And they have the cheek to call Balletomanes obsessive.

Apparently something to do with Dr. Who    Source Wikipedia

This Saturday I shall see the Stuttgart Ballet dance Taming of the Shrew at Sadlers Well's.  The next day I am catching an easyJet flight from Luton to see the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company dance at the Staddschowburg in Amsterdam.  Then next Sunday I shall be in the audience of the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre for MurleyDance.

"Aren't you being a teeny weeny bit obsessive?" asked one friend who is a Dr Who fan.  Another friend who is a Chelsea supporter told me to get a life.  "Like watching 22 grown men chasing an inflated pig's bladder around a freezing stadium?" I replied.  If you ever want a study in obsession find yourself a football fan. When I was at St Andrews I learned of somebody's dad who demonstrated his allegiance to Rangers by planting forget-me-nots in his lawn as that was the only part of his dwelling that he could not paint blue. And as for Dr Who I remember being dragged around industrial estates in South Wales after a strenuous hearing in the Trade Marks Registry by a former clerk on the hunt for David Tennant. "Now there's obsession for you" as the locals would probably say.

Now balletomania isn't like that.  It can save lives and civilize as I mentioned in my article on "The New Mariinksy" of 4 May 2013. Tamara Karsavina's brother probably owed his life and certainly his liberty to the fact that his interrogator loved ballet.  And I don't think that loving ballet is an obsession for it is nothing more than the pursuit and admiration of beauty. A dancer like Sarah Kundi actuates an electrochemical switch in the brain that induces a feeling of contentment and well being.  Look at her "Dépouillage" in "Ballet Black's Appeal" of 12 March 2013 or her "Dépouillement" after the terrible events in Woolwich.  See what I mean.  That's why I can hardly wait for MurleyDance (a company that I would have longed to see anyway for the reasons I set out in "Something to brighten up your Friday" on 8 Nov 2013).

As for the trip to Holland I think we shall see a lot of Michaela de Prince in the opera houses of the world but at seat prices greatly in  excess of a return flight on a budget airline.  Often a dancer is at his or her best when he or she is young and I shall have seen this remarkable young artist while she is still young (see "Michaela dePrince" of 4 April 2013).

As for "Taming of the Shrew" see my post of 21 Sept as why John Cranko's masterpiece is one ballet everybody should see before they die.

If you are still unconvinced go, find yourself a dalek to play with.

Pineapple

Like me, Debbie Moore comes from Manchester. In 1979 she founded Pineapple Dance Studios which she later floated on the London Stock Exchange. I remember the stir she created when she visited the Stock Exchange in 1982. Last Tuesday evening I visited Pineapple because I had to miss my regular classes at The Base and Northern Ballet Academy.

I took Adam Pudney's beginners/elementary class on the top floor of the building. It was vast.  There are about 15 of us in the over 55 class at Leeds and sometimes as few as 2 at the Base in Huddersfield.   In Pineapple I stopped counting after 30. All very keen and competent young women and men. It was the first time I had ever trained with men and back in Huddersfield today was the second.

This was the most exhilarating class I have ever taken. It was hard work. When I finally struggled down to the changing room my T-shirt and leggings were as wet as they are when they come out of the wash.  It was also demanding.  Even the barre work was difficult. The floor work was largely beyond me.   But Adam is a wonderful teacher with lots of patience and we all learned something. Even I found myself making turns and jumps that I had never managed in Yorkshire.

I can't recommend Pineapple too highly, Now that I spend more time in London I will certainly be back.

Christmas Carol - "A Fine Performance Filled with Joy"

Standard YouTube Licence 

Northern Ballet A Christmas Carol Alhambra, Bradford, 16 Nov 2013

The Bradford Alhambra is a lovely theatre in a magnificent position:  just across the road from the National Media Museum, a few minutes walk from St George's Hall and overlooking the City Park with some of the finest 19th century architecture in the world. Bradfordians love to dis their city. I don't know why.  "Try living here!" is their usual response when challenged. Well, perhaps.  But I am glad to see when something important happens to their community they unite whether it is something bad like the anniversary of the disaster at Bradford City football ground in which 56 spectators died or something good when that same football club played triumphantly at Wembley a few days later.

And Bradfordians clapped and cheered their hearts out in  the Alhambra last Saturday when Northern Ballet danced A Christmas Carol.  As one of Bradford's most famous daughters tweeted, it was a "fine performance filled with joy." All my favourite dancers were there: Tobias Batley, Hannah Bateman, Matthew Broadbent, Martha Leebolt, Pippa Moore, Kevin Poeung, Hironao Takehashi and Javier Torres but the evening provided an opportunity for Sebastian Loe to shine as Scrooge. I had no idea that he was such a talented character dancer.

A Christmas Carol is one of the oldest works still in the repertoire of Northern Ballet. Created by the great dancer and actor Christopher Gable who was Northern Ballet's artistic director and also founder of Central School of Ballet with a magnificent score by Carl Davis, a spectacular set by Lez Brotherston  and sparkling choreography by Massimo Moricone it was one of the ballets that made the company's reputation (another being A Simple Man which I discussed on 14 Sep 2013).

Based on Dickens's novel there are tugs for every emotion from Tiny Tim's song (a prodigiously talented Oscar Ward who is still at Sara Packham Theatre School) to the joy of Christmas morning when Scrooge doles out the goodies to the Cratchit family. Everyone has his or her favourite bit and for me it was the pas de deux between young Scrooge (danced by Batley) and Belle (danced by Leebolt).

The production is now at the Palace in Manchester until the 23 Nov. The company was founded in Manchester and has at least temporarily come home.  Do welcome them back!

Something to brighten up your Friday - MurleyDance is coming to the North

I must confess that I found out about MurleyDance only this morning which shows you how much I have to learn about dance; but I am a fast learner and I watched every one of the YouTube clips on the company's video page with mounting pleasure.  How could I have missed such a talented bunch of dancers? My pleasure increased all the more when I found out that one of my favourite dancers had recently joined the company.

According to the "Who we are" page of the company's website MurleyDance is a classical dance company. that "enjoys fusing classical technique with theatricality". Its work is "often described as colourful, full of character, passionate and sometimes comedic".  Well if they live up to the promise of their videos ....... 

The company made its début at The Robin Howard Theatre in 2012 and has performed at the Edinburgh Festival fringe in August of this year.  It is about to start its first tour at Lilian Baylis Studio in Islington on 22 Nov after which it perform at The Lowry on the 29 and 30 Nov and the Stanley and Audrey Burton in Leeds on 1 Dec.  

I shall tell you whether they really are as good as they look after I have seen them but with the accumulation of talent that I mentioned above I have high expectations.

Ballet West's Swan Lake - Dates and Venues 24 Jan to 1 Mar.

Ballet West will be touring Scotland with Swan Lake between 24 Jan and 1 March 2014.  Located very close to Loch Etive (see "Taynuilt - where better to create ballet?" 31 Aug 2013) that company must know a thing or two about water though as Loch Etive is a sea loch I doubt that too many swans are attracted to its surface.

The tour starts in Oban and continues through Musselburgh, Stirling, Dundee, Cumbernauld, Greenock, Dunfermline, Giffnock, Livingston, Pailsley, Dunoon, Inverness and Pitlochry. All good stuff as you can see from the YouTube trailer for a previous tour on the company's website.

Now this is a very good excuse for a visit to Pitlochry - not that I ever need much of an excuse - but I have a question for the management of Ballet West.  When are you coming here?  If you can get to China surely you can delight your public in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Ballet Black is still special

You can see the same company perform the same works with many of the same dancers in two different venues and come away feeling that you have seen two different shows.  Why is that?  I think it is because each theatre has a different atmosphere. And each audience interacts differently with the cast.

Yesterday evening I saw Ballet Black's Quadruple Bill at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds. Exactly the same show as I had seen at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham 6 months ago (see "Why Ballet Black Is Special" 20 May 2013).  And yet it wasn't the same show.  There were different dancers and a very different audience.  The audience in Leeds last night was predominately white, female and middle aged and probably drawn largely from comfortable North Leeds suburbs like Bramhope and Headingley or towns like Harrogate and Ilkley. The sort you see in Bettys who had almost certainly seen and possibly even studied a little ballet before.  The audience in Tottenham was younger, more racially mixed, there were far more young men and from conversations that I overheard in the Blooming Scent and the queue for the loo there were many for whom that performance was their first experience of ballet

Sayaka Ichikawa and José Alves danced Dopamine very differently from the way it had been performed by Sarah Kundi and Jazmon Voss.  Ichikawa is a delicate dancer and her movements are precise.  She revealed detail in Ondviela's choreography that I had missed before.  Alves partnered Ichikawa with equal precision and grace.  The adjective that I scrawled on my cast list was "pretty".  My notes last May contained the nouns "elegance" and "power".

Powerful is an adjective that I would use for Isabela Coracy, one of the company's two new dancers. We saw something of that power in the YouTube clip that I inserted into my article "Ballet Black's New Dancers" on 24 Sept.  She reminded me of dancers of the Soviet era like Maya Plisetskaya and I was not surprised to read in the cast list that she had toured Russia extensively.  She shone in Frutos's The One Played Twice.  This was also our first opportunity to see the company's other new hire, Christopher Renfurm who performed fluently. In that ballet they danced with Damien Johnson and Cira Robinson who are regarded as Ballet Black's stars and were not eclipsed.

The last work before the interval was Robert Binet's Egal, elegantly danced by Kanika Carr and Jacob Wye.  I had seen Carr in that role May but yesterday she was partnered deftly by Jacob Wye.

Christopher Marney's War Letters is a very moving piece and it resonated with the audience in Leeds last night even more than it had done in London.  Possibly because it was danced in poppy season.  Two movements brought many including me close to tears.  The hospital visit to a seriously wounded soldier and the Winter coat.  Beautiful chorepgraphy giving every dancer an opportunity to show what he or she can do.

Though I do miss Kundi and would love to see her dance again I enjoyed yesterday evening's show at least as much as the one in May.  I can't wait until February when I shall see them in their home in Covent Garden.

Scotland

I'm going to Pitlochry this weekend to see The Steamie. It was at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre where I first saw Ballet West (see "Ballet West's: 'The Nutcracker'" 25 Feb 2013) and it is good to know that one of Ballet West's students - Genée medallist Natasha Watson - has joined Scottish Ballet and will be dancing in Christopher Hampson's Hansel & Gretel shortly.  I shall follow her career with interest and wish her well.   

The company that she is joining is one that I have followed even before it was Scottish.  It moved to Glasgow shortly after I moved to St Andrews.   I played a small role in bringing it to St Andrews for the first St Andrews Arts Festival.  It performed the day that decimal currency was introduced. How do I remember that? I was on the Festival's organizing committee and did the sums.  It was at Scottish Theatre Ballet that I learned to appreciate ballet - even tempting me to take my first lessons.

Scottish Ballet is one of the partners of Get Scotland Dancing, a project to encourage more people to get active and participate in dance.  As part of the Genée legacy there will be "Get Dancin' Week" between the 19 and 26 January when free dance lessons will be offered to those who have never danced or who last danced a long time ago. Like Northern Ballet and Rambert Scottish Ballet holds classes for those of us who won't see 21 again. Those classes were featured by the BBC in "Silver Swans' taking to the barre later in life for ballet lessons" 18 Oct 2013.

That influence of that video has already spread far beyond Scotland.  A class of seniors in Barnsley who have been inspired by the Silver Swans is looking for a teacher.   I am sure there must be more all around the UK.