Expressions - some Pictures

Having helped to facilitate the delivery of training services to staff who provide services to disabled persons on behalf of a local authority in a previous career I am very sensitive to such persons rights, dignity and needs. It is for that reason that I wanted to support Expressions. This was an evening of performances by dance groups consisting of or including adults, children and young persons with learning difficulties and other disabilities which was hosted by Northern Ballet. The event was free but I think there should have been an entrance fee as each and every one of the long performances was entertaining, enjoyable and well choreographed. .

Jane my business partner has already described the event and the individual performances which we shared in Expressions 26 July 2015.

After the show I received the following photographs of A Moving Stillness by Northern Ballet's Ability group. The dancers in that performance were Damien Dixon. Leanne Hazelgrove, Emily Kent, Paul Lidgard, Tessa Lightower and Louise Palin.

Pictures taken by Lauren Godfrey

My thanks to Northern Ballet for the pictures and my congratulations to everyone who took part in the show. I hope to see them all again soon.

Expressions

Roundhay Park

Author Chemical Engineer

Source Wikipedia

Expressions, Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, 15 July 2015

Expressions is described as "a sharing which brings together inclusive dance groups from the North of England, giving talented dancers with disabilities the chance to showcase their skills to an audience on a professional stage." I have seen inclusive dance before in Llandudno (see An Explosion of Joy 23 Sept 2014) and Glasgow (see No Mean City - Accessible Dance and Ballet 26 April 2015) and had enjoyed the performances very much.  Yesterday's show by 7 dance groups was free but I would gladly have paid to watch it.

The first pieces was by Me2, a dance group for individuals both with and without disabilities between the ages of 11 and 25. It is based in Leeds and meets every Friday during term time between 18:30 and 20:00. Me2 danced Respond which was described as "a new contemporary dance work that highlights [the dancers'] strong sense of group and their ability to be aware and to respond to each other creatively." The group entered pushing one of their number in a chair. Though they stayed together each danced to the music in his or her own way. One young person caught my eye. Just as the group entered the stage a friend from another group wished her luck. She appealed to the crowd to clap her and we all did. She had an infectious smile and she danced exuberantly. At the end of the show she bowed (as did the others) energetically. They all know that they had been a hit but she did particularly.

Mind the Step are a group of  adult dance artists with a range of learning and physical disabilities. They meet every week for an hour long weekly class at Yorkshire Dance. Last year they made a film of their activities called Mind the Step at Yorkshire Dance which has been uploaded to YouTube. I recognized several of the dancers from last night in the film. Last night they danced "Warmth and Togetherness" for us, a work that had been choreographed by Zoe Parker, Louise MacDowell and the dancers themselves. There seemed to be a fair degree of improvisation in this work which gave it some freshness. The dancers performed solos, duets and group works some of which required strength and skill.

Phoenix Dance Theatre has always impressed me for its performances. Yesterday it impressed me even more for its work with its Illuminate Dance group. These are young people aged between 6 and 18 with additional needs. Phoenix offers classes for those kids in three 10 week terms. Last night the group performed Expand which explored the concepts of expansion and contraction. The performers, all of whom danced in Phoenix t-shirts, did their teachers proud. The crowd loved them as did I.

I learned at Llandudno that a wheelchair can be used very effectively in dance. Although I have yet to see him perform on stage I have seen films such as Remember When in which the well known dancer and choreographer Marc Brew shows what can be done with the conveyance. In Motion is Northern Ballet's programme for wheelchair users aged 8 to 19. RAISED is a company of adult dancers with and without disabilities that includes wheelchair users. The Northern Ballet group performed Freedom which had been choreographed by Leanne Kirkham and Sam Carruthers. Both Leanne and Sam keep blogs on their work. The young dancers showed skill in manipulating their vehicles and artistry in their interpretation of the music. RAISED danced Assieme in which the dancers (some with wheelchairs and others without) interacted and collaborated with each other. Zoe Parker who had choreographed Warmth and Togetherness for Mind the Step was one of the choreographers of Assieme. Rachel Fullegar who danced in the piece was the other named choreographer.

The second act consisted of two fairly long pieces. The first was A Moving Stillness by Ability which I mentioned in Northern Ballet's Ability Programme on 15 June 2015. The second was Parked which was danced by Flex Dance which describes itself "as an emerging professional dance company of artists with a learning disability". Both pieces were impressive in that they required considerable skill, stamina, technique and artistry.

A Moving Stillness was inspired by a visit to Leeds Art Gallery. Each dancer developed a phrase in response to a work in the collection. I have recently performed in a work that lasted just over 3 and a half minutes for which the Improvers class of Northern Ballet's Over 55 class (all of whom are able bodied) required nearly 2 months of rehearsals of 30 minutes each. This was a much longer work that required at least as much skill. It was slick and polished and deserved the loud applause that it received.

The last work was centred on a park bench and revolved around the lives and stories of the 3 men and 1 woman on stage. It began with the shout "Story Time" and the dancers bounced on stage with a placard welcoming us to a story. Each story needed a hero but which of them was it to be? There was a romance between the woman and one of the men and there followed a Giselle like plucking of the petals of a flower with the other dancers brandishing heart signs with the words "She loves him" on one side and "She loves him not" on the other. Each of those placards, sign and other props was kept in boxes on the stage and that prompted another theme: "A place for everything and everything in its place". Yet another theme was the changing seasons to which one of the dancers cried plaintively that he didn't like change.  And in winter everything had gone. But not quite everything for he received a letter which seemed to bring good news for away he went.  This last work was a lovely piece but also a difficult one which would have been a challenge for any dancer. Flex Dance were more than equal to that challenge.

Yesterday was as enjoyable an evening as many that I have spent in theatres watching performances by leading dance companies. It is a reminder that dance is for everyone and not just the few who make it through White Lodge, the Upper School and the major ballet companies. It made me very proud to be a Friend of Northern Ballet and the Northern Ballet Academy.

Post Script
Northern Ballet has provided some lovely pictures of Ability's contribution to the evening which Gita has uploaded to Expressions - Some Pictures,

Inala at the Wells

Sadler's Wells, London

Source Wikipedia

Inala, Sadler's Wells, 10 July 2015

Isn't it strange that you can see exactly the same show with exactly the same casts in performances just days apart and yet have two completely different experiences.  I saw Inala in Bradford on 25 June 2015 (see Inala at the Alhambra 26 June 2015). I reported that the show was met with "a standing ovation and a lot of whooping and cheering." There was nothing like that when I saw the show again in London on 10 July 2915. A lot of polite, even enthusiastic clapping but a much more restrained reception.

That does not mean that the London audience was any less appreciative. The differences in audience reactions were discussed by Marcelo Gomes in a recent question and answer session. He explained that a quiet audience in Japan is a good sign because everybody is concentrating. In Brazil it is the reverse because a contented audience would be buzzing. London audiences are very undemonstrative compared to those in the North because they think they have seen everything. .

Although I liked Inala when I saw it in Bradford I enjoyed it rather more second time round. There are a number of reasons for that. Having seen the show before I knew what to look out for. Another reason why I liked it better is that I was able to buy a programme in London and could therefore follow the show. A third reason is that I sat in the second circle in Sadler's Wells and could see the the lighting displays and the patterns of the dancing on the stage which I had missed in Bradford because they were not visible from the stalls.

As in Bradford the best part of the show was Ladysmith Black Mambazo's singing. Except for the last one where the singers waved goodbye it was quite impossible to guess the meaning of the songs because they were sung in Zulu. The advantage of the programme is that the "Score" page summarized the songs . Some of those summaries seem very strange to a modern British audience:

All those cattle I used to pay the dowry should be paid back, When will the cows come back again?

That song was answered by

"The cows will be returned. The bridge has failed. They will  be returned. All of them." 

The dancing expressed the music of each song but did not relate directly to their subject matter  and perhaps that was a missed opportunity. A ballet could have been created for each of those songs and individual dancers could have represented a character in the song.  For instance, the theme of Warmuhle Intombi is

"You are so beautiful young lady! It's time to choose the way you go and the one to be with!"

That suggests a pas de deux or perhaps a pas de trois and that may even have been what we got but my recollection of the dancing is that it was all abstract and that all the dances formed one single choreographic piece.

Although the show is marketed as a Zulu ballet it is more musical theatre than ballet. It is an opportunity to hear a beautiful style of singing which is not often heard in this country and to see some exuberant dancing. If you like that sort of thing then this show is for you. But don't go to the show expecting ballet for that is not what you will get.

Wheeldon's Cinderella

Dutch National Ballet, Cinderella, The Coliseum 12 July 2015

When I reviewed Darius James's Cinderella for Ballet Cymru on 15 June 2015 I wrote:

"I have seen a lot of versions of Cinderella over the years: Ashton's of course for the Royal Ballet but also Matthew Bourne's set in wartime London, Nixon's for Northern Ballet and a version danced by the Bristol Russian Youth Ballet Company which starred Elena Glurdjidze (see Good Show - Bristol Russians' Cinderella in Stockport 19 Feb 2014), Until yesterday evening I liked Ashton's version best but now I think I prefer Darius James and Amy Doughty's for Ballet Cymru. Perhaps I will change my mind again when I see Christopher Wheeldon's for the Dutch National Ballet at the Coliseum on 11 July 2015 as it looks lovely in the YouTube trailer, but for now this Welsh Cinderella is my favourite."

Well, guess what. I did fall for Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella on Saturday night. Not that it has surpassed the Welsh version in my affection (for that remains a little gem) but I like it at least as well.

It would be unfair to compare Wheeldon's Cinderella with Darius James's. Wheeldon created his Cinderella for a big national company with a massive cast and the Stopera's cavernous stage. James created his for touring small local theatres by a a limited number of dancers on a fixed budget, It would be like comparing a Mogul miniature with The Night Watch. Both succeed on their own terms. Having said that, I did find more than a few similarities between the two works. Wheeldon, like James, seems to have consulted the Brothers Grimm in creating his ballet for he has also eschewed fairy godmothers and centred his ballet around a tree. Trees together with prologues seem to be something of a Wheeldon trade mark for he did the same in The Winter's Tale (see Royal Ballet "The Winter's Tale" 14 April 2014).  James, however, used birds to rescue Cinderella whereas Wheeldon used spirits, namely those of Lightness, Generosity, Mystery and Fluidity. In fact there were also spirits of another kind for one of the most hilarious scenes of the second act is where Cinderella's stepmother has one glass too many.

The performance that I saw on Saturday had Anna Tsygankova as Cinderella and Matthew Golding as the prince. As for the other major roles, Alexander Zhembrovskyy danced Cinderella's father, Larissa Lezhnina as her stepmother, Wen Ting Guan and Nadia Yanowski as her stepsisters and Remi Wörtmeyer as the prince's friend. I was pleased to see that several members of the Junior Company had been given  significant roles. Emilie Tassinari, for instance, was one of the spirits of lightness, Riho Sakamoto, was one of the bird ladies and Bart Engelen and Veronika Verterich were tree gnomes and Nancy Burer was a Balinese. As it was Michaela DePrince who had originally attracted me to the company I was delighted to see her dance again as one of the ladies of the royal court. It was also good to see James Stout again. He had impressed me in Cool Britannia. He danced one of the four fates.

To my surprise and disappointment this productions had received very mixed reviews on BalletcoForum. One of the subscribers complained of "a really boring evening" and described the "so-called comedy" as vulgar. Linda Morris, who like me has seen a lot of ballet over the years including Ashton's Cinderella, was much more generous. She saw the show on Wednesday evening and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have to admit to a certain bias as a Friend of the Dutch National Ballet but I was pleased to read her concluding sentence:

"And the Dutch National Company is in very fine form if I were a young dancer about to join this Company I'd feel very excited indeed."

That is my view too.

There have to be a number of comic scenes in anybody's version of Cinderella if it is to bear any relationship to the Grimm brothers' tale such as the ludicrous attempts by the stepsisters to force their feet into Cinderella's shoe. I have already mentioned the stepmother's tipsiness at the ball. I thought those scenes were very witty and provided relief from the very sad theme of coping with grief which is, after all, the underlying theme of the story.

I enjoyed the show. I liked Wheeldon's treatment of the story, the dancing, Julian Crouch's designs and Natasha Katz's lighting. I prefer it to The Winter's Tale to which I was indifferent when I first saw it on stage but warmed to when I saw it in the cinema and on television. It may be that Wheeldon is an acquired taste and that his critics will come round. I look forward to seeing the show again and I think it will look even better on the stage of the Stopera.

Other Reviews

The Ballet Bag   Six Reasons to love Wheeldon's Cinders  

Another Slice of Pineapple

In November 2013 I attended Adam Pudney's Elementary Ballet class at Pineapple. I wrote in Pineapple 20 Nov 2013:

"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.

 When I took that class in 2013 i had only just started my classes at Northern Ballet. Since then I have had two years with Annemarie Donoghue as well as regular classes with Fiona Nooonan at Huddersfield University and occasional classes with KNT and Chris Hinton-Lewis  and other teachers in Leeds. I am therefore a little more confident but probably not much more competent.

Yesterday I returned to Pineapple for a second class with Adam. I enjoyed it even more than the first one. It began with the basics which is never a bad thing. It then proceeded at a rapid pace through plies, tendus, glisses, ronds de jambe and grands battements followed by quite a challenging port de bras, pas de bourres and jumps.

The great thing about Adam is that he has time for everyone. His classes are not small but he has a word for everyone, a correction here, a compliment there and encouragement for everyone. Embarrassingly he caught me while I was attempting to do a releve on my right foot with my left foot in retire. That foot has been giving me trouble for about a year and I can only rise by pressing on the barre. My left foot is much stronger and I can balance on demi on that foot. However, he was kind but he shared my disappointment.

I had come to London to see the Mark Baldwin's Inala at Sadler's Wells on Friday and the Dutch National Ballet's Cinderella yesterday. I am rarely in London at weekends. I am usually up to my ears in work when I go there on weekdays so it is not easy for me to get to class. Yesterday class with Adam was a real treat.  As big a treat in its own way as Cinderella and Inala.

Jump

Jump is described as "the fan club of Dutch National Ballet" for children. It brings young fans into close contact with their favourite dancers.  Members receive invitations to workshops, guided tours, and other events.  

The website contains information on choreography, music and other matters. There are interviews with the company's dancers photos, and videos.  I have already mentioned Edo Wijnen's video on pirouettes in A Really Useful Video on Pirouettes 22 Nov 2014.

Every year there is a special Dance Day. This year it took place on 27 June 2015 at the Stopera or Music Theatre in Amsterdam which happened to be the day in which I was in town for Cool Britannia (see Going Dutch 29 June 2015. Had I known about it in time I might have taken a luck. That probably explains why they had no Michaela DePrince t-shirts in kids' sizes at the merchandising booth in the evening. I had hoped to get some for Vlad the Lad and my teacher's daughters.

There are some lovely shots of the Stopera in the above video. The Junior Company seems to have given a show. There are shots of Bart Engelen struggling with his pillow to the music of the Dance of the Knights from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet which I am sure the young audiences would have loved (see The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's best Performance yet 8 Feb 2015).

Although the website is in Dutch there seems to be no reason why kids from other countries should not join it. Membership costs less than a tenner (€12.50  or £8.97) a year, 

Serendipity

Horace Walpole

Artist Rosalba Carriere 

Source Wikipedia

Northern Ballet School, A Showcase of Dance, The Dancehouse, Manchester 14 July 2015, 19:30

The set text of the English language "O" level paper for the Oxford and Cambridge Board in July 1965 was on the origin of the noun serendipity. It was coined by Horace Walpole to describe the fortune of three princes of Serendip who "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. The word now means "fortunate happenstance" or "pleasant surprise".

A good example of serendipity occurred yesterday evening when I attended KNT Danceworks. I noticed that The Dancehouse  was busy. I asked what was going on and leaned that Northern Ballet School was presenting A Showcase of Dance in the theatre. My class ended at 19:39 so I scurried down to the box office for a ticket.  Save for the pas de trois of Le Cotsaire I think I caught the whole show.

As the programme states, Northern Ballet School in Manchester (not to be confused with Northern Ballet which started life and was based for many years in Manchester very close to where the School is now located) is "an internationally recognized centre of excellence in the training of dancers for classical and musical theatre careers". The School has a company called Manchester City Ballet in which students gain stage experience. Every year, the company stages a full length ballet.  Last year it was The Nutcracker which I reviewed in Alchemy 13 Dec 2014 and its next production will be Giselle between the 10 and 13 Dec 2015.  A Showcase of Dance displays the whole range of the School's activities starting with tutus and pointe shoes in one of Petipa's most popular ballets and ending with the razzmatazz of a West End musical.

The progranme started with Le Corsaire and I caught the pas de deux by Luca di Martino and Sayaka Sagimoto and the pas de six. These are difficult pieces and they were both executed well, This was followed by Earth Song, a contemporary piece on environmental damage and some distressing projections of deforestation and environmental destruction on stage. There was ballet again with Last Promenade to some great cello music which I could not recognize. Everybody recognized the music to Pandora's Box which was the Dance of the Knights from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. I was reminded of Milena Siderova's Full Moon for Bart Engelen of the Dutch National Ballet (see The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's best Performance yet 8 March 2015) except this was a fight between Alexander Smith and some shadowy caped and hooded figures over a sinister looking box, It was impressively staged and very dramatic. Eye of Horus was also mysterious but much softer with haunting Middle Eastern music. A pretty duet by Carlos Oliviera and Peri La Riche to The Sound of Music followed. Then there was Bolero which was my favourite with the girls in gorgeous long dresses engaging almost flirtatiously with the audience. Finally there was The Night Shift featuring Carlotta Tocci and Daniela Pinto,

The second act began with cats - or rather dancers dressed as cats - scurrying from the top of the auditorium hissing and spitting at the audience on the way to the stage. I hissed back at two of them. That was The Jellicle Ball from Cats which was a fun piece. It was followed by more dancing from the shows - Too Darn Hot and Sweet Charity - and contemporary pieces like Sanctuary and Slum.  I was particularly impressed by the all male cast of Slum for their energy, It had more roars and grunts than the centre court of Wimbledon, Although this was A Showcase of Dance we had a song from Charlotte Russell who has a lovely voice though one which could have benefited from more projection to where I was sitting which was the top of the gods. She gave way to Come on Everybody which was 1959s rock n' roll with the boys in tight jeans and the girls in long flowing skirts. Finally there was Something Better Than This by Gabriela Brough, Alarna Morgan and Daniela Pinto and finally the whole company in Brass Band and a glorious finale.

There is an abundance of talent in this School and as a Mancunienne I was very proud of the young artists I saw yesterday. Until the second largest conurbation of the UK gets a resident world class ballet company back again this School carries the torch for dance in Manchester and it deserves to be supported. The show continues at The Dancehouse tonight and tomorrow and I strongly recommend it,