Phoenix at Home

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Phoenix Dance Theatre Phoenix at Home Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre 27 Sep 2019 19:30

I have swelled with pride when I have watched Phoenix Dance Theatre perform at the Peacock, the Lowry or the Linbury in Covent Garden but nowhere are they better than at home in their own theatre before their local audience.  This year it was particularly good with extracts from an exciting new piece called Black Waters which will be premiered at the Leeds Playhouse in February.

Black Waters was introduced by Sharon Watson, the company's artistic director, at the start of the show. In a short speech, she explained that it was inspired by two of the most infamous episodes of British imperial history. One was the murder of 130 Africans in 1782 by the owner of the vessel Zong who actually had the nerve to attempt to claim insurance for the loss of those slaves. The other outrage was the imprisonment of Indians in the Kala Pani prison over 100 years later. Watson mentioned that she was building on the success of Windrush: Movement of the People which is another aspect of this country's imperial past.

The piece is a collaboration between Watson and Shambik Ghose and Mitul Sengupta of Rhythmosaic in Kolkatta.  The intention is to blend the heritage and strengths of both companies. That is to say, kathak and contemporary to a score by Dishari Chakraborty. The extracts that we saw are very uncomfortable to watch even centuries later but they are also absorbing.  Clearly, this will be a very important work.

Our mood changed instantly with the next piece which was a work by the students of Phoenix Youth Academy.  Those kids are wonderful.  Their energy was boundless.  They performed a work created especially for them by Sandrine Monin.  She is the choreographer who created Calyx.  Monin thrilled me as a dancer when she was with Phoenix and she continues to excite me with her choreography.

The last work of the evening was Jeanguy Saintus's Rite of Spring.  I had seen that work in the mightly Lowry (see  Phoenix Comes of Age with its Rite of Spring 27 March 2019) and in the CAST in Doncaster (see Phoenix's Rite of Spring and Left Unseen 11 April 2019) and I have described the work in those reviews.  The Stanley and Audrey Burton is a much more intermediate auditorium and I have actually danced in it.  For once I felt I was not just watching the performance but actually taking part in the ceremony.  Never have I felt closer to the performers or more involved in the show than I did that night.  It was an unforgettable theatrical experience.

Sadly, dancers move on.  Carmen, Sandrine and Prentice have gone but the wonderful Vanessa Vince-Pang is still here as are Carlos Martinez and Michael Marquez.  There are some very promising new faces whose careers I shall follow with interest. 

Shortly after the show, it was announced that Sharon Watson had received a Black British Business Award (see Sharon Watson wins big at the Black British Business Awards 3 Oct 2019). This award delights me but not surprise me in the least.  I have seen her in presentations in contexts quite unconnected with dance such as the Chinese IP Roadshow that I chaired two years ago and she is very impressive indeed.

Phoenix's Rite of Spring and Left Unseen

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Phoenix Dance Theatre The Rite of Spring and Left Unseen 9 April 2019, 19:30 CAST in Doncaster

On 8 March 2019, I saw Phoenix Dance Theatre perform  Jeanguy Saintus's Rite of Spring with a live orchestra on the main stage of the Lowry Theatre.  It was a magnificent performance that I described as Phoenix's coming of age.  It had been part of an evening of dance and song - a very successful collaboration with Opera North that I should like to see repeated.   

On 9 April 2019,  I saw the Rite of Spring again at the Cast in Doncaster as part of a double bill with Left Unseen by Amaury Lebrun.  The company had already performed those works in Poole and will take them to Malvery, Keswick, Dundee, Cheltenham and the Peacock. 

The evening opened with Left Unseen which is the first of Lebrun's works that I have seen.  However, we shall shortly see another because he told me that he has been commissioned to create a work for Northern Ballet. Lebrun was born in France and trained at the School of the Ballet du Nord in Roubaix and the School of American Ballet in New York.  He danced with several companies before joining the Compania Nacional de Danza in Spain as a principal.

Left Unseen opens with a spotlit single dancer.  According to the programme notes, the work explores inclusion and isolation.  I was particularly impressed by an interaction between Prentice Whitlow and Vanessa Vince-Pang. She reaches out to him but he recoils from her.  She tries again to similar effect. He approaches her but she steps aside.  He tries again but she pushes him out of the way. Finally, she leaps onto his back as an act of aggression - not of affection.  The score was contributed by Alva Noto, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Hildur  Guðnadóttir.  It was integrated into a single piece so seamlessly that I thought it had been a single work.

The main difference between the performances of the Rite of Spring at the Lowry and the Cast is that the company had to rely on recorded music in Doncaster.  They have chosen a very good recording by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Pierre Boulez. The work that the Ballets Russes had performed in Paris in 2013 had been set in Pre-Christian Russia.  Using the same score by Stravinsky, Saintus set his work in contemporary Haiti drawing heavily on voudou rituals that invoke Ogou (the spirit of fire, iron, war and blacksmiths), the Marasa (divine twins) and Damballa (the serpent spirit and creator of life). In Saintus's version as in the Ballets Russes', there is a chosen one but she is chosen not for sacrifice but to host the spirit of Damballa.

I was much closer to the stage in Doncaster than I had been in Salford and I could see and admire the intricate robes worn by both male and female dancers with their tassels and drapery. For one of the movements, two of the dancers' hands were coloured green,  For another, the hands of all the dancers were coloured red.   At one point a red cushion which I had assumed to be a heart was passed on stage but, on reflection, I think it may have been the spirit of  Damballa. 

Saintus's production is an original work anchored in the traditions of the Caribbean and probably also  Africa.   However, I also think it is a very faithful one.   As I said in my previous review, Nijinsky's shade would not have been troubled by Saintus's reimagining. There is something unsettling about the idea of human sacrifice even though it is only on the stage.  That was largely absent in Saintus's work.  It felt like a celebration rather than an oblation.

Phoenix Comes of Age with its Rite of Spring

The original cast of the Rite of Spring, Paris 2013

Phoenix Dance Theatre The Rite of Spring The Lowry, 8 March 2019

In my review of Windrush, Movement of the People 8 Feb 2018, I described the work as "the best show that I have ever seen in Leeds."  "What could possibly follow that?" I asked myself.  My answer came on 8 March 2019 when I saw Phoenix Dance Theatre's Rite of Spring with Opera North's Gianni Schicchi at The Lowry. As Vanessa Vince Pang led Maestro Garry Walker on stage to acknowledge the audience's applause I thought to myself that Phoenix had truly come of age.

The foundation of any production of The Rite of Spring is Stravinsky's music which sets out a framework in two parts starting with an introduction and ending with the sacrificial dance of the chosen one,   Some choreographers have kept the music but chosen not to follow the framework.  Jeanguy Saintus has not done that and although his choreography reflects his genius I did not fear that Nijinsky's shade would be troubled. In fact, I felt that Santus's work was the next best thing to a time machine that would transport me to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées for the 29 May 1913.

For the first time, I saw Phoenix perform before a live orchestra and they did so magnificently.  Five members of the cast I already knew well but Manon Adrianov, Aaron Chaplin and Michael Marquez were new to me. They complimented Carmen Marfil, Carlos Martinez, Vaness Vince-Pang, Prentice Whitlow and Natalie Alleston seamlessly.  The stage was a caldron of movement and sound.   It was everything that Stravinsky, Nijinsky and indeed Diaghilev must have imagined.  The applause at the end was deafening.

The Rite of Spring was performed not with another dance piece but with a one-act opera by Puccini,   Stravinsky and Puccini may have lived and worked at the beginning of the last century. I have long admired them both.  But until their works were juxtaposed I never thought that they had much in common.  To my great surprise and joy, The Rite of Spring and Gianni Schicchi seemed to work very well together.   The latter work is not nearly as well known as the former though it does contain one very well-known air, O mio babbino caro by Lauretta.

The libretto, incidentally, was about something that actually happens in real life from time to time though happily in England the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975  alleviates the need for a deceased's disappointed relations to impersonate the testator or forge his will.  The opera was staged beautifully by Opera North.  I hope that the success of this production will lead to similar collaborations between Opera North and Phoenix and indeed other opera and contemporary dance or ballet companies.

There is just one more performance of The Rite of Spring and Giani Schicchi at the Theatre Royal Nottingham on 22 March 2019.   If you live anywhere near Nottingham this is the show to see even if you see nothing more all year.

"Windrush" at the Peacock - "More than just art. It was an education."

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Phoenix Dance Theatre Mixed Programme (Calyx, Shadows and Windrush, Movement of the People) Peacock Theatre, London, 27 April 2018, 19:30

I don't know whether any ministers, members of Parliament, journalists or other opinion makers have managed to make their way over to Kingsway to see Phoenix Dance Theatre's Windrush, Movement of the People but, if they didn't they should have done because they would have learned a lot. Yesterday's triple bill was more than just art. It was an education.

It took a remark from a member of the audience at the question and answer session after the show for me to understand why Calyx, Shadows and Windrush, Movement of the People were so poignant.  The questioner pointed out the link between Shadows, which was about the "knock on the door".  Something that members of the Windrush generation have had to fear.  The persecution of human beings springs from hate.  Hate is is a form of evil.  Calyx, which is inspired by Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal, explores how evil germinates, sprouts tentacles and spreads (see my review of Sandrine Monin's Calyx in There's a reason why Phoenix was my contemporary company of the year 11 Feb 2017).  Sharon Watson mirrored that theme by her juxtaposition of Enoch Powell's rivers of blood speech with the toxic alphabet soup (or laundry) that the masked landladies were stirring.

Yesterday's show went very well.  The dancers in all three works were brilliant.  I have never seen them perform better.   Everybody clapped enthusiastically and more than a few members of the audience rose to their feet.  But the atmosphere in the Peacock last night was somehow different from the first night at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. That was as much a party as a performance. As I wrote in Windrush: Movement of the People 8 Feb 2018:

"The final scene is a church with stained glass lighting, a pastor and his choir. It's a service but this service is almost a party. The cast invite those in the front seats onto the stage. The audience claps rhythmically and euphorically then rises to its feet as one. A triumph indeed!" 

What was the reason for this change of atmosphere?  I think the answer is that February was a time for  celebration whereas last night was a time for reflection.  How could it be anything else with David Lammy's speech ringing in our ears and all the revelations in the news so fresh in  our memories?

In the questions and answers Sharon Watson was asked what had inspired her. She replied unhesitatingly that it was the experiences of her mother.  She discussed the juxtaposition of Jim Reeves with Ska. "That was my Sunday morning" Sharon explained.  A lady to the right of me chuckled: "yes, I remember that." And so do I, though, in my recollection, it was two tellies - one with football and the other with Songs of Praise - lashings of jollof rice or plasas, Guinness and, occasionally, if someone had recently returned from Freetown, a bottle of Star Beer.

As in Leeds and in the previews the most moving part of the performance for me was the arrival "You called and we came."  A member of the audience mentioned it in the Q & A. "So often we hear the words, 'you came over and ..............'  But it was not like that. We answered a call and we should never let anyone forget that."

Phoenix are giving just one more performance in London at 19:30 tonight.   If you want to see them after today you will have to travel to Barnsley. Birmingham or Newcastle.  But having nipped down last night to see them in London I would say that they that they are well worth the effort.

Windrush: Movement of the People

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Phoenix Dance Theatre  Mixed Programme (Maybe Yes Maybe, Maybe No Maybe, Shadows and Windrush: Movement of the People)  West Yorkshire Playhouse, 7 Feb 2018


Yesterday Phoenix Dance Theatre opened its Spring tour at West Yorkshire Playhouse with a triple bill consisting of Aletta Collins's Maybe Yes Maybe, Maybe No Maybe, Christopher Bruce's Shadows and Sharon Watson's Windrush: Movement of the People.  All three are important works. At any other time performances of the first two works would have received a lot of attention.  But yesterday the focus was on the last which was performed in full for the first time.

Having seen previews of Windrush at A Celebration of Female Choreographers and Windrush Studio Sharing, there was never any doubt in my mind that the work would be a great success.  So it was with the audience on its feet cheering until its members' voices were hoarse and clapping till their palms were sore.  They - we - were applauding a beautifully crafted and performed work of art, of course, but also something more.  A movement of people, a melding of cultures, a response to enormous adversity, hardship and in many instances even violence, a story of individuals and families, an epic in which everyone in the auditorium - indeed everyone in these islands - has participated in one way or another.  We celebrated not just those who boarded the Empire Windrush 70 years ago - one of whom was in the audience - but also everyone who has followed them since. "This was my mother's story" said Sharon Watson after the show. So it was but it was a story of many others and one that resonates with all.

The work divides into four scenes.  It opens in Jamaica full of light and colour and movement. The women in gorgeous costumes. Young men tumbling over each other to read a newspaper. The women are more restrained - subdued, even, as some of them will be left behind - but even they are excited by the adventure. The passengers board the ship still full of hope and energy.

The next scene is the most poignant. A voice calls out.  "You called and we came". The stage was much less bright. The dancers hardly moved. The voice continued about the skills, the energy, the quick minds of those who came and how so many of those talents were squandered in post-war Britain. Matrons reduced to sisters, sisters to nurses and nurses to chambermaids.  Women with masked faces hang out washing each with a letter spelling out the infamous words "NO DOGS" et cetera.  An arrangement of the national anthem is sung live on stage except instead of "Queen" it is "God save the Dream."

The Dream is saved for in the third scene sweethearts reunite in England. They find homes, lay down carpets and purchase settees - and radiograms.  The parents play their LPs but their mini-skirted children will have none of that. Off goes Jim Reeves and on comes 10ft Ganja Plant.  Again there is movement and energy on stage.

The final scene is a church with stained glass lighting, a pastor and his choir.  It's a service but this service is almost a party. The cast invite those in the front seats onto the stage. The audience claps rhythmically and euphorically then rises to its feet as one.  A triumph indeed!

There are so many people to congratulate for this triumph.  Sharon Watson, of course for her choreography, Christella Litras for her score, Eleanor Bull for her designs and Phoenix's beautiful dancers.  I spoke to several of them afterwards.  The show was special for them too.  Something they will remember for the rest of their lives. And for the audience?  I can only speak for myself but it was the best show that I have ever seen in Leeds.

Maybe Yes Maybe, Maybe No Maybe and Shadows need to be reviewed separately and I will review them soon.  They were fine works that were performed well and a paragraph or two about them tagged onto a review of Windrush will not begin to do them justice. Phoenix will perform the mixed bill at Leeds until the 10 Feb. Then it will go to Keswick, Cheltenham, Doncaster, Leicester, Aachen, London, Birmingham and Newcastle.  If you live anywhere near those places you really must go.

Tutti Frutti - Phoenix's Over 55 Contemporary Class

Morley Town Hall

Author Steve Partridge

Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Every Monday between 11:00 and 12:15 during the Leeds school term I get to dance to Little Richard with a roomful of other ladies in my age group in  Morley Town Hall. Our teacher is Tanya Richam-Odoi and she is fab. The class is part of the Young at Arts programme which is delivered by Phoenix Dance Theatre. I discussed that programme in Growing Old Disgracefully in Morley 28 Sept 2015.

The class starts with a cup of tea or coffee and a right old natter.  After our caffeine fix, Tanya calls is to order in a circle with some gentle arm swinging, then some finger work,  leg and foot stretching, standing on one leg while rotating the foot on the other leg. Once we have warmed up she teaches us some routines in a contemporary idiom.  Right now we are learning Tutti Frutti which starts with four steps to the front, four to the back, then side steps rather like glissades with side bends, a lot of lunges to the right and left with "She bops to the east" and "she bops to the west". We simulate saxophones and guitars. We do more deep stretching, then another routine and finally a thorough cool down which is like a routine in itself.

Tania takes a personal interest in her students who clearly adore her. They tell her about their aches and pains, their news and there is a lot of hugging, Tania practises something called craniosacral therapy. I could be wrong, but the photo of her home page reminds me of Calgary Beach on the Isle of Mull which brings me to the other reason why I like her. She is very, very, very Scottish which reminds me of my salad days at St Andrews. These were the happiest time of my life. Tanya also reminds me of my first ballet teacher at St Andrews who was also Scottish. She taught me to jump to her clapping which still resound in my brain (never mind what the music is playing) when the teacher tells us to do grands jetés.

The class is open to everyone over 55.  It costs £3 including the tea and biscuits. You can park for free in Morrisons' car park and enter through a ginnel (or wynd) in the left side elevation of the building.

Phoenix - A Double Celebration

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Phoenix Dance Theatre A Celebration of Female Choreographers Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, 28 Sept 2017 19:30 and Celebration Gala for Nadine Senior West Yorkshire Playhouse, 8 Oct 2017 19:00

Phoenix Dance Theatre does not have a large number of dancers and only half of them are women, yet it can stage a whole evening of top-class dance in celebration of female choreographers created entirely by its own artists.  How impressive is that?  How many other companies many times its size can do anything like that? Yet that is what that company presented in Phoenix At Home on 28 Sept 2017.

That is why Phoenix was my contemporary company of the year in 2016 despite competition from Alvin Ailey, Nederlands Dans Theater 2, the National Dance Company of Wales and, of course, Rambert (see Terpsichore Titles: Contemporary Company of 2016 31 Dec 2016).

When I started to follow Phoenix I learned about Nadine Senior and everything that she did for that company:

"Phoenix Dance Company was formed in 1981 by David Hamilton (Artistic Director), Donald Edwards and Vilmore James, three young men who had their enthusiasm for dance sparked by the tuition they received in school, particularly from teachers John Auty at Intake High School and Nadine Senior at Harehills Middle School who went on to found Northern School of Contemporary Dance, and following her retirement in 2001, was Chair of Phoenix’s Board of Trustees for six years."

Nadine Senior died in 2016 and Sharon Watson, Phoenix's Artistic Director, penned this beautiful tribute to her. Last Sunday her former students, colleagues and friends as well as folk like me, who had never met her but acknowledge an enormous debt of gratitude to her, assembled at West Yorkshire Playhouse to celebrate her life and work.

Thus we had a double celebration within a few days of each other.  First, a celebration of the enormously creative female artists of the present. Then, a celebration of a remarkable woman of the recent past who created so much and inspired and continues to inspire so many.

The celebration of female choreographers began with Sandrine Monin's Calyx which I reviewed in There's a reason why Phoenix was my contemporary company of the year 11 Feb 2017 and previewed in Calyx  8 Dec 2016. I have always been impressed by the work ever since I first saw it in rehearsal but I appreciated it only on a superficial level. Watching it a second time certainly increased my understanding.  I saw the parallels between limbs and shoots or roots from the moment Sam Vaherlehto's leg emerged from the box in which he had germinated. These were not houseplants or flowers from the garden but weeds and perhaps toxic ones at that.

Tracy Tinker's Elemeotary which she created with Vanessa Vince-Pang was a welcome relief after all that Japanese knotweed and deadly nightshade which we had just seen.  Vanessa Vince-Pang, who is in reality at the very top of her art, presented herself for an audition as a nervous young dancer. We heard disembodied voices off stage. "Would you like me to do some tap?" volunteered Vanessa. "Would you mind removing your top so we can see your number?" came the reply. Not even a name. Just a number. Then commands were barked out as in Gauthier's Ballet 101: "fall", "recover", "feel the space". Vanessa threw herself around the stage with considerable grace disappearing in what appeared to be a shower of lemons.

Next came Page 24 by Carmen Vasquez Marfil to music by Paganini and Arvo Pärt. A solo work by the choreographer with an outsize chair as a single prop and a screen upon which appeared images of the dancer. Clad in a simple flowing dress Marfil seemed to interrogate first the chair as though it were alive and then the screen.  I see from my programme notes that film was made by Ana Zamorano and Prentice Whitlow. Now I know Prentice. He is a hugely talented and impressive dancer who can now add filmmaking to his catalogue of accomplishments but I don't know Ana Zamorani. So I googled her. The only Ana Zamorano that I could find was the author of a children's book called A Comer about a family with a little girl called Alicia who looks and is dressed very like Carmen in this performance. Now I may be barking up quite the wrong tree (in which case apologies all round) but this fascinating piece made me think very much of growing up. Just like Alicia in Zamorano's story.

The first Act was rounded off by Vanessa Vince-Pang's Kerenza which was my favourite piece of the evening. The stage was full of joyful energetic young people who are the pre-vocational students of Phoenix Dance Academy. A few movements from the piece appear in the YouTube video that you can see above. I love the music which was written by Oliver Davis - or so my programme tells me. I felt uplifted as I do when I see anything by Chris Marney or Ernst Meisner.  Kerenza and Elemontary have left me eager to see more work by Vanessa Vince-Pang.

Everyone I spoke to was excited by what we had seen but the best was yet to come in Act 2. The whole of that Act was devoted to a preview of Sharon Watson's Windrush which will be premiered at West Yorkshire Playhouse in February. The piece was named after the Empire Windrush which carried 497 passengers - mainly young men of African heritage - from Jamaica at the invitation of the government to ease the post-war labour shortage.  They were by no means the first Afro-Caribbean or African people to come to this country. Many others had studied here, served in two world wars or settled in great port cities like Cardiff and Liverpool. However, the Windrush is a symbol of an event of enormous significance for this country as it is of course for those who made the journey and their descendants.

Introducing the piece, Sharon told us that the work will be in two parts - first the preparation for the voyage and the voyage itself and then what happened upon their arrival. We saw the first part which was harrowing enough as it showed the separation of families. And as we know what happened afterwards - Notting Hill, Smethwick and Enoch Powell - the second part may not be a bundle of laughs either.

But, of course, this was not history but dance and I don't think I had ever seen, or would ever see, Phoenix dance better. But that was before I saw them perform Robert North's Troy Game. This is a work originally performed by men. It was created for the London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1974 and has been staged by the Stuttgart Ballet, Scottish Ballet and many other companies. The performance that we saw last Sunday was restaged by Julian Moss for Phoenix, the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Phoenix Dance Academy and pupils of Harehills Modern School. The cast was twice as large as in the original show and, for the first time, there were women in the show.

Troy Game was the pièce de résistance in a glorious evening that included a solo by Darshan Singh Bhuller in his own work The Path, David Hughes's performance of Siobhan Davies's interpretation  of L'Après Midi d'un Faune, Northern School of Contemporary Dance's Ocean, RJC Dance's Soca Jambiez and ACE Youth's State of Mind.  There was poetry from Khadijah Ibrahim and tributes from the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Janet Smith, the Principal of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Peter Gruen and, of course, Sharon Watson.

Long though this review is it does not begin to do justice to the Nadine Senior Gala when we saw some splendid and unique things. Think of the last two paragraphs as an appetiser, folks. I shall review the gala properly just as soon as I can.  I have seen some great dance over the last few weeks and I am burning to write about it all.

Northern Ballet and Phoenix host the China IP Roadshow

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Ever since Northern Ballet moved to its new studios I have been looking for a chance to introduce it to my colleagues and clients (see Ballet and Intellectual Property - my Excuse for reviewing "Beauty and the Beast" 31 Dec 2011 IP Yorkshire and The Things I do for my Art: Northern Ballet's Breakfast Meeting 23 Sept 2014). The opportunity arose when I was asked by Tom Duke, our IP attaché in Beijing to arrange venues for and chair the China IP Roadshow in Yorkshire.

As Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance Theatre create more intellectual assets than most in the form of choreography, musical scores, set and costume designs and performances and both have strong links with China I proposed Northern Ballet as the venue for the Leeds event. I was overjoyed when my proposal was accepted.

The event took place in the Boardroom on the top floor on Tuesday 19 Sept between 09:00 and 12:00. Many of Leeds's biggest law firms and patent and trade mark agencies were represented as well as the city's businesses, universities and local authority.  I invited two special guests - Sharon Watson Phoenix's artistic director who is chairing Leeds's bid to become the European City of Culture and Tobias Perkins, planning manager of Northern Ballet.

Tom spoke about China and the opportunities for British businesses in all sectors including the creative industries but warned of some of the things that can go wrong.  He recommended a number of countermeasures such as registering IP rights, getting contracts drawn up by Chinese lawyers and not leaving your business sense behind at Heathrow. Precautions that business people would take here such as requiring partners to enter non-disclosure agreements before disclosing trade secrets work in exactly the same way in China.

After Tom had answered a few questions I invited Sharon to talk about Phoenix and the City of Culture bid.  As you would expect, Sharon spoke passionately on both. Tom congratulated her on her presentation.  There were a lot of lawyers and business people who wanted to talk to buttonhole Sharon before she left the boardroom.

Tobias also spoke well. He spoke of two ways in which Northern Ballet raises revenue.  One was by performing and the company had made many tours of China over the years. The other is by licensing out to foreign companies and Tobias mentioned that the West Australian Ballet was performing David Nixon's The Great Gatsby in Perth almost as we spoke.

As the boardroom is almost next door to Studio 7 I proudly showed Tom where our 55+ class trains. Before leaving the building he asked to see the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre.  As Sean was in reception I asked whether it would be possible for Tom and his party to glance inside and I was delighted when he said it was.

Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance Theatre did me proud as they always do.  I shall certainly try to arrange more such events at their premises.

Terpsichore Titles: Contemporary Company of 2016

(c) 2016 Jane Lambert
All rights reserved

I've seen a lot of contemporary dance this year:  the National Dance Company of Wales and BalletLorent in Huddersfield (see Cambriophilia 19 March 2016 and BalletLorent  3 Oct 2016), Rambert at the Lowry (see Red Hot Rambert 1 Oct 2016) the Royal Ballet's Wayne McGregor triple bill at Covent Garden (see McGregor Triple Bill 18 Nov 2016) and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Nederlands Dans Theater 2 at the Bradford Alhambra (see Prickling - NDT2 in Bradford 1 May 2016 and Alvin Ailey in Bradford 29 Sept 2016) and the Lowry (see NBT2 at the Lowry 24 April 2016 and Alvin Ailey in Salford 8 Oct 2016). But for me, 2016 was the year of Phoenix.

It is 35 years since David Hamilton, Donald Edwards and Vilmore James founded Phoenix Dance Theatre in Leeds.  As the tour page on the company's website put it:

"From small beginnings in inner-city Leeds, Phoenix Dance Theatre has grown to be one of the UKs leading contemporary dance companies."

The company has some of my favourite dancers such as Carmen Vazquez Marfil, Sandrine Monin, Sam Vaherlehto, Vanessa Vince-Pang and Prentice Whitlow. It also has in its artistic director, Sharon Watson,  an excellent choreographer and it has just commissioned for the first time a work from one of its own dancers (see Calyx 8 Dec 2016).

As I said in Phoenix's 35th Anniversary Tour 18 Feb 2016:

"Phoenix contributes much to the cultural life of the North of England and the nation not only through its performances but also by its educational and outreach work which includes workshops on tour, academies for young people in Leeds and the North East and schools partnerships. The statistics are impressive. According to the programme for yesterday's performance there were 641 workshops engaging 2,379 young people in Leeds between 2014 and 2015 and a further 228 engaging 1,360 young persons outside the city with a total audience of 91,128."

The "performance" to which I referred was a celebration of Phoenix's 35th anniversary at the West Yorkshire Playhouse on 17 Feb 2016 with Sharon Watson's Melt, Kate Flatt's Undivided Loves and Itzik Galili's Until.With/Out.Enough.  It was a very special evening.

For all these reasons Phoenix Dance Theatre is my contemporary company for 2016.

Calyx

Book cover design by Charles Meunier
Source Wikipedia

Phoenix Dance Theatre, Calyx, Quarry Hill, 8 Dec 2016

When I was in my last year at school I discovered that the University of St. Andrews ran an examination for those seeking scholarships, exhibitions and bursaries known as the "bursary comp".  The examination took place in March over several days during which time the candidates were housed in one of the halls of residence. I entered the competition thinking it would be good experience for the Oxbridge exams which were due to take place later that year. To my great surprise (and even greater surprise of that of my teachers and parents) I was awarded a Harkness Scholarship of £100 a year which was a very generous sum in 1968. I fell in love with St Andrews during the week of the bursary comp and took up my award the following October rather than try Oxbridge in October which was probably the wisest thing I ever did.

The reason I mention all this is that candidates had to show a measure of proficiency in a modern language and I chose French. There was a literature paper and the syllabus covered late 19th century poets who are hardly ever read in this country, Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Verlaine. One of the books I had to read was Les Fleurs du mal which contained poems written in a most beautiful metre but whose language made no sense to me whatsoever. Nearly 50 years later I have encountered Baudelaire again but in the much more agreeable context of a preview of a new dance piece by Sandrine Monin called Calyx which is inspired by Baudelaire.

The preview took place at 16:30 today to an invited audience in one of Phoenix Dance Theatre's studios at Quarry Hill in Leeds.  The company's artistic director, Sharon Watson,  introduced Sandrine and the composer of her score, Roberto Rusconi. She explained that Calyx would be Sandrine's first work to be performed on stage and that this was the first time that she had commissioned a work from one of her company's dancers.  Each member of the audience was given a feedback form and a pencil upon which we were invited to write down our opinions on the choreography and the score.

Sharon stood aside and we saw 4 white boxes with soft canvas walls on stage. The recording started to play. One of the boxes began to move. Another showed the imprint of a hand. Then a foot appeared together with a leg rather like a sprouting shoot.  Their owner appeared to be Sam Vaherlehto. Slowly the other dancers emerged, again like vegetation.  They were Carmen Vazquez Marfil, Prentice Whitlow and Natalie Alleston. The dancers uncoiled and stretched about them reminding me briefly of Liam Scarlett's Frankenstein. They seemed to feel their way around their environment until they encountered each other. There was then a curious interaction between the two pairs of dancers which could have been love or indeed hostility. It was impossible to tell from the dancers' expressions but as it ended with the girls being stuffed into the boxes I assumed the latter.

The score contained echoes of the human voice and sounds from everyday life as well as conventional instruments. At first, I thought it was too complex and busy for the dance but, on reflection, I considered that the choreography is far from simple. The interaction between the dancers which I have just described and the question of whether the dance is an expression of love or hostility being an example.

After the performance, Sandrine and Roberto appeared to take questions.  A member of the audience congratulated the dancers to a rumble of assent.  Another asked Sandrine about costumes.  She replied that they would be dressed androgynously. She explained that Baudelaire, the source of her inspiration, used the most beautiful language to discuss the most unpleasant matter in his verse. I tried to remember whether I had felt the same when I had to read Baudelaire in preparation for the bursary comp. My recollection was blank for I found Baudelaire very difficult to understand indeed.  Translations didn't help.  They were, if anything, even more impenetrable that the original French.

The dancers presented another extract from Sandrine's piece. My impression was that it was softer, more lyrical = perhaps a little more like Ashton's Monotones which had been set to the music of the French composer Erik Satie who was born just before Baudelaire died. I wondered whether Satie could have worked for Sandrine too but, in the end, I thought she was right to commission Roberto.

We were given a minute to fill in our forms which were collected by Melody Walker. As we left the studio Melody invited us to share some Christmas fare and mingle with the other guests. I met some interesting people, the dancers Vanessa Vince-Pang, and a new recruit from Cuba whom I only know as Carlos who spoke passionately about dance and graciously acknowledged my compliments for his illustrious compatriots in this country's ballet companies. I met Janet Smith of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, the director of CAST, the new executive director of Phoenix and one of the founders of the company who gave Sandrine the most useful critique of her work that could ever be available.

Even in a rehearsal studio Calyx was quite enthralling. In a theatre it will be breathtaking. The work will premiere as part of a mixed bill on 8 Feb at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and then go on tour to Durham, Oldham and Edinburgh. I am sure the other works will be great too but it would be worthwhile coming to the show simply to see Calyx.

Phoenix at 35

Phoenix Dance Theatre's Cake

Photo Gita Mistry

Copyright 2016 Gita Mistry
All rights reserved

Yesterday I reported the opening night of Phoenix Dance Theatre's 35th anniversary tour (see Phoenix's 35th Anniversary Tour 18 Feb 2017). The evening began a year of celebrations which included the cutting of a celebratory cake by David Hamiton, one of the company's founders, and its artistic director, Sharon Watson.

David Hamilton and Sharon Watson cutting the cake

Photo Gita Mistry

Copyright 2016 Gita Mistry
All rights reserved

Yesterday was the start of Phoenix's 35 for 35 appeal which I mentioned in my review.

Phoenix's 35th Anniversary Tour

Phoenix Dance Theatre, Triple Bill, West Yorkshire Playhouse, 17 Feb 2016

In 1981 David Hamilton, Donald Edwards and Vilmore James founded Phoenix Dance Theatre in Leeds (see the History page on the company's website). Yesterday David Hamilton attended the first night of Phoenix's 35th anniversary tour at the West Yorkshire Playhouse at the start of a year of celebrations of the 35th anniversary of the formation of the company.

There is a lot to celebrate. As the tour page puts it:

"From small beginnings in inner-city Leeds, Phoenix Dance Theatre has grown to be one of the UKs leading contemporary dance companies."

Phoenix contributes much to the cultural life of the North of England and the nation not only through its performances but also by its educational and outreach work which includes workshops on tour, academies for young people in Leeds and the North East and schools partnerships. The statistics are impressive. According to the programme for yesterday's performance there were 641 workshops engaging 2,379 young people in Leeds between 2014 and 2015 and a further 228 engaging 1,360 young persons outside the city with a total audience of 91,128.

Phoenix started its tour with a triple bill that consisted of Sharon Watson's Melt, Kate Flatt's Undivided Loves and Itzik Galili's Until.With/Out.Enough. I loved all three of those works but particularly Undivided Loves which focused on Sonnet 18:

"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

Brilliantly accompanied by the music of Adriano Adewale who played his score on stage, the dancers Prentice Whitlow, Sam Vaherlehto and Marie-Astrid Mence explored the themes of love, jealousy and rivalry. I saw a preview of this work just before Christmas as I mentioned in Never attend a Ballet Class the Morning after the Night Before 21 Dec 2015. In the discussion after the performance I asked the composer who is Brazilian whether he had read the sonnets in Portuguese as Shakespeare belongs to every culture and not just the anglophone. Adewale proved that point at the end of the score with snippets of Portuguese and Finnish.

Melt is another favourite. It never fails to lift me.  When I reviewed it for Phoenix at Home 4 Oct 2015 I described it as a "joyful work" and a "dance in three dimensions". I explained that:

"Dancers formed patterns on the stage. Then they were hoisted up on ropes from which they swooped and twirled and turned. The programme notes mentions elements colliding and the choreographer talks about ice and fire from which I surmises the title Melt is derived. I saw only harmony and fluidity. If there were collisions they were controlled. The work is hauntingly beautiful not least because of the music chosen for the work: "We Still Got The Taste Dancin’ On Our Tongues" by Wild Beasts from their 2009 album ‘Two Dancers‘. Watson, the company's artistic director, created Melt for the company's Reflected programme in 2011."

The dancers (Carmen Vazquez Marfil, Sandrine Monin, Vanessa Vince-Pang, Jack Thomson, Prentice Whitlow, Sam Vaherlehto and Marie-Astrid Mence) seemed to love this piece. I have never seen them dance better.

Until.With/Out.Enough is a co-commission with the Royal Opera House and I saw it at the Linbury on 13 Nov 2013 (see The Phoenix Soars Over London 13 Nov 2015. It was created by Irzik Galili to the music of Gorecki which cannot have been a an easy score to interpret.  The choreographer responded to that challenge ingeniously by working on the collective shape of the dancers so that the piece seemed to be almost as much a work of sculpture or architecture as a work of dance. Consequently lighting was particularly important in a piece such as this and it was designed impressively by Yaron Abulafia. In this piece were Natalie Alleston performed with Carmen Vazquez Marfil, Sandrine Monin, Vanessa Vince-Pang, Jack Thomson, Prentice Whitlow and Sam Vaherlehto.

As Phoenix has given so much to the nation the company has invited the public to donate 35 for 35. That can be
- £35 - "£1 for every year that Phoenix has been entertaining and inspiring dance audiences" for which contributors will receive a poster of the Company’s latest repertoire and an acknowledgement of support on its website;
- £3.50 per month which, if renewed for a second year, will earn automatic membership of the dancer's circle.
- a one-off donation of £350 which will be rewarded with membership of the choreographers' circle; or
- £3,500 bringing membership of the artistic director's circle.
Information  on making donations is available on the "Give 35 for 35 Years" page of the company's website.

Highlights of 2015

Ballet Cymru's Cinderella


In Looking Forward to 2015 - My Choices 29 Dec 2014 I tipped Queensland Ballet's La Sylphide for ballet of the year with the Dutch National Ballet's Cool Britannia, the Royal Ballet's Fille, Ballet Black's triple bill, Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet and Scottish Ballet's Nutcracker as likely runners up. They were all good and I enjoyed them all tremendously but none of them was the ballet of the year in my book. That accolade belongs to Ballet Cymru's Cinderella by Darius James and Amy Doughty (see Ballet Cymru's Cinderella 15 June 2015).

James and Doughty also choreographed the second best show which was Tir, an arrangement of Welsh folk songs sung on stage by Cerys Matthews (see "The Pride of Newport and the Pride of Wales" 8 Nov 2015 and Ballet Cymru in London 1 Dec 2015). The performances that I saw were charged with emotion because the company had recently lost Mandev Sokhi, one of the most attractive dancers on the stage (see Mandev Sokhi 10 Oct 2015). Matthews had added the Rev Eli Jenkings's prayer from Milkwood to her medley in Sokhi's memory. I doubt that there was a dry eye in the house. How the dancers carried it off with memories so raw is  remarkable.

Ballet Cymru have some wonderful dancers and this was the year I got to make their acquaintance (see Ballet Cymru at Home 5 Oct 2015). I visited their studios in Rogerstone with the London Ballet Circle and watched their company class and a rehearsal of Cinderella. At the end of the company class James invited each of his artists to perform their party piece. The women showed off their fouettés and the men their jumps and turns.

This was a vintage year for Cinderella as the panel agreed in the State of the Art Panel Discussion: Narrative Dance in Ballet during Northern Ballet's Choreographic Laboratory 2015 (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015). There were great productions by Christopher Hampson for Scottish Ballet and Christopher Wheeldon's for the Dutch National Ballet (see Scottish Ballet's Cinderella 20 Dec 2015 and  Wheeldon's Cinderella 13 July 2015. They both had their strengths and I liked them a lot but it is the Welsh version with Jack White's glorious score that stands out like a beacon.

Ballet Cymru shows that a company does not have to be big to be great and two of my other favourite companies, Ballet Black and Phoenix Dance Theatre, emphasize that point. I saw them both at the Linbury - Ballet Black's triple bill on 14 Feb 2015 (see Ballet Black's Best Performance Yet 17 Feb 2015) and Phoenix's on 12 Nov 2015 (see The Phoenix Soars Over London 13 Nov 2015).

There are of course big companies that are also great and one of the greatest is Scottish Ballet. Last year was a succession of successes: the revival of Peter Darrell's Nutcracker in Edinburgh (Like meeting an old friend after so many years 4 Jan 2015), A Streetcar named Desire at Sadler's Wells (see Scottish Ballet's Streetcar 2 April 2015), Marc Brew's Exalt and van Manen's 5 Tangos at the Tramway (see No Mean City - Accessible Dance and Ballet 26 April 2015) and Christopher Hampson's magnificent Cinderella which I mentioned above. Scottish Ballet was the first ballet company I got to know and love and it is still special to me. Yesterday I tweeted that if I could see only one ballet company this year it would have to be Scottish Ballet.

Scottish Ballet owes much of its success to its artistic director in Christopher Hampson. I was lucky enough to see him in the flesh in the State of the Art Panel Discussion which I mentioned above. He choreographed Perpetuum Mobile for Northern Ballet which accompanied Madame Butterfly on its mid-scale tour which was the best thing I saw from that company last year (see Nixon's Masterpiece 22 May 2015) and Four for Ballet Central (see Dazzled 3 May 2015).  I look forward to his Sextet for Ballet Black very much.

I saw two great performances by the Royal Ballet in 2015:  Cranko's Onegin on 16 Feb 2015 with Matthew Golding and Natalia Osipova in the leading roles (see Onegin: the most enjoyable performance that I have seen at the House since Sibley and Dowell 21 Feb 2015) and La Fille mal gardée with Laura Morera and Vadim Muntagirov as Lise and Colas (see The Best Fille Ever 18 April 2015). Morera was a lovely Lise and Muntagirov was the best Colas ever and I got the opportunity to tell Morera how much I enjoyed her performance when she and Ricardo Cervera spoke to the London Ballet Circle in August (see Laura Morera 25 Aug 2015).

Cranko is my favourite choreographer of all time but he died so young. Two young choreographers who remind me of Cranko are Christopher Marney and  Ernst Meisner, I had an opportunity to compare Cranko and Marney back to back when the Chelmsford Ballet Company performed Cranko's Pineapple Poll and Carnival of the Animals, a work that Marney created specially for the company (see A Delight Indeed  22 March 2015. Meisner created Embers for the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company of which he is artistic coordinator. In my review of the work danced by Nancy Burer and Thomas van Damme I described it as "one of the most beautiful ballets I have ever seen" (see The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's best Performance yet 8 Feb 2015).

We were lucky enough to see the Junior Company in London in June (see Junior Company in London - even more polished but as fresh and exuberant as ever 7 June 2015) and the main company's Cinderella in July. I also saw their Cool Britannia, a mixed bill of works by British choreographers at the Stopera in Amsterdam (see Going Dutch 29 June 2015) and the opening gala of the Amsterdam ballet season (see The Best Evening I have ever spent at the Ballet 13 Sept 2015). There was  a party after the gala at which I met many of the company's choreographers and dancers including Ted Brandsen, Juanjo Arques and Michaela DePrince.

Another splendid evening at the Birmingham Hippodrome on 20 June 2015 marked the 25th anniversary of the Birmingham Royal Ballet's move to Birmingham and the 20th anniversary of David Bintley's appointment as artistic director of that company (see In Praise of Bintley 20 June 2015). The company performed David The King Dances, Bintley's latest work, and his Carmina Burana (see A Special Ballet for a Special Day 23 June 2015 and Oh Fortuna 23 June 2015). Bintley spoke about both works on his visits to the London Ballet Circle in May and November.  The Birmingham Royal Ballet also danced a magnificent Coppelia in Salford on 5 March 2015 (see Sensational 6 March 2015 and Swan Lake on 24 Sept 2015 (see Birmingham Royal Ballet's Swan Lake at the Lowry 26 Sept 2015)

Yet another gala too place in Leeds on the 14 March 2015 to mark Northern Ballet's 35th anniversary (see Sapphire 15 March 2015). Thirteen works were performed that night by artists from Northern Ballet and many other companies. The highlight of my evening was the pas de deux from the White Act of Swan Lake by Muntagirov and Daria Klimentova.  They were a remarkable partnership and I had thought that I would never see them dance again. It was also good to see Xander Parish again in Eric Gauthier's Ballet 101, Phoenix's Shift and Javier Torres's Dying Swan. That was the first time I had seen a male dancer attempt Pavlova's iconic piece and Torres succeeded handsomely. My mother saw Pavlova dance the Dying Swan in the same theatre many years ago (see In Leeds of all Places - Pavlova, Ashton and Magic 18 Sept 2013). I also enjoyed Jonathan Watkins's Northern Trilogy and in particular his Yorkshire Pudding. It promised so much for 1984 but although that ballet grew on my the second time I saw it, it fell a long way short of my expectations (see My First Impressions of 1984 12 Sept 2015 and 1984 Second Time Round 24 Oct 2015).

I saw 3 productions of Romeo and Juliet in 2015. One was by Northern Ballet, another by Ballet West and the third by the English National Ballet in 2015. Northern's version by Jean Christophe-Maillot with its emphasis on Friar Lawrence was interesting but the production that I enjoyed the most was Nureyev's version which ENB danced at the Palace on 28 Nov 2015 (see Manchester's Favourite Ballet Company 29 Nov 2015). Max Westwell and Lauretta Summerscales danced the title roles magnificently and I was particularly pleased to see Sarah Kundi as Lady Capulet.

ENB also performed Lest We Forget at the Palace on 24 Nov 2015 (see Lest We Forget 25 Nov 2015). This was a triple bill of works by Liam Scarlett, Russell Maliphant and Akram Khan in memory of those who took part in World War 1. This was not an easy programme to watch but it was intensely moving. I admired all three works, particularly Scarlett's No Man's Land,

The centenary of World War I was also marked by the Royal New Zealand Ballet in Andrew Simmons's Dear Horizon and Neil Ieremia's Passchendale which they performed at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre on 4 Nov 2015 as part their A Passing Cloud mixed bill (see Kia Ora! The Royal New Zealand Ballet in Leeds 5 Nov 2015). This was one of two antipodean companies that visited us in 2015 of which I for one would liked to have seen more. I did catch the New Zealanders' Giselle in High Wycombe on 7 Nov 2015 (see Royal New Zealand Ballet's Giselle 10 Nov 2015).

The other antipodean company that we welcomed was the Queensland Ballet which danced La Sylphide at the Coliseum in August (see A Dream realized; the Queensland Ballet in London 12 Aug 2015). Australia used to send its best dancers to us starting with Sir Robert Helpmann but is now a power house of dance in its own right attracting talent from around the world. One of its brightest stars is the legendary Li-Cunxin who has carved an impressive career in stockbroking as well as dance. Meeting him at the London Ballet Circle and hearing his life story was an unforgettable experience (see Li-Cunxin at the London Ballet Circle 5 Aug 2015).

Another foreign company that visited us in August was the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre which brought the Mariinsky's Denis Rodkin to our shores. I saw him in La Bayadère with Irina Kolesnikova as Nikiya (see Blown Away - St Petersburg Ballet Theatre's La Bayadere 24 Aug 2015). I had previously seen him in HDTV transmissions from Moscow as the Nutcracker (see Clara grows up- Grigorovitch's Nutcracker transmitted directly from Moscow 21 Dec 2014). Siegfried in Swan Lake (see Grigorovich's Swan Lake in Bradford 26 Jan 2015) and Ferhad in The Legend of Love (see The Bolshoi's "A Legend of Love" streamed from Moscow 27 Oct 2014) but he is even more impressive in real life.

I saw some great performances last year by some outstanding dancers from the world's most famous companies and it is probably unfair to select any for special praise but here is my list for what it is worth:

Ballet of the Year
Ballet Cymru's Cinderella, runner up Ballet Cymru's Tir

Company of the Year
Scottish Ballet, runners up Dutch National Ballet and the Royal Ballet

Small Companies of the Year
Ballet Black and Ballet Cymru

Contemporary Company of the Year
Phoenix Dance Theatre

Male Dancer of the Year
Denis Rodkin in La Bayadere, runner up Matthew Golding in the Royal Ballet's Onegin and the Dutch National Ballet's Cinderella

Female Dancer of the Year
Laura Morera as Lise  runners up Anna Tsygankova and Bethany Kingsley-Garner as Cinderella 

Choreographers of the Year 
Christopher Hampson for Perpetuum Mobile for Northern Ballet and Ernst Meisner for Embers for the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company

Dancers to watch
Floor Elmers of Dutch National Ballet, Krystal Lowe of Ballet Cymru, Marie-Astrid-Mence of Phoenix Dance Theatre and Gavin McCaig of Northern Ballet

Promising Newcomers
Bart Engelen, Norwegian Ballet, Cristiano Principato and Emilie Tassinari, Dutch National Ballet Junior Company, Tim Hill of Ballet Cymru and Prentice Whitlow of Phoenix Dance Theatre

Never attend a Ballet Class the Morning after the Night Before

While I was in Edinburgh I bought these very special cards for my very special ballet friends.  They show Bethany Kingsley-Garnet who danced Cinderella on Saturday and that is the costume she wore in the ballet. It was a lovely production as you can see from my review (see Scottish Ballet's Cinderella 20 Dec 2015). You may remember that Cinders had been warned to leave the ball before the end of the drivers' shift at Murine Motors otherwise they would take their Pumpkin stretched limo back to the garage and she would have to find her way home on the night bus. Cinders could have walked home when her mum was alive because the family lived in the New Town. She and her dad had to move to Craigmillar after he had taken to the bottle to relieve the stress that he suffered in a disastrous second marriage.

Cinders managed to change out of her party dress and even had time for a brief lift by the prince just before the Pumpkin drove off. That was more than I was able to do when I attended our chambers party on Wednesday. It was a seriously good party which was still going strong as I left for King's Cross to catch my train back to Leeds at 06:30. The reason I had to be on that train was that I had a ballet class at 11:00, cocktails at The Alchemist after class and an invitation to see one of Phoenix Dance Theatre's  new pieces at 17:00.

Leeds is 200 miles from London and the journey takes just over 2 hours. For the whole of that journey I felt I was doing pirouettes if not more fouettés than Legnani had ever accomplished in her life. As I say, it had been a very, very good party. I regained my composure on the walk to Quarry Hill and changed out of my party dress into my leotard.

The first exercise was pliés which are usually a doddle but when I tried to relevé in 5th at the end of the exercise my feet and ankles wobbled like a jelly. It was even worse when we tried tendus because we had to remember to stretch our inside leg after the exercise on our outside leg and then attempt to stretch outside leg and insider leg alternately en croix. Glissés were even worse because they required a pas de cheval st various stages. To say I was hopelessly confused is putting it mildly. After the usual ronds de jambe. grands battements and so forth and then it was time for centre work when my troubles really began. Even though my brain had been doing pirouettes all the way from King's Cross to Leeds could my body pull one off when it needed to do so. No way don Jose. It was hard enough to remember the preparation. We had a lovely port de bras which I just managed to struggle through. Then jumps which is the bit I usually like best. Finally, chassés, balancés, a complex exercise consisting of curtsey, arabesque,  pas de bourrés and balancé turns which is hard enough when I have had a good night's sleep and have been stone cold sober the night before. For once in my life cool down and reverence could not come soon enough.

Mel had been following  my tweets from Budapest. "How was class?" she asked solicitously. "I didn't injure myself or anyone else or even fall over" I replied "but that was about all the credit I could claim." We met for cocktails as arranged. Michelle Richer, one of the most prolific contributors to BalletcoForum, managed to join us from Lincolnshire.  She was accompanied by Adrian whom she had mentioned in the forum from time to time. In fact we met  on the train to Leeds. Although I stuck to mineral water my classmaters' cocktails were amazing. One of them ordered something that erupted with the violence of Vesuvius. Another produced dry ice like the wilis emerging from their tombs.

My over 55 ballet class was almost as gregarious as my chambers. We found a table on the terrace outside the cocktail lounge where we could observe le tout Leeds and there my fellows consumed the barman's concoctions until dusk. I stayed in Leeds for the new work for Phoenix by Kate Flatt called Undivided Loves which will be premièred at West Yorkshire Playhouse on 17 Feb 2016. We had a talk from the choreographer and another from Adriano Adewale, the composer, and finally a run through by Prentice Whitlow, Marie-Astrid Mence and Jack Thomson. As the work is still in progress I have promised to say nothing about it except that it is enchanting and I would urge my readers to see it.

I had forgotten to mention what I did between cocktails and the performance. I spent an interesting time at the British Art Show at Leeds Art Gallery. It is not everybody's cup of tea. Maybe not even Marcel Duchamp's but it is good to know what artists in other mediums are creating. I was attracted to Charlotte Prodger's "Northern Dancer"  but found out that it was all about a horse.

Phoenix in Huddersfield

Phoenix Dance Theatre, Mixed Bill, Lawrence Batley Teatre, Huddersfield, 27 Nov 2015

When I reviewed Phoenix's triple bill at The Linbury in The Phoenix Soars Over London on 13 Nov 2015 I promised to focus on Itzik Galili's Until.With/ Out.Enough and Caroline Finn's Bloom as soon as I had seen them in Huddersfield. I made that romise because I was so impressed with Sharon Watson's TearFall that I ran out of space and time to write about anything else. I am unable to keep that promise in its entirety because the first two works in last night's show were not Galili's piece bbut Christopher Bruce's Shift and Shadows. 

Not that I'm complaining for I am a great admirer of Bruce's work as you can see from my reviews of Rambert's Rooster (see Cock a Doodle Doo - Rambert's Rooster 27 Oct 2015 and Rooster ................ :-) 4 Oct 2014) and Scottish Ballet's Ten Poems (see Bruce Again 6 Oct 2015). Nevertheless it did occur to me to ask the reason for the substitution in a question and answer session with the cast in the Syngenta cellar at the end of the show. I didn't get a chance to ask that question because there were so many others who wanted to quiz the company but it was answered by Tracy Tinker, the tour director, who explained that the company had to dance Galili's piece in London because it had been a joint commission with the Royal Opera House.

The substitution prompted me to buy a new programme at the first interval and I remarked to a lady selling Phoenix merchandise in the foyer that this was a completely new programme. It wasn't entirely new. The other two works, TearFall and Bloom were the same as in the Linbury. 

As on the 12 Nov 2015 I enjoyed TearFall tremendously and appreciated it a little bit more for seeing it twice. It was clear from the Q & A that that piece went down well with the audience. Prentice Whitlow explained his interpretation of the work in response to a question from the floor. One point that I had missed before was that men and women think of tears in an entirely different way and the piece explored that.  Whitlow had introduced the piece with a short monologue and recordings of his voice and someone's (possibly his) weeping recurred at several points of the show.

Finn's Bloom was another work that I got to understand better the second time round though I am still not sure that I have got to the bottom of it.  Perhaps if I describe it you will see why.  It began with a group of dancers on the left hand side of the stage cooing and clucking around a table.  Suddenly one of them screams and Sam Vaherlehto wearing a clown's tragedy mask appears round a microphone. He shifts and shuffles apparently with embarrassment as his audience applauds and looks on. There is a duet - or more properly a dance dialogue - with Whitlow. One of the women in a tutu like skirt dances a solo to a rhyme that seemed to mock medicine. In another scene Vaherlehto gathers the dancers who were stretched on the ground like corpses and assembles them into a pile. The dancer in the tutu makes her way to the centre and lies down about them.  Towards the end Vaherlehto, stripped to his underpants, danced to a song with the chorus "I'm a creep. I'm a wierdo. What the hell am I doing here." Starting with the title Bloom I wondered whether the dancers might be plants or flowers and that the man in the mask was the gardener. I was dying to ask whether or not I was on the right track but sadly didn't get a chance to find out.

Even if it was about flowers Bloom did have disturbing undertones such as the thin line between reality and hallucination, Bruce's Shadows also seemed to be about aberrations of the mind as it started with furniture throwing. I was not the only one to see a connection with depression. The lady sitting next to me in the Q & A was a therapist and she alluded to it in formulating her question.

Shift, however was quite different. I had seen the same dancers dance that work at The Sapphire gala in March and I think they were better second time round. More polished somehow. Dressed in forties costumes with the women in head scarves Gracie Fields style they seemed to represent a production line. I was reminded very much of the munitions workers in Liam Scrlett's No Man's Land which I had seen in Manchester two days earlier (see Lest We Forget 25 Nov 2015). However, Bruce's workers seemed to have a lot more fun that Scareltt's canaries.

The Q & A session was my first chance to see all the dancers together and hear them speak. I had already met Whitlow a few days earlier, I have been following several of the others on twitter and I knew Marie-Astrid Mence from Ballet Black. They are an impressive bunch of artists. Watson explained her selection process which is uber competitive. They were asked how they took up dance. Two of the men explained that they took up dance because their sisters were taking lessons. The others gave various reasons. They were asked by the therapist how they relaxed and we learned from Vaherlehto that they look (or at least he looks) to another art. Photography in his case someone added.  I hope to run a feature on Mence and Whitlow in Terpsichore soon.

This has been a pretty good month for dance and the two shows by Phoenix were among the highlights. Although rooted in Leeds it really is a world class company with dancers from around the world.  I am very proud of them.