La Bayadère Intensive Day 1: There's Life in the Old Girl Yet

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I hesitated before signing up for Jane Tucker's La Bayadère intensive at KNT  even though I had voted for it when Karen Sant polled us on what we wanted to learn because I was not sure that I would be able to do it. Much as I had enjoyed last year's Swan Lake (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3) and this April's Romeo and Juliet (see We had a stab at that! KNT's Romeo and Juliet Intensive Workshop for Beginners 9 April 2016) they nearly killed me and now I am a year older, slower, stiffer and generally wonkier. Truth to tell, my anxiety that I might no longer be up to it is the only reason why I did not bite Hannah Bateman's hand off when she advertised her Ballet Retreat in Leeds earlier this year.

I am really glad that I did sign up for Jane's intensive because I had a whale of a time yesterday. Although I am as stiff as a board this morning with aches and pains in muscles and joints that I never knew existed despite soaking in a hot bath followed by a cold shower I am buoyed up by two news items.  The first was the 97 year old dentist and entrepreneur featured on How to Age. The second was the story on The World Tonight about Doreen Petchey from Reading who has just passed her RAD Grade 6 exams at age 71 (see Congratulations Doreen 12 Aug 2016 on the RAD website and the video clip on her (Britain's oldest ballerina: 71-year-old passes Grade 6 exam). I might add in passing that there are lots of ladies of that age or older in Annemarie Donoghue's Over 55 class at Northern Ballet in Leeds and that at least 4 members of that class regularly attend Jane Tucker's improvers' class in Leeds on Wednesday evenings which is definitely not for wimps.

Our intensive started with 30 minutes of floor exercises on Pilates mats at 10:00.  We then had 90 minutes of class which consisted of a full barre and the usual centre work which took us through to noon.  Between noon and lunch we learned our first bit of repertoire which was the second shade's solo dance from the last act of the ballet. The first and the last bits were easy enough but I got a bit lost in the middle but Jane seemed to be reasonably satisfied with our effort overall.

We broke for lunch at 13:30 and I found a Japanese restaurant behind The Dancehouse that Gita the Eater had discovered in April.  I really love Japanese cuisine having been to Japan three times but although there are lots of places that claim to be Japanese restaurants there are very few that would pass muster in Tokyo. This is one of the very few that would. I refuelled on tempura and rice with plenty of green tea.

After lunch we ran through the second shade's solo again and then started on the descent into the kingdom of the shades. Jane had already taught us a version of that dance which I had struggled to master in her improvers' class in Leeds and the Romeo and Juliet intensive in April.  It was a considerable relief to find that she required us to do the version that appears in the video. Yoshie led us out to the centre of the studio and we followed her in height order. The first bit consisted of a sequence of arabesques followed by a right tendu with our arms in 5th which was just about doable but then an almost interminable couru which we did on demi punctuated by a développé and two descents to the floor which I dared not risk for fear of never getting up again. I couldn't do them in cygnets last year either.

We repeated the dances that we had learned before Karen who filmed us with her tablet.  Our day finished with 20 minutes of floor exercises. I left the Dancehouse just after 16:15 to begin the trek back to Brockholes which turned out to be surprisingly smooth once I had caught a through train from Oxford Road to Huddersfleld.

The first thing I did when I arrived home was to run a hot bath. Jane's advice last year of a hot bath followed by a cold shower was the best tip I have ever picked up from a ballet class and it really works. I was going to give alcohol a miss last night but when I heard about Mrs. Petchey I felt compelled to drink her health in Argentine Malbec. If she can do grade 6 at age 71 I should be able to finish this course at age 67. And perhaps I should have a shot at the RAD exams too. If I passed them I might eventually be allowed to turn up to Chelmsford Ballet's company class. I am looking forward to another year of classes with Annemarie and Jane in Leeds and Karen and Ailsa in Manchester. Maybe there's life in the old girl yet.

Where can I get a Ballet Class in August?

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Not in Brum for a start!

"Classes are currently on Summer Break!" proclaims the DanceXchnage's website. "Our NEW autumn term starts Monday 19 September – Saturday 10 December 2016." And they try to make out they are the nation's second city.

No such problem in the real second city. Danceworks has classes through the summer as you can see from their timetable. Sodoes Pineapple.

Classes don't stop at Leeds, or Liverpool or indeed Newcastle-Under-Lyme according to Picturesinthefirelight. 

But in Manchester our modern Ithaca, there are classes throughout the year at KNT in the Dancehouse Theatre's studios. And for the next few days something wonderful will happen.

I don't know whether there are still places on these intensives. I suspect not. But if you don't enquire on info@kntdanceworks.co.uk  Tel: 07783 103 037 you certainly won't be able to come.

Damien Johnson

Damien Johnson in the Linbury, bar after the show 14 Feb 2015

Author Jane Lambert
(c) 2015 Jane Lambert: all rights reserved

One of the most exciting dancers on the British stage right now is Damien Johnson of Ballet Black. Just now he is at home in the United States having spent a short spell in Bermuda but he will be back in London at the end of September to perform in Ballet Black's Triple Bill at the Millfield Arts Centre in Edmonton. He will also dance with the company in Newcastle, Leeds, Glasgow, Doncaster, Exeter, Watford, Harlow and Lichfield.

David Murley reviewed the production in Ballet Black in the Barbican on 22 March 2016 and I reviewed it when it came to The Lowry on 19 June 2016 in Ballet Black made my Manchester Day 20 June 2016. In my humble opinion it is the best show that I have ever seen the company do but with works by Christopher Hampson, Christopher Marney and Arthur Pita how could it be otherwise. At Ballet Black's First Friends' Event  I was lucky enough to watch Marney work with Johnson and Isabela Coracy as well as Jacob Wye and Sayaka Ichikawa. To watch a genius (not my word but Sir Matthew Bourne's when tweeting about Marney but an opinion that I heartily share) at work with four of the most talented dancers I know was a rare delight.

I am prompted to write about Johnson again because he has just posted the following message on Facebook

"Hey everyone, check out my website... Someone special made it for me 💚😘"

I did his bidding. I visited his website at  http://damienjohnsonballet.com/ and I am very impressed. The website summarizes his history. I had no idea that he had worked with Dance Theatre of Harlem.  I loved that company when they visited London in the early 1970s and I wish they would return. There are some great photos of him as well as a video of a rehearsal at The Barbican. Johnson teachers and there is a contact form for those who wish to engage him.

I am sure my readers will join me in wishing him a very pleasant holiday in the United States and a safe journey back to the UK. I shall be in the audience at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre in Leeds and the Cast in Doncaster.

International Mariinsky Far East Festival in Vladivostok

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On the 31 March 2016 I wrote about The Mariinsky Theatre's Primorsky Stage which appears to be a little bit of that famous opera house 4,067 miles from St. Petersburg. That theatre came to my attention a few days ago when I learned through Facebook that Xander Parish and Hannah O'Neill were there. They have been taking part in the International Mariinsky Far East Festival in Vladivostok which ends today which ends today with a concert featuring  Leonidas Kavakos and Yeol Eum Son and the combined orchestras of the Mariinsky Theatre and the Primorsky Stage  under the direction of Valery Gergiev.

Vladivostok is one of those places that I have always dreamt about but never quite got round to visiting. I must add that I have not yet been to Russia even though I have long admired its literature, music and. of course, its ballet though not always its governments - particularly not during the cold war. I hope to put that right some day while I am still able to travel. I had always imagined Vladivostok to be a rather romantic city though descriptions in Wikipedia, Wikitravel, Lonely Planet and even the local tourist board website suggested that it might have a lot in common with Hull as it is a major fishery or perhaps Portsmouth as it is an important naval base. This YouTube video by two local students show some interesting architecture that reminds me a little of both San Francisco and Vancouver while the surrounding hills look very much like those on the coast of Northern California.

Returning to the Festival it appears from the Primorsky stage website that there have been 25 operas, ballets, and concerts over the last 12 days featuring

"the most brilliant soloists of the Mariinsky Theatre as well as leading guest artists from Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Mongolia, Germany, Greece, The United Kingdom, The United States, and Puerto Rico."

For some reason the website has omitted New Zealand, the country of O'Neill's birth, and France, the land where she now works, from that list.

Be that as it may, O'Neill danced with Parish in Giselle on 6 Aug 2016 and again on 8 Aug 2016 in a Ballet Gala with Ulyana Lopatkina, Soo Bin Lee, Ekaterina Kondaurova, Konstantin Zverev, Danila Korsuntcev, Oksana Skorik and Renata Shakirova in a programme that consisted of works by Ilya Zhivoi, Maxim Petrov, Eldar Aliev, Anton Pimonov and Asaf Messerer as well as the pas de deux from Petipa's The Talisman which is not well known in this country. Interestingly. it is not based on Sir Walter Scott's novel but is set in India like La Bayadere. Another example of Russia's fascination with India that I mentioned in La Bayadere - where it all took place on 24 July 2016. More familiar works in the programme were the pas de deux from Swan Lake, Fokine's The Dying Swan and Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet which Parish danced with O'Neill. I should mention in passing that I saw Parish dance that role in London with Viktoria Tereshkina two years ago and he was jolly good (see Reet Gradely: Romeo and Juliet, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Opera House 29 July 2014 31 July 2014).

As the score to Romeo and Juliet was written by Sergei Prokofiev it is also worth mentioning that the Festival was dedicated to the 125th anniversary of that composer's birth. His opera Betrothal in a Monastery (which I have to confess I do not know) was performed on 30 July 2016. If you click the link I have just given you, you will find a recording of some great music. I believe that opera would go down very well here if only someone would stage it.  Also in honour of Prokofiev, the violinist Clara-Jumi Kang and pianist Sergei Redkin played his Violin Concerto No 2 in G Minor, Op. 63 and his Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26 in concert on 1 Aug 2016.

Kondaurova and Lopatkina also took part in a triple bill on 3 Aug 2016 called Ballet Stars of the Mariinsky Theatre which consisted of Alicia Alonso's Carmen Suite, Jerome Robbins's In the Night and Balanchine's Symphony in C. The blurb on the website states:

"Diversity of talents of the Mariinsky Ballet Company will be presented at the festival with the program of one-act ballets. In the legendary Carmen Suite by Bizet-Shchedrin that was created specifically for Maya Plisetskaya by choreographer Alberto Alonso, today’s dancers create their own version of independent Carmen.
Choreographic stories of love, united in In the Night by Jerome Robbins, present three totally different by temperament pairs of soloists. Hypnotic thoughtfulness and tenderness of a first date in the adagio, performed by first couple is followed by restrained manifestation of feelings of the second duo. And third pair shows true culmination of love passions.
Evening’s final piece Balanchine’s Symphony in C is perfectly suited to demonstrate the best assets of the company: four parts of the ballet are shared by four pairs of soloists. This ballet allows the company to display its multivalent talents, from the most technically demanding movements in the allegro, to the proud and regal grace required in the adagio."

It must have been lovely.

Alonso's Carmen Suite and Balanchine's Symphony in C were performed the next time in Ballet Stars of the Mariinsky Theatre but in this programme Hans van Manen's The Old Man and Me was substituted for In the Night.  The programme notes state:

"Hans van Manen’s ballet The Old Man and Me is a story of the emotional turmoil people experience when they are drawn to one another but cannot be together. The tenderness of this story is revealed by the dancers’ remarkable transformation into the characters they portray, and the depth, with which they feel their partner's every movement."

 Kondaurova danced Carmen as she had the night before but in this triple bill she was joined by Diana Vishneva, Vladimir Malakhov, and Yekaterina Osmolkina.

Vishneva also attended a screening of a documentary on her life after which she answered questions from members of the public and signed autographs in a special Evening with Diana Vishneva in the chamber hall on the 5 Aug.

The last ballet of the Festival was  Sergeyev's Swan Lake which was first staged in 1950. I am pleased to note that in this production Rothbart is called Rothbart and not the "Evil Genius" as in Grigorovich's version which the Bolshoi have performed in London on their current tour.  When I complained gently in Grigorovich's Swan Lake in Covent Garden on 31 July 2016 that this renaming was change for change's sake though not on the same scale as David Nixon who created an entirely new libretto. introduced new characters such as Simon, Anthony and Odilia and opened with chaps riding bikes somewhat unsteadily onto the stage (see Up the Swannee 17 March 2016) I was put firmly in my place by Amelia of BalletcoForum. She wrote:

"Poor Yuri Grigorovich has been rebuked enough for many “sins” committed by him against “Swan Lake”. Please allow me to clear him of the "Change for change's sake” charge.
Dear Terpsichore, as long as I remember there were no German names in the Bolshoi’s cast lists since 1940s.
Ziegfrid was called Prince and Rothbart was Evil Genius. The reason for that was that German names stirred strong negative feelings at that time. No need to remind about what the German army did on the Russian soil. The worst abusive word to a person at that time was not an ‘idiot’ or ‘bastard’ or… but “Fritz”, an allied name for Germans, like “Jerry” in English. The Russians were shuddering from German names for a long time after the end of the 2WW.
Grigorovich was still at school then. So let’s exonerate him from changing the names."

I had not heard that explanation and I thanked her for it.  I added that I thought that the Bolshoi had missed a trick. The code name for the German invasion was Barbarossa which means Red Beard in Italian which is almost the translation of Rothbart from German. St Petersburg, which was besieged for nearly two and a half years had even more reason than Moscow to dislike the Germans but the Mariinsky (or Kirov as it would then have been called) does not appear to have changed the names of the characters in its version. Anyway, getting back to the ballet Skorik was Odette-Odile, Yevgeny Ivanchenko was Siegfried and Sergei Umanetc was the wicked baron.

There was lots of other good stuff which I don't have time or space to discuss:

• a concert on board the flagship of the Russian Far East Fleet by the Mariinsky Orchestra on 31 July 2016, 
• a children's concert called Legends of the Sea which my 5 year old grandson manque, Vlad the Lad, would have adored, 
• the Vladivostok premiere of Madame Butterfly (surprising that it has never been performed before given ifs maritime plot and the port's relative proximity to Japan),
• music by the Stradivarus Ensemble, and even 
• a concert by the Orchestra of Pacific Fleet the Russian Navy earlier today.

Apparently this is the first such festival by the Mariinsky in Vladivostok. If they ever do it again I shall save my kopeks and take the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Michaela DePrince revisits Danceworks

Michaela DePrince with the Summer School Pupils

(c) 2016 Danceworks, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Michaela DePrince entered the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company less than three years ago and she is now a grand sujet or soloist of the company. As the rank does not exist in English ballet companies I asked Ernst Meisner, the Junior Company's Artistic Coordinator what it meant in Ernst Meisner’s Work with the Dutch National Ballet 2 Dec 2014 and this is what he told me:

“I danced some nice roles like Hilarion in Giselle, pas de six in Rudi van Dantzig’s Swan Lake, 5 Tangos by Hans van Manen and Zuniga in Ted Brandsen’s Carmen."

These are big roles that are generally performed by principals in England and as DePrince will be performing equivalent roles with one of the leading ballet companies in the world this is remarkable progress by one so young.

A meteoric promotion at an early age is not always a good thing but DePrince is a charming young woman. I met her at the opening gala of the Amsterdam ballet season last year and "I left the Stopera thinking how that exceptionally talented young dancer was as gracious off stage as she is magnificent upon it" (see The best evening I have ever spent at the ballet 13 Sept 2015).

Last year Michaela DePrince gave a masterclass at Danceworks which Ciara Sturrock, one of her students, reported for us in Michaela's Masterclass 8 July 2015. Last month she came back again to teach the Danceworks International Ballet Academy Summer School and hold anther masterclass. Imagine the excitement that those young students must have felt to take a class from someone like her.

Michaela DePrince with older students

(c) 2016 Danceworks, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

The photo to the right shows Michaela DePrince with some older students. The timetable for the 18 July 2016 shows that she taught three classes that day between 09:30 - 10:30, 10:30 - 11:30 and 13:00 to 14:30. Lesley Osman, general manager of Danceworks, has very kindly sent me  photos of the day.

I should mention in passing that Michaela DePrince is only one of several distinguished teachers on the summer school which I discussed in Danceworks Summer School  31 March 2015.  It appears that the 2016 programme has been even more successful than last year in that it attracted 80 students aged between 6 to 18 from 25 countries.

Here is another photo of DePrince with the older students:

Michaela DePrince with older students

(c) 2016 Danceworks, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Here she demonstrates a position.

Michaela DePrince 

(c) 2016 Danceworks, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Here she appears to be making corrections.

Michaela DePrince 

(c) 2016 Danceworks, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Here she addresses the class.

Michaela DePrince

(c) 2016 Danceworks, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Michaela DePrince 

(c) 2016 Danceworks, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Michaela DePrince 

(c) 2016 Danceworks, all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

And I think you will agree that I have saved the best photo to last. A gorgeous portrait of an exceptionally talented young dancer.

My next opportunity to see Michaela DePrince on stage will come on the 7 Sept 2016 on the opening night of the 2016 - 2017 season. I also hope to see her in the Dutch National Ballet's production of La Bayadere and of Ted Brandsen's Coppelia. I will review all three performances for you in due course.

Jean-Christophe Maillot

Probably completely illogically I felt a surge of regional pride when Jean-Christophe Maillot strode on stage to acknowledge the applause of a London audience for the British premiere of his version of The Taming of the Shrew (see Bolshoi's Triumph - The Taming of the Shrew 4 Aug 2016). Maillot is not of course a Northerner. He is not even English. But he has created what in my very humble, provincial and totally untutored opinion is the best existing work in the 2016 and 2017 season for Northern Ballet. When he came on stage I recognized him from his photo on his web page on the Northern Ballet website.

But even though Maillot is not English he will know all about regions because France has the same cultural, economic, political and social divide between capital and country as we do and he like me is definitely from the country. I suspect a little bit of metropolitan snootiness in some of the comments on his The Taming of the Shrew that were less than ecstatic. Maillot trained in Tours not Paris and he made his name in Hamburg in a country whose capital for many years was Bonn (a city with a population that is not much larger than that of Barnsley). The company of which he is artistic director is in Monte Carlo which is a stiff 9 hour drive from Paris.

Those who want to learn more about Maillot the man can glean some useful info from the Northern Ballet web page that I mentioned above, his web page on Les Ballets de Monte Carlo website and in articles by Judith Mackrell (The Monte-Carlo method: a ballet company's fairytale story 7 April 2014 The Guardian) and Mark Monahan (Jean-Christophe Maillot: 'What about people who don't know about dance?' 19 Apr 2015 Daily Telegraph). There is also the above YouTube interview that I have dug up for those who can still remember their GCSE (or in my case O Level) French.

Those of my readers who missed the Bolshoi's performances or the cinema transmission of The Taming of the Shrew earlier this year (see Competition for Cranko: The Bolshoi's Taming of the Shrew streamed from Moscow 25 Jan 2016) missed a treat. You'll have to fly to Moscow if you want to see it and I am not sure when it will next be performed there. However, you can see his Romeo and Juliet in Canterbury, Woking or Belfast as well as Sheffield and Bradford this autumn (see Northern Ballet's website). And it is worth seeing.  Here's what I wrote about it in Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet - different but in a good way 8 March 2015 and Leebolt's Juliet 13 March 2015.

Finally, in case you hadn't guessed, Maillot's Shrew  is currently leading the field by a length in my ballet of the year stakes despite strong entries from Ted Brandsen, David Dawson and Cathy Marston this year.

Bolshoi's Triumph - The Taming of the Shrew

Ekaterina Krysanova as Katharina.

Vladislav Lantratov as Petruchio

Photo: Mikhail Logvinov
(c) 2014 Bolshoi Ballet, all rights reserved
Reproduced by kind permission of the company

Bolshoi Ballet, The Taming of the Shrew, Royal Opera House, 3 Aug 2016, 19:30


The Bolshoi Ballet has always been respected in this country but until last night I don't think it has ever been loved. There are many reasons for that, not least the fact that the company was seen as an instrument of Soviet soft power during the cold war coming to London as it did in the year the tanks rolled into Budapest. That may have changed with the London premiere of Jean-Christophe Maillot's The Taming of the Shrew for the audience really warned to the show. Standing ovations are quite rare in the Royal Opera House but when Maillot appeared to take a bow several members of the audience (including yours truly) felt compelled to rise.

I had seen a screening of this ballet earlier this year and of all the ballets that had been streamed from Moscow last year The Taming of the Shrew was one I had liked best (see Competition for Cranko: The Bolshoi's Taming of the Shrew streamed from Moscow 25 Jan 2016). I enjoyed it all the more upon seeing it live.

The cast that I saw last night was very much the same as in the cinema trnsmission. Ekaterina Krysanova danced the title role. Her Petrucchio was Vladislav Lantratov. Olga Smirnova was her sister and Artemy Belyakov was their dad. Georgy Gusev who had impressed me as the court jester in Swan Lake made an exceppent Grumio.

Although Cranko is my all time favourite choreographer and his Shrew had always been my favourite work there are features of Maillot's production that I think I prefer. It is an amusing and very fast moving ballet. The plot is tighter than Cranko's and the score is definitely more memorable. I love "Tea for Two" in the final scene. Cranko's work and Maillot's are very different but each has its strengths.

Seeing it on stage I was struck by the similarities with Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet  which had also been created  by Mailot. The sets were similar (not surprising as they were both designed by Ernest Pignon-Ernest) as was the lighting. I had not noticed those similarities when I saw The Taming of the Shrew on screen.  Audiences in the UK will have a chance to see what I mean when Northern's Romeo and Juliet goes on tour next month,

One of the pleasures of World Ballet Day is comparing the style of The Australian Ballet with the Bolshoi as the latter follows immediately after the former.  The Russians are usually strong on technique and the Australians on energy and vivacity. In yesterday's ballet the company danced like Australians as much as Russians and I can't think of  a better compliment than that.