Since Northern Ballet moved its improvers' class from Wednesday to Tuesday in September I have had to make the heartbreaking choice between joining my improvers class in Leeds or my pre-intermediate class in Manchester. Neither of those classes is to be missed. Northern Ballet is not taking any new registrations at the moment. However, you can sign up for KNT's in Manchester by following the instructions in the last paragraph of Dancing Outdoors in Castlefield on 2 June 2021.
Since the London Ballet Circle has started its "In Conversation" interviews on Tuesday evenings my heart has often been broken three-ways. They have had some really interesting guests recently. This Tuesday they will welcome Cira Robinson of Ballet Black, one of my all-time favourite ballerinas. Here she is in conversation with Helen Pickett last September (see YouTube Helen Pickett and Cira Robinson20 Sep 2020). You will probably have to join the Circle to get a link to the interview but you can join online at https://www.tlbc.org.uk/.
And this Thursday my heart risks shattering to smithereens because the Dutch National Ballet plans to live stream Beethoven on 8 June 2021 and David Dawson's Four Seasonson 15 June 2021 at 19:15 our time. Tickets can be obtained from the box office at +31(0) 20 625 54 55 or through the website ay www.operaballet.nl.
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Something very interesting seems to be taking place in Ireland and it is happening not in Dublin or Belfast but in Cork which has an estimated population of just over 200,000. In contrast to many cities of that size in Great Britain that do not even have an adequate auditorium for a touring company, Cork has its own recently rebuilt 1,000 seat opera house and a well-established local ballet company that is capable of staging a full-length Petipa ballet.
From this evening until Saturday the Cork City Ballet will perform Swan Lakeat the Opera House. Intrigued by this production, I have booked myself a seat in the stalls for the 14:00 performance on Saturday. I have also googled everything that I can find about the company and opera house and watched every video that I can find on YouTube. From what I have seen, the standard of performance is very high indeed.
The company appears to have been founded by Alan Foley who trained in Cork, London, Russia and New York. He is its artistic director and choreographer. According to the company's website, Foley danced with the Irish National Ballet and I think may have seen him in a show by that company in Dublin. I have not been able to find out much about the dancers other than the guest artists who have appeared for the company over the years so I can't say much about the troupe's size or experience. The Auditions page states that the company currently operates seasonal contracts for dancers for its winter season.
However, it has an impressive repertoire and has earned some complimentary reviews mainly from the Irish press but also some from Dance Europe and the Dancing Times. It does not seem to run a school or an associates programme for local students but I am delighted to see that it offers adult ballet training for absolute beginners and improvers at its Firkin Crane studios on Wednesday evenings. Should I ever be in Cork on that day I shall try to join one of those classes.
I will review the performance of Swan Lake either on Sunday or shortly afterwards.
Standard YouTube Licence I'm having a simply wonderful time in Cambridge. I'me here to give a talk on bilateral investment treaties or "bits" at the Cambridge IP Law Summer School and intellectual property at Downing College. As a week without ballet is like a week without sunshine I asked all my friends and followers on Twitter whether there were any adult ballet drop in classes in or near Cambridge that I could attend this week. Wendy McDermott and KidarWolf suggested Bodywork Company at Glisson Road so I gave them a call in my coffee break. I found out that there was an improvers' class at 19:30 last night. Though it clashed with a slap up dinner and quiz night in hall that the conference organizers had arranged for us, I decided to give it a go.
The Bodywork Company is quite literally in premises that must once have been a car body repair shop. The studios surround an enclosure with space for 12 vehicles where mechanics must once have mended bent fenders. I know we say mudguards in this country but the transatlantic term has a certain assonance don't you think. The space is now used for customer parking which is as rare as hens' teeth in Cambridge.
As I don't know Cambridge very well, I got hopelessly lost and arrived at the studios with just minutes to spare. Precious seconds from those minutes were lost when the chap at reception showed me the gents' changing room even though I was in a dress. Consequently, I arrived at class in the middle of pliés which meant that I missed the warm up and an opportunity to introduce myself to the instructor. The class took place in a medium size studio - not quite as big as those at the Dancehouse in Manchester or Northern Ballet in Leeds but considerably larger than those at Dance Studio Leeds. There was plenty of room for each of us at a fixed barre. I didn't count the numbers but I think there must have over 20 of us. All of us were female and some members of the class seemed quite young.
I learned from a copy of the timetable that I picked up after class from reception that our teacher was called Louise Howarth. Like Jane in Leeds and Fiona in Huddersfield, Louise expects a lot from her students and she made us repeat some of the exercises until she was satisfied with us. That is just the sort of instructor that I like. The emphasis was on pirouettes and Louise worked them, or preparation for pirouettes, into every exercise. For instance, we finished every plié on relevé with our legs in retiré. We did every possible type of pirouette from first and fourth dehors as well as dedans. That was exactly the sort of class that I needed. As everyone who has ever taught me or attended class with me knows, pirouettes are not my strongest suit.
We did a very brisk barre with the usual pliés, tendus and glissés followed by ronds de jambe and grands battements. We followed it up with a nice adagio in the centre with some much-appreciated développés and ports de bras. Then some very serious pirouette training with quarter, half, three-quarter and full turns alternating in each direction at quite a pace. Louise even worked a turn into our jumps which began not with sautés butwith changements. As always happens when one's having fun, the class ended far too quickly. The class was in two parts - the first 60 minutes for everybody and the last 30 for the pointe work students. The first 60 minutes cost £8 which is slightly more than the North but a lot less than London. There is a beginners' class on Wednesday which I should like to attend and also an intermediate class on Thursday which is likely to be way beyond me. If I lived in Cambridge I would certainly attend class regularly at Bodywork and I have no hesitation in recommending the studios to denizens of that city.
If you are wondering about bilateral investment treaties, they are international agreements by which governments promise each other not to expropriate the investments of the other party's nationals. If they do, the government of the expropriating state has to compensate the expropriated investor generously. A disappointed investor has the right to bring proceedings against the expropriating state through the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes without any intervention from his home government,
"Kippers" (members and supporters of the UK Independence Party) and lefties (Mr Jeremy Corbyn MP and his acolytes, such as the lovely-lady-from-Liverpool who shares my love of ballet but whom I just can't resist teasing) would be irate if they only knew the limits that bilateral investment treaties impose on national sovereignty. In the leading case, a US waste disposal company won millions of dollars from the Mexican government because a local authority refused to let it dump hazardous waste near a public watercourse a few yards away from human habitations. Indeed, some on the left, such as the distinguished journalist George Monbiot, do know about BITs which is why he campaigned so assiduously against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership before Mr Donald Trumo scuppered the negotiations. Her Majesty's Government has made 110 such treaties mainly with third world governments which wicked British rentiers enforce mercilessly with the best of them.
That is a pity for the class is good. It is held in a convenient location at Mabgate Mills less than a mile from Northern Ballet where there is plenty of free parking and at the very convenient time of 19:45 which enables me to do a full day's work before grands battements and ronds de jambe. There is a nice bunch of students in the class and until a few weeks ago it was run by the studio's founder, Katie Geddes, who is lovely. Last Christmas she organized a trip to The Nutcracker at The Grand (see Northern Nutcracker19 Dec 2015) and a great party which raised funds for the NSPCC.
Katie is on maternity leave just now and one of the members of the class showed me some photos of her little boy who was born in May so huge congratulations to her and best wishes to the rest to her family. Since Katie went on leave her class has been taken by Sara Horner. According to the studio's website:
"Sara has been performing and teaching for over 11 years since completing her professional training at Performers College, Essex. During this time, she has worked in corporate shows, Pantomime, Cruise ships and Theatre tours of the UK and abroad, as a lead female vocalist, dancer and backing artist. Sara is also a freelance dance teacher teaching in numerous establishments in the West Yorkshire region. She is also Principal of Sara Horner School of Dance teaching ballet, tap, and modern to adults and children in Leeds."
And so she was. Distracted by a passionate conversation about mobile phones I lost my turning and had to drive round acres of urban blight by the motorway before I found my way to Mabgate Mills by which time I had missed warm up and plies. However, I caught the rest of the barre which proceeded briskly with combined tendus and glisses, fondus and ronds de jambe, developpes, cloches and barre stretches. Embarrassingly I was the only member of the class who couldn't get a right leg on the barre and as they were travelling barres there was no lower rail. However, I could get my left leg up. Dunno what's gone wrong with my right leg. I could manage it OK this time last year. No doubt a sign of ageing. It's the only thing holding me back from putting my name down for Jane Tucker's Bayadere intensive in Manchester next month (see La Bayadère it is2 July 2016).
Be that as it may I enjoyed the adagio, the pirouette exercise which Sara worked into a little enchainement,glissades and assembles and the temps leves and grands jetes at the end. As I said in Dance Studio Leeds Beginners' Ballet Class23 Oct 2015 the studio in which class takes place is not exactly cavernous so we have to apply the brakes after the second step hop let alone the step across the puddle which is how I was originally taught grand jetes but it was a lot of fun and the cool down and reverence came far too soon.
I thoroughly recommend this class especially while Northern Ballet is closed for the vacation. It costs £6.50 for a 90 minute session which is about average for the North of England and well below the cost in London. There is a good teacher and nice atmosphere. Everyone makes an effort but it's not edgy or competitive.
For the last year and a bit I have been taking Fiona Noonan's adult ballet classes at The Base Studios and Team Hud in Huddersfield (see "The Base Studios, Huddersfield" 2 March 2013 and "Team Hud Adult Ballet Class" 22 Jan 2014). Recently she has been engaged to teach advanced, intermediate and pointe classes at Hype Dance Academy in Sheffield while the regular teacher is on maternity leave. For the next three weeks she will be covering Hype's beginners and improvers classes too. Yesterday I followed her to Sheffield to take her classes at Hype.
The first thing to say is that Hype is not easy to find. I lived a mile from Hampton Court Palace between 1955 and 1982 so I know all about mazes but not even that labyrinth had prepared me for Sheffield's one way traffic system. I suspect it was devised in the days when Sheffield City Council was said to be slightly to the left of Fidel Castro and it was the local local authority's policy to drive motorists off the roads and onto the excellent trams. Hype's address is 67 Earl Street, Sheffield, S1 4PY which my satellite navigation seemed to think was on planet Zog. The first time I tried to find it I missed the class altogether as I crawled around the city centre from one traffic jam to the next as the minutes ticked by. There are directions on the "contact page" of Hype's web site but these are not much help unless you know Sheffield well. It is no good calling the studio for directions because the switchboard is not covered for the whole of the day.
If you are a motorist the trick is as follows:
get on the A61 (inner city ring road in the clockwise direction) which you can join at the Park Square roundabout from the Parkway which connects with the M1 (watch the cameras they are super-sensitive after the 50 mph sign),
follow the ring road past the station which should be on your left,
make a sharp right onto St Mary's Road,
then another into Matilda Street,
carry on down Matilda Road past the UTC college which should be on your right,
then a left into Sydney Street,
a sharp right on Arundel and
then left on Earl.
To say you can't miss the studio would not be true because it is a very undistinguished two storey brick building which must have been a warehouse or other light industrial building in its heyday. There is signage for the observant pedestrian and no doubt aspirant taxi driver if they have anything like The Knowledge in Sheffield but it is easy to miss.
One good point about the location is that there is plenty of street parking which costs £1 after 18:00. Don't be fooled into using pay by phone because the app tried to charge me £2.40. Another is there are some very good Chinese restaurants and a grocery within a few hundred yards of the dance school. My favourite is the Wong Ting where I celebrated my 60th birthday.
Once you find Hype and get inside it is very nice. There appear to be two studios and Fiona's class was in Studio 1. That is a long narrow room with barres along the right hand side and a mirror at the front. The walls are decorated with posters and playbills and Victorian schoolroom style exhortations such as dance is 20% talent and 80% labour. Yeah!
There must have been between 15 and 20 people in the beginners' class, mainly women nearly all of whom were in their twenties. We filled the fixed barre and 4 of us spilled on to a travelling barre. They were a friendly crowd and most of them were well kitted out in leotards and soft toed ballet shoes.
Fiona introduced herself to the class and told us a little bit about her training in Australia and her career as a dancer and teacher. She then asked the students what they had learned from their regular teacher and how she had taught them. The answers suggested that her method was very much like Fiona's.
We had a warm up exercise in the centre for toes and legs. I was dismayed to find that my balance was well below the class's because I had to let my feet touch the floor once or twice. We then sidled off to the barre for the usual exercises.
Fiona is a good teacher but I have never seen her teach better than she did yesterday. She likes a big class of enthusiastic students and she found them at Hype. Through the barre exercises she focussed on technique particularly on basics such as weight distribution and the use of abdominals and abductors. She has an eye for detail and I think we all had a correction to make. Once she was happy with our pliés, tendus and glissés we moved on to fondus and développés which do not come easily to this old lady but nevertheless have to be done.
In the centre we followed a port de bras exercise that I had already attempted several times in Huddersfield which consists of chassés starting on the right, then left and en croix, a lunge, a pivot, arabesque which is substantially repeated on the left. Annemarie in Leeds has a similar exercise for us old ladies except that we soutenu rather than pivot and cut out the arabesque. We marked it without and then with music and then tried it for ourselves. To my joy I found that I could just about hold my pivot - at least for the first time. The second was a bit of a dog's breakfast.
Fiona asked the class about travelling steps and two of the students set off with something that looked very much like temps levés to me. That is certainly what we ended up with. The long narrow room gave us plenty of space for building up some momentum. We did that exercise in groups of three and loved it. In the last few minutes we did a few sautés and jetés again making good use of the room's length.
All too soon the class was over. Fiona explained that another teacher would be taking over from her in a few weeks' time. That announcement elicited a few sighs showing how much everyone had enjoyed the class.
A few of us stayed on for the improvers' class which started immediately afterwards. One of the students in that class was Mel with whom I had driven down to Lincoln the previous Friday (see "Chantry Dance Company's Sandman and Dream Dance" 10 May 2014). Mel is a good dancer and I had feared that I would find myself out of my depth. Although she and all the other students were in a different league to me they were also friendly. Everyone was keen to learn. The barre and centre exercises were similar to those that we had done in the beginners' class but they were done by my fellow students even more slickly and elegantly.
The final class of the evening was beginners' pointe for which I did not stay. I doubt that I shall ever reach that standard because try as I might my ankles are weak and my core is jelly but you never know. When I started ballet again just over year ago I couldn't do any of the centre work. Now I am at least having a jolly good bash.
Before coming to Sheffield I had done two classes in Leeds and I had expected the Sheffield classes to be a bit of a slog but they weren't. They were a lot of fun and I could have carried on for more. I have not met the other teachers but judging by the standard I found at Hype they must be good. I have no hesitation in recommending that dance school.
