Inspiration in Bingley - Cinderella at Bingley Little Theatre

Bingley

Author: M G Spiller
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Sara Packham Theatre School and Ballet North Cinderella 10 June 2018 18:00 Bingley Little Theatre

Surprisingly, the most memorable moment of the weekend came not in the valedictory performances of Dreda Blow and Victoria Sibson on the last night of Jane Eyre (excellent though though the company was - see Jane Eyre at the Lowry 10 June 2018) or in David Nixon's speech when he presented to Dreda Blow a framed photo of what I am reliably informed was a framed photo of herself as Beatrice in Ondine (apt though it was) but in a speech by the mother of a former student of the Sara Packham Theatre School at the end of a performance of Cinderella by children and adult ballet students at Bingley Little Theatre last night.

The speaker introduced herself as a parent of an actor who had established himself in New York but had started his career at that very school in Bingley. Presenting the choreographers to a packed auditorium, she explained that they were teaching not just ballet but important life skills that would transform children into confident, poised, beautiful human beings. After her speech the instructors gave each of the dancers - children as well as adults, boys as well as girls - a single rose. "This may take some time" somebody said from the stage. It did but nobody minded a bit. It was a lovely gesture and a proper induction into the traditions of the ballet.

Bingley, for readers who may not know this area, is a small town just outside Bradford. In the 19th century it was a mill town specializing in the manufacture of worsted. Now it is one of the more sought after neighbourhoods of the metropolitan district of Bradford. One of its attractions is an Arts Centre which includes the Bingley Little Theatre. It was there that a cast selected from the School and Ballet North in Halifax gave four performances of Cinderella on 10 and 11 June 2018.

I learned about the production through attending a class by Charlotte Ingleson at Ballet North in the Dance Mill on 31 May 2018 (see Class Review - Ballet North Halifax 2 June 2018). I was introduced to the class by Elaine Berrill who was one of the dancers attending Jane Tucker's class in Huddersfield on 26 May 2018 (see We have a Company 27 May 2018 Powerhouse Ballet). I noticed in the programme that Charlotte was one of the choreographers of Cinderella and that another was Martin Dutton who had taught me in a special class at KNT (see And what a class we had Feb 2017) and workshops on The Nutcracker and La Bayadère (see KNT Nutcracker Intensive 21 Dec 2017 and KNT's One Day Workshop on La Bayadère 15 April 2018).

Charlotte also danced one of the leading roles as Cinderella's mother and fairy godmother. Her young daughter also had a role in the work as a cat. There was yet another name on the cast list that I thought I knew. That of Oscar Ward as the prince. The Oscar that I knew was one of the star pupils at Ballet West and a finalist in the BBC Young Dancer competition. Could it be the same? Oscar Ward is not a very common name and not every young man with that name will be an accomplished dancer. I messaged Gillian Barton of Ballet West to find out.

"Could be, but don’t really know. I’ll try and find out." she replied

As it happened it was a coincidence. The young man who danced before us is also very promising. When I congratulated him I told him about his namesake though Yorkshire Oscar had already heard of Scottish Oscar. If he is minded to train for the stage he could do a lot worse that follow in the footsteps of the other Oscar.

 As Gillian observed,

"Every one of our male graduates has gone on to do amazing things. BW is a great school for boys as they get so many opportunities."

Earlier today, Isaac Peter Bowry whom I had first seen as Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker in 2013 announced on Facebook:

"So I’ve got another big announcement to make!! 

I can now say that I am officially joining the Birmingham Royal Ballet to perform in Kennith Macmillan’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ 

I’ll be performing in all the Birmingham performances between the 26th- 30th June!"

But I digress. There were lots of other dancers who impressed me.

There were three Cinderellas - one as a child, another as a young person and the third as the belle of the ball. Young Cinderella was Alice Brocklesby, Clarice Keller-Bradbury and Sienna Brandolino alternated in the role of Cinderella as a young person and Leah Robinson and Sophie Talbot in the role of Cinderella at the ball. I am not sure which of the alternates I saw last night but I congratulate Alice and the other dancers who portrayed her in later life.

The show was basically the Cinderella we know to Prokofiev's score with a little bit of The Sleeping Beauty bolted on. The bolt on was a divertissement that enabled four talented soloists - Hollie Kate Smith, Harriet Berry, Katie Barber and Jess Leeming to dance Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter fairies and Lexie Meehan a dragonfly. Lots of roles were found for lots of dancers from mini-movers to the adult pointe class. It was good to see a few very talented young boys in the cast.

At the ball Oscar Ward showed that he can jump, turn and lift with the best of them. His Cinders in a classical tutu was lovely. Her stepmother, Catriona Ford, and step sisters, Ellen Richard and Grace Macdonald, amused us with their antics. One in an unsightly green wig and the other in pink. They also got a tiny bit tipsy towards the end giving an entirely new meaning to pas de bourée. There was humour too is the search for the owner of the missing slipper. One candidate barely broke her conversation on her mobile. Another nearly dropped a pile of precariously positioned pizzas. A hefty subject in a wig and a skirt had a go to a squall of derision.

This was tightly directed, well rehearsed with realistic sets and costumes. I saw a lot of happy mums and dads and siblings, even happier artists and a particularly proud and happy Charlotte Ingleson. The audience were appreciative and engaged. It was a treat to be there.

BBC Young Dancer Ballet Final

I don't usually watch a lot of television. Not even when there is ballet on the box. But I made an exception tonight because I had recently seen Oscar Ward and Uyu Hiromoto in Ballet West's Swan Lake in Greenock (see Ballet West at the Beacon 13 Feb 2017). As it happened I saw a lot of other familiar faces in the programme such as Samira Saidi, Ed Watson, Cassa Pancho, Darius James, David Nixon, Shobana Jeyasingh, Jonathan Barton and Natasha Watson. I even glimpsed Janet McNulty in the audience. There were also a lot of familiar places such as the Riverfront Theatre in Newport, Taynuilt and, of course, the Lowry.

There were five fine young dancers:  Ryan Felix, Jade Wallace, Rhys Antoni Yeomans, Uyu Hiromoto and Oscar Ward. Each of their performances thrilled me and I would have hated to have had to pick a winner. I loved Jade's typewriter dance, Oscar and Uyu's pas de deux, the solo that Natasha Watson created for Oscar but someone had to win and Rhys was indeed a worthy winner.

Rhys will compete with the winners of the contemporary, street dance and South Asian dance. If it was difficult to choose a winner from five ballet finalists I have no idea how one could possibly compare a street dancer with a South Asian dancer. Just for once I think I got some real value from my licence fee.

Ballet West at the Beacon

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Ballet West, Swan Lake. Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock, 12 Feb 2017


I have been coming to Scotland at this time of the year to see Ballet West's winter show for the last four years (see Ballet West's "The Nutcracker" 25 Feb 2013, Swan Loch - Ballet West's Swan Lake, Pitlochry 1 March 2014 3 Marh 2014, Ballet West's Romeo and Juliet 1 Feb 2015 and  Thinking out Loud about Ballet West 8 Feb 2016). Each and every production has been a little better than the last. The current production of Swan Lake  is no exception.  Accordingly, it is the company's best show yet.

I saw Swan Lake last night at Greenock, a small town on the southern bank of the Clyde estuary about 25 miles from Glasgow, in the main auditorium of its magnificent Beacon Arts Centre, which is just over 4 years old.  That auditorium has a fair size stage and seats about 500 with an uninterrupted view from every point. The building is near the river and I would expect its location to command spectacular views of the river. Obviously, there was not much to see as I wandered down from Greenock Central station with my phone on Google maps at 18:00 on a cold, dark and drizzly Sunday evening.

I was welcomed to the Beacon by Ballet West's principal and artisic director, Gillian Barton, who staffed a concession stall with programmes and merchandise. She told me that the previous night's performance at the Armadillo (SECC) had been excellent and wondered how her company could possibly match that success. She added that Natasha Watson, whom I had mentioned in so many reviews and featured in A Cause for Double Celebration at the Robin's Nest 8 Feb 2016 and who had been cast as Odette-Odile, had fallen ill. Her place was taken by Uyu Hiromoto who is a second year student at the school. An exceptionally talented student it has to be said who had impressed me in last year's performance of The Nutracker and who had been selected to tour Malaysia (see Ballet West in Malaysia 18 June 2016) but Odette-Odile is a demanding role even for a principal ballerina of a major company.

If Gillian Barton really did worry about the performance, she need not have done.  I did not see the show at the Armadillo so I am in no position to compare the two, but I should be very surprised to learn that last night's performance fell short of Saturday's in any way. Last night's show was a triumph for two many reasons and here are just too. First, Hiromoto rose to the occasion magnificently. The second was casting Rothbart as a woman and the inspired execution of that role by Miranda Hamili.

Hiromoto and Hamili in their different ways are super talented young women. As my wise first ballet teacher (a seasoned performer who had once danced with the Queensland Ballet as well as a wonderful teacher) once warned, "ballet is a jealous mistress and a tough task master out to break you" so I will not tempt fate by forecasting a golden future for either of them. All I will say is that I sensed the same feeling that I had when I first saw Michaela DePrince in Amsterdam in 2013 (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Jan 2013) or Xander Parish at the York Summer School gala in July 2007 andjust  look at both of them both now. I knew I was looking at something special then and I saw something special again last night.

The reason why Swan Lake is so compelling is that it reveals two faces of humanity in the same dancer.  The sweet, loving, tragic Odette and the brassy, brazen Odile. I have seen many performances in my time and many of the world's leading ballerinas in  the role.  Some are the perfect Odette.  More are the perfect Odile. Few can dance both roles equally well (Scottish Ballet's Bethany Kingsley-Garner being one who can). Hiromoto, despite her youth, is another,  She was a perfect Odette - delicate, lyrical, willowy.  Could she transform herself into what Mr Trump would call "a nasty woman" I asked Daniel Job, the company's choreographer and artistic advisor during the interval. "You'd be surprised" he replied with a smile.  Job was right. Her head raised and somehow holding her arms and upper body in quite a different way Hiromoto transformed herself.  Haughty and heartless, she executed Legnani's 32 fouettés splendidly.  I was counting as I always do and ready to break into applause at number 28.

Hamili has a mastery of character. In Acts 2 and 4 she is of course the evil magician and danced the role largely as a man would have done but in Act 3 she came into her own. She dominated that Act as she slouched over the throne one leg slung over the arm of the chair.  Yawning first, then filing her nails much to the discomfort of Mary Anderson who danced the Queen. It was hard to take my eyes off her even for the divertissements which were beautifully danced.  She assumed centre of stage as Odile began the seduction scene whispering into Odile's shell-like not to accept anything less from Siegfried that betrothal. Ballet West had a brilliant Rothbart in Isaac Peter Bowry who is now dancing lead roles for Ballet Theatre UK. Hamili was every bit as good. Whoever cast her in that role, coached her and dressed her deserves a medal. She added a whole new dimension to the work.

However, they were not the only stars. As in 2014 Siegfried was danced by Jonathan Barton, a graduate of the school who is now its Vice-Principal and yet another Genée medallist. Even though I had seen Anthony Dowell and Rudolf Nureyev in that role I had always regarded Siegfrield as a secondary role because of the focus on Odette-Odile. But I have begun to understand his role better over the years and Barton has helped with that understanding. He is transformed in the ballet every bit as much as Odette. We see him as a callow and not a particularly nice teenager mad for gadgets and unwilling to grow up. "Gee, Ma, that crossbow is really cool." "Don't even mention marriage to me, ma" he gestures extravagantly when his mum suggests he has regal responsibilities.  He meets Odette and begins to grow, Reluctantly he becomes a hero.  He has to jump in the lake to do it but he liberates all those girls who would have been condemned as swans to scrub about bulrushes for stale bread from humans.

Oscar Ward, who accompanied Hiromoto to Malaysia, danced Benno. Ballet West's Benno is not quite as pivotal as David Dawson's but I could detect a little of Dawson's influence in the way Ward danced that role. He came into his own in the pas de trois supported delightfully by Sarah Nolan and Storm Norris. Later Ward danced the Neapolitan divertissement with Abigail Drew with the exuberance and charm.  It was good to see two familar faces, Dylan Waddell whom I had previously seen in MurleyDance and Ballet Cymru and Mark Griffiths who is also from Ballet Cymru. Those chaps danced several roles - guests at the party and Siegfried's mates on the swan shoot.  Later Waddell was also in the Spanish dance.

Other highlights included the cygnets (Alice Flinton, Perihan Gulen, Lucy Malin and Rebecca Strain), the divertissements (particularly the kids from Glasgow who were lovely and came close to stealing the show) and of course the swans in Act 2 and 4. I've had a go at learning the cygnets, Hungarian dance, prince's solo and swans' entry and know just how demanding those dances are (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3).

The current Swan Lake is a new production with new sets and, I think, new costumes.  The designs that I saw at Pitlochry in 2014 had been good but last night's were even better.  I instinctively drew breath as the curtain rose on the opening scene as the guests arrived for Siegfried's coming of age party. My only criticism of the whole evening was the excessive use of the yellow and blue filters in the lighting design. Swans are supposed to be white, not birds of Paradise, yet for long stretches of the evening they were yellow and blue. There were hitches. The arch of someone's cross-bow fell off, there was the occasional stumble, acts did not follow quite as fast as they might have done and the curtain came down slightly too late at the end of Act 2 and too soon early at the end of Act 4. But this was a tour and I have seen far worse from far more famous companies in far bigger theatres.

So Gillian Barton, Daniel Job and their cast can congratulate themselves on an excellent performance. Next year they will dance Giselle. I had hoped for La Sylphide as Gurn, James and Effie used to haunt Ichrachan House but I guess Madge must have put a spell on them.  I would love to see a Scottish company dance La Sylphide on their home turf but the nearest any of them have got is Sir Matthew Bourne's Highland Fling which Ballet Central (another ballet school's performance company) are taking on tour this year.

There is one more show before the dancers return to Taynuilt and that is at Edinburgh International Conference Centre on 18 Feb. If you are free that day and can get a ticket you should be there. Since I have been following them, this really is Ballet West's best show yet.

Ballet West in Malaysia

Performance at the Penang Performing Arts Centre

(c) Ballet West, 2016, all rights reserved

Licensed by kind permission of the company

While Ballet West's alumni Natasha Watson and Andrew McFarlane have been dancing with the English National Ballet in Swan Lake in the Round at the Royal Albert Hall, teachers and students of Ballet West have been holding three days of intensive workshops at Direct Academia International in Penang in North West Malaysia. The party was led by Gillian Barton, Ballet West's Principal, and Jonathan Barton who is Vice-Principal of the School and the principal male dancer of its performing company. Also in the party were Martin Fenton who teaches contemporary, jazz and hip-hop (see the staff page of the Ballet West website) and their students Uyo Hiromoto and Oscar Ward.

Some 150 young dancers from all parts of Malaysia and the Republic of Singapore took part in the workshops. The workshops finished with a performance at the Penang Performing Arts Centre on 12 June 2016. Gillian Barton, who saw the show, remarked:

"The performance was spectacular. Oscar and Uyu ..... performed superbly. I could hardly believe that Jonathan and Martin had only worked with the students for one day plus a few rehearsals. It was such a polished performance. No other teachers could have done better.”

The workshops provided an opportunity to audition prospective students for Ballet West. Two students from Singapore are already there and five others from Malaysia have attended short courses.

Any students from Malaysia or Singapore who find their way to Taynuilt will get an opportunity to obtain performance experience by dancing in one of the full length classical ballets which the performance company stages at various auditoriums around Scotland each year. In 2017 the company will dance Swan Lake at the following venues on the following dates:

• Stirling, Macrobert 20 and 21 January
• Helensburgh, Tower Digital Arts Centre 27 January 
• Paisley, Paisley Town Hall 28 January 
• Oban, Corran Halls 9 February 
• Glasgow, SECC 11 February 
• Greenock, Beacon Arts Centre 12 February 
• Livingston, Howden Park Centre 16 February 
• Edinburgh, EICC, 18 February.

Ballet West last performed that ballet in 2014 and I saw it in Pitlochry on 1 March 2013 (see Swan Loch - Ballet West's Swan Lake, Pitlochry 1 March 2014 3 March 2014). It was a beautiful production with an Odette and an Odile danced by the same person, a Siegfried, cygnets, Legnani's  32 fouettés, all the usual divertissements and not a single bike to be seen. 

It is probably too late for Ballet West to do anything about it for the coming tour but maybe they could consider adding The Dancehouse in Manchester or the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds to their touring schedule in future years. After all, Isaac Bowry who came from Manchester and Andrew Cook who came from Leeds contributed considerably to their 2014 production. If they can make it to Penang they can surely find their way to the North of England.