On Sunday 3 Sept, my friend Erin and I attended the Ann Maguire Gala 2017 at Leeds Grand Theatre. The money raised by the ticket sales went towards the Ann Maguire Arts Education Fund less the essential running costs. All the performers and stage crew volunteered to be part of this event.
But this event was not just any old dance gala. No. It was an incredible opportunity for us to feast our eyes upon dancers from the Royal Ballet, Northern Ballet and Ballet Boyz. The repertoire consisted of choreography by Kenneth MacMillan, Frederick Ashton, Liam Scarlett, Will Tuckett, Alastair Marriott, Steven McRae and Christopher Wheeldon.
As one who does not have a lot of money, this was an opportunity for me to see some of my favourite dancers.
I was so incredibly excited!
Erin and I filled with excitement for the night's event.
The show began with an introduction by Wayne Sleep. I was surprised to see how small he is in real life
I shan't go into detail about every piece of the programme, but will instead talk about the pieces that have stuck in my mind since Sunday night.
Quizas was a new piece choreographed by Will Tuckett, to the track of the same name by Nat King Cole and Shigeru Umebayashi. It was performed by Laura Morera and Ricardo Cervera. It has a very latin vibe to it but was still balletic. I truly found myself falling in love with it. I just wanted to get up and dance with them. It looked so incredibly fun! And, of course, effortless, much to the credit of the dancers.
Ashton's Voices of Spring was performed by Yuhui Choe and recently promoted Alexander Campbell. It was so beautiful to watch. It left me feeling like I was dreaming at the end of the act!
The second act opened with a musical medley of songs from Les Miserables and West Side Story performed by Leeds Youth Opera.
Clair de Lune was one of my favourite performances of the whole night. It was very simple and elegant. Watson executed the most incredible attitude turns (believe me when I say from my own experience they're hard). His ending position which was a plié in second, left Erin and me breathless for he did not move at all - for what seemed like forever. Not even shaking!
Czardas by Steven McRae was so much fun. He was accompanied on the stage with violinist Vasko Vassilev. Both artists were truly incredible to watch. I would love to watch this over again and again.*
Le Corsaire pas de deux was performed by Akane Takada and Benjamin Ella. Akane did all 32 fouette turns perfectly and Benjamin flew across the stage with his incredible jumps. It was a truly a delight to watch. It left the audience on such a high note!
Finally, the night concluded with a thank you from Wayne Sleep and Emma Maguire (the daughter of the late Ann Maguire and event organiser) followed by, of course. the curtain call. each of the performers was given a single red rose. I was left feeling overwhelmed and happy to have watched such a wonderful night of performances.
Myself with Edward Watson
Erin with Alexander Campbell
The night, however, did not end there for Erin and I decided to go to the stage door after the performance. We were fortunate enough to meet Alexander Campbell, Steven McRae, Fumi Kaneko and Edward Watson. All of whom were lovely, and we had enjoyable conversations with them. We found out that the stage was raked, which made us gasp even more. We sadly did not meet any of the other artists due to having to catch a train back to Huddersfield from Leeds and it was quite late. But I still cannot believe we met some of our absolute favourite dancers, let alone watched them perform. It will be a night I will remember for the rest of my life!
Amelia x
* You can. He performed it on World Ballet Day and a video of his performance is right here (Ed).
Standard YouTube Licence The Royal Ballet The Dream, Symphonic Variations and Marguerite and Armand encore, Leeds Showcase, 11 June 2017 Yesterday, I found a movie theatre that showed last Wednesday's performance of The Dream, Symphonic Variations and Marguerite and Armand. I had missed the live transmission because I was in Preston that day watching Ballet Cymru dance Darius James's A Midsummer Night's Dream (see "A Most Rare Vision ...... A Dream"8 June 2017). I had intended to see Ballet Cymru on Saturday in Sale but that was the only day I could get to London to see Scottish Ballet's Emergence and MC 14/22. I had already dashed down to London to hear Christopher Hampson's interview with Gerald Dowler at the London Ballet Circle. There was also the little matter of a general election at which I like many other voters did my best to make sure that the blighters who had failed to stand up to their Eurosceptics last year and who had opportunistically sought to take advantage of a commanding lead in the opinion polls this year got their comeuppance.
Sir Frederick Ashton had created The Dream in 1964 to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. I remember that year well because it was the year I took my "O" levels one of which was English literature which included a compulsory Shakespeare play, Birmingham Royal Ballet revived The Dream last year to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death. When I think of all the plays and sonnets that he crammed into that short life I admire that genius all the more. I love that ballet particularly because it was created for Dame Antoinette Sibley, my favourite ballerina of all time, and Sir Anthony Dowell, my favourite male dancer. I cannot hear Mendelssohn's music without memories of those two flooding back. It was wonderful to see footage of Sir Anthony coaching Steven McRae and Akane Takada. I nearly blubbed like a baby when I saw him again embracing Zenaida Yanowsky.
The other ballet with special memories was Marguerite and Armand. Ashton had created it for Fonteyn and Nureyev and they danced it at the gala for Sir Fred's retirement as director of the Royal Ballet on 24 July 1970. I know because I was there. You can see a picture of Sir Fred on stage with the company in the Royal Ballet's album on Flickr. Fonteyn's role was danced on Wednesday by Yanowsky and Nureyev's by Roberto Bolle. They are very different from Fonteyn and Nureyev but they seem to have conquered that ballet and made it their own. "Regal" was the adjective that sprang to mind several times as I watched Yanowsky trace the familiar steps. She is tall. She is graceful. She is grand. Bolle is much more believable as Armand than Nureyev ever was. He danced the role. Bolle lived it. Two other greats danced solo roles - Cristopher Saunders as Armand's father and Gary Avis as the duke.
I first saw Symphonic Variations 20 years after it was first performed and it already had a period feel. Perhaps the swirling isobars backdrop and the tennis dress tutus. But many of the original cast - Pamela May, Moira Shearer, Margot Fonteyn, Brian Shaw and Michael Somes were still dancing. Only Henry Danton had retired. Ironically they were all survived by Danton who appeared in the recording still handsome and, seemingly, with all his faculties intact. It was a joy to see this grand old man. He had retired before I started following ballet so I never saw him dance but I have seen his photos and what a dish he must have been.
However, the most memorable part of the performance was not the dancing but Zenaida Yanowsky;s curtain call. Flowers were everywhere. First from the House's flunkies (whatever happened to the powdered wings and knee breeches of my youth), then from the premiers danseurs nobles (tears welled up when I saw Carlos Acosta), he was followed by Ed Watson (more tears) and they flowed like a New York fire hydrant when Anthony Dowell embraced her as a daughter and finally a floral blizzard from the balcony. Goodbyes are something the House does particularly well. I am sure there are goodbyes at The Stopera, the Palais Garnier, the Met but they can't be as they are at Covent Garden.
Standard YouTube Licence The Royal Ballet, Jewels, transmitted live to cinemas, 11 April 2017, 19:39
I once asked a distinguished panel of dance critics, dancers and the artistic director of Scottish Ballet whether a narrative ballet needed a plot (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet21 June 2015). All said no except Tobias Batley who was then a premier dancer at Northern Batley and seemed to have an interesting point to make but did not get the chance to develop it. When I asked that question I had Balanchine's Jewelsin mind which actually tells a lot of stories from the history of ballet to the choreographer's life history without actually having a libretto.
Jewels is like a denial of service attack on the senses. Each of the three ballets is a feast in itself. You feel you can only take so much colour, and movement, and music in one evening - but after each act, there is more. The only experience with which I can compare this ballet is, in fact, my first sight of real jewels. The Crown Jewels on my first trip to London. The impression that the dazzling display of light and colour made on a little five-year-old from the North in post-war Britain was very much the same as the concatenation of dancers in green, red and white create whenever I see Balanchine's masterpiece.
On Sunday I remarked that I had seen the Bolshoi at its best (see A Hero of our Time10 April 2017). Yesterday, audiences around the world saw the Royal Ballet at its best. The company fielded Beatriz Stix-Brunell, Valeri Hristov, Laura Morera, Ryoichi Hirano, Emma Maguire, Helen Crawford and James Hay in Emeralds. As readers know, I am one humongous fan of Morera whose hand I once had the good fortune to shake (see Laura Morera 25 Aug 2015). She always delights me but yesterday she raised my admiration to a new level.
More favourites in Rubies - Sarah Lamb, Steven McRae and Melissa Hamilton. If Emeralds was lyrical, Rubies was spectacular. One gorgeous explosion of movement after another culminating in McRae's exit in chaînés. A dynamo harnessed to McRae at that moment could have powered a fair size town. Rubies is the shortest work in the three ballets but it is the one I like best, possibly because of Stravinsky's Capriccio possibly just the New World razmataz. The energy. The fun. Diamonds, the white act, is sublime. An homage to Petipa. Marianela Nuñez and Thiago Soares were majestic. Stix-Brunnell and Hay returned to join them together with Claire Calvert, Tierney Heap, Yasmine Naghdi, Nicol Edmonds, Fernando Montaño and Valentino Zucchetti. Not all Petipa's ballets end well but some of them do. Think of The Sleeping Beauty,The Nutcracker and all your other favourites rolled into one and combine it with Tchaikowsky's Polish symphony and you understand why I compared the overpowering of the senses to the overwhelming of a website by millions of messages.
I should also say something about the presentation. I was very impressed with Kristen McNally. I warmed to her the moment she opened her mouth. Proud, elegant, knowledgeable, amusing and above all, Northern. I do hope the Royal Opera House enlists her services again. It was also good to see Darcey Bussell as it always is but this time she was there in her capacity as a great ballerina escorting a member of the original cast to the jeweller's shop that inspired Balanchine. A beautiful dancer surrounded by beautiful things. That is how I like to think of her. It would be good to see more of her in scenes like that.
Standard YouTube Licence Screening of the Royal Ballet's Frankenstein, 18 May 2016
I always look forward to my Wednesday evening ballet class at Northern Ballet or the University of Huddersfield and I have turned down invitations to posh receptions in order to attend one or other of those classes before now. Tonight, however, I skipped class to attend the screening of Liam Scarlett'sFrankenstein. I am very glad I did for rarely have I been more excited by a new ballet. I am metaphorically kicking myself for not getting a reasonably priced ticket in the amphitheatre stalls during the Friends' booking window when I had the chance. However, I did the next best thing by watching the HDTV transmission from Covent Garden in the National Media Museum in Bradford, which happens to be the home town of Thomas Whitehead who played a key role in last night's ballet.
As Darcey Bussell noted before the screening most of us know Frankenstein from Hollywood rather than Mary Shelley's novel and fail to appreciate its themes and subtleties. Scarlett has returned to the original in creating his ballet. Very briefly, a young medical student called Victor Frankenstein, grief stricken by the death of his mother in childbirth, becomes obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. In a neurology class in the anatomy theatre a lecturer applies Galvani's experiments with frog legs to human body parts and gets a limb to twitch after a current is applied to the nerve ends. That was possible with frogs but not with more advanced creatures at that time but never mind. That experiment gives Victor the idea that electricity is the life force. Instead of enjoying himself womanizing in the pub like all the other medical students he experiments with stitching together body parts and charging them with electricity. Eventually he succeeds in making a functioning composite cadaver which breaks out of the laboratory and terrorizes the public.
One of its victims is Victor's little brother who is left alone blindfolded for a few minutes by his family. The monster plays with him gently at first but the boy dies of shock on seeing the monster's gruesome form. The boy's body is found by his nurse, Justine, who is accused of murdering him. The second act ends with the poor woman dangling from the gallows which to my mind is the most disturbing scene of the show. In the last act Victor marries his sweetheart, Elizabeth, but the monster shows up at their wedding knocking off first Victor's father, then his best mate Henry and finally Elizabeth. Desperate at the loss of everyone he has ever loved in his life Victor shoots himself. The last scene shows the monster cradling its creator.
This is a tremendous work making enormous demands of every single role player in the story. I suppose the greatest demands are made of the monster danced last night by Steven McRae. "McRae as a monster", I hear you cry. "He's the last dancer I would cast in that role. Ed Watson perhaps or maybe Muntagirov, but McRae is such a sweet, sensitive young man." Well let me tell you, McRae does monsters and how. The make-up and wardrobe department performed a minor miracle in dressing him with horrid gory stitch marks across his face and body. He was as horrible as anything out of Hammer Films. But this was a sensitive monster who was looking for love first from the little boy, then Elizabeth and finally his creator. Not so very far off McRae's other roles I think you will agree.
Federico Bonelli danced Victor Frankenstein. I have long been a fan of this dancer but he rose even higher in my esteem as he developed his character on stage from lost little boy, to swotty undergraduate, obsessed researcher, young master, gentle suitor and in all stages of the ballet tortured soul. The other big male role was Henry who played all round good egg from the moment he befriended Victor in medical school. Like Victor he had no time for drinking, carousing and having a nice time like all other sensibly adjusted students. He was danced last night by Alexander Campbell, and a very good job he did too.
The main female role was Elizabeth danced last night by Laura Morera who was Scarlett's muse in Viscera (see Au Revoir but not Adieu19 Nov 2015. I am a great fan of Morera and once had the pleasure of meeting her and telling her how much I admire her work (see Laura Morera25 Aug 2015). She is a fine actor well as a great dancer. She is a master of detail - remember her little mannerisms as she writes in Victor's commonplace book as he is about to set off for medical school - but also her mid-air rotations as Victor tosses her into the air without really looking at her. It must have been so scary for her to do those turns.
"And Thomas Woodhead? You say he danced a key role." Why yes, indeed, for he was the lecturer who demonstrated the life giving force of electricity to the students and gave Victor the idea for his research. We have all taken classes from lecturers like him. Brilliant. Sarcastic. Frightening for the callow undergraduate. I was reminded of my economic history classes at St Andrews. "Karl Marx was born in 1818 and died - not a day before time - in 1883" delivered in the cultured tones of Morningside "where sex is what the coal comes in."
A ballet like this requires a remarkable score and it was provided by Lowell Liebermann. It was a work of our times - not a pastiche - but it caught the flavour of the period where that was needed. It was one of the most beautiful new works I have ever heard and I long to listen to it again perhaps next time in the concert hall. If anyone wants to get me a present for Christmas I'll have a recording of the score as soon as soon as it comes out on DVD.
Equally impressive were John MacFarlane's designs, particularly his apparatus for generating static electricity and the electrodes for applying it to humans. This was one of the most realistic props I have ever seen on stage in any kind of show. And the gallows scene too which would have made me throw up had I visited the Kash before the show rather than after.
There is so much to write about this production but I have a living to earn and nobody pays me to write ballet reviews. There are still some seats available for the last three performances in London. If you can make the show then go. It will soon be staged in San Francisco. I'd say its worth the 9 hour flight if you miss it here and I am seriously contemplating a trip there.
Liam Scarlett is a remarkable talent. First, Vicera. then No Man's Land and now this. He is still a very young man. Imagine what he will be doing in 20 or 30 years time.
It is not often that my heart leaps when I see the nominations for the National Dance Awards but it did this time when I read that Ballet Cymru has been nominated for the best independent company award (see Judith Mackrell's National Dance Awards 2015 nominations: ice dance, flamenco and independent companies celebrated 29 Oct 2015 Guardian Dance Blog). I am very fond of that company. Last month I visited them at their studios in Newport (see Ballet Cymru at Home 5 Oct 2015). Next Friday I will be in Newport for the première of Traces Imprinted, the new work by Marc Brew, which will be performed with TIR and Celtic Concerto.
One of the reasons why I like Ballet Cymru is that they worked with wheelchair dancers and others in Stuck in the Mud. Marc Brew choreographed that work to a score by Jack White who has composed the music for Cinderella which you can hear above. Brew has also created work for Candoco Dance Company which has been nominated for the Outstanding Company award. That is another company that admire. Founded in 1991 it describes itself as "the company of disabled and non-disabled dancers". This is a company with first class productions which also manages to provide first class outreach opportunities for the general public. It is up against English National Ballet, New Adventures and Northern Ballet for that award. Even though I would normally support any of those three companies for that award I am rooting for Candoco on this occasion.
Three of my favourite male dancers, Steven McRae, Vadim Muntagirov and Ed Watson are up for the best male dancer category and I am conflicted because I cannot choose between them as I like them all. I have seen superb performances by all of them this year but the one that touched my heart was Muntagirov's pas de deux from Swan Lake with Daria Klimentova at Northern Ballet's Sapphire gala in Leeds on 14 March 2015 (see Sapphire 15 March 2015). I never thought I would ever see them dance together again and they were the highlight of my evening.
The choice is slightly easier for best female dancer. After seeing her Juliet in the Albert Hall last year it has to be Alina Cojocaru (see Romeo and Juliet in the Round - Saturday 14 June 2014 20 June 2014) though I am also a great fan of Alessandra Ferri and Marianela Nuñez. I am delighted to see Laura Morera in the outstanding female performance category for her role as Lise (see The Best Fille Ever 18 April 2015 and my flat footed attempt to congratulate the ballerina in Laura Morera 25 Aug 2015). I am also pleased for Eve Mutso to be nominated for her performance in A Streetcar Named Desire. I saw Luciana Ravizzi dance the role when I saw the ballet (see Scottish Ballet's Sreetcar 2 April 2015) but I have seen Mutso in other works this year and she never fails to delight me.
I would have expected Streetcar to have been nominated for best classical choreography as well as Darius James's Cinderella but what do I know? However, I was delighted to see nominations for David Bintley's The King Dances and William Bracewell's performance in that work. For me the performance of that work to celebrate Bintley's 20th anniversary as artistic director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet and its 25th anniversary in Birmingham was was one of the highlights of the year (see In Praise of Bintley 21 June 2015).
I am conscious that I have not mentioned a lot of people who deserve mention. As I come from the North of England I take particular pleasure in Kenneth Tindall's nomination for two categories as well as Northern Ballet's and Tobias Batley's for outstanding company and best male dancer respectively. I congratulate everyone and every company that has been nominated, I thank them all for their work and wish them all well for the future.
