An Enormous Loss

By Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken - https://www.flickr.com/photos/ministeriebz/48865568151/,
CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=152604341

 

I met Michaela Mabinty DePrince only once but I felt personally bereaved when I read about her death earlier today.  I first heard of DePrince shortly after my late spouse died of motor neurone disease.  My late spouse was also Sierra Leonean who shared something else with DePrince. We had been married for nearly 27 years and watching life drain away from the most precious person in the world was the most painful experience of my life.

The post about the success of a 17-year-old Sierra Leonean coincided with a postcard on my gym notice board advertising "ballercise" (ballet exercise) classes,  They were offered by a teacher who had trained in Brisbane and danced with the Queensland Ballet. I had studied a little bit of ballet as an undergraduate when I was bursting with energy and ambition.  I had never ceased to attend performances and I continued to devour every review book or article on ballet that I could obtain but there were no ballet classes at my graduate school in LA or indeed at the Inns of Court in London,

Irrational though it may sound to describe the coincidental appearance of the post on the BBC website and the advert as providential, that is just how it seemed.  I enrolled in the class and miraculously much of the ambition and energy of youth gushed back.  I have often told my teacher that her classes raised me from utter despair but I would never have thought of joining the class had I not read that article about DePrince.

Shortly after DePrince had won the Youth America Grand Prix, I learned that she had joined the Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet.  I flew over to Amsterdam for its first performance,  I reviewed the show in The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 on 25 Nov 2013.  I described her as "simply the most exciting dancer I have seen for quite a while."  My review was read by the Junior Company's Artistic Coordinator Ernst Meisner which led to correspondence and eventually an opportunity to meet the dancers.  

Every year the Dutch National Ballet holds a gala followed by a party.  At the party dancers, musicians and the management of the company mingle with the audience.  It was on one of those occasions that I exchanged a few words with DePrince.  It was a glorious evening which I have described as The best evening I have ever spent at the ballet.   Just as I was leaving I spotted DePrince and greeted her,   It was a very short conversation as I was rushing for the underground but I left the theatre thinking how that exceptionally talented young dancer was as gracious off stage as she was magnificent on it.

Over the years I have made the acquaintance of many other members of the Dutch National Ballet and some have become dear friends,  I also met many members of the audience including a wonderful teacher who came to train Powerhouse Ballet a few years ago. I have also got to know the Netherlands well.  It is the one part of the world outside my country that I feel most at ease.   All of those acquaintances and friendships as well as my affection for the Netherlands I owe to that first visit to the Stadsshouwburg and ultimately to the artist who caused me to make that visit,

According to The Guardian DePrince's family has requested donations to  War Child, instead of flowers.  I am sure that her many fans around the world will respond generously to that request. 

KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 2

Author Marek Szczepanek
Source Wikipedia
Creative Commons Licence

This is only day 2 of the intensive but already I have learned a lot. A lot of choreography, of course: the cygnets' pas de quatre, the Hungarian dance, Siegfried's solo and the entry of the swans. I have also received some jolly good practical tips such as take a hot bath followed by a cold shower after strenuous physical exercise. I have learned a lot about myself and what I can still do at my age. But most of all I have learned a whole new respect for the dancer.

I have been exhausted by only two days of classes and rehearsals but members of a company have to do that sort of thing all the time and then dance in a matinee or evening performance or on some days both. To do that day in day out requires stamina, strength and determination. It is true that they are all much younger than me, that dancing is their vocation and that they have trained for it over many years but it is still gruelling stuff and I take my hat off to them.

Today I got to know some of students on this course a little better. Several of them had read this blog and we discussed some of the articles in it. I also got into conversation with Mark Hindle, one of the teachers at KNT, over lunch. We found out that we share a passion for Ballet Black and Ballet Cymru and are both fans of Sayaka Wright-Ichikawa and Krystal Lowe.

Tomorrow we are consolidating and refining what we have learned in order to give a performance at 15:45. Karen has very kindly allowed Gita to watch us so that she can review our show for Terpsichore. On Sunday night I was a bag of nerves quite convinced that I wouldn't make it through the first day. Well I have survived the first two days already and I think that tomorrow will be the best bit.

One of the reasons I didn't throw in the towel on Monday is that I was bucked up by an email from my clerk. The Chambers and Partners guides are to lawyers and law firms what the Michelin red guides are to restaurateurs. Just before I was due to go into class I learned that I was in it. Ballet takes a large part of the credit for that.  Five years ago I was devastated by the loss of my spouse to motor neuron disease and had more or less lost the will to live. About a month or so after my spouse's death I noticed a postcard on my gym noticeboard offering ballercise classes by a lady who had danced with Queensland Ballet. I took those classes and found that I enjoyed them. They made me exercise and gave me discipline. Ballercise led to ballet and eventually Northern Ballet's Over 55 class in Leeds. I made a lot of new acquaintances in that class and many more through the London Ballet Circle, Chelmsford Ballet, BalletcoForum and elsewhere.

On Thursday Jane Tucker will teach an advanced workshop based on Giselle.  Michelle, a member of my Over 55 class and one of the most prolific contributors to BalletcoForum, will be taking part. If it is only half as good as Swan Lake she is in for a treat.

Renewing Friendships

The Main Stage, The Royal Opera House

Source Wikipedia

When I was an undergraduate I practically lived at Covent Garden during the Christmas, Easter and start of the Summer vacations. The Royal Opera House sent bundles of ticket vouchers to Young Friends which could be exchanged for tickets for the upper slips or two thirds of the cost of the rows H to Q in the amphitheatre and I saw all the great stars - Fonteyn, Nureyev, Sibley, Dowell, Symour and all the other great names of the time. Those ticket vouchers enabled me to see great visiting companies such as American Ballet Theatre, the Bolshoi and even Dance Theatre of Harlem.

I maintained my membership of the Young Friends even when I was a graduate student in California. "You have such neat mail" my fellow students would say when About the House would arrive. And it was true, I did. It was a little reminder of home like "Ye Mucky Duck" and the "Brigadoon" at Santa Monica. I maintained my membership even after I ceased to qualify as a Young Friend at the age of 26. I kept it going even after I had moved to Yorkshire and made the acquaintance of Northern Ballet.

I let my membership lapse only when my late spouse was diagnosed with motor neuron disease. Somehow ballet no longer seemed to matter. In fact very few things did. There is nothing more distressing than watching someone you love shut down limb by limb and organ by organ.  Everything in my life went to seed.

But then a month after my spouse died I noticed a postcard on a notice board advertising "Ballercise" classes. I was told that a group of mums had asked the instructor who taught their little ones ballet to lay on a class for them. I was even more overweight than I am now and quite unfit but I joined the class and stuck with it. I struggled through pliés and tendus and goodness knows what. Eventually, my teacher invited me to a real ballet class in Huddersfield which led in turn to the over 55 class at Northern Ballet and ultimately Terpsichore.

Last Saturday I collected my tickets for the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company I impulsively asked whether I could rejoin the Friends. "Certainly" they replied and remarkably the House still retained my membership records.  Today my membership pack arrived and what a delight. My red membership card with the royal coat of arms, welcome letters from Susan Fisher, the new season guide, an invitation to attend the opening night of Carlos Acosta's Carmen on 26 Oct 2015 (the cheapest tickets being £1,000 per head) and the January and April copies of the Friends' magazine which appears to have superseded About the House. 

The January issue has a great picture of Ed Watson and Wendy Whelan on the cover as well as news of Wayne McGregor's Homage to Virginia Woolf and an essay on the genius of Jerome Robbins. The April issue has articles on Carlos Acosta, Cuba and transition and 50 years of MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet. When am I going to get round to reading all of that? But does it matter for I feel as though I have come home.

Although I have rejoined the Friends because I love the Royal Opera House and the Royal Ballet there are actually some tangible benefits of membership which are listed on the Friends page of the Royal Opera House website. This video explains what they are. I have derived so much pleasure from performances at the House over the years. I do hope this article encourages others to join the Friends too.

Fusion

No - not that kind of fusion

On Monday evenings I normally take Fiona Noonan's ballet class at Hype in Sheffield. This week my friend in Bradford said she would like to join me. As Sheffield is a bit of a trek from Bradford we decided to look for a class a little nearer home. We called Northern Ballet and they offered us fusion,

Now fusion to me is a process by which two or more atoms collide at very high speed to create a new atom and unleash a lot of energy. It is how the sun or for that matter a hydrogen bomb works. Somehow I didn't think that was what we would do at Quarry Hill this evening.

It was only a partial misdescription, however, for we certainly released a lot of energy. Maybe not quite as much as the sun or even an H-bomb but quite enough all the same.

We were shepherded up to the 4th floor which is part of the building usually occupied by Phoenix Dance Theatre and ushered into one of the studios. Our class consisted of about 20 women nearly all of whom were a great deal younger and fitter than me. We had a good instructor who walked us through each of the exercises before she played the music.

The class seemed to be very like Fiona Noonan's ballercise: that is to say a combination of aerobics, pilates and ballet.  We started off with a warm up beginning with running on the spot, bending our legs, skipping, then lunging to the right and lunging to the left.  She followed that up with some cardio exercises which included deep pliés in parallel, first and second, side bends and various other sequences and required quite a bit of concentration. Then we went to the barre where we tried several relevés, fondus and ronds de jambe. Afterwards we returned to the centre for some jumping which is always the best bit of a dance class for me. Then some tendus using resistance bands to build up our strength and improve our balance. Finally some floor work which I am sorry to say I couldn't quite finish. Some deep stretches and then it was time to go home.

I enjoyed the class very much and my friend did too.   She is 19 years younger and could keep up with the pace much better.   I was quite stiff at the end of the class but nothing like as stiff as I had been after my first contemporary class.   And also much less bruised.  I am still sporting shiners on both knees and elbows from rolling about on the floor.  it's great to try other styles of dance and other classes.  Maybe jazz next.

For those who may be interested ........

Anna Pavlova as Giselle Source Wikipedia

Last week I saw and reviewed an exquisite production of Giselle at the Royal Opera House (see "Giselle - Royal Ballet 18 Jan 2014" 20 Jan 2018). On Monday 27 Jan 2914 cinema audiences around the world will get the chance to see the same principals in the same production streamed live from Covent Garden. Details of the transmission are to be found on the Royal Opera House's website. One of the cinema chains showing the broadcast in the UK will be Odeon and you check out your local flicks here.

Now a word of warning! Watching an HDTV transmission is not the same as being in the Royal Opera House for the reasons I set out in "¡Por favor! Don Quixote streamed to Huddersfield" 17 Oct 2013. As I said in that article an HDTV transmission bears about as much resemblance to the theatrical experience as hamburger does to fillet steak but it does have a number of advantages such as convenience, economy and the opportunity in some transmissions actually to get some input from those who have created the production. The Royal Ballet transmissions are nothing like as good as the Bolshoi's (see my reviews of Jewels 22 Jan 2014 and Spartacus 21 Oct 2013) let alone the Met's from New York which are by far the best; but I still recommend the Royal Ballet's highly and I hope to be at the Huddersfleld Odeon at 19:00 on Monday.

On the subject of Huddersfield I reviewed Fiona Noonan's ballet classes in "Team Hud Adult Ballet Class" 22 Jan 2014. Well Fiona also teaches ballercise which is a combination of pilates, ballet and aerobics in the same dance studio at Student Central on the university campus at 16:45 on Fridays. It was Fiona's ballercise classes at my local gym in Honley that brought me back into ballet. I started them when I was at the lowest possible ebb a few weeks after losing my spouse to motor neurone disease and 6 months after some life changing surgery of my own. I am not exaggerating in saying that they were the start of a new lease of life for me. If you do ballet or even if you don't but want to have a lot of fun with some great kids then check out this class. Don't be put off by the first 5 letters in ballercise. No experience is necessary.

Finally I was told by a lady on BalletcoForum that I had "an interesting mindset" which I interpreted as a gentle reprimand for my remark:

"This class was just what I needed. My confidence had taken a knock a week or two ago when I fell flat on my face trying to do posés pirouettes that I had not really mastered and I was starting to ask myself whether at age 65 I wasn't getting a little bit too old for this ballet malarkey."

This lady is very, very keen and doubtless very, very good at ballet and she told me that falls are to be expected in ballet and the only thing to do is to get back onto one's feet and do the exercise again. She added that any teacher who counsels otherwise is not doing her job. Well as it happened I did get on my feet and I carried on even though I was quite shaken and I still have the grazes, scratches and bruises. I learned that lesson the better part of a century ago when learning to ride a bike and I don't need a ballet teacher to repeat that lesson now.

However, I also got a real bollocking for taking unnecessary risks from many of those who know me best and have my best interests at heart who pointed out that I am a barrister and not a ballet dancer and I am very lucky to do the job I do. They are also right. Even if I had started to study ballet at the right age and even if I had the talent to make a career on the stage I would still have chosen the law over ballet. I am so fortunate never to have to retire from a job I love. I also love ballet as a recreation both as a theatre goer and as an over mature student but it is only a recreation and I have to keep a sense of proportion.

The trouble with evening classes .....

Every Wednesday between 19:30 and 20:30 I do a ballercise class at Phoenix Squash & Fitness Club in Honley, near Huddersfield.   It's a great class with a great teacher, Fiona Noonan, who also teaches my adult ballet class at the The Base Studios.   But there is a problem.   By the time the class ends I don't feel like cooking a full meal let alone eating it.   But I don't want to eat too much before it starts.   So what should I do.   Here are some suggestions from Maegan Woodin whom I introduced last week ("Learning Ballet as an Adult: Maegan Woodin's Top Tips" 27 Feb 2013).