Factory to go ahead

St John's Gardens

Author: R Lee
Source Wikipedia
Creative Commons Licence

Ever since George Osborne MP delivered his Autumn Statement for 2014 I have been beating the drum for the Factory arts and cultural centre as a centre for dance in Manchester (see Let's bring the Royal Ballet to The Factory Manchester 11 Dec 2014, The Factory begins to take shape 26 Nov 2015 and Thanks George 8 Dec 2015). Yesterday, Manchester International Festival ("MIF") announced that it had obtained planning permission to build the arts complex as part of the redevelopment of the St John's district of Manchester (see MIF announced as operator for Factory).

According to the Festival's website:

"MIF will be the operator for Factory, creating a year-round programme of work and running the building, which is due to open 2020. Factory will give audiences the opportunity to enjoy the broadest range of art forms and cultural experiences – including dance, theatre, music, opera, visual arts, spoken word, popular culture and innovative contemporary work incorporating multiple media and technologies"

MIF has commissioned dance before.   In 2015 it commissioned Wayne McGregor's Tree of Codes which was premiered at the Manchester Opera House on 3 July 2015 and is to be performed this year at the Palais Garnier, the Musikhuset in Aarhus and Sadler's Wells. Last year it facilitated Akram Khan's Giselle which the MIF's artistic director described as “an example of the sort of collaboration we can expect to find at The Factory” (see Verity Williams MIF’s Giselle at The Palace Theatre, preview: Dancing to a different tune 15 Dec 2016 creativetourist.com).

While I was not exactly bowled over by Akram Khan's Giselle I applaud MIF's commitment to dance. Now that we shall have a 1,600 seat auditorium for Manchester there is no reason why the second city of the UK should not host its own world class resident ballet company. Ideally, I should like to revive plans for a Northern home for the Royal Ballet which the last Labour government had proposed.  If that is not possible we may have to build one ourselves from the ground up. We shall see.

Meanwhile, if anyone wants some idea as to how the Factory will look there is a great article about the Factory with some good pictures on the BBC website (see Designs approved for Manchester's £110m Factory arts venue 12 Jan 2017).

Thanks George

George Osborne MP

Source HM Treasury

Open Government Licence

In his Spending review and autumn statement 2015 the Chancellor of the Exchequer made three funding announcements which should benefit the performing arts in general and dance in particular:

• a £78 million capital investment in The Factory, Manchester plus £9 million per year revenue funding from 2018-2019;
• a £4 million grant to the Birmingham Dance Hub; and 
• support for the National College for the Creative and Cultural Industries at the Backstage Centre in Thurrock.

I have already discussed the Factory and its potential in The Factory begins to take Shape 26 Nov 2015 and Let's bring the Royal Ballet to The Factory Manchester 11 Dec 2014. Architects have been appointed and the first artist's impressions have been published in the Manchester Evening News. Work should start on the Quay Street site in the next few months. The location is particularly handy for Manchester's legal profession as it is not far from the Civil Justice Centre. It should be finished by 2018.

In Arts Council England’s analysis of its investment in large-scale opera and ballet which I mentioned in How Arts Council England supports Dance 10 Oct 2015 the Arts Council announced increased funding for Birmingham Royal Ballet. Although not expressed as a condition of the extra funding, the analysis added:

"We are proposing that, in addition, we ask the company to work with the City of Birmingham, Dance Xchange, the Hippodrome and other interested parties to make Birmingham into a regional dance centre, building a broad dance culture in the City, capable of increasing audiences and attracting and retaining talent in the city."

No specific announcement has been made as to the Birmingham Dance Hub unlike Leeds which published a consultancy brief for plans for a dance hub which should be delivered by January 2016. However, the Birmingham bub is likely to be based in the Hippodrome which houses Dance Xchange (DX). DX describes itself as

"a power house of dance with excellence, innovation, participation and inclusion at its heart – and, together with Birmingham Hippodrome and Birmingham Royal Ballet, is part of the largest dance partnership in Britain."

In its About Us page it refers to its performance programme, classes and its production facilities. It is safe to assume that Birmingham Royal Ballet and Elmhurst will be evolved and we look forward to hearing how the participants will use the Chancellor's £4 million.

The offer of support for the new National College for Creative and Cultural Industries is much vaguer than the other two projects and is said to subject to due diligence even though the plans for the College seem to be pretty advanced (see Jane Lambert National College for the Creative and Cultural Industries 7 Dec 2015 IP East). The College will be housed in the Backstage Centre where the Royal Opera House's production facilities are already located and it should receive its first students in September 2016 (see Creative and Cultural Trading Ltd.'s press release of 11 Dec 2015). The College will train the technical and management staff needed for ballet and the other performing arts.

Team Terpsichore will be watching all three projects like a hawk and will report any news on them and similar projects in other cities as and when it happens.

Flying the Flag for Manchester - Northern Ballet School's Giselle

Aerial view of Greater Manchester

Author Doc Searls

Source Wikipedia

Creative Commons Licence

On 28 Nov 1969 the Northern Dance Theatre gave its first performance at the University Theatre in Manchester with the Royal Northern College of Music providing the orchestra. The company's first home was a church hall in Moss Side. Coming from Manchester I followed that company's progress with interest even though I lived in Surrey at that time. The first performance of the company that I saw was Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man which celebrated the centenary of the birth of that artist (see also Northern Ballet's A Simple Man 14 Sept 2013) and I have been a fan ever since.

Sadly Northern Ballet loosened its links with Manchester some years ago and is now ensconced in some splendour at Quarry Hill in Leeds, a building it shares with the magnificent Phoenix Dance Theatre. It still performs a season at the Palace Theatre and it is lovely to see the company there but we probably have closer links with English National Ballet for the reasons I gave in my review of that company's Romeo and Juliet (see Manchester's Favourite Ballet Company 29 Nov 2015) or indeed the Birmingham Royal Ballet which visits the Lowry twice a year.

According to the 2011 census Greater Manchester has now overtaken the West Midlands to be the biggest built up area in terms of population (2.6 million as opposed to the West Midlands's 2.4 million) which must make it one of the biggest cities in the developed world without its own world class resident ballet company. There was once talk of refurbishing the Palace and making it the Northern home of the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera before the 2010 general election (see Let's Bring the Royal Ballet to The Factory Manchester 11 Dec 2014) but that idea was dropped by the Coalition government. With the £78 million investment in The Factory promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer we now have a chance of reviving the plan for a Northern home for the Royal Ballet, enticing away an established company from another city as Glasgow did to Bristol or indeed Leeds to us, or, perhaps, even growing our own (see The Factory begins to take Shape 25 Nov 2015).

We are very fortunate in Manchester to host the Northern Ballet School which fairly describes itself as "an international centre of excellence in training for classical ballet and musical theatre." The School incorporates the Dancehouse Theatre a 430 seat auditorium where its performance company, Manchester City Ballet, will perform Giselle between 10 and 12 Dec 2015. Last year Manchester City Ballet performed The Nutcracker which impressed me tremendously (see Alchemy 13 Dec 2014) and I also enjoyed its summer show which I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to see (see Serendipity 10 July 2015).

Northern Ballet School's studios are occupied in the evening by KNT Danceworks which offers a comprehensive range of classes for adults in all genres of dance every day of the week except Sunday. I first started classes there in Aug 2014 (see So Proud of Manchester - KNT Danceworks Complete Beginners Class 29 Aug 2014) and last summer I completed its Swan Lake intensive under the wonderful Jane Tucker who studied at Northern Ballet School and danced with Manchester City Ballet. Doing that course was not easy but completing it was one of the proudest moments of my life (see KNT Beginners Adult Ballet Intensive Swan Lake - Day 1 18 Aug 2015, Day 2 19 Aug 2015 and Day 3 20 Aug 2915). KNT Danceworks staged a splendid show at The Danceworks on 23 May 2015 which really was Better than Eurovision and they are doing another on 30 Jan 2016 in which I hope to perform.

I urge my fellow Mancunians as well as ballet goers everywhere to flock to the Dancehouse in droves for Giselle next week. Tickets are between £10 and £12 and you can book your seat at Ticketline.

The Factory begins to take shape

Manchester  Graffiti

Photo Mike Colvin

Source Wikipeda

Creative Commons Licence

In his Autumn statement last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised a £78 million investment in a new arts centre in Manchester to be called "The Factory". I picked it up in my article  Let's bring the Royal Ballet to The Factory Manchester 11 Dec 2015. The Chancellor, whose constituency is in the Manchester city region, repeated his promise yesterday (see George Osborne’s Autumn Statement speech in full 25 Nov 2015 Financial Times).

The Autumn statement coincided with press reports of the appointment of the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to design the Factory (see Rem Koolhaas wins Factory design project as Manchester goes Dutch 25 Nov 2015 The Guardian, The Factory: CGIs of Manchester's multi-million pound culture hub  released 25 Nov 2015 Manchester Evening News and OMA wins competition to design huge Manchester arts venue The Factory 25 Nov 2014 De Zeen). Work is to start on the site next year and the building should be finished by 2019.

When completed the Factory will host the Manchester International Festival which featured artists from the Paris Opera Ballet in Wayne McGregor's Tree of Codes this year. Next year it will première Akram Khan's Giselle for English National Ballet. Manchester which is visited regularly by the Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and Northern Ballet as well as smaller companies is probably the biggest audience for dance outside London.

So we now have an audience for dance and we will soon have a major venue for the performing arts in the city. All we need now is a major resident company. As I hinted last year we would welcome the Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet with open arms if it wanted to resume the negotiations for a Northern home which were terminated by the change of government last year.

Or we could build out own. Some of the building blocks are here. We have the Northern Ballet School in Oxford Road which already has its own performing company known as Manchester City Ballet. It will perform Giselle at The Dancehouse between 10 and 12 Dec 2015.  There is also the Centre for Advanced Training in Dance at The Lowry. All we need is to commitment and money.

Let's bring the Royal Ballet to The Factory Manchester

Palace Theatre

Photo Wikipedia

With 2.9 million inhabitants the Greater Manchester metropolitan area is the second largest conurbation in the British Isles. It is also the largest conurbation without a resident world class ballet company. London has lots of good companies - the Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Rambert, Ballet Black to name just a few. Birmingham has the Birmingham Royal Ballet, Glasgow Scottish Ballet, Leeds Northern Ballet and Newport Ballet Cymru.

It has not always been so. Northern Ballet began life in Manchester but moved across the Pennines first to Halifax and then to Leeds.  It now has a magnificent home at Quarry Hill in Leeds with its own theatre in the same neighbourhood as the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds College of Music, Yorkshire Dance, the BBC and the Grand.  There is no reason why it should move anywhere else. Of course, we still see Northern Ballet in Manchester from time to time just as we see the Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Rambert and many other companies. We also have the Northern Ballet School which performs a classical ballet every year at the Danceworks Theatre in Oxford Road. All very good but not the same as having our own world class company.

A few years ago there were plans for the Royal Opera House to establish a Northern base at The Palace with regular seasons for the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera in Manchester. That would have been wonderful but austerity put paid to that (see Rob Sharp Royal Opera House shelves move north 28 Oct 2010 The Independent). Although the news report says that the plans have been put on hold nobody has tried to revive them in the intervening time.

But maybe we can do so now.  In his Autumn Statement 2014 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a £78 million investment in a massive theatre and arts centre on the site of the Granada Studios to be known as "The Factory Manchester".  It is part of a £7 billion programme of investment in transport, science and technology and the arts to transform the cities of the North into a "Northern Powerhouse" to serve as an economic counterweight to London.  

An economic counterweight needs culture.  As Manchester City Council recognizes in its press release "£78m for The Factory Manchester - a new large scale, ultra-flexible arts space" 3 Dec 2013 

"The Factory Manchester will play an integral part in helping Manchester and the North of England provide a genuine cultural counterbalance to London, supporting the city and region's growth."

Now Manchester already has The Hallé, The Royal Exchange and The Lowry which go a good way towards providing that cultural counterweight but it needs first class opera and ballet to be complete.

We could try to persuade an established company in another city to move to Manchester as Birmingham, Glasgow and Leeds did but that would be resented by the city such company would leave behind and we Mancunians are too big hearted for that. We could also grow our own company but that would take years. Dusting off the plans that were put on hold only five years ago now seems a viable option. If the BBC can move to Media City why not the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera for at least part of the year? The second city of the nation needs and deserves nothing less.

Post Script
The following paragraph appears in the Wikipedia article on the Royal Ballet:

"The Royal Opera House and Manchester City Council are currently in the planning stages of a new development known as Royal Opera House, Manchester. The proposal is for the Palace Theatre in Manchester to receive an £80m refurbishment, creating a first-class theatre capable of staging productions by both the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera. The Royal Opera House would take residence of the theatre for an annual 18 week season, staging 16 performances by the Royal Opera, 28 performances by the Royal Ballet and other small-scale productions. The proposals would establish the Palace Theatre as a designated base for the Royal Opera House companies in the North of England, as a producing house for new ballet and opera, and as a training centre for all aspects of theatre production. The proposals could potentially lead to the creation of 700 jobs for local people.
The proposals have been approved by Andy Burnham MP the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, and accepted by a number of public bodies. However the plans are currently being revised to address the concerns put forward by those who are opposed to the plans. Issues that have been raised include:

• How will the refurbishment of the Palace Theatre be funded?

• Will the proposals impact negatively on The Lowry, a theatre and arts complex in nearby Salford?

• Will the Manchester season present the same standard of performance as the Royal Opera House in London?"

More on Ballet in Manchester

13 Dec 2014 Alchemy
9 Nov 2014  A Mancunian Nutcracker
10 Oct 2014 What Manchester does today
29 Aug 2014 So proud of Manchester

More on the "Northern Powerhouse"

10 Dec 2014 Jane Lambert "Let's take this opportunity with both hands" IP North West
8 Nov 2014 Jane Lambert "Northern Futures Summit" IP Yorkshire (see the links to other articles)