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.

Another Award - Terpsichore is now one of the Top 35 Ballet Blogs

I have just received the following lovely email:

Hi Jane Lambert,
Congratulations! I am pleased to inform you that your blog has been included in our Top 35 Ballet Blogs which can be found on our website.
My team has been in constant search for the best top dance blogs and during my own exploration I stumbled upon your site. Your blog contains a lot of interesting blog posts, I especially enjoyed the article about "Windrush" at the Peacock - "More than just art. It was an education."
I hope you will enjoy being included in the list, and the extra promotion this creates for your blog.
We have also created a special badge for you that you can post on your blog:
I would like to answer any questions you may have, or hear your feedback about the list. Please feel free to send me a message.
Keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Lisa Kok,
Junior Project Manager
cupondedescuento.com.co

I am particularly pleased that Lisa has singled out my review of Sharon Watson's masterpiece for commendation.  It is another opportunity for me to congratulate Sharon and her beautiful dancers, Christella Litras, Eleanor Bull and everyone involved in that work.

"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 Studio Sharing

Phoenix Dance Theatre Windrush – Movement of the People,  Quarry Hill, 15 Dec 2017, 15:30

On 22 June 1948 the MV Empire Windrush, a former German troopship, sailed into Tilbury docks with just under 500 passengers from Jamaica. Those travellers came to London to fill a temporary labour shortage as the United Kingdom recovered from the Second World War. The voyage symbolizes a movement of peoples of enormous economic, cultural and political significance both for those taking and for the communities in which they settled.  Other travellers came to the UK from other Caribbean islands and other parts of the Commonwealth. There were also similar movements from the Caribbean to Canada, from the rural south of the USA to the industrial north, from the overseas possessions of other European powers to France, the Netherlands, Portugal and many other countries.

To mark the 70th anniversary of the voyage of the Empire Windrush, Sharon Watson is creating a new dance piece entitled Windrush: Movement of the People which will be premiered at West Yorkshire Playhouse on 7 Feb 2018. I was lucky enough to see a preview of the work on 28 Sept 2017 (see Phoenix - A Double Celebration 14 Oct 2017). Last Friday at a sharing of work in Phoenix's studios I was shown some more.  It was not an easy watch and I did not expect it to be.  As I noted in October the first part of the work was harrowing enough as it showed the separation of families". As we know what happened after those travellers arrived - Notting Hill, Smethwick and Enoch Powell - I expected the second part to be emotionally harrowing. But I did not expect it to hit me as hard as it did. Tears welled up to the words "You called and we came". The artists who had been so full of exuberance in the first act appeared almost ghost like as they experienced the greyness and cold of post-war Britain.

At least some of those tears were generated by memories of my late spouse who came from Sierra Leone.  My father in law, an Anglican minister. and my mother in law. a nurse, had come to this country about the time of the voyage of the Windrush.  My spouse was brought up by aunties and cousins in Freetown and remembers a land of abundance, sunshine and love. In 1955 my father and mother in law sent for their child. At first the voyage was delightful but as the ship entered the Western Approaches everything became dark and cold. Not even the sight of my father and mother in law at Liverpool docks comforted the child.  Eventually the child adapted to life in the United Kingdom, read law and was called to the Bar which is how we met. We had a marriage that lasted nearly 27 years which was strong enough to withstand racism, all the travails of practice and even my gender dysphoria. Only motor neuron disease broke us up in 2010.

Sharon Watson's genius was to say something to me but at the sharing of work I realized that I was not the only one with memories to share and perhaps tears to shed.  The daughter of the captain of the Windrush was at the sharing. So, too, was one of the passengers, a magnificent gentleman who must have been in or close to his 90s who rose ramrod straight to acknowledge his welcome. Sharon Watson's family were in the audience as were others who had made their home in Leeds and contributed so much to the city.

Even though the work is still not quite finished, Windrush is already a success.  After opening in Leeds it will tour the country visiting Keswick, Cheltenham, Doncaster, Leicester, London and Newcastle as well as a quick crossing to Aachen for the Schrittmacher Festival.   I left details of this work with the Dutch National Ballet when I visited them on Sunday.  Aachen is only 125 miles from Amsterdam and there is a motorway and fast train all the way.  A trip to the show and back is doable without an overnight stay.  I would certainly urge them as well as my compatriots in the rest of Britain to see this mighty work

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.

Images of War: Ballet Central's "War Letters" and other Works

The Green Howards at the Battle of Anzio

Author Sgt. Radford, No. 2 Film and Photographoc Unit
Source Wikipedia

Ballet Central, Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, 28 April 2016

When I first saw Chris Marney's War Letters for Ballet Black nearly three years ago I wrote:

"War Letters, which took up the whole of the second act, brought all the dancers together. It opened with the voice of Kwame Kwei Amah reading the words of a soldier's letter to his sweetheart rejoicing at their love. The mood changed with a poignant pas de deux between a wounded, gassed or shell shocked soldier in pyjamas and his lover who arrived with smiles and left with a broken. Next came a dance to the music of Glenn Miller. Four soldiers met four girls on the dance floor. Three of the girls were asked to dance but the fourth was ignored. She tried to attract the boys' attention but to no avail. The second reading came from Thandie Newton comparing throwing off a lover to the loss of a heavy coat - but then regretting the loss of warmth. This analogy was taken up by the choreographer as the boys tried to lend her their overcoats. The scene ended with the girl shrouded with the soldiers' coats. Finally, there was the voice of the wartime radio presenter John Snagge announcing "Victory in Europe". The last scene is of the artists together which I reproduced in my previous post. Home came the boys nursing their injuries. This was not the first ballet on the horror of war but I still found it a very moving work."

I saw the same company dance that work again in the Stanley and Aubrey Burton Theatre six months later:

"Christopher Marney's War Letters is a very moving piece and it resonated with the audience in Leeds last night even more than it had done in London. Possibly because it was danced in poppy season. Two movements brought many including me close to tears. The hospital visit to a seriously wounded soldier and the Winter coat. Beautiful choreography giving every dancer an opportunity to show what he or she can do."

 Yesterday I saw the young dancers of Ballet Central dance that work and found the work even more poignant than before. I think it is because the dancers are so young - exactly the age of so many of the boys who were called up and the girls who were left behind - and the painstaking attention to detail. The boys wore British uniforms and the girls wore their hair exactly as their grandmothers (or even their great grandmothers) would have done. I was born well after then end of the second world war but remember bomb sites, amputees and even some rationing. I was reminded of my parents' reminiscences of war. This performance spoke to me in a way that previous ones had not done.

All credit then to the artists: Holly Girdham, Emma Hancox, Mai Ito, Mia Lambuschagne, Seren Williams, Valerie Yeo, Jaspar Arran, Cian Hughes, James Parratt, James Roxby-Brwn, Mark Samaras and Joseph Vaughan. I particularly enjoyed Mai Ito's performance of the girl on the side, a role that Kanika Carr created for Ballet Black. Mai Ito danced that charmingly - playful at one moment, petulant the next, and always flirtatious.

Although it was the chance to see War Letters again that excited me it was not the only work that delighted me. I enjoyed all the works that the company danced last night but three impressed me in particular: Christopher Gable's Celebration which opened the show, Sharon Watson's Repetition (2) Change and the Pas de Trois from Paquita which rounded off the first part of the show.  Of those three works it was Celebration that I enjoyed the best, possibly because it had been created by Gable.

I first saw Christopher Gable when he was with the Royal Ballet. Many years later I saw him in Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man for Northern Ballet. He was artistic director when I started to follow Northern Ballet and created my favourite ballets for that company.  Celebration, a gorgeous classical work reminded me of all that.  After the dancers had presented themselves there was a delightful pas de deux, a virtuoso piece by the men, a joyful succession of duets and so on.  The music was provided by the composer, Philip Feeney, in person. The work was staged by Carole Gable who is Central's ladies' ballet tutor and rehearsal coach.

Carole Gable also staged the Pas de Trois which was performed skilfully by Mai Ito, Kanami Dano and Mark Samaras to Minkus's music.  This requires virtuosity and grace from each of those three young dancers which they displayed in abundance.

Like her TearFall which I reviewed in The Phoenix Soars Over London 13 Nov 2015 Watson's Repetition (2) Change was a science lesson as well as dance. Two sets of dancers, some male others female, clad in almost identical red and black gowns, wove around each other in seemingly random patterns. According to the programme notes "the fascinating intricate world of DNA is placed under the microscope" in this work. I could not quite work out was whether the red and black dancers were supposed to be different letters of a sequence, DNA and RNA or something else. Watson was in the auditorium but I did not get a chance to ask her. I was however gratified to find that the piece had been sponsored by Susan Dalgetty-Ezra of the London Ballet Circle. The work was staged by our very own Sandrine Monon of Phoenix.

The other works that I enjoyed were Leanne King's duet Insinuare danced by Elizabeth Medway and Joseph Vaughan to Feeney's music and Sara Matthews's energetic Superstruct, also to a score by Feeney.

It was a very good programme though perhaps a little less ambitious than last year (see Dazzled 3 May 2015). Also, while there were many impressive young dancers nobody stood out in the way that Mthuthuzeli November did last year. On the other hand War Letters was wonderful. In performing that work think I saw Central at its very best last night. The company will move on to Uppingham, Newbury, Chipping Norton, the Royal Automobile Club, Bridport, Eastleigh, Margate, Wedmor, Bristol and the Stratford Arts Centre.

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.

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.

Phoenix at Home

Phoenix Dance Theatre, Phoenix@Home, Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, 1 Oct 2015

Although I missed most of World Ballet Day on Thursday because I had to work Phoenix Dance Theatre's showcase Phoenix@Home more than made up for it. The audience at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre was treated to a glorious programme of dance:  Melt Document and Mapping - very different but somehow complementary works by Sharon Watson, Uri Ivgi and Johan Greben and Darshan Singh Bhuller. All three works were impressive and I appreciated them all.

The most joyful of the works was Melt. It was dance in three dimensions. 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.

Whereas Melt suggested fluidity and joy Document conveyed restriction and violence. I was reminded of Plato's cave.  Other members of the audience thought of gassed or shell shocked soldiers or refugees landing at Lampedusa.  You can see what I mean from the trailer here and the video in which the choreographers discuss their work here. There is very little movement as the piece begins. Staccato movements to the throbbing percussion which persists with occasional overtones for the length of the show. Their hands appeared to be shackled. But they broke free flaying their limbs in all directions. There were duets but these were more like duels. In the second of the two videos Ivgi and Greben say that they are a team who draw strength from their differences. Ivgi is Israeli and Greben is Dutch.  They also speak of their collaboration with Tom Parkinson who wrote the score. An impressive but very disturbing piece of theatre.

Mapping was created by a former artistic director of the company and it is a lot of fun. Ballet Central had included it in their touring programme two years ago (see Central Forward  25 March 2013). Bhuller projects the movements of the dancers onto a screen and deploys a tiny vehicle with a blue light to follow the dancers like a dog.  By his projection technique he creates the illusion of improbable shapes and movements. I tried to relate all that to mapping and thought of the Google earth vehicle and Mercator projection which distort the shapes and sizes of continents and oceans. "Was there an analogy there?" I wondered. According to the programme notes Mapping was inspired by the choreographer's father's journey to the west.

Each work in the programme was received with thundering applause and the end was greeted with ululation and foot stamping. A Phoenix audience seem to show their appreciation in a completely different way from a Northern Ballet one which may be because it tends to be younger and more diverse. Perhaps that is because they get a lot more than dance with Phoenix.  Yesterday the company held a conference called MindBody which included contributions from the well known cricketer Mike Brearley. Last year there was a similar conference on Dance and Civil Rights.

Phoenix is not a big company but it is an important one. I suspect that is largely due to the drive and vision of the company's artistic director. I have seen her at many dance events but also on the panel of the Creative Industries Federation's roadshow in June (see The Creative Industries Road Show comes to Leeds 1 June 2015). It came as no surprise to me that she is chairing Leeds's European capital of culture bid for 2023. However, a dance company also has to have dancers and Phoenix has some fine ones. One familiar face that I am pleased to welcome to Leeds is Marie-Astrid Mence whom I know from ballet black. I look forward to seeing more of her.

The Creative Industries Road Show comes to Leeds

Leeds Grand Theatre

Photo Mtaylor848 

Source Wikipedia

The Creative Industries Federation describes itself as

"the first fully independent body bringing together the public and private sector, across all parts of the country, from the largest multinational to the smallest start-up, from television to computer games, from music to design, from architecture to visual arts".  

For the purpose of recruiting members the Federation recognizes the following as creative industries advertising, architecture, computer gaming, crafts, design, creative education, fashion, film, IT and software, museums, galleries and libraries, music, performing arts, publishing, radio, TV, video and photography and visual arts. English National Ballet is among the Founder Supporter Companies and Organizations as is the Royal Opera House and Tamara Rojo appears on the Federation's launch video.

The Federation is running a series of road shows around the UK "in which leading figures from the arts, creative industries and commercial education will come together to forge new links and map the challenges the sector faces in their area.".  The first of these took place in Manchester on 27 April 2015 and the second in Birmingham on 20 May 2015. On Monday, 1 June 2014, it was Leeds's turn and the caravan gathered in the Howard Assembly Room, a large auditorium leading off the bar of the dress circle in the Grand Theatre,

The event came to my attention because one of the Federation's promises is to "defend intellectual property rights in an ever more digital future." Defending intellectual property rights and indeed attacking them sometimes is what I do for a living but I would probably have given the road show a miss had I not noticed two names on the panel. One of those was Sally Joynson who is CEO of Screen Yorkshire. The other was Sharon Watson, the artistic director of Phoenix Dance Theatre.

The event was chaired by John Kampfner, CEO of the Federation and Anamaria Willis CEO of CidaCo. The first part of the evening was a monologue by Anya Hindmarsh on how she got to be where she is now. All very worthy but it is not as if we had not heard countless similar stories from other entrepreneurs from way back when. The next talk was Tom Riordan, CEO of Leeds City Council which was equally worthy. The main part of the evening for me was the panel discussion in which Sally and Sharon were billed to take part. Also on the panel were Jamie Sefton, Managing Director of Game Republic Ian Thompson, of Thompson Brand Partners, Dominic Gray of Opera North and Anya Hindmarsh.

The advertised topic of the panel discussion was

"'Uniting the Northern Powerhouse' - Following the emergence of the Great North concept how can growth and success be leveraged across the M62 corridor for the benefit of us all?"

Kampfner posed the combustible (for Leeds) question "Is the Northern Powerhouse all about Manchester and if it is does it matter?" and he asked Sharon to respond. Sharon played that ball with a very straight bat. She replied that Phoenix Dance and Northern Ballet had always regarded the North as a powerhouse so there was nothing new there. Actually that was about as much as she or anyone said on the subject because one of the first questions from the floor came from a teacher who complained that children in Yorkshire were just not taking art and design courses in sufficient numbers and that she was looking to the panellists to put that right. For the rest of the evening the panel concentrated on why that should be, whether it was because parents wanted their offspring to get "a real job" whatever that might mean and whether there was too much an emphasis in this country on STEM. As we could do better in maths and science according to recent PISA tables I was rather worried where that discussion might be leading but apart from a few calls to turn STEM into STEAM there was no serious attack on existing educational priorities.

As there had been a lot of Manchester bashing at the LEP Summit in 2011, the Leeds International Economic Conference last year and even at Northern Ballet's breakfast meeting in September 2013 I was really heartened by Dominic Gray. He urged Leeds not to compare itself to Manchester because the two cities are different.  He recalled the success of the Tour de France last year when images of our beautiful countryside were transmitted round the world. Leeds's strength lay in its hinterland, he seemed to suggest which was like music to my ears.

After the talk there was networking in the bar at which attendees had to buy their own drinks in the best Yorkshire tradition. I met a number of interesting people from different arts and creative sectors including Sharon Watson.  I am a great admirer of her company and her work and had met her very briefly on a couple of other occasions. We swapped a couple of stories about the importance of dance and I told her about my faltering efforts to learn her dance form (see My First Contemporary Dance Class 27 Feb 2015).

If anyone wants to join the Creative Industries Federation here is some further information. Subscriptions do not come cheap. Businesses with turnovers of £200 million or above are charged £15,000 plus VAT while businesses that provide support to the creative industries (such as barristers' chambers) would be charged £6,000. Even individuals aged 25 or under are charged £40.  Having said that, there are discounts for those who join in June and further discounts for those who join after attending the Leeds road show. The creative sector does need a forum and collective voice but few of the people I know in dance have that kind of spare cash.

Moving North

In Dazzled 3 May 2015 I wrote: "I like to see young dancers at the start of their careers because they are full of energy and hope". Yesterday I saw even younger dancers in the first heat of the Royal Academy of Dance's competition Moving North. It took place at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre at Quarry Hill in Leeds.

Despite competition from "Leeh Toor deeh Yorkshire" which happened to pass just a few yards from my house as I was setting off for Leeds forcing me to take a circuitous detour the theatre was packed. I guess most of the audience were friends and connexions of the contestants but I did spot Sharon Watson and exchanged a few words with her about Code which Ballet Central had danced the night before.

It was a very long show, There were 51 acts in ballet, contemporary, hip-hop and jazz. Some of the contestants were very young.  Nearly all of were female.  I counted only 3 or 4 boys. All the contestants were good.

The purpose of the heat was to select 10 finalists for the last stage of the competition which will take place at The Lowry on 18 July. In the event, the judge Gary Clarke chose 12 for Salford. They will compete against the finalists to be chosen in Bolton on 10 May and York on 21 June.

I had one interest in the contest. Hype Dance Company had entered some of its students into the competition. The reason for my interest is that I take the beginners' ballet class there occasionally (see More than just Hype - Beginners and Improvers Classes in Sheffield 14 May 2014). The Hype students danced The Water Fairies to music by Schubert. In my view they did very well and I thought they would make the finals but the were up against some tough competition.   Emily Talks who choreographed the piece and trained the students should be congratulated on doing a very good job.

There were three things that surprised me. First, as I noted above, there were not many boys though all of those who did compete made the finals. Secondly, even though some of them were well into their teens none of the female ballet students danced on pointe. Thirdly, there were no non-Western dance styles even though our region hosts a number of companies, dance troupes and individual artists who study those styles. I had expected at least one or two Bollywood entries.

However, I didn't dwell on those matters.  I thoroughly enjoyed the show and congratulate all the artists and their teachers.   It was good to see them together on stage at the end of the show.  We learned that some of the contestants were making their stage débuts in the competition. I hope all enjoyed the experience.   I wish them all well in their studies and subsequent careers

Dazzled

Ballet Central, Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, Leeds 2 May 2015


Every year at about this time the final year students of Central School of Ballet set out on tour. They call themselves Ballet Central and they are good.  I saw the class of 2013 at The Lowry and was very impressed (see Central Forward 25 March 2013). I like to see young dancers at the start of their careers because they are full of energy and hope. That is why I support Ballet West in this country and the Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet in the Netherlands. I particularly like to see Ballet Central because so many of my favourite dancers and choreographers trained at Central. When the 2015 tour started the dancers at Northern Ballet who had trained at Central tweeted their good wishes. They seemed to be a very large part of the company.

Yesterday Ballet Central came to the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds. Their visit clashed with the last appearance of Kenneth Tindall as a principal of Northern Ballet in Wuthering Heights at Milton Keynes (see Au Revoir rather than Goodbye 29 April 2015). Tindall, who trained at Central, is one of my favourite dancers and I was torn.  "You can see Ballet Central any time" urged Mel, "this is the last time you can see Kenny." She added that he would be partnering Julie Charlet as Cathy. The trouble is that one can't see Ballet Central any time because this year's students will scatter to the four winds. Many will go abroad. I have been lucky enough to see Tindall in several performances in the last year or so and I shall be seeing The Architect again next Saturday. I opted for Central to see the stars of the future some of whom may well dance in Tindall's ballets. I think a fine choreographer will understand that.

I am glad I chose to stay in Leeds because the theatre was packed.  Northern Ballet has a special connection with Central because the company's artistic director Christopher Gable founded the school.  I spotted several familiar faces from both Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance Theatre in the audience. Ballet Central acknowledged the connection first by performing Gable's Blue Pas de Deux from his 1993 production of Cinderella to Philip Feeney's gorgeous score. We actually had Feeney at the piano throughout the show. Also, they danced Code by our own Sharon Watson, artistic director of Phoenix.

The evening began with Four by Christopher Hampson. Hampson is another of my favourite choreographers particularly since be became artistic director of Scottish Ballet which I have followed ever since the late 1960s when I was an undergraduate at St Andrews (see Scottish Ballet 20 Dec 2013). I am a Friend of that company and it has a special place in my affections. In the programme notes Hampson wrote:

"The piano work by Graham Fitkin in bursting with energy and I've been waiting a long while (since my student days) to find the right moment to create it. Finding four dancers at Central that can match the energy and drive of the four hands of the piano meant that I had found the time and the place to create Four."

Hampson certainly found the right dancers in Sayaka Ishibashi, Julie Nunes, Ryan Brown, Yoshimasa Ikezawa and Marcus Romanelli, Clad in simple black and purple leotards designed by Richard Gellar the ballet began with solos by each of the men followed by each of the women momentum building up all the time. They all came together as the pace accelerated. It was the best possible start for the show.

The momentum was maintained by Bradley Shelver's Duet from Scenes danced energetically by Londiwe Khoza and Mthuthuzeli November to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. You can catch a bit of the choreography on the choreographer's showreel. There was a lot of clapping and slapping and even a roar from November. An insert in the programme explained that they were from Cape Dance Company in South Africa on an 8 week residency at Central. These fine young dancers were exciting to watch and I hope that they will find some reason to stay, or at least make frequent visits to, this country.

By contrast the Blue Pas de Deux from Cinderella was flowing and lyrical. Danced beautifully by Kanako Nagayoshi in sparkly blue evening dress and shoes and Ruaidhri Maguire in tails this piece had me close to tears. I remember Gable and miss him so. Northern Ballet now has a new Cinderella by David Nixon which is also beautiful (see Northern Ballet's Cinderella - a Triumph! 27 Dec 2013 and Cinderlla - even better 30 Nov 2014). But what wouldn't I give to see Gable's version  again.

The first part of the evening was brought to an end with a great performance of Watson's Code. Ishibashi, Khoza, Brown and November were in that work as well as Diana Patience and Kai Tomiaka. Again, that was thrilling to watch. I am a great fan of Watson and can't see enough of her work.

The second part of the evening was started by Kit Holder's Hopper which, I see, was supported by Central Friends one of whom is Susan Dalgetty Ezra who chairs the London Ballet Circle.  To understand the ballet you need to know that Edward Hopper was an American artist who painted everyday scenes of American life much in the way that his near contemporary L S Lowry did here, albeit in a very different style. I can think of no better introduction to his work than this video by the US National Gallery of Art. In the programme notes Holder wrote:

"the ballet extrapolates the scenarios portrayed in some [of] his most well known paintings bringing to life characters otherwise frozen in time."

This ballet reminded me very much of Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man which was a study of Lowry (see Northern Ballet's "A Simple Man" 14 Sep 2013). Just as many of the matchstick men came to life in Lynne's work so Hopper's subjects did in Holder's. Brown danced Hopper while Lydia Mackenzie danced Jo who must have been his wife, Josephine Nivison, who was also a painter. Summer Evening was danced by Nunes and Connor Taylor, Conference at Night by Nagayoshi, Maguire and George Kyaing and Chop Suey by Brianna Hicke and Kyomi Ishubashi. This is the second work by Holder that I have seen recently. The first was To Fetch a Pail of Water which was part of Ballet Black's triple bill at The Linbury (see Ballet Black's Best Performance Yet 17 Feb 2015).

The next work was the grand pas de deux from Gorsky's La Fille mal Gardée which is very different from the Ashton version with which we are so familiar (see The Best Fille Ever  18 April 2015). For a start it uses different music: Ludwig Hertel's score instead of Lanchbery's but it is just as delightful to hear. There was plenty of scope to show off Ikezawa's jumping and Sayaka Ishiboshi's charm on pointe. It would be nice to see the Russian version more often and I have encouraged one British company to stage it.

The second part was rounded off with Christopher Bruce's Morning and Moonlight to the music of Benjamin Britten. Folk are very rude about Britten's score for Prince of the Pavilions (see Lear with a Happy Ending - Birmingham Royal Ballet's Prince of the Pagodas 30 Jan 2014 31 Jan 2014) though I like it well enough for it was chosen by Cranko. In any case Britten's music was just right here. I loved the choreography executed brilliantly by Kyomi Ishibashi, Nagayoshi, Nunes, Maguire, Taylor and Tomika.

The last part of the programme was devoted to Christopher Marney's Scenes from a Wedding.  I expect a lot from Marney and I drive literally all over the country to see his work. Last year I got into a lot of trouble with one of the regulars on a forum to which I subscribe occasionally when I wrote that Chris Marney is my favourite living British choreographer. He retorted with a long list of living British choreographers the intention no doubt being to take country mouse from Huddersfield down a peg or three. A number of other subscribers (all Londoners incidentally) chimed in. Being a lawyer I chose my words carefully. I didn't say "best" for who am I to judge and I qualified "favourite" with British for my favourite living choreographer has got to be van Manen. Nor did I say favourite of all time because that is Cranko. But I am prepared to defend everything else. I've seen a lot of ballet over the last 50 years and I must have learned enough in that time to form an informed opinion. Marney reminds me of Cranko and the exciting thing about him is that he is still a very young man with bags of potential. I think there is every chance that he will go as far as Cranko and maybe further.  I expected Scenes to be good and I was not disappointed.

It was a lovely, narrative ballet about a man in love. He was danced by Andrei Teodor Iliescu.  He had a lovely girlfriend in Megan Pay clad in red.  He bought her a ring and proposed to her. But she wasn't ready. Neither were Kyomi Isgibashi, Lydia Mackenzie and Nunes whom he approached on the rebound. But one girl was ready though she did not care much for the groom. She was danced by Patience. They weren't right  for each other. They squabbled in bed. She wanted to sleep. He did not. They fought all the way to the church. He had his stag night with Kyaing, Maguire and Tomioka and she her hen night. Just at the last moment the girl in red turns up and they married. There thus is one less case for the Family Court.

Feeney provided the music, Gellar the costumes and Ed Railton the lighting.

Witty, lyrical and above all acutely expressive of the music it was Marney at his best. It was a tour de force, the icing on the cake, the very best of a succession of wonderful ballets.  I can't think of enough superlatives.

Ballet Central will be in Margate on Friday and them Newbury next week. Sadly they are not touring Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland but even if you live in those parts of the UK or in some remote corner of England get yourself to your nearest venue to see the show. They are making only one more visit to the North on 29 June 2015 when they will be at The Lowry.  If you want to see some of the stars of the future here's where you should train your telescope.