New Adventures Romeo and JulietThe Lowry, 15 June 2019, 19:30
As I hate to dis a show in which a lot of resources have been invested and in which brilliant young artists have danced their hearts out, let's start with the positives. There was some dazzling dancing, particularly by Paris Fitzpatrick and Cordelia Braithwaite in the title roles and Daisy May Kemp as the Rev Bernadette Lawrence, the Verona Institute's chaplain. There was some very clever choreography for the inmates. I particularly liked the exercise in which the dancers did everything they could with a chair except sit on it. There were some brilliant designs by Lez Brotherston as always. It was a very slick and polished production that almost everyone in the audience rewarded with a standing ovation.
I was not one of them. I remained firmly in my seat. The show was good in many ways but not that good. Certainly not in comparison to some of the recent performances in that auditorium by Phoenix Dance Theatre, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Northern Ballet, Or, indeed, other works by Sir Matthew Bourne such as Red Shoes, Highland FlingandThe Car Men. "What was wrong with it, exactly?" asked my friend who had spent the evening at the Bridgewater Hall listening to the BBC Philharmonic playing a new work by Mark Simpson as well as Mozart and Mahler. I replied that it was shorn of just about everything that makes Shakespeare's play and almost every other version of the ballet so gripping.
It was set not in Verona, Italy, but in some gruesome psychiatric hospital called the Verona Institue, There were no Montagues and Capulets or even Reds and Fascists as in Krzysztof Pastor's version, Just clipboard-wielding medics and brutal armed guards one of whom was called Tybalt, Romeo was not a scion of one of the leading families but a disturbed young man who was ambushed by the inmates, debagged and clad in hospital whites as his loveless parents took their leave of him. Juliet was also disturbed and apparently abused by Tybalt. The couple met at an inmates' ball where most of the patients danced as woodenly as the dolls in Coppelia. Romeo and Juliet's duets were different. Their dances, particularly the last passionate one just before Juliet knifed herself, were the bits of the performance that I enjoyed the most. There were no sword fights. Just a shot from a drunken Tybalt and his strangling by the inmates for which Romeo allowed himself to take the rap. There was no grief-stricken Lady Capulet. No attempted forced marriage. No drug inducing a catatonic state. No final encounter with Paris. No suicide by knife or poison in the Capulet family tomb.
Now I am all for restaging a ballet in modern dress if it can be done well as Darius James and Amy Doughty did with Ballet Cymru's Romeo a Juliet, Ted Brandsen with Coppeliaand indeed Sir Matthew with his re-imaginings of La Sylphide and Cinderella but change for change's sake as in Nixon's Swan Lake or Akram Khan's Giselle is pointless. There is nothing wrong with creating a new work to a well-known score as Jean-Guy Saintus did with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring or, indeed, as Milena Siderova did with the Dance of the Knights in her pillow dance for Bart Engelen. This was not so much a restaging of a gripping, complex work as a degutting.
Now I am a blogger, not a critic. I keep this blog to remind me of shows that gave me joy. If I can't say anything nice I say nothing at all. If I really hated this work I would have kept it to myself. There were things to admire which is why I started with the positives. It is just that I think Sir Matthew has done better and I have certainly seen better versions of Romeo and Juliet, not least Ballet Cymru's which is in Bracknell today.
Don't let me put you off New Adventures's version. Everyone else in The Lowry seemed to think it was outstanding. It is coming to Cardiff this week, London in August, Norwich, Birmingham, Canterbury and Southampton in September and Nottingham and Newcastle in October. See it for yourselves and make your own minds up about it. As I say, I am a dance fan not a critic and my only qualification to cast an opinion is that I have seen an awful lot of dance in my 60 years or so of fairly regular theatre-going.
Standard YouTube Licence
Scottish Ballet has performed recently in the USA, Russia and East Asia. It has also performed just as enthusiastically in Oban and Stornoway bringing not just a full cast but also complete sets and costumes. More importantly it brought its education and outreach team. And most importantly of all it brought its artistic director Christopher Hampson who patiently fielded questions from the audience after the show.
I was at the Arlantis Centre in Oban on 29 April when it danced Sir Matthew Bourne's Highland Fling and it was one of the most memorable nights that I have ever spent in the theatre. I was also at the pre-performance talk by the education officer who said that outreach was at least as important as performance. In my review, Scottish Ballet's "Highland Fling" in Gurn and Effie Land2 May 2018 I wrote:
"A company that thinks like that is very, very special."
Watch the film and see you yourselves what I mean.
Author Roy Gray Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Source Wikipedia
Folk in the rest of the UK tend to be very unkind about Essex even though there is much to admire in that county. For a start it possesses some beautiful countryside as you can see from the photo of the River Chelmer from which Chelmsford derives its name. Also, it has one of the nation's oldest ballet companies of which I am proud to say I am a non-dancing associate member.
In order to graduate from associate to dancing member one has to be accepted at an audition which takes place once a year. Those who are accepted are considered for the annual show in March as well as special events and workshops.
This year's auditions will take place on 24 June 2018. There are three classes of membership and the criteria are as follows:
"GENERAL DANCERS
Age 13 years on 1st September in the year of the audition and holding a Grade 2 Ballet certificate (or above) or be working at an equivalent level.
SENIOR DANCERS
Age 13 years on 1st September in the year of the audition – Female dancers should be working “en pointe”.
JUNIOR DANCERS
Age 10 years and not more than 12 on 1st September in the year of the audition and holding a Grade 2 Ballet certificate (or above) or be working at an equivalent level."
Those who are accepted for any grade of membership are expected to show a reasonable degree of commitment to the company. Obviously I can't do all that from Holmfirth but I would have applied for general dancer membership like a shot had I lived in Essex. Those who can make the grade and offer the required level of commitment should apply by completing and lodging this application form before 10 June.
If you are accepted at the audition you qualify for all sorts of fun things like workshops with Ballet Central and Sir Matthew Bourne's company, New Adventures. Ballet Central's took place on 22 April and was aptly described in the notice to members as a "perfect after show treat." You can say that again. I am greenwith envy.
Chelmsford's joint patron is none other than Chris Marney who was a magnificent Count Lilac in Bourne's production of The Sleeping Beauty and is now Artistic Director of Ballet Central. The dancers from Chelmsford Ballet have an opportunity "to sample innovative and exciting repertoire and work on story telling and characterisation in dance" on Sunday 8 July 2018. The blurb from Chelmsford (appropriately on a lilac background) states:
"This is an amazing chance to participate in a workshop specifically tailored for the Chelmsford Ballet Company, which will allow all grades of dancing members an opportunity to understand the process of narrative dance and to work on characterisation."
Finally a note to my fellow Northerners. We could do this sort of thing if we ever get Powerhouse Ballet off the ground. In the short term Karen Sant has offered us a day's intensive training in Manchester, Ballet West a week in Scotland and Terence Etheridge a fantastic experience in Cornwall. We have got Northern Ballet and Phoenix on our doorstep. They would almost certainly be willing to help. We have excellent links with all the other leading companies in the UK and even beyond.
But in order to get off the ground we need a full class of dancers in Huddersfield on Saturday 26 May 2018 at 15:00. You have the opportunity of a FREE 90-minute class with Jane Tucker, one of the best teachers in the business, for which you would have to pay £7 plus a £5 registration fee in Leeds or £15 in Manchester. Opportunities live this do not grow on trees.
Standard YouTube Licence Scottish Ballet Highland FlingAtlantis Leisure Centre, Oban 29 April 2018 19:30 Almost exactly a year ago I saw Ballet Central perform the greater part of the second act of Highland Fling at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre. I reviewed the performance in Triumphant 1 May 2018. In that review I wrote that I had not always been a fan of Sir Matthew Bourne but I loved that work. I tweeted that I would love to see the full work. Sir Matthew noticed my tweet and replied that Scottish Ballet would perform Highland Fling again this year adding that I would have to go to Scotland to see it as if a trip to that enchanting country could ever be an imposition.
Taking Sir Matthew's advice I chose to see it in Oban because that is the only venue on Scottish Ballet's tour that is actually in the Highlands. Well, to be accurate, Oban is a port with many of the attractions and facilities of much larger towns but hills and mountains surround it. Oban is famous for its fish and chips (see Moira Kerr Rick Stein, two rival fish and chip shops and bitter battle of the signs that has left behind a very bad taste19 June 2013 Mail Online). I spotted an abundance of purveyors of that delicacy near the waterfront and was looking for somewhere to park when I spotted a small group of individuals with the words "Scottish Ballet" emblazoned on their backs.
I wound down the window and greeted them cordially - probably gushingly. Acknowledging my greetings and compliments with exceptional grace they asked me whether I was going to the pre-performance talk that was due to start in 15 minutes. I had not been aware of that talk and abandoned my quest for supper. I made my way to the Atlantis Leisure Centre where Highland Fling was to be performed.
The talk was chaired by the education officer who asked how many of us had seen a performance by Scottish Ballet. A few hands rose including mine. She then asked whether any of us had seen a work by Sir Matthew Bourne. A much larger clump of hands rose though still a minority of the room. She asked which works those individuals had seen and the names Cinderella, The Red Shoes and Swan Lake ran out. She told us the story of August Bournonville's La Sylphide and then Sir Matthew's adaptation. She introduced us to the rehearsal director who mentioned some of the technical aspects of the choreography. One big difference was the absence of pointe work. The women perform in bare feet. "Surely that is something to be welcomed" the education officer suggested but apparently not because the rehearsal director replied that dancing without shoes gives rise to other problems.
One of the advantages of attending the pre-performance talk was to be allocated reserved seats in the first few rows of the auditorium. I bagged what was probably the best seat in the house, namely the centre of the fifth row. The stage was set for the opening scene, namely the ladies' and gents' of the "Highland Fling Social Club" located somewhere like Castlemilk or Drumchapel. On the wall above the urinal appeared a heart with "James 4 Effie". As the audience took their seats we were regaled with all the songs we used to sing at Celtic Society ceilidhs when I was at St Andrews such as Cambletown Loch and Wild Rover. Even though I am a proud Mancunienne I know all the words to all those songs and can't hear them without tears welling up.
The work opened with a kilted James (Nicholas Shoesmith) staggering into the gents' bog appearing to snort some sort of hallucinogenic substance and collapsing against the wall of the urinal. "This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'pas de bourré'" I thought to myself ("bourré" meaning "to have a skinful" among other things). A sylph (Sophie Martin) clambered through the venting and tries to revive the recumbent James. Then the other revellers pile into their respective loos. The girls in their finery with Effie (Roseanna Leney) wearing head boppers.
My favourite character in Bournonville's ballet is Madge, the witch, She appears as an old bag lady who tries to warm herself by the fire. James, the laird, meanly sends her packing. That is why she has it in for him. She gets her own back for her rough treatment by poisoning a scarf that she sells to James. James gives it to the sylph whose wings fall off the moment she puts it on. Madge (Grace Paulley) is very different in Sir Matt's version. She is an attractive young woman who has the hots for James. There is no coven scene in Highland Fling though Madge does quite enough mischief with tarot cards. She predicts that Gurn (Barnaby Rook Bishop) will hook up with Effie which is what happens in the end in both Bournonville and Bourne versions.
I can be very prickly when a well loved ballet is reworked the wrong way (see Up the Swannee17 March 2018 and Akram Khan's Giselle28 Sept 2016) though I can be very sweet when it is done well as Ted Brandsen did with Coppelia (see Brandsen's Coppelia12 Dec 2016) and David Dawson with Swan Lake (see Empire Blanc: Dawson's Swan Lake.4 June 2016). On the whole I think Bourrne got it right, For a start, I appreciated his calling his work something other than La Sylphide. I think I would have been kinder and more receptive to Nixon and Khan had they done the same with their works. There are a few git wrenching moments in Bourne like the sylph staggering on stage with a bloody back and James's hands, arms and shears dripping in the red stuff and, in a different way, James's collapsing in the wee. But then wrenching a few guts was probably the object of the exercise.
I am glad that Sir Matt used Løvenskiold's score. I love that music. So much better than anything Adam, Delibes or Minkus ever wrote. Second only to Tchaikovsky in my book. I may be imagining things but I thought I spotted some quotations from Giselle in his choreography. The sylph tossed some flowers at James just as Giselle does in act 2. The death scene where the sylph tries to keep going despite her wound just as Giselle rises to her feet and staggers briefly before collapsing. The way the sylphs turned on James after they had carried away their dying companion reminded me very much of the revenge of the wilis.
During the interval I glimpsed Christopher Hampson whom I had met in Newcastle after Hansel and Gretel (see Hansel and Gretel - a bit like falling in love 4 Feb 2017) and at a talk he gave to the London Ballet Circle. I wondered whether he would remember me and, to my delight, he did. He thanked me for coming to the show and I thanked him for making a dream come true. He looked puzzled so I told him that ever since I saw La Sylphide back in 1970 I had longed to see a version of it in Scotland. I told him that I had even asked his great predecessor, Peter Darrell, to consider staging that work when Scottish Theatre Ballet (as it was then called) performed in the Buchanan theatre at St Andrews on 15 Feb 1971.
Hampson discussed that topic in a talk that he gave with Nicholas Shoesmith and Sophie Martin after the show. He stressed that Scottish Ballet's tradition had always been to create new work. Highland Fling had been created by one of our greatest living choreographers. I hasten to add (and I intend no sycophancy) that so, too, is Hampson. He said it was certainly possible that a new version of La Sylphide might one day be created. If it is, the creator of a beautiful Cinderella and a gorgeous Hansel and Gretel would be just the man to do it,
I don't think that I have every been in the company of a more appreciative audience than the crowd n the Atlantis Leisure Centre on Sunday night. The dancers took their bows to the strains of "I love a lassie" to which the audience clapped in time. It was a brilliant performance. The dancers sparked the crowd and the crowd fired the dancers. Many members of the audience had travelled enormous distances. The chappy on my right had driven all the way from Nottinghamshire. A lady in the refreshments queue told me that she had come from Fionnphort which is opposite Iona. To get to Oban she would have had to drive along a bumpy single carriageway road to Craignure and then take the Macbrayne ferry.
At the pre-performance talk the education officer said that education and outreach was at least as important as performance. A company that thinks like that is very, very special.
Chantry Dance Company DemystifyingContemporary Dance 29 June 2017, 19:00 Halifax Victoria Theatre Chantry Dance Company is a family enterprise based in Grantham in the East Midlands which was already famous for its parish church with its chained bible and magnificent spire, its biennial science festival in honour of Sir Isaac Newton the most famous scholar of the town's grammar school who was born and raised nearby, its Beehive pub with its living inn sign and, of course, the grocer's shop in which Baroness Thatcher, our first woman Prime Minister was born. Chantry Dance has recently added to the fame of that handsome market town with their performances and school.
I first came across Chantry Dance just over three years ago when I allowed myself to be dragged onto the stage of the Lincoln Drill Hall by Gail Gordon to take part in a dance workshop called Dream Dance where four of us created and danced a modern ballet to accompany the company's performance of The Sandman (see Chantry Dance Company's Sandman and Dream Dance10 May 2017). That was the first time I had danced in public and it emboldened me to put my name down for Northern Ballet Academy's end of term show (see The Time of my Life28 June 2014) and a number of other shows right down to last May's MoveIt in the Dancehouse on Oxford Road in Manchester (see "Show!" The Video10 Jun 2017). But for Chantry Dance, it is unlikely that I would I have tried any of that which would have been a pity because I have also found out that performance is essential to dance education.
But I digress. Chantry Dance has expanded the show it performed in Lincoln in 2014 into a full-length work which it is taking on tour (see The Sandman Tour27 Jan 2017) including the North (see Chantry Dance goes North14 March 2017). To prepare audiences for that work the company's directors, Paul Chantry and Rae Piper, are visiting some of the venues in which they will perform with an audio-visual presentation called Demystifying Contemporary Dance (see Demystifying Contemporary Dance1 June 2017). I caught them yesterday in Halifax in the bar of the Victoria Theatre.
Having seen hundreds if not thousands of ballet and other dance performances over the last 50 years, having kept this blog since 2013, having attended adult ballet classes for most of that time and having read loads of books and articles on all forms of dance I doubted that there was anything Paul and Rae could tell me in a PowerPoint presentation that I did not already know. I was wrong, I learned a lot last night.
Rae started her presentation with exploding some myths about contemporary dance such as "It's all about dancing bananas" with a great slide of dancers in banana shaped tutus. She and Paul started with the characteristics of classical ballet (Paul trained at Central and Rae has been dancing since she was 5) and then the history of dance. They illustrated various points with a dance or demonstration. So, the question "will you marry" me was reflected in a balletic flourish of the arms about the head ending with the right hand pointing to the ring finger.
They proceeded to the divergence from the classics such as The Rite of Spring, Les Noces and L'Après Midi d'un Faune by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Isadora Duncan where Rae danced a few steps from one of her routines, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and finally to Mats Ek, Wayne McGregor and Sir Matthew Bourne of our own time and a summary of their respective contributions to dance. They listed some of the characteristics of modern dance and Paul appeared in a boiler suit and brush to demonstrate all of those. The evening ended with a duet from The Sandman which the company will dance on the main stage in September.
There followed a Q & A and a mingling wth the audience which would have continued all night had an official not reminded us with a gentle "Eh Up!" that he had a home to go to even if we didn't. There will be similar presentations next month in Andover, Horsham and Lincoln and if you live in or near any of those places I would advise you to go.
According to the Celebrating the International Dance Day page of the ITI website, anybody and everybody can organize an event but it does not appear that anybody outside Shanghai, Argentina, Germany and the Azores has actually done very much about it.
I think Ore Oduba can be forgiven for missing International Dace Day ..... don't you?
Standard YouTube Licence Ballet Central, Mixed Programme, Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre 28 April 2017 Ballet Central has aways been good and, having met Christopher Marney at several Ballet Black and London Ballet Circle events, seen him speak, and, most importantly, watched him work I expected great things from his first season as the company's artistic director. I had been dazzled by Marney's dancing as Count Lilac in Sir Matthew Burne's Sleeping Beauty. I have been awed by his choreography, particularly War Letters which he created for Ballet Black. On Friday I discovered his prowess as an artistic director. All I can say without gushing hyperbole is that Friday's mixed bill greatly exceeded my highest expectations.
We were presented with a varied programme arranged in three parts:
the triumphant return of Solor in the first act of La Bayadḕre;
Christopher Bruce's fascinating Mya; and
Michael Pink and Christopher Gable's spine-chilling Dracula.
After another interval, the programme ended with a major part of Sir Matthew Bourne's Highland Fling, awitty but slightly disturbing reworking of La Sylphide.
Lee's ballroom scene was a beautifully crafted classical piece though with original reinterpretation of some of Prokofiev's most popular music. It is very dramatic and very clever. In that regard, very like Marney. It was very different from the work that appears on Lee's YouTube channel and website which
"..... pushes the boundaries of classical ballet, by fusing world-class ballerinas with more modern art forms such as break dancing and beat boxing, providing a world of professional bespoke entertainment for any event."
Cira Beautiful Misfitsfeaturing one of my very favourite dancers from Ballet Black and Confluxwith a beatbox Swan Lake are examples. Commissioning Lee to revisit Shakespeare and Prokofiev where Lavrovsky, Cranko and MacMillan already walk tall and create a 20-minute work to open the show was an imaginative and risky but, as it turned out, spectacularly rewarding step. I long to see the rest of the story. I wonder how Lee would rework the bedroom scene when Romeo or the conflict of emotions when Juliet learns that her husband has dispatched Tybalt. I do hope someone commissions that talented choreographer to finish the ballet.
Lee had the perfect Juliet in Amy McEntee. She seemed born for that role. An actor and storyteller at least as much as a dancer. she enchanted us with her knowing glance to Romeo and galvanized us with her expression of horror as Romeo squared up to her brother. Central has trained a disproportionately large number of my favourite dancers and choreographers, including Marney himself. I think we saw several future stars on Friday one of whom is definitely McEntee.
Dzierzon's Sleepless was a complete contrast. Beginning with a huddle of dancers in subdues lighting the work exploded into vigorous movement. Dzierzon had 10 dancers in that work - 9 on stage and one at the piano. My seat was at the far right hand of the second row next to the pianist and though I tried to concentrate on the stage I could not help my gaze returning to the composer and pianist Phil Feeney. His score was vibrant and exciting as indeed was his playing of it. But those on stage were great too. Representing the spray can wielding shadows of my youth who transformed every carriage of the New York subway, those kids darted around the stage one scribbling letters on the shirts of the others. A real frisson of subversion.
Yet another change of mood with Liam Scarlett's elegant Indigo Children to the music of Philip Glass. A work created for Ballet Black - Beautiful Ballet Black, as I like to call the company - it was lovingly re-staged by Cira Robinson and Damien Johnson. McEntee shone in this work too as did Craig McFarlane who had been her Romeo.
Although I have only seen two complete performances of La Bayadḕre I love that ballet. I have even tried to dance little bits of it. Last Autumn I saw the Dutch National Ballet's performance of Makarova's version with the magnificent Sasha Mukhamedov in the title role. I had expected Ballet Central to perform the entry into the kingdom of the shades which is probably the best-known scene from the ballet. Instead, Marney chose the triumphant return of Solor to Golkonda which was an opportunity to show off the corps as well as Kanon Kihara and Jaume Ruiz who danced the principal roles. A word of commendation to Dante Baylor who designed the costumes. I loved those outfits: trousers and turbans for the men and pantaloons and scarves for the women.
On Friday I had complained that we had been deprived of Marney when I wrote All that was missing from this Evening's Performance was a Ballet by Marney ......In fact, I had not read the programme carefully and, in any case, I should have recognized his mark. It was a masterly restaging of a much-loved work. May we have some more of that beautiful arrangement, please?
Christopher Bruce's Mya turned out to be my favourite work of the evening. Three dancers clad head to foot in tightly fitting, somewhat shapeless, almost colourless gowns moving to Arvo Pärt'sSpiegel im Spiegel(literally mirror in the mirror). But what could it mean? The costumes reminded me of the chrysalis of a butterfly and there was a touching moment when the limbs of one of the dancers began to emerge from the constraint. An analogy with the human condition? The composer is Estonian whose nation has emerged like a butterfly from the Soviet thrall. Doesn't matter. The music is haunting. The choreography compelling. The performance enthralling.
Central was founded by Christopher Gable who was the artistic director of Northern Ballet when I returned to Manchester. As a Mancunian in exile, I had read about Northern Ballet (then known as Northern Dance Theatre) in the dancing press but had never actually seen any of its performances. I thought I would miss Covent Garden, Sadler's Wells, the Coliseum, the Place ....... I did not do so at all, They continued to exist 200 miles away, of course, but on my doorstep was a wonderful company treating us to a succession of delicious works in that golden age of Northern Ballet. We were reminded of that golden age by Pink and Gable's Dracula. Not an easy watch but an enthralling one as Harker is first seduced then savaged by vampires. Yet another star in the making, Matthew Morrell, dominated the stage. Tall and menacing he induced teal fright, however, many times I reminded myself that this was only theatre.
The last work of the evening was act 2 of Sir Matthew Bourne's "romantic wee ballet" a Highland Fling. "Romantic" indeed with a woman hobbling about the stage her costume drenched in blood. Well, stage blood of course. It was Sir Matthew's take on La Sylphide which is one of the oldest ballets in the modern repertoire. I have often said that it ought to be our national ballet as it is set in Scotland. Bourne kept Løvenskiold's score but gave it a new twist portraying James as a drunken Glaswegian in a Highland glade cavorting with winged and kilted sylphs. I'm not sure what happened to Effie or Madge but Sir Matthew arms James with a pair of garden shears instead of a poisoned scarf with which he does even more damage. The sight of the wounded sylph was the second tummy turning moment of the evening, Dracula being the first.The sylphs get their own back on James after mourning their murdered sister for he sprouts a pair of wings in the last scene.
Marney chose this piece well. I have not always been a fan of Sir Matthew Bourne but I loved this work. I can well understand why Scottish Ballet currently performs Highland Fling but not the 1836 original. Much of the appeal of this work lies the designs as well as Bourne's quirky humour. Lez Brotherston, who had designed Scottish Ballet's, appears to have inspired Baylor who designed Ballet Central's production.
Sir Matthew staged that work himself. An enormous compliment to Marney but one he well deserves. Bourne would not be where he is today without an uncanny knack of recognizing talent when he sees it. He saw it in Adam Davies who danced James and Brittanie Dillion, his sylph. I don't know where they come from but they looked pretty Scottish, in fact totally Glaswegian to me. Especially the sylph with the suitcase wandering sheepishly hand in hand with James. So much to see in this work.
Ballet Central is making only one other appearance in the North on this tour. In Whitehaven on 13 May 2017 which I can't make because I am in Move It at The Dancehouse in Manchester. However, I am determined to see this year's mixed bill again. Even though I shall have to travel I just gotta see those fine young artists again.
New Adventures The Red Shoes The Lowry, 3 Dec 2016, 19:30 I enjoyed Friday's performance of The Red Shoesso much that I saw the show again last night. As I bought my ticket at the very last moment there were not many seats available. I had to settle fro the middle of row L in the upper circle. That was too far back to see the dancers' facial expressions and I would not have known that a pistol had been produced in the romantic ballet but I saw the orchestra from the gods whereas they had been invisible from the stalls and I caught some details such as the reflections on the water at Villefrance-Sur-Mer which I had missed before.
The advantage of seeing The Red Shoes twice is that one picks up details that one missed first time round. For example, one of those details was the sounding of a train whistle when Vicky fell into the arms of Craster after dancing Karen in the Red Shoes at the end of Act I and again when she follows her husband after Lermontov orders him off the premises at the rehearsal of Concerto Macabre. The significance of those train whistles is that Victoria falls under the wheels of a train. Incidentally, I once took a train to Monaco from Èze and shuddered involuntarily as the train pulled into Monte Carlo - Monaco station because memories of the ending of the film flooded back.
One of the features of Bourne's choreography us to include a ballet within the overall work. There is a spoof ballet in his Swan Lake and there are two or possibly three ballet scenes in The Red Shoes. The ballet within the film was created by Robert Helpmann who was a considerable choreographer in his day. It is sad that so little of his work is performed nowadays. Bourne has followed Helpmann's story quite faithfully but substituted his own choreography. I had forgotten the importance of the ballet within the ballet on Friday night but it is vital to the plot as it links Victoria's fate to the of Karen in Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale. I studied tt more carefully second time around and appreciated Brotherton's backdrops and costumes so much more the second time around.
Cordelia Braithwaite danced Victoria Page again but Dominic North danced Craster and Chris Trenfield Lermontov. North is my favourite male dancer at New Adventures. I expect much from him and he did not disappoint me. He danced with passion but also showed arrogance which almost persuaded me that Lermontov was right to get rid of him. Trentfield portrayed Lermontov with sympathetically particularly the solos where I felt I detected remorse after Victoria had left the company. The new cast certainly gave me new insights into the show.
The Red Shoes have now left Manchester (alright SALFORD if you insist) and are on their way to Sadler's Wells where they will dance for 8 weeks. I hope to see them at the Alhambra when they reappear in the North. I feel drawn to this work in a way that I have never done so with a Bourne work before. That is one of the reasons why I described The Red Shoes as Sir Matthew's masterpiece.
New Adventures The Red ShoesThe Lowry, 2 Dec 2016 I have come a long way in my appreciation of Sir Matthew Bourne since I wrote: "Why can't I be nicer to Matthew Bourne?"5 April 2013. That was the headline of my review of Sir Matthew's Sleeping Beauty which I described as very, very clever but perhaps too clever by half. I could see its merits but I didn't really like it. I think it was Baby Aurora scaling the curtain very early in the performance that drove me up the wall. Not even a sterling performance by Christopher Marney whom I have always admired as Count Lilac could mollify me.
I still had reservations but there was much to like from the re-working of Tchaikowsky's music to the kiss that the prince gave a bag lady at the end of act 1. I was so glad I could be nicer Matthew Bourne because he deserved some praise.
I was even more positive about The Car Man which I saw in Sheffield on 24 June 2015. I wrote in Motoring 25 June 2015:
"Matthew Bourne has never been quite my cup of tea but that does not stop my recognizing quality when I see it. Last night at the Sheffield Lyceum we had quality in spades. Quality in Lez Brotherson's designs. Quality in Terry Davies's score which incorporates Bizet and builds on it. Quality in the dancing including an impressive first performance by Tim Hodges in the role of Luca. Above all, quality in choreography by Matthew Bourne. The Car Man is the best production by New Adventures that I have seen to date."
Bourne read the review and tweeted:
@jelterps Sounds like your taste in tea may be changing? Thank you for your honesty and fair reporting. Appreciate it
I replied that I had always valued his work just as I esteem Lapsang Souchong or Darjeeling but I still prefer good old Yorkshire tea and milk. Bourne responded that we sounded more similar than I thought. He added "I enjoy the variety in my tea too! Spice of life! Thx again." He started to follow me on twitter and has commented more than once on articles in this blog proving that he reads it occasionally.
Sir Matthew was in the audience last night when I saw The Red Shoes at The Lowry. He was actually a few seats from me in the stalls and my companion spotted him in the Pier Eight bar in the intermission. I thought about introducing myself to him:
"He actually reads my blog, you know." I said to my companion. "We had over 13,000 page hits last month which may be as many as readers as the critics get in the qualities."
"I think you should," she said and so I did.
From the tone of his voice, I doubt that he could place me when I told him who I was; but he could not have been more courteous or charming. He asked me whether I was enjoying the show and I was very glad to be able to reply that I was.
For if I hadn't I would have told him and this review would have been dripping with vitriol rather than unguents. I grew up with The Red Shoes and love it more than any other film. If I thought anyone was taking liberties with it I would have defended it with all the fury of a tigress protecting her young. In fact, I wanted Bourne that I would in my preview Red Shoes Rebounding22 Nov 2016:
"I love this film and I think Sir Matthew must do so too. If he has done a good job in transposing it to the stage I shall be deliriously happy and will never say an unkind word about him again. But if I find that he has mucked it up ...................."
Happily, Sir Matthew did not muck it up. He honoured that film and its actors by making something that is at least as beautiful. In the programme notes Bourne said:
"I have loved this film since I was a teenager with its depiction of a group of people all passionate about creating something magic and beautiful. It seemed to be saying that art was something worth fighting for, even dying for, if the rather melodramatic conclusion is to be believed. It was a world full of glamour, romance and creativity populated by larger than life personalities. In short it was a world I wanted to be part of."
Although I drew precisely the opposite conclusion, I have always loved the story, the glamour and romance. For me. it is a love story plunged into tragedy by the obduracy of the impresario, Lermontov. and. to a lesser extent, the young composer, Craster.
Sir Matthew follows the film pretty faithfully with just one significant change. Bourne shows Vicky walking out in solidarity with Julian when he is sacked by Lermontov and she is reduced to working in an East End music hall. That did not happen in the film and it would not have happened in real life for ballet had a massive and growing audience in Britain immediately after the second world war as David Bintley reminds us inDancing in the Blitz: How World War II made British Ballet. However, it fitted the story well and gave Terry Davies an excellent opportunity to incorporate Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road into the score.
Yesterday Cordelia Braithwaite danced Vicky Page. She looked like Moira Shearer and she moved uncannily like Shearer. I can't imagine a better fit. Chris Trenrtfield made a convincing Craster. In some ways, I thought he was better cast than Marius Goring had been in the same role in the film. Sam Archer was an impressive Lermontov. Grischa was danced by Glenn Graham and he reminded me very much of Leonide Massine who performed that role in the film.
Lez Brotherson's sets and costumes were magnificent as they always are. They transported us to a lost world of smoking jackets, steam trains and music halls - one that possibly existed during my lifetime but which now seems to be as remote as any in history. I loved the score and its orchestration as well as the choreographic interpretation. The duet between Victoria and Craster in their London flat when they decide to return to Monte Carlo was particularly poignant.
This is a splendid production and in my opinion Sir Matthew's masterpiece. I can't see how he can improve on or surpass this work - but, with Sir Matthew, you never know. He is after all the nearest we have to a Diaghilev in our times.
