This year I am in it!

Liverpool Town Hall, 8 Sept 2014


I described last year's Move It as better than Eurovision as indeed it was.  This year's show is taking place this Saturday and, guess what, I'm in it. I've danced in public before at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds this year and last (see My Second Ballet 5 July 2015 and The Time of my Life 5 July 2014) and also in Morley Town Hall (see Growing Old Disgracefully in Morley 28 Sept 2015) but this performance is altogether more challenging for it takes place in The Dancehouse which is half as big again as the Stanley and Audrey and part of Manchester's history.

I shall be dancing in the Beginners' Ballet piece but that class is of a very high standard. See how good they were last year in Didn't They Do Well!  Well we have an even harder routine this year and we have all been working hard to master it since the beginning of last term. Our choreographer is Karen Sant and she expects a lot from each of us. The above video shows her teaching our contemporary class in Liverpool Town Hall on 8 Sept 2014. I was there and wrote about it in It's not every Class that you can use Lord Canning's Eyes for Spotting 9 Sept 2014. It was the first time I tried jazz and contemporary although we started with ballet.

There will, of course, be lots of other performers apart from us. Other ballet classes plus Jazz, Tap, Burlesque, Flamenco, Hula Hooping, Chinese Dance, Street Dance, Belly Dancing and more. Last year I had a great time and if you do come I hope you do too.

Tickets will set you back £5. Doors open at 19:00 and the show starts at 19:30. The Dancehouse is in Oxford Road, a few hundred yards from, and on the same side of the road as, the railway station, There is also lots of unrestricted street parking on Saturday evenings. If you are feeling peckish you can get an excellent burrito at Panchos and there is also good Chinese, Indian and fast food in the area.

We Mancunians like to say that what we do today London does tomorrow. I think it derives from the days when impresarios previewed they shows here before taking them to the West End. They did that because Manchester has the best theatre and most discriminating audiences outside London

My First Contemporary Dance Class

A dancer performing a contemporary
dance piece

Photo Wikipedia

I have enjoyed watching contemporary dance on stage for almost as long as I have enjoyed ballet but yesterday was the first time I took a full contemporary dance class. Even though I have to say that I woke up this morning as stiff as a board I enjoyed the experience tremendously and I look forward to my next class.

My teacher yesterday was Ailsa Baker who has already taught me some ballet (see So Proud of Manchester - KNT Danceworks Complete Beginners Class 29 Aug 2014). My only other experience of contemporary dance had been half an hour or so at Liverpool town hall on 8 Sept 2014 which was also with KNT (see It's not every Class that you can use Lord Canning's Eyes for Spotting 9 Sept 2014).

The class started off with pliés and balances as in ballet though we did not use the barre but then we had our first floor exercise. I had done quite a bit of that sort of work with Fiona Noonan in ballercise as well as some private lessons that she gave me a year or so ago so it was not a complete shock but I did find myself using muscles that had been left undisturbed for far too long.

After the exercises Ailsa taught us a routine which seemed to go step, step, step, arms in open fifth, a lunge to the right, step, step, step, arms up in open fifth again, a lunge to the left, step, step and then something like a rond de jambe and grand battement followed by a run back across the studio. We then rose on demi with our arms outstretched. Then something called step hop which was nothing like the temps levé that I had done in the Over 55 class in Leeds earlier in the day followed by run, run and leap on the other foot which was vaguely like a grand jeté, run, run and another step hop, run, run and a turn in the air, then run, run along the side of the studio with step hops and leaps back and finally a run to the centre. So far so good but then this poor old lady ran out of steam. The next move was a jump from a lunge to the floor followed by a roll to the knees, arms up a couple of times, then getting up, a couple of turns rather like chaînés, then another roll and up, a turn and yet another roll and run. It was those rolls which defeated me. Getting down was easy enough but springing up again was the killer.

We marked the routine a couple of times as a class first without and then with music.  Then we divided into groups. My group had lots of good dancers plus me and although I started off OK I am sorry to say that I let my group down by losing my balance after the third roll.  But nobody seemed to mind too much and I wasn't hurt.

I may be wrong but I think that these rolls are something that would improve with practice and the more times I take this class the better I shall become. It is definitely harder than ballet but I have never been one to duck a challenge. There was a time when I found ballet impossible whereas now it is only very, very, very, very difficult.

I really enjoyed that class. As I have said several times before, Ailsa is a great teacher who clearly loves to dance and extracts the last ounce of effort from her students by communicating to us her love of dance. I enjoy her ballet classes too for that same reason. I would love to do more with her but it is not easy for me to get to her classes as I usually take a class in Leeds on Thursday mornings.  "Nobody pays you to be a ballerina, Miss" my clerk never tires of reminding me (right now nobody is paying me much to be a barrister though I seem to be working every hour God sends) but after a gruelling day in court on Tuesday and after the disappointment of missing Fiona's Wednesday class after driving all the way to Huddersfield I felt justified in taking a second class yesterday. But, as I say, I woke up this morning stiff as the proverbial. Nemesis for Terpsichore perhaps?

Post Script

Just want to say that after the class my friend and I repaired to Panchos Burritos which is literally just round the corner from the Danchouse and Northern Ballet School. There we had two enormous burritos - one in the bowl and the other in a wrap plus a Fentimans mandarin and Seville orange jigger and a half litre of mineral water for £11.82. I had acquired a taste for Mexican food when I was a graduate student at UCLA in the early 1970s which was more or less the first time I saw contemporary dance. For many years Mexican food was almost impossible to find in this country and hardly worth eating when it was found. I am happy to say that Pancho cooks a mean burrito - as good as any I have consumed in Southern California. So - as jumping up and down and rolling about on the floor is bound to work up an appetite - Pancho's is the place to satisfy it.  That was another reason why yesterday was a very special evening.