" with whining vowels, an inability to distinguish between "f" and "th" and a regrettable tendency to insert an "r" into phonetically clear words like "grass" and "class". No doubt they reasoned that a dose of Formby would remind me of my Mancunuan roots but I am afraid that the only impression that he made on me was that he was not very funny because he was always laughing at his own jokes.

However, I was enchanted by the fairy who danced on pointe in a brilliant tutu.  Ballet in England has plenty of overlaps with pantomime. Think of Widow Simone in Ashton's La Fille mal gardée, villains like the Mouse King and Rothbart in The Nutcracker and Swan Lake and the sword fights in Romeo and Juliet. Some ballets like Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty even share the same plot. And in the Liverpool Empire's Dick Whittington  my ballet teacher, Mark Hindle was in the cast.

My excuse for watching the show was that I was hosting Christmas this year for a little lad from London who can run like the wind and leap like a frog. We were badly delayed by a partial closure of the M62 which required a detour into central Manchester to pick up the M602 from Salford and arrived just as Dick and his cat were about to be banished from London for (allegedly) purloining Sarah the Cook's life savings. On the way back to Liverpool the Fairy Fazakerley (Sally Lindsay) revealed Dick's future in a dream on Whittington Hill. Thrice Lord Mayor not of London but of the infinitely greater city (at least in the view of the audience and no doubt also that of the indomitable Janet McNulty) of

LIVERPOOL.

Dick (Kurtis Stacey) enlists on board the Good Ship Lollipop which belongs to the father (Pete Price) of the lovely Alice (Leanne Campbell). The ship is wrecked off the coast of Morocco by a storm conjured up by the wicked King Rat (Warren Donnelly) and the audience are treated to a 3D cinema animation of the ocean deep. Sarah (Eric Potts) is stranded on the beach in her underwear. "I'm glad to see you again" says Dick "but perhaps not so much of you" when the adventurers are reunited. Fortunately she finds pantaloons and turban as the company belted out Jai Ho. Gita who once danced Bollywood on the stage of the West Yorkshire Playhouse was in her element. Morocco was infested with rats, a problem that Tommy the cat (Hayley Goold) resolved in no time. There was an epic sword fight in which King Rat escaped the fate of Tybalt. Dick won the lovely Alica and the company took its bow.

There was plenty of good dancing in various styles. Most of the dancers came from Dolphin Dance Studio which hosts KNT Danceworks in Liverpool where Mark HIndle used to teach for part of the week. Having danced with KNT in Liverpool Town Hall (It's not every Class that you can use Lord Canning's Eyes for Spotting 9 Sept 2014) and also with students from Liverpool in the Swan Lake intensive (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1 18 Aug 2015) I was so proud of those young men and women. Their choreographer, Beverley Norris-Edmunds, deserves an enormous bouquet  for her trouble.

My guests and I met Mark after the show. He graciously accepted our praise and my thanks for all that I had learned from him. My little grandson manqué performed his act for him. Mark told his parents that he should try ballet which is what I have been saying for ages. Perhaps they will act on the advice now they have heard it from a pro rather than a doting granny.

Yesterday was the first time that I had set foot in the Liverpool Empire. It is a splendid theatre. Arriving late we were shepherded into row Q of the stalls but still had a magnificent view. The acoustics were excellent. When Idle Jack (Liam Mellor) invited four children on to the stage we heard  them perfectly. Incidentally, one of those children (a little girl called Summer) was as entertaining as any member of the cast. She wielded a drumstick at Mellor with real attitude as Jack gently teased her. Scottish Ballet is coming to the Empire with David Dawson's Swan Lake between 1 and 4 June. I shall be there and if you want to see a really good show in one of the best auditoriums in England so, too, will you.