Scottish Ballet's Secret Theatre

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Scottish Ballet's Feature Film The Secret Theatre 21 Dec 2020

A little boy (Leo Tetten) bounces his football off a soot-stained wall in Victorian Glasgow. He dribbles it across a footbridge into the West End.  He bounces it against a door which creaks open.  His curiosity gets the better of him and he goes in.   He finds himself in an auditorium but the stage is lit.  Evading the watchman's torch he finds himself in the props department.  A basket heaves and creaks and out jumps Lexi.

Now you would have to have visited Scotland at the beginning of the year and seen The Snow Queen in order to know about Lexi.  As I said in my review, Hampson's Masterpiece: The Snow Queen on 7 March 2020, she is the Snow Queen's sister in Christopher Hampson's adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale which can fairly be described as his best work yet.  When I saw the ballet the role was danced by Grace Horler but in Scottish Ballet's first full-length film, The Secret Theatre, she is danced by Alice Kawalek.

Around the stage are the snow wolves' heads, the shattered ice backdrop of the Snow Queen's palace and many other components of Lez Brotherston's magnificent sets and costumes.   Many of the characters in Hampson's ballet were in the film including the Snow Queen performed by the wonderful Constance Devernay, the Ringmaster (Bruno Micchiardi), the Strongman (Nicholas Shoesmith) and the ballerina (Kayla-Maree Tarantolo), 

However, The Secret Theatre is not a screen version of The Snow Queen.  If anything it has more in common with The Nutcracker as you can see from the synopsis.   The one big difference is that there is no Clara, Marie or Princess Masha.   In their place is the little boy who shows in one scene that he knows how to head a football.   The Snow Wolf characters rub shoulders with the Sugar Plum Fairy (Sophie Martin) and the snowflakes led by Marge Hendrick. Hendrick will always have a special place in my affection for reminding me so much of Elaine McDonald at Northern Ballet's 50th-anniversary celebration in Leeds on 4 Jan 2020.  She danced Peter Darrell's Five Rückert Songs which was my highlight of that evening (see Northern Ballet's 50th Anniversary Celebration Gala  5 Jan 2020).

The climax of the film was the final pas de deux from The Nutcracker.   Just as Clara morphs into the Sugar Plum Fairy in some productions of The Nutcracker the little boy morphs into the handsome cavalier (Jerome Anthony Barnes).  Having studied the Sugar Plum Fairy's solo  I follow it particularly closely.  Martin performed it exquisitely and had I been in a theatre I would have thrown flowers on stage.  Indeed the whole pas de deux was a delight.

I have to congratulate Hampson and Brotherston who co-directed the film.  The only film of this genre that I have enjoyed as much as has been Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes.   I believe that The Secret Theatre will be watched and enjoyed in 70 years time just as our generation appreciates The Red Shoes now.

Terpsichore votes "Remain"

Τερψιχόρη

Jean-Marc Nattier

Tomorrow I will vote "Remain" and one of the reasons why I shall do so is that I care about the arts and creative industries in general and the performing arts and ballet in particular.

The case for Remain was made eloquently by members of the Creative Industries Federation in their briefing note Why is EU membership so important for the health of UK’s arts, creative industries and cultural education?  It was echoed  in Ismene Brown's article The Royal Ballet and Sadler’s Wells explain how Brexit will hurt dance 13 June 2016 and supported by Jessica Duchen's I'm IN, and here's why you should be too 25 May 2016 JDCMB which I mentioned in my own article Should we stay or should we go? 30 May 2016.

Much of the steam for the Leave campaign has been generated by concern about immigration. There is some outright xenophobia in that sentiment but I believe that it is mainly a worry about shortages of housing, healthcare, education and other public services which could be overcome with proper planning and resourcing.

For the arts, free movement of labour is essential.  Let me give just one example. Earlier this month the Scottish Ballet delighted audiences throughout Scotland and the North of England with David Dawson's Swan Lake (see Empire Blanche: Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2016). Dawson was born in London and trained at Tring Park and the Royal Ballet School but he has spent much of his career with the Dutch National Ballet where he is now an associate artists. He is not the only Brit there. The company's artistic director is Matthew Rowe who is another Londoner (in fact as there is a reference to him in the latest issue of The Pauline he may even have attended my old school).

Conversely many of Scottish Ballet's finest dancers come from France: Constance Deverney recently promoted to principal, Sophie Martin, Marge Hendrick, and Laura Joffre to name just a few. The same is true of our other leading companies. Where would the Royal Ballet be without Laura Morera or Federico Bonelli? The Birmingham Royal Ballet without Koen Kessels?  English National Ballet without Tamara Rojo or Alina Cojocaru?

There are dancers from the EU also in our splendid regional companies like Giuliano Contadini and Kevin Poeung with Northern Ballet and Allegra Vianello and Andrea Battagia with Ballet Cymru. I could go on.

Those artists delight us. Let's continue to make them feel welcome tomorrow.

Scottish Ballet's Cinderella

@jelterps @scottishballet Enjoy the performance!

— Christopher Hampson (@HampsonChris) December 19, 2015

You bet I will. Merry Christmas to all at @scottishballet especially to Matthew Broadbent who is greatly missed. https://t.co/VCvjNVJYH0

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) December 19, 2015

Scottish Ballet, Cinderella,  Festival Theatre, Edinburgh 19 Dec 2015

While just about every other company in the United Kingdom is staging The Nutcracker this Christmas (see All those Nutcrackers 11 Dec 2015) Scottish Ballet presents Cinderella not as "a rags-to-riches story that offers a girl a way out of the ordinary" but as a study of grief and loneliness. But it is not only Cinderella who is lonely, as the choreographer, Christopnher Hampson, explains in his interview with Alan Morrison in the programme notes. So, too, is the prince and they each find a way out of their loneliness by finding each other.

Such a prince has to be very sensitive and Hampson chose Christopher Harrison to dance that role. Having previously seen Harrison as Romeo and Stanley in A Streetcar named Desire (Scottish Ballet's Timeless Romeo and Juliet 18 May 2014 and Scottish Ballet's Streetcar 2 April 2015) which are strong male roles. It was something of a revelation that he does sensitive but he can and he did it very well. His bride, Bethany Kingsley-Garner whom I had previously seen as Gretel and the the Sugar Plum (see Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel 23 Dec 2013 and Like meeting an old friend after so many years 4 Jan 2015), was a more obvious fit. She was a delightful Cinderella -not too good to be true - she appreciated the attention from the dressmakers when they came to prepare her stepsisters and stepmother for the ball.

The other stars in Hampson's Cinderella are those step sisters and for those roles he chose the company's female principals, Eve Mutso and Sophie Martin. These are magnificent dancers.  I saw them both in Marc Brew's Exalt earlier this year (see No Mean City - Accessible Dance and Ballet 26 April 2015). Mutso has been nominated for the National  Dance Awards for her performance as Blanche in Streetcar. It must be difficult for such graceful creatures to clown on stage but how we laughed as they struggled through their dance lesson and dress and show fittings, their gauche encounters with the prince and his courtiers and their attempts to make the slipper fit.

Hampson structured the ballet very cleverly, Each Act was preceded with a prologue with the house lights up. The mourners at the funeral of Cinderella's mother started the ballet. Two flunkies dusted a chandelier before Act II. Matthew Broadbent, one of Leeds's favourites when he was at Northern Ballet, laboured at his last as the bossy royal shoemaker. For me it was such a delight to see him again. The transposition of the grasshopper (Jamiel Lawrence) for the scornful dancing master and moths and spiders for the shoe and dressmakers is another example of Hampson's ingenuity. They mirrored the real world with fantasy.

There was some novel choreography. The grasshopper's dives which startled Cinderella first time and then amused her at the next delighted me. So too were the back to back lifts in the final pas de deux between Cinderella and her prince which were surprisingly graceful. There was Martin's can-can as she tried to interest the prince and Mutso's duet with the courtier struggling to retain his dignity with this she monster.

The sets and costumes for this performance were stunning. They were designed by Tracy Grant Lord who had originally created them for the Royal New Zealand Ballet's production of Hampson's Cinderella in 2007. The were among the best that we have seen since the days of Diaghilev. The designs are almost an integral part of the libretto. For instance, the rose tree that Cinderella plants by her mother's grave with its leaves that become a face and are almost a continuing presence of her mother.

There is so much to like about this production. Even the programmes are to be treasured for their fine paper, rich colours, striking designs and high quality printing. The Festival Theatre is a delightful venue with a restaurant that serves some of the best meals and snacks that I have ever savoured in Edinburgh. Despite the Forth Bridge closures the Edinburgh season is pretty close to fully booked but the show will shortly tour Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness though, sadly, not the rest of the country.  It was well worth a trek from Yorkshire. Knowing what I now know, I would travel from the Lizard or cross seas or even oceans to see it again.

I began this year with a review of Darrell's Nutcracker and it is fitting that the last ballet that I will see this year is Hampson's Cinderella. Scottish Ballet connects me with my days at St Andrews which were the happiest of my life. I try not to have favourite companies. I love English National Ballet, the Dutch National Ballet, Rambert, the Royal and Birmingham Royal Ballets, Ballet Black, Ballet Cymru, Northern Ballet, Phoenix and many others with a passion. But Scottish Ballet was my first love and you know what they say about the first love being the love that is never to be forgotten.

No Mean City - Accessible Dance and Ballet

In an Explosion of Joy 21 Sept 2015 I wrote:

"If a dancer contracts an illness or suffers an injury that confines him to a wheelchair then it is the end of his career is it not. Not necessarily. Yesterday I saw a dancer in pointe shoes - I think it was Suzie Birchwood but if I am mistaken I apologize - as beautiful and graceful as any, approach a stage in a wheelchair. She was lifted onto the stage and danced. She thrilled us - not as one who had overcome a disability - but as a dancer. She delighted us with her port de bras, her battements, her pointe work but most of all with her expression of joy."

Last night I was lucky enough to meet that wonderful dancer after she had performed with such stars as Eve Mutso and Sophie Martin in Marc Brew's Exalt at The Tramway.

This was a new work commissioned for dancers of Scottish Ballet, the accessible dance company Indepen-Dance 4 and, of course, Birchwood. The names of the dancers appeared on the cast list in strict alphabetical order without any indication of their company or rank. So good were Kelly McCartney, Hayley Earlham, Adam Sloan and Neil Price of Indepen-Dance (and of course Birchwood) that it was not easy to tell who was with which company. That appears to have been the idea for the notes in the cast list state:

"Drawing on each of the dancers' diverse experience skills and disciplines, Brew explores whether combined knowledge can exalt into movement greater than the sum of its parts, that challenges the concept of what a dancer is, who can dance and how we can create dance."

Well, clearly combined knowledge can exalt into movement greater than the sum of its parts because the performance was thrilling.  Nils Frahm's music, haunting and lilting, was interpreted skilfully by Brew. There were complex and difficult movements, especially around each of the four ladders on stage, but these elided into a continuous flow. The audience loved it for the applause at the end of the show was deafening.

I also loved Brew's thinking for ballet is for everyone not just an elite. It belongs to those with disabilities as well as those who have been trained at White Lodge and Floral Street. It belongs to those of all ages and all body shapes and sizes.  I would add that it also belongs to those of all races and cultures.  Coincidentally, the previous evening I had attended a talk in Cirencester by the restaurant critic Jay Rayner where he had comprehensively dissed some well known restaurants with pretentious menus and nonsensical jargon such as "concepts behind menus". It seems to me that such eateries get away with it because of snobbery and there is just as much snobbery in the performing arts as there is in eating.

After the show Brew told me that he had recently been appointed as a choreographer to Ballet Cymru. That is excellent news both for him and the company. It is also good news for audiences in the southern part of the UK who may see a bit more of his work.

Exalt was the first part of a double bill.  The second was Hans van Manen's 5 Tangos.  I have been a van Manen fan for as long as I have been following ballet and I love his work but I enjoyed 5 Tangos more than any of his works that I had seen before. I have been to Buenos Aires on two occasions twice and have been fascinated by the tango which is far more than a social dance style. It is a genre of music and indeed poetry as well as dance as I mentioned in my review of Scottish Ballet's Streetcar earlier this month. Van Manen paid faithful homage to that art form using music by the Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla.  The dancers - the women clad in red and black and the men in black - executed his choreography with flair. They were led by Luciana Ravizzi who had danced Blanche at Sadlier's Wells. She is a Porteña, proud and elegant and yesterday she was magnificent.  Clearly, the Glaswegians treasure her.  She received three enormous bouquets at the end of the show.

I should say a word about the Glasgow audience. Even though I am a Friend of the company yesterday was the first time I had visited Scottish Ballet's home at The Tramway. There was a buzz in the auditorium and the bar that I have felt only in London in the United Kingdom. Evidently, Scottish Ballet has cultivated an audience that understands and appreciates dance and expresses its appreciation with the same enthusiasm. The Tramway is a fine venue with galleries, film screenings and all sorts of other live performances. The auditorium appears to be at least twice as big as the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre at Quarry Hill. It is easy to reach being next door to a railway station. There is plenty of street parking nearby and Glasgow Corporation (unlike Leeds Metropolitan District Council) is not mean enough to charge on Saturday and Sunday evenings.  A whole new meaning to "No Mean City".

Scottish Ballet traces its origins (as does Northern Ballet) to Western Theatre Ballet in Bristol. I first got to know it when it moved to Scotland in 1969. It is great to see how it has flourished into the United Kingdom's other world class ballet company. By working as equals with Marc Brew and Indepen-Dance Scottish Ballet  has (n my eyes at least) added to its glory.