Sir Frederick Ashton created Birthday Offering to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Ballet. I was reminded of Ashton's ballet yesterday when I attended Ballet Cymru's performance ofThe Sleeping Beautyat Theatr Clwyd in Mold for two reasons. First. Ballet Cymru is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Secondly, the show took place on the birthday of one of the dancers.
Ballet Cymru employs no more than a dozen dancers at any time, yet still manages to stage full-length productions. Last year, it presented Giselle which impressed me greatly (seeBallet Cymru's Giselle 3.0 14 June 2025). In previous years, I had been impressed by its Romeo a Juliet (see A Romeo and Juliet for our Times7 Nov 2016) and its Cinderella (see Ballet Cymru's Cinderella Second Time Round3 June 2018. Wherever possible, Ballet Cymru places its ballet in a Welsh setting, often introducing characters from the Mabinogion or Welsh folklore. The stage never seems empty because dancers fill more than one role, sometimes challenging gender stereotypes, as in last year's Giselle, where half the wilis were men.
Choreographers Darius James and Amy Doughty applied that formula to Perrault's tale with great success. Several members of the audience took to their feet at the curtain call while every solo or pas de deux was greeted with cheers and sustained clapping from the back of the stalls.
In accordance with tradition, the ballet consisted of a prologue and three acts. The prologue and Act 1 followed Perrault more or less, but Act 2 was quite different. The last Act was called a "Celebration" rather than a wedding, but it was very much the same idea.
James and Doughty introduced a new set of characters. The sleeping beauty was called Seren (which means "Star" in Welsh) rather than Aurora. Her parents were Modron (Protector of the Earth) and Gwilym, who is described simply as Seren's Dad. Aurora and her parents did not seem to be royalty, and Elen (Protector of Light), Gwydion (Protector of the Forest), Rhiannin (Protector of Animas) and Dyrnwyn (Protector of Fire) were no fairies. Arianrhod (protector of the Moon) performed more or less the same role as Carabosse. There was no lilac fairy, but Modron seemed to enjoy similar powers. There was one completely new character called Brân. He was Seren's childhood friend, and it was he who woke Seren from her slumbers.
Despite the different characters and changes to the story, I was glad to see that much of Petipa's choreography had been preserved. Even though there were no fairies, the Protectors danced something close to the fairy variations. Beth Meadway had taught those dances to Powerhouse Ballet when she was still with Ballet Cymru (see Sleeping Beauty Workshop19 March 2023). A variation of the rose adagio was performed in Act 1. There were still bluebirds in the Celebration even though their costumes were a different colour. The only significant absence was the white cat and Puss 'n Boots. Ballet Cymru has dancers who would enjoy that divertissement.
Gwenllian Davies danced Seren. I first saw her in Romeo a Juliet in 2016 and wrote:
"One of the reasons why I loved the show so much was Gwenllian Davies's remarkable performance as Juliet. Davies is in her first year with the company and this is her first job. Consequently, she is barely older than Shakespeare's Juliet. As I told her after the show, I have seen some of the world's greatest dancers in the role including Lynn Seymour and more recently Alina Cojocaru and Viktoria Tereshkina, but never have I seen a more convincing Juliet. Davies danced with passion and energy and, for a while, I saw in that talented young artist what Shakespeare must have imagined."
She never fails to delight, and she performed magnificently last night. She was partnered gallantly by Karmal Singh,who danced Brân. He is athletic and energetic and evidently trained in the Russian tradition. The other lead female role was Madron, which was danced by Isobel Holland. In many ways this was an even more demanding role than Seren's because Modron combines both mother and Lilac Fairy. She danced that role with flair and grace. Mika George Evans, who danced Arianrhod, also impressed me. She is an accomplished character dancer, and I look forward to seeing her in other character roles. I also commend Jacob Hornsey, who danced Gwilym, Maya Roueche, who danced Elen, Joe Burdett, who danced Gwydion, Siân James, who danced Rhiannon and Oliver Bocero, who danced Dyrnwyn.
Credit is also due to Chris Illingworth for his lighting designs, Frank Duffy for his projected images and Angharad Spenncer for Seren's costumes. Other sets and costumes seem to have been designed by members of the company.
Before the show, the audience was treated to a curtain raiser by the students of Ysgol Ty Ffynnon. They are part of the Duets programme, which introduces dance to children throughout Wales, particularly those in inner cities and rural areas who might otherwise not experience it. This is a two-year programme, and I was impressed by the skills that the students had acquired since I last saw them. After their show, the students were conducted to the back of the stalls where they formed the liveliest and most enthusiastic section of the audience.
Wales has a very distinct folk dance tradition as Ameer discovered in this Hansh video for S4C, There is a very broad foundation on which to build a dancing nation.
I described Darius James and Amy Doughty's new production in Ballet Cymru's Giselle 3.0and The Days I went to Bangor - Ballet Cymru's Relaxed Performances. James and Doughty have stripped Giselle to its essentials, emphasising its drama in much the same way as David Dawson did with Scottish Ballet's Swan Lake (see Empire Blanc: Dawson's Swan Lake, 4 June 2016).That places a lot of responsibility on the virtuosity and storytelling capabilities of the artists who dance the three principal characters, Giselle, Albrecht and Myrtha. Happily, Gwenllian Davies, Kamal Singh and Jakob Myers were more than equal to the challenge, and they were supported brilliantly by the rest of the cast. The result was an exciting but also very polished performance.
Yesterday, the title role was danced by Gwenllian Davies. I first saw her in Romeo a Juliet in 2016 and wrote:
"One of the reasons why I loved the show so much was Gwenllian Davies's remarkable performance as Juliet. Davies is in her first year with the company and this is her first job. Consequently, she is barely older than Shakespeare's Juliet. As I told her after the show, I have seen some of the world's greatest dancers in the role including Lynn Seymour and more recently Alina Cojocaru and Viktoria Tereshkina, but never have I seen a more convincing Juliet. Davies danced with passion and energy and, for a while, I Slovak saw in that talented young artist what Shakespeare must have imagined."
Since then, Davies has danced with the Opera Baltic Ballet in Gdansk, where she performed Giselle as well as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Clara and the offering in The Rite of Spring. Her performance as Giselle impressed me even more than her performance as Juliet.
It comes as no surprise to learn that Singh attended the Vaganova's Russian masters' programme in 2019 because he dances like a Russian. He showed enormous strength and achieved great elevation - virtuosity tempered with consummate grace. One of the tests of a male dancer is the degree to which he enables his partner to shine. In that respect, Singh was a perfect partner for Davies. Singh is also an accomplished dance actor, projecting all the emotions from arrogance to repentance.
The queen of the wilis is one of the great female roles. Until yesterday, I would have regarded the idea of a male Myrtha as absurd. Yet Jakob Myers somehow made it work. Not only that, he injected another level of horror into that role. In a romantic tutu, he appeared as something unnatural - indeed diabolical. Myers is also a virtuoso, and I had been impressed with his performance as Albrecht in Bangor. Yesterday he gave me the creeps, which I believe to have been his and the choreographers' intention.
Everyone in the cast danced well, particularly Isobel Holland in the peasant pas de deux and Sanea Singh as one of Giselle's friends in Act 1. Holland is also an artist I have followed for a long time and I am now a fan of Sabea Singh.
The ballet was danced to Adolphe Adam's score recorded by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Mogrelia. The sets and costumes were designed by Darius James, and the lighting by Chris Illingworth.
The evening began with a performance of a dance routine by schoolchildren from Ysgol Tŷ Ffynnon in Shotton called Finding Peace. Accompanying programme notes stated that the dancers would explore the vast emotions that Giselle experienced from love and happiness to anger and devastation. They would take the audience on a journey of trust, heartbreak and betrayal to eventual peace. Their performance was offered under the Duets scheme, which I mentioned in my review of Ballet Cymru's performance in Bangor. As I said in that article, it is a project that deserves the widest possible support.
This was the first time that I had visited Theatr Clwyd since its extensive renovation. It is a very impressive undertaking. It is not completely finished. For example, a new restaurant to be run by Bryn Williams is expected to open later in the year. As it was not available yesterday, a friend and I visited a very good gastro pub just a few hundred yards from the theatre called Glasfryn. Although the traditional industries of Northeast Wales were mining, steel making and heavy industry, there is also some spectacularly beautiful countryside with a lot of historic buildings and archaeological sites to visit. Yesterday we visited Chirk Castle, which is just over 20 miles from Mold. Other places in the neighbourhood that are worth visiting are Flint Castle, Erddig Hall and the city of Chester.
Ballet Cymru is touring the United Kingdom with a new production of Giselle. It opened in Newport on 16 May 2025, and the company will bring it to Bangor on 13 Jun and Mold on 8 Jul 2025. The opening night was reviewed by Molly Stubbs for The Nation (see Dance Review: Ballet Cymru's Giselle, 20 May 2025).
If I am not mistaken, this is Ballet Cymru's third version of the ballet. They had one in the early days of the company when they were known as Ballet Gwent. They created a new version with a score by Catrin Finch in 2021. It opened in Lichfield and I reviewed it in Giselle Reimagined 9 Jul 2021). I also saw it in Leeds and Newport.
In their latest version, they appear to have reverted to Adam's score, banished the zombies and restored to the stage Myrthe and her wilis resplendent in their romantic tutus. While I liked Darius James and Amy Doughty's reimagining much more than I enjoyed Aktam Khan's, I do not like change for change's sake. If the live performance is anything like the trailer, we are in for a treat. I shall be in the Bryn Terfel auditorium on Friday and my write-up will appear soon afterwards.
The words "Croeso i Ŵyl Dream" were projected onto the wall of Lichfield cathedral last night. They mean "Welcome to the Dream Festival". An announcer introduced Darius James and Amy Doughty's Dream as part of the Lichfield Festival's Shakespeare celebration.
The more one studies A Midsummer Night's Dreamthe more one finds layers of meaning. Sometimes it takes a derivative work to reveal those hidden layers. At first sight, Shakespeare's comedy contains multiple unconnected plots but in fact,. the quarrel between Titania and Oberon, the lovers in the woods, the mechanicals' play and indeed Pyramus and Thisbe are connected. They show the border between reality and the magical, or, if you prefer, the imagination, to be a shadowy one. The choreographers revealed that interconnection in many ways from the casting of Isobel Holland and Robbie Moorcroft as Hermia's mum and dad as well as Titania and Oberon to their ingenious use of Frank Moon's score and Chris Illingworth's lighting and projections.
James and Doughty are not the first choreographers to transpose A Midsummer Night's Dream to dance. Frederick Ashton, Jean-Christophe Maillot, David Nixon and Arthur Pita have all created work that had been inspired by the play, However, James and Doughty are perhaps the first to tell the full story of the play in all its complexity. They seem to have revisited Shakespeare's text and created a libretto that summarizes every essential. As Mendelsohn's score would have limited their opportunity to do that they commissioned a new score from Moon. They did very much the same in Cinderella and that is perhaps their unique contribution to choreography.
Their summary was not a dry and slavish transposition. They inserted their own humour like the puppy dog pose to represent Helena's infatuation and the space suit and balloon to indicate the man in the moon, Indeed, just as the fitting of the slipper is the funniest part of James and Doughty's Cinderella, the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe stole the show. A mop turned into a lion's mane, a dustbin lid transformed into a breastplate and a collage of cereal packets representing bricks on a wall were hilarious. touches.
Although several of my favourite artists in Ballet Cymru seem to have left Ballet Cymru the company retains plenty of talent left. Moorcroft and Holland performed their roles as king and queen of the fairies regally and as Hermia's parents tenderly. The super-talented Beth Meadway brought Helena to life in a way that I have never seen before. I shall be reminded of Meadway whenever I see the play again regardless of medium. Sanea Singh was an excellent Puck, Kotone Sugiyama an adorable Hermia, and Jacob Hornsey a memorable Bottom. Caitlin Jones created a new character Lysandia imaginatively, I also congratulate Jacob Myers, Samuel Banks and Jethro Paine for their performances as Moth, Cobweb and Mustard Seed, particularly for their mocking adulation of Bottom while he was still a donkey.
Shows often grow as they tour the country and I think that has happened with Dream. It was already a good show when I saw it in Mold on 29 May but it was even better yesterday. Darius James told me that it will be performed in Leeds in the Autumn and that he will give Powerhouse Ballet a workshop based on the ballet. I look forward to both very much indeed.
