Ballet Central returns to Leeds

Leeds Arts Neighbourhood

Author Kenneth Allen
Source Wikipedia
Creative Commons Licence

Christopher Marney, Hannah Bateman, Kenneth Tindall, Rachael Gillespie, Dominic North, Sarah Kundi, Paul Chantry and many more of my favourite dancers and choreographers trained at Central School of Ballet. One of the reasons why that school has produced so many fine dancers and dance makers is that it provides its students with an opportunity to learn every aspect of performance through its touring company Ballet Central. According to Christopher Hampson, Central graduates can normally be spotted in the studio within a few minutes because of their professionalism and understanding of how theatre works. Sir Matthew Bourne describes them as "a valuable asset to any company".

Ballet Central consists of the school's final year students: Angela Centomini, Sophie Cottrill, Tara Cox, Augusta De Marchis, Brittanie Dillon, Eleanor Ferguson, Sophie Hull, Emily Hulme, Kanon Kihara, Iori Matsuura, Amy McEntee, Moeno Oba, Rowan Parker, Charlotte Peers, Ciara Sampson, Eloise Shepherd Taylor, Reiko Tan, Saskia Twiss, Henrietta Wolf, Emma Zeppetella, Megumi Zushi, Ruaridh Bisset, Eric Caterer-Cave, Adam Davies, James Dunn, Álvaro Feliz Olmedo, Yusuke Kuroda, Cameron Lee-Allen, Liam Lindsay, Jonathan MacDonald, Craig McFarlane, Matthew Morrell, Stephen Murray, Jaume Ruiz Xifra and Rahién Testa. Their artistic director is Christopher Marney, their musical director is Philip Feeney and their rehearsal coach is Carole Gable (see Staff Biographies on Central's website).

As part of their degree course, those students will travel some 10,000 miles around the country from Penzance in the South West to Ayr in Scotland performing in towns and cities along the way to a total audience of 5,000. Their 2017 schedule was published yesterday and one of their venues is the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre at Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance Theatre's studios in Leeds. They will visit us on 28 April 2017 at 19:30.  Save for a visit to Whitehaven on 13 May that will be the only chance to see them in the North.

This year the company will perform part of Sir Matthew Bourne's Highland Fling. Indigo Children by Liam Scarlett, a new version of the ballroom scene from Romeo and Juliet by Jenna Lee, a scene from Dracula by Michael Pink, a specially created work by Christopher Bruce and excerpts from Petipa’s La Bayadere and The Nutcracker.  I hope to see them on the 28 April and will review their performance shortly afterwards.  

Here is what I said about Ballet Central in their previous tours (Central Forward 25 March 2013, Dazzled 3 May 2015 and Images of War: Ballet Central's "War Letters" and other Works 29 April 2016). I hope to be in the audience on  the 28 April when the company returns to Leeds.

The Red Shoes Second Time Round

The Angel and Karen in Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tale

Illustrator Vilhelm Pederson

Source Wikipedia

New Adventures The Red Shoes  The Lowry, 3 Dec 2016, 19:30


I enjoyed Friday's performance of The Red Shoes so much that I saw the show again last night. As I bought my ticket at the very last moment there were not many seats available. I had to settle fro the middle of row L in the upper circle.   That was too far back to see the dancers' facial expressions and I would not have known that a pistol had been produced in the romantic ballet but I saw the orchestra from the gods whereas they had been invisible from the stalls and I caught some details such as the reflections on the water at Villefrance-Sur-Mer which I had missed before.

The advantage of seeing The Red Shoes twice is that one picks up details that one missed first time round. For example, one of those details was the sounding of a train whistle when Vicky fell into the arms of Craster after dancing Karen in the Red Shoes at the end of Act I and again when she follows her husband after Lermontov orders him off the premises at the rehearsal of Concerto Macabre. The significance of those train whistles is that Victoria falls under the wheels of a train. Incidentally, I once took a train to Monaco from Èze and shuddered involuntarily as the train pulled into Monte Carlo - Monaco station because memories of the ending of the film flooded back.

One of the features of Bourne's choreography us to include a ballet within the overall work. There is a spoof ballet in his Swan Lake and there are two or possibly three ballet scenes in The Red Shoes.  The ballet within the film was created by Robert Helpmann who was a considerable choreographer in his day. It is sad that so little of his work is performed nowadays. Bourne has followed Helpmann's story quite faithfully but substituted his own choreography. I had forgotten the importance of the ballet within the ballet on Friday night but it is vital to the plot as it links Victoria's fate to the of Karen in Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale. I studied tt more carefully second time around and appreciated Brotherton's backdrops and costumes so much more the second time around.

Cordelia Braithwaite danced Victoria Page again but Dominic North danced Craster and Chris Trenfield Lermontov. North is my favourite male dancer at New Adventures. I expect much from him and he did not disappoint me. He danced with passion but also showed arrogance which almost persuaded me that Lermontov was right to get rid of him.  Trentfield portrayed Lermontov with sympathetically particularly the solos where I felt I detected remorse after Victoria had left the company. The new cast certainly gave me new insights into the show.

The Red Shoes have now left Manchester (alright SALFORD if you insist) and are on their way to Sadler's Wells where they will dance for 8 weeks. I hope to see them at the Alhambra when they reappear in the North. I feel drawn to this work in a way that I have never done so with a Bourne work before. That is one of the reasons why I described The Red Shoes as Sir Matthew's masterpiece.

Red Shoes Rebounding

Standard YouTube Lowry


Just over a year ago the BBC made the film The Red Shoes available on the iPlayer. I watched it and reviewed it in The Red Shoes 15 Nov 2015. Today a new stage version of The Red Shoes created by Sir Matthew Bourne opened in Plymouth.

The production's second port of call will be The Lowry and there will certainly be a review from there. Bourne has acquired a new score from Terry Davies and Lez Brotherson has created the designs. The young ballerina, Vicky Page, who was played by Moira Shearer in the film will be danced by Cordelia Braithwaite and the young composer Julian Craster who was played by Marius Goring will be danced by Dominic North.

If you have never seen the film the plot is summarized in Wikipedia.  Although the complete ballet has been removed from the BBC's website there are fragments of the ballet scenes on YouTube There is also this beautiful trailer which I can't resist displaying:


Standard YouTube Licence

Also, you can still review Deborah Bull's talk which I mentioned in my previous article (see  The Red Shoes The Essay,Praising Powell and Pressburger BBC).

I love this film and I think Sir Matthew must do so too.  If he has done a good job in transposing it to the stage I shall be deliriously happy and will never say an unkind word about him again.  But if I find that he has mucked it up ....................

We will all know soon enough.

Postscript 25 Nov 2016

We now have some reviews.

Press

Roger Malone Review: Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes at the Theatre Royal Plymouth 24 Nov 2016 Plymouth Herald

David Marston Review: The Red Shoes at Plymouth Theatre Royal 23 Nov 2016 Exeter Express & Echo

Blog
Ellie Mae  THE RED SHOES BY MATTHEW BOURNE WORLD PREMIERE REVIEW | LITTLEELLIEMAE 22 Nov 2016 Little Ellie Mae

BalletcoForum

Friends attended the opening night in Plymouth and seems to have enjoyed it very much.  You can find that subscriber's report here.

What's in a Name?

Deborah Bull with Dominic North and Robert Parker

(c) 2016 Chantry Dance Company: all rights reserved

Reproduction licensed by the company

As I said in "My Trip to Hungary" 21 April 2016, I met Mel at Chantry Dance's workshop in Lincoln in May 2014. Ironically, on the very day that I had arranged to visit her in Hungary Chantry Dance held an event at DancePointe Studios in Grantham which attracted four of the people that I most admire in dance.

They were:

• Deborah Bull, Assistant Principal of King's College in the University of London;
• Robert Parker, Artistic Director of Elmhurst School for Dance and civil aviation pilot;
• Dominic North, one of Sir Matthew Bourne's leading dancers; and
• Sarah Kundi of English National Ballet.

The occasion was the naming of three of the studios at Dance Pointe as the "Deborah Bull Studio", "Robert Parker Studio" and "Dominic North Studio" by each of those distinguished visitors respectively. Sarah Kundi attended the event in her capacity as a patron of the Chantry School of Contemporary and Balletic Arts.

As a Friend of the Chantry Dance Company I had been invited to the event and I dithered for several days between abandoning my trip to Hungary notwithstanding my prepayment of fares, accommodation and theatre tickets. It was only my regard for Sir Peter Wright and my friendship with Mel that tipped the balance.

As I did not attend the event I quote from the Company's press release:

"The event saw students from DancePointe and Chantry School perform a showcase for the three guests of honour and an invited audience of solo and group routines in the different styles of dance they study which included contemporary ballet and acro-dance. Afterwards the guests were introduced to the audience and they presented name-plaques and signed pictures that are now displayed at the studios. The students were evidently delighted to be able to dance in front their dance heroes, with many asking for photographs and autographs afterwards. One student even had her pointe shoes signed by the three VIPs! Mr Parker said of Chantry and DancePointe that 'the level of energy and passion they bring to all of the wonderful work they do is so encouraging for the young people'. Mr North said he was 'absolutely thrilled' to have a studio named after him and Ms Bull said 'I so admire the work that Chantry Dance and DancePointe are doing here, making a real difference to young people – you see it on their faces when we saw them perform today – they were fantastic!”

Videos of extracts from the speeches by Deborah Bull, Robert Parker and Dominic North are available on YouTube.

Deborah Bull and Robert Parker are carving glittering careers for themselves off the stage but Dominic North and Sarah Kundi still delight us regularly with their performances. I had the pleasure of meeting Dominic North after he danced with Rae Piper in Chasing the Eclipse at the Gravity Fields science festival (see Gravity Fields - Chasing the Eclipse 28 Sept 2014) but I have never met Sarah Kundi even though I have followed her since she was with Northern Ballet and have written a lot about her. She has recently been interviewed by Desiblitz on her career and culture (see Sarah Kundi ~ An Enchanting British Asian Ballet Dancer Desiblitz).

In its press release the Company notes that the event was highly significant not just for Chantry School and DancePointe but for dance in Lincolnshire in general

"as dance students in the region will undoubtedly find it highly motivating to have received support from such respected and high profile dance celebrities."

Grantham, a beautiful little market town with its magnificent parish church and live beehive pub sign, has already produced one of the world's greatest scientists and (whether you like her politics or not) one of the most influential British Prime Ministers since Robert Peel and now has every chance of producing a succession of great dancers.

If only I were young again - Chantry School of Contemporary and Balletic Arts

A few days ago I wrote about Serendipity. Chantry Dance Company about which I have written a lot in the past is another example of serendipity. Formed in reaction to a Chinese bureaucrat's unfamiliarity with the concept of freelancing it has become a significant touring company attracting such guest artists as Dominic North whom I last saw in Matthew Bourne's The Car Man (see my review of Chantry Dance's Chasing the Eclipse 26 Sept 2014). The Company has always been engaged in education and indeed it was at one of their workshops that I made their acquaintance in the first place (see Chantry Dance Company's Sandman and Dream Dance 16 May 2015). Now it has put its educational activities on a formal basis by launching the Chantry School of Contemporary and Balletic Arts.

If I were young again with some ability and a vocation for dance (and could not be deterred by Matthew Henley's report that "Most professional dancers ‘earn less than £5k a year’" 24 July 2015 The Stage) this is one school that I would consider very seriously. The reason I would consider it seriously it is that it is run by Rae Piper and Paul Chantry who are young and still on an upward trajectory in their dancing careers. Paul Chantry is also a talented choreographer. The quality of their work has been recognized and rewarded with commissions in Rome, Japan and Covent Garden in the last 9 months alone. The best chance for a young dancer to make a reasonable living out of his or her career would be by taking some tips from Piper and Chantry.

What would give me some hope that I might find work at the end of my course is the curriculum which includes classes in nutrition for the dancer, audition technique and marketing as well as classical and contemporary ballet. modern and contemporary dance and acrobatics. How many other dance schools offer classes in the last skill? The fees at £4,500 a year are not beyond the range of most families and in the few cases where such fees just cannot be raised scholarships and bursaries are available.

If I were the parent of such a young dancer I would encourage him or her to consider the Chantry school because Chantry and Piper are persons of principle. I am not going to embarrass them by repeating their tweets and posts to Facebook but I have noted their posts about such things as literacy and other matters outside dance and strongly approve of them. I love reading about their little dog, about their wonder at their discoveries in Japan and Italy. In Chasing the Eclipse Piper expressed her wonder at the universe with an enormous smile. It is upon her more than any other dancer that I have tried to model myself on the two occasions that I have been inflicted on the paying public. I can imagine her viewing the lakes, mountains and temples and castles of Japan and the ruins and archaeology of ancient Rome with that  same expression of wonder.

The vocational course is just one of the School's activities. There is also an associate programme whose show at Sadler's Wells I reviewed last year (Chantry Dance Associates: Lots of Promise 28 July 2014 ) and a summer school whose award ceremony last year I also attended (see Chantry Dance Summer School 2 Aug 2014). I have already mentioned the workshops in which I have participated and I woukd add that Gita and I are making enquiries with a view to facilitating one in Manchester on a convenient occasion.

This school fills a very obvious need and it deserves to do well. Its programmes have already been successful. I look forward to even more from them as Piper and Chantry develop this activity.

Gravity Fields - Chasing the Eclipse

Gravity is the force that binds the universe together. Without it there could be no galaxies, no sun, no planets and no us. It is also the medium of the dance. When a ballerina stands on pointe she manipulates the force of gravity as a sculptor shapes a block of marble. The scientist who understood the law of gravity and explained how it works was Sir Isaac Newton who was born in Woolsthorpe and attended the King's School Grantham, To celebrate his connection with the town Grantham is holding a science and arts festival which ends today called Gravity Fields.

In the market place in Grantham there is a stage upon which was performed a wonderful ballet called Chasing the Eclipse. It was danced by Chantry Dance Company about which I have written a lot (see Chantry Dance - Making Connections 30 Aug 2014). The choreographer was Paul Chantry (whom you can see in this YouTube clip) and the principal artists were Rae Piper and Dominic North.

There is something special about this company and while tweeting yesterday I tried to put my finger on it. One of those reasons is that the company's ballets make you think. They are based on a story - often on a significant but not particularly popular work of literature like Hans Christian Andersen's Sandman and Oscar Wild's The Happy Prince. Clearly, Chantry is a man who reads voraciously and in reading he has learned the art of story telling for the story of Lumen (Latin for "light") and Scura (darkness) is a modern myth.  Lumen and Scura are attracted to each other but they cannot meet except in an eclipse where the moon crosses the path of the sun or the earth the path of the moon and then a in nature something beautiful happens.

Lumen danced by North is dressed in orange while Scura danced by Piper is in blue. They dance before a gauze backdrop upon which shapes representing spheres of light and darkness are projected. To create those effects special software had to be developed which Rosemary Richards (the festival organizer) explains in this clip.  The work opens with telescopes as the dancers explore the heavens. Piper, an accomplished actor as well as dancer, has the most expressive face and the look of wonder and delight on her face is enchanting. Beyond the gauze - in the heavens - dances Lumen. Then he appears before the gauze bounding and graceful. He in turn spots Scura. They try to touch but the gauze is between them. Then the spheres converge and they are temporarily united. All of this is danced to a score specially composed by Tim Mountain.

This ballet was staged twice on Thursday the 25 Sept 2014 and three times on Saturday the 27.  I saw the second performance on Thursday which started at 21:00. It was not a particularly warm evening and the audience had to watch it on their feet but everyone around me was entranced.  It was over far too quickly and we wanted more.

Happily there will be more for the company is about to go on tour with a mixed bill consisting of The Happy Prince, Rhapsody in Blue and All I Can Do Is Be Me - the Bob Dylan Ballet. One of the places they are visiting is The Square Chapel in Halifax on the 20 Nov 2014 to which I have been kindly invited by one of the venue's volunteers.

Other Reviews
Graham Newton   VIDEO: Great reception for Chantry Dance Company’s riveting show at Gravity Fields in Grantham 28 Sep 2014 Grantham Journal

July News from Chantry Dance Company

It's no secret that both Jane and I are big admirers of Chantry Dance Company! This beautiful modern ballet company, based in Grantham, have helped spark Jane's dancing ambitions and are helping to develop mine by enabling me to participate in their Summer School this year. With that in mind I am pleased to share their July newsletter with Tepsichore readers, I hope you will take this opportunity to carry out a little investigation into the company and see for yourselves the stunning work that they create and read up on their outreach work, too.


Company News

The one and only Aled Jones MBE (fellow Welshie and all round lovely chap!) has recently become one of CDC's patrons. Jones is best known for his television work (including Songs of Praise, Escape to the Country and Daybreak) and radio shows (Classic FM and Radio 2).

CDC Performance News

Chasing the Eclipse 
CDC are preparing and rehearsing for their unique production of Chasing the Eclipse, in partnership with Rosa Productions, for the Gravity Fields Festival taking place in Lincolnshire from 24th to 28th September. The production will be starring Dominic North, Principal Dancer for Matthew Bourne's New Adventures. This is a free outdoor event, and more information about times and dates can be found here.

The Happy Prince
Rehearsals will also be starting soon for CDC's Autumn tour of The Happy Prince. Tour dates and venues can be found here.

Sandman and Rhapsody in Blue
On Saturday 26th July, as part of the Lincoln Dances festival, CDC will be performing two works 'Sandman' (created by West End choreographer, Gail Gordon, and the first piece that Jane & I saw CDC perform live) and 'Rhapsody in Blue' (a dynamic duet danced to Gershwin's infamous jazz concerto). Tickets for this event can be booked directly from www.lincolndrillhall.com.

An Invitation

In August, CDC will be holding a special event for local and national businesses and individuals to meet, engage and connect with the company.

The event will share what CDC does, how it can support businesses and individuals and what they can do reciprocally. In addition to a video presentation, some company members will also be performing a live dance presentation featuring material from CDC's new production of 'The Happy Prince'
The aim of the event will be to build positive, productive relationships with others leading to mutually beneficial outcomes. This is an event that Jane I will certainly be attending when we present the brand new 'Terpsichore' to the world (shhhh, spoilers!!) and if you would like to join us the please email rae@chantrydancecompany.org

Education News

Associates

Dancers from CDC's Associate Programme will be performing their end of year presentation on July 27th at Sadler's Wells. The work they show will be the culmination of the year's work, including technique demonstrations, pieces choreographed for the group, and some of the student's own choreographies.

Workshops
CDC is leading workshops or teaching on Summer Schools in 2014 for:

• Central School of Ballet
• Waltons Girls' School
• West Grantham Academy St Hugh's
• Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
• Lincoln College
• Stinson Stage Academy

Dance with CDC
The Associate Programme is auditioning now for the next intake, and places are still available on the  Summer School (no audition required). For more details, please email education@chantrydancecompany.org.

If you would like to book a workshop or masterclass with CDC for your school or group, please email education@chantrydancecompany.org.


CDC Beyond

CDC's Artistic Directors, Paul Chantry and Rae Piper, have just finished reviving Lucy Burge's choreography for Antony Mcdonald's production of Queen of Spades for Grange Park Opera. Queen of Spades will play until July 12th and stars Carl Tanner as Hermann and Giselle Allen as Lisa.

Rae and Paul have also just finished performing in La Traviata for Grange Park Opera, directed by Lindsay Posner and choreographed by Nikki Woollaston.