Terpsichore

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English National Ballet Swan Lake Liverpool Empire 23 Nov 2018, 19:30

There are a lot of shows that call themselves Swan Lake but unless they turn on the impersonation of Odette, the deception of Siegfried and the breaking of the spell they are not Swan Lake. You can strip out all the divertissements, have swans of both or either gender, dispense with feathers and tutus, dump them in a tank of water and even substitute a Kalashnikov for a crossbow but so long as you have an Odette-Odile danced by the same artist it will still be Swan Lake. Take her away and it is something else even if you keep cygnets and feathery white tutus. It may still be a good show (and many of them such as Graeme Murphy's are) but give it another name. Monkeying with such a perfect piece of theatre really makes my blood boil far more even than stick toting wilis in disused garment factories

On Friday I saw a very good Swan Lake at the Liverpool Empire and what made it good was the performance of Rina Kanehara in the lead role. Where did she come from? I must have seen her before as she is a soloist but she has never grabbed my attention as she did on Friday night. She was a lovely Odette. As delicate as Dresden porcelain. As light as a lily. And I felt that she was living Odette and not just dancing it. How could she possibly change into the imperious, scheming, seductive magician's daughter of the black act after just 20 minutes interval?

But change she did. When she reappeared in her black blue flecked tutu she was magnificent. Clearly, she was the same woman but quite a different character and she seemed to live that role too. She was very strong, robust and as indestructible and flexible as wire appearing to deliver Legnani's 32 fouettés effortlessly. The English National Ballet has a star in Kanehara and I will seek out her performances from now on.

A good Odette needs a good Siegfried and the company produced one in Ken Saruhashi. Like Kanehara he is a soloist though it appears from his biography that he has danced leading roles before. He is tall, slender and very strong. He lifted Odette as if she were weightless and some of his jumps in the betrothal pas de deux drew my breath away. The crowd loved him. I heard loud Russian type growls from behind me in the auditorium, the sort you hear regularly in live streaming from Moscow or even occasionally in Covent Garden but hardly ever outside London.

A lot of dancers impressed me on Friday night and it would be invidious to single out any for special praise. It was good to see Jane Haworth as Siegried's mum and Michael Coleman as his tutor and master of ceremonies again. I liked Erik Woodhouse, Anjuli Hudson and Adela Ramirez in the pas de trois. Ramirez was also one of the cygnets with Alice Bellini, Katja Khaniukova and Emilia Cadorin all of whom were good. Hudson delighted me with her Neapolitan dance in Act III where she was partnered by Barry Drummond. This is a delightful piece which I am sure Sir Frederick Ashton created for the Royal Ballet for it has all his hallmarks on it. In fact, I remember Wayne Sleep in that role with (I believe) Jennifer Penney. The Royal Ballet no longer seem to do it and it is good to know that our other great national company does. Finally, I congratulate Isabelle Brouwers and Tiffany Hedman as lead swans. I noticed Skyler Martin whom I remember from the Dutch National Ballet and it is good to welcome him to these shores.

English National Ballet's website quotes The Sunday Express in describing the production as "One of the best productions of Swan Lake you are likely to see." I don't agree with that newspaper on much but I think that its dance critic was right on this point. I have seen a lot of Swan Lakes in nearly 60 years of regular ballet going including Liam Scarlett's and the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre's with Denis Rodkin this year but this is definitely the best Swan Lake of those three and one of the best of all time. I like Peter Farmer's designs and the ENB Philharmonic under Huddersfield trained Gavin Sutherland. I always give him a cheer for that though I would anyway as he is good.

Altogether it was an excellent show in a fine auditorium with an appreciative crowd. This is not the first time I have seen an outstanding Swan Lake at the Empire. David Dawson's very different but equally good production for Scottish Ballet was performed there (see Empire Blanc: Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2916). The Empire's audience seems passionate about dance and quite a few rose to their feet at the curtain call. I think that the crowd lifted the dancers on Friday. It was everything a night at the ballet should be.

"We are a ballet company who like to do things a bit differently", proclaim Ballet Cymru on their home page. "We enjoy finding new ways to make what we do exciting, innovative and relevant." They can say that again. Last night's workshop at Yorkshire Dance was one of the most challenging but also one of the most enjoyable balletic experiences since my first plié at St Andrews Dance Society over half a century ago.

It started off like any other ballet class with a walk around the studio except that we had to make and maintain eye contact with each other. The walk quickened to a trot and then a tennis ball was introduced which we had to catch and throw to one another. Dan Morrison and Robbie Moorcroft who led the exercises conducted the pliés, tendus and glissés in the centre and not at the barre. We did a few unusual exercises. For example, teaming up in pairs we pulled and pushed against each other to create support.

The first hint that we had to use our brains as well as our bodies came in the port de bras. We were led gently enough through bras bas, first, second, thord and fourth, "Now it is for you to decide what comes next," said our mentor. In other words we had to choreograph the rest of the phrase. The obvious continuum for me was arms in fifth, rise and soutenu but others who included Fiona, the teacher who led me back to ballet nearly 50 years after that first plié, were much more ambitious. Dan and Robbie asked us to add steps and I tried an ababesque which is never a good idea with my sense of balance and excess weight.

About hslf way through the workshop the members of the company played an extract of the score of the company's new ballet, Dylan Thomas – A Child’s Christmas, Poems and Tiger Eggs. Cerys Matthrews was reading ome of Dylan Thomas's poems - not one I know - about the thoughts that come to mind when waking with a start in the middle of the night. The company demonstrated the way they had interpreted that poem. Each dancer expresssed it differently. It was now our turn and we each worked at it independently and in groups. Members of the company circulated and helped us polish the piece. Beth Meadway worked with me. I couldn't quite manage the elevation or coordination for a cabriole so she suggested a temps levé instead. In the last few minutes each group danced what it had learned to the other group and the Ballet Cymru dancers. It was an unmissable experience.

But the evening did not stop there for Darius James and Ballet Cymru were the first guests of Powerhouse Ballet Circle. We met in Martha's Room where we had laid on some drinks and nibbles. The Martha after whom the room is named is of course Martha Graham. After our members had introduced themselves to members of Ballet Cymru and we each had a glass in our hands I interviewed Darius just as they do in the Civil Service Club in London. "Croeso i Sir Efrog a Powerhouse Ballet" I said in my best Welsh. Happily, Peter, Alicia, Zoe and Holly were not there to correct me. I asked Darius about his career, what brought him into dance, his training in Newport and at the Royal Ballet School, his time at Northern Ballet (or Northern Dance Theatre a it was then called) and the ahievements of Ballet Cymru since he set it up in 1986. Not much happened in the performing arts in Newport in the early days but now there is a lot thanks to the Riverfront Theatre on the banks of the Usk. I invited questions fropm the floor. Amelia asked about costume and set design and Sue about how Darius rated Powerhouse Ballet. There were also questions from Miguel Fernandez and Krystal Lowe of the company,

Even thouigh I had a lot of last minute cancellations owing to illnesses and probems on the railways as well as other glitches both the workshop and the launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle went well. The London Ballet Circle has a very close link with Ballet Cymru and we hope to do so too. Our next guest is likely to be Yoko Ichino who has accepted our invitation in principle and I will advise members of the date and venue sooon. I also hope to arrange visits to schools and companies in the region and then, maybe, a trip to Newport. At its 70th anniversary celebrations I learned that Dame Ninette de Valois regarded the London Ballet Circle as part of a tripod of achievements of equal importance to her company and school. I hope that Powerhouose Ballet Circle will be similarly supportive of dance in the North.

Reproduced with kind permission of the Dancehouse Theatre

Manchester City Ballet Christmas at the Dancehouse 7 Dec 2918, 19:30, The Dancehouse, Manchester

Whenever I can I take the train to Oxford Road on a Tuesday or drive to Leeds on a Wednesday for a 90-minute ballet class. I can't really keep up with students decades younger even though I do my level best but I am made to feel welcome at both classes and I always have fun. When, by some enormous fluke, something does go right the smile on the face of the teacher is palpable.

The teachers of both classes and many of their colleagues whom I also revere were trained at the Northern Ballet School in Manchester. They are all great human beings as well as fine teachers and accomplished dancers and the institution that produced them deserves support. So, every December (when I can get a ticket) I attend the annual performance of the School's classical ballet company, Manchester City Ballet, and every Spring I attend the showcase of Jazzgalore, its jazz and musical theatre company.

In all the previous years that I have been following the company, Manchester City Ballet has staged a full-length classical work at The Dancehouse theatre. I have seen and reviewed some excellent productions of The Nutcracker, Giselle and Coppelia (see Alchemy 13 Dec 2014, Manchester City Ballet's Giselle 12 Dec 2015 and Manchester City Ballet's Coppelia 10 Dec 2016). This year they did something different with their Christmas at The Dancehouse. They gave us Act II of The Nutcracker for the second part of the evening showing that they can do Spanish, Arabian, Chinese and Sugar Plum as well as anybody when they choose to do so, but they presented their own choreography using their singers as well as kids from McLaren Dance Company in Winter Wonderland for the first.

I must admit that I read the webpage advertising the show with some apprehension but the combination worked, It gave a fuller picture of the school whose students elect a classical or jazz and musical theatre focus. It showed, for instance, that some of its students can sing as well as dance. Francesca Thompson, for example, sang a contemporary version of Silent Night and danced the Rose Fairy.

There were some hilarious pieces such as Four Tramps where four strong men (Daniel Gooddy, James Hanna, Lucas Holden and Thomas Yeomans) entered with hands linked cygnets style actually dancing a few steps of that dance. I know of one choreographer and a ballet mistress who would have kittens had they been in the theatre last night, but why not? They were representing drunks and they gave a whole new meaning to pas de bourrée (for those who have forgotten their French "bourrer" means "to stuff" and to be bourré means to have had a skinful). Another bit which worked better than one would think was a czardas to traditional Christmas carols. Finally, the Winter Wonderland was linked to The Kingdom of the Sweets when Father Christmas gave Clara (Ruby Nuttall) a nutcracker.

All credit to the choreographer, Lisa Rowlands, the ballet mistress Amanda Gilliland and the technical manager and lighting designer, Gary Whittaker. I really liked the sets, lighting and projections, particularly of falling snow. Whoever thought of the idea deserves congratulations for her or his daring because it has paid off.

The second part included the best bits of Act II of The Nutcracker. All danced well but I particularly liked Irene Ganau as chocolate (or the Spanish dance), Ioanna-Maria Antoniou and Elisa D'Acciavo as tea (the Chinese dance) and three of the four drunkards from the first part (Gooddy, Hanna and Yeomans) transformed into Russians. The fourth of their number, Holden, danced the Sugar Plum's cavalier and although I admired his jumps and turns I had an anxious moment when he lifted Airi Aoki, especially in the final fish dive. I thought perhaps they needed more time together.

Altogether I found it a very good show and anybody who can get to Manchester for this afternoon's matinee or this evening's show is in for a treat. I thanks all the students who took part for entertaining us and wish them well for the remainder of their studies and their future careers.

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Ballet Cymru Dylan Thomas – A Child’s Christmas, Poems and Tiger Eggs 29 Nov 2018 Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, Leeds, 1 Dec 2018 Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre, Bangor

I have been following Ballet Cymru for over five years and they have never failed to impress In 2015 their Cinderella was my ballet of the year and their TIR was the runner-up (see Highlights of 2015. 29 Dec 2015). In that year they were also my year and I tipped Krystal Lowe as a dancer to watch. They have continued to impress me every year but I think their Dylan Thomas double bill - Dylan Thomas – A Child’s Christmas, Poems and Tiger Eggs - is their best work yet.

It was so good that I saw it twice. The first time was in Leeds on 29 Nov and the second at the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre at Bangor on 1 Dec 2018. Leeds was excellent but Bangor was even better as Cerys Matthews and Arun Ghosh were on stage and the audience was even more receptive and responsive. The show was in effect a double bill. It began with Poems and Tiger Eggs which consisted of readings of a selection of Thomas's poems by Matthews to Ghosh's music. The second piece was A Child's Christmas in Wales. Both works were created by Darius James and Amy Doughty.

Poems and Tiger Eggs opened and closed with In My Craft or Sullen Art. That is a poem I did not know before Ballet Cymru introduced me to it at the workshop on 28 Nov 2018 (see More than a Bit Differently: Ballet Cymru's Workshop and the Launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle 29 Nov 2018). It is now a poem that I adore. Beth Meadway danced to it as a solo in the opening and the whole cast danced to it at the end. In the workshop, we were taught to listen for the words "Not for the Proud Man" and then react. Meadway turned her head sharply in the solo and the whole cast moved as one when the poem was read again.

Scottish Ballet had staged Ten Poems by Christopher Bruce on the centenary of Dylan Thomas's birth which I saw in Edinburgh and reviewed in Bruce Again on 6 Oct 2014. One of the works that Bruce had set to dance was Do Not Go Gentle Into That Food Night. Darius James and Amy Doughty also chose that poem for Poems and Tiger Eggs. Both Bruce and James and Doughty created duets but James and Doughty's was somehow softer and more lyrical. Incidentally, if anyone wants to listen to a fine reading of the poem, I strongly recommend the performance by Benjamin Zephaniah which is published on YouTube by the Poetry Society.

Thomas's poems incline to the melancholy but there was some levity too in Laugharne with Krystal Lowe as the stranger who got off the bus and forgot to take it back again. I particularly liked the bit about people coming from all sorts of places like Tonypandy and even England. The cast made the sign of the cross at that point though I wonder whether Calvinist Nonconformist chapel folk would do that. Maybe the Welsh Italians (of whom there are many) though there are more of them on the banks of the River Chubut than the Taf Estuary.

A Child's Christmas was very different and undiluted fun. It began with a film clip made (I think) by my good friends Lawrence and Samantha Smith-Higgins of Red Beetle Films. In it, children explained what Christmas (or, in the case of one little girl, Eid) meant to them. Mainly presents and lots to eat. It proceeded with "One Christmas was so much like the others" and proceeded to snow, cats and Mrs Protheroe's fire. That fire was better than all the cats in Wales lined up on a wall. There was the "What would you do if you saw a hippo?" and the carol singing where the children heard a ghostly voice joining in their carol. My favourite bit of the dancing was "Still the Night" before a stained glass image. There were other favourites too such as "The Uncles". I'm not Welsh but I can relate to that for we Saes have uncles too as well as aunties who get a little tipsy and start singing about death.

The workshop on 28 Nov 2018 helped my understanding of James and Doughty's choreography considerably. Sue Pritchard, who also attended the workshop, thought the same. Peter Harrop (who lives in Wales) joined us the performance. Peter was not in Leeds on 28 Nov 2018 but he attended Ballet Cymru's company class and reported that it was very gruelling. Apparently, no concessions were made for the adult ballet dancers.

The Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre is an impressive building just below the Arts building of Bangor University. It has a theatre, cinema and a FabLab (see Liverpool Inventors Club Re-launch - Fabulous FabLab 28 Jan 2012 NIPC Inventors Club). There has been a lot of investment by the university to build a knowledge-based economy on both sides of the Menai Straits (see Jane LambertAnglesey and the Fourth Industrial Revolution 12 Oct 2018 IP Northwest). There has always been a close link between the University and the community in this corner of Wales. It was actually founded by a subscription of local quarrymen, This Centre will do much for the artistic and cultural life of the region.

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Northern Ballet The Nutcracker 12 Dec 2019 19:00 Leeds Grand Theatre

Northern Ballet does a very good version of The Nutcracker. I have seen a lot of productions of that ballet in my time and, in my humble opinion, it is one of the best. Having said that, I can think of no good reason why David Nixon has to change the names of the Stahlbaum family to Edwards and Northern Ballet really must do something about the backdrop which is supposed to be a wall and bookcase but flaps like a flag if anyone gets too close to it. But I can forgive all that because everything else is good.

Wednesday's performance was particularly good because nearly all my favourite artists from the company were in the show. They did not all have major roles. Javier Torres who was my dancer of the year for 2017 was Mr Stahlbaum (or Edwards if you must) and the exquisite Hannah Bateman was Clara's grandmother. Rachael Gillespie, of whom I can never see enough, was Clara. Abigail Prudames, another beautiful dancer, was Sugar Plum. Gavin McCaig was in the ballet as the butler and also the Arabian divertissement. My favourite of the evening was Mlundi Kulashe who played a blinder as Drosselmeyer. He danced it with energy and verve in a way that I have never seen it danced before, Everybody in the show (and that includes the musicians) performed brilliantly.

In some versions of The Nutcracker, Clara (or Marie) is a child who does not have much to do beyond bopping the mouse king with a shoe or some other blunt instrument. In Nixon's version, she handbags him Thatcher style. She also performs some duets in the snow scene and again in the second act with the Nutcracker (Ashley Dixon) and joins in some of the divertissements. Rachael is a joy to watch and Nixon displayed her like a precious jewel.

The climax of the ballet is, of course, the Sugar Plum's pas de deux with her cavalier. On Wednesday he was Joseph Taylor. The high point for audiences is the celesta solo just as Legnani's 32 fouettés are in Swan Lake or the rose adagio in The Sleeping Beauty. Everything else may be perfect but if something goes wrong with one of those pieces the rest is forgotten. Abigail Prudames thus bore the weight of the performance in that solo and she carried it off beautifully. Taylor is a powerful dancer and he was thrilling to watch.

Nixon does a particularly good fight scene between mice and toy soldiers. Riku Ito was a particularly gallant regnant rodent expiring stoically after Rachael's handbagging. Nixon has a cavalry in his production which is one up on Sir Peter Wright and Peter Darrell's productions.

In the second act, Itu performed the Spanish dance as a solo. That was different. It is usually danced by an ensemble though Northern Ballet School also presented it as a solo in Christmas at the Dancehouse. I liked the Arabian dancers (Matthew Topliss,Natalia Kerner and Gavin McCaig), the Chinese (Kevin Poeung and Harris Beattie) and the Russians (Conner Jordan-Collins, Matthew Morrell and Andrew Tomlinson); The Russian dance was a big role for those three young dancers two oi whim are still apprentices,.

There are also a lot of roles for children in The Nutcracker as guests at the Stahlbaums' party, mice and soldiers. Two of my teachers had daughters in the show though I am not sure whether either was dancing on Wednesday night. All the kids performed well that night and were a credit to their ballet mistress who in previous years has been Cara O'Shea.

The show will run at the Grand until Sunday and I strongly recommend it.

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Dutch National Ballet Cinderella 22 Dec 2018 , 20:00, Stopera, Amsterdam

In July 2015 the Dutch National Ballet performed Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella at the Coliseum. It played to full houses and audiences seemed to like it but though not all critics did. In my review, Wheeldon's Cinderella 13 July 2015, I wrote:

"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 it 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."

Well, I saw it in the Stopera on Saturday 22 Dec 2018 and was bowled over by it. At the end of the second act, I wrote on my Facebook page: "Christmas has been made for me by DutchNatBallet's Cinderella even if I never get a single present, a Christmas card, a slice of Turkey, a smidgeon of plum pudding, a mince pie or a whiff of mulled wine."

Why the difference? The answer came when I joined a tour of the Stopera for new Friends on my birthday in 2016 (see Double Dutch Delights 17 Feb 2016). One of the senior technical staff welcomed us to the stage and showed us some of the computer equipment at his command. I mentioned that I had attended a performance of Cinderella in London the previous summer and asked him how the company found the Coliseum. He replied that the company enjoyed their visit to London very much through the Coliseum lacked the state-of-the-art equipment and facilities that they enjoy at the Stopera. That equipment enabled the tree over the grave of Cinderella's mother to grow and change colour with the seasons. It showed birds in flight and falling rain at the funeral of Cinderella's mother.

I noted the similarities between Cinderella and The Winter's Tale in my previous review. In both, the lead characters were introduced as children and both features a massive tree. In a strange sort of way, Cinderella was actually more Shakespearean than the ballet that was based on a Shakespeare play. Excitement was ratcheted up as in a Shakespearean play. When Cinderella's appeared in a golden gown the lights on stage were cut and the house lights switched to full brightness. That moment was matched at the end of the next act when Cinderella ran off stage right into the stalls and through the audience to the exit.

There was also plenty of humour that provided dramatic relief. Cinderella's stepmother, Hortensia, became tight at the ball as the evening wore on much to the embarrassment of her husband. Benjamin, the prince's friend, fell head over heels in love with the plainer of Hortensia's daughters. The most unpromising candidates queued to try Cinderella's abandoned slipper including a Balinese princess with long nails and a spiked headdress, a forest spirit with an outsized head and a knight in full armour brandishing a battle axe. Levity is not easy to induce in ballet. Ashton managed it his Cinderella in his pairing with Robert Helpmann as Cinderella's ugly sisters and Wheeldon succeeded in his version of the ballet.

In London, I had seen Remi Wörtmeyer as Benjamin, the prince's friend. On Saturday he was promoted to prince, a role that suited him well. Benjamin was danced by Sho Yamada who has impressed me twice this year. Cinderella was Anna Ol. She commanded the audience's respect from the start and not our pity. She showed her spirit from the moment her father (Anatole Babenko) introduced her to Hortensia. Hortensia had offered her a bunch of flowers that she tossed to the floor. I sensed fear on the part of the stepmother and her sisters rather than simple malice. Hortensia, a difficult role, was danced impressively by Vera Tsyganova. Luiza Bertho danced Cinderella's stepsister Edwina and Riho Sakamoto, her other stepsister Clementine. Finally, it was great to see Jane Lord on stage again as a dance teacher.

As I had benefited from attending Rachael Beaujean's talk on Giselle last month, I attended the introductory talk on Cinderella. That took the form of a Powerpoint presentation in a lecture room `below the auditorium between 19:15 and 19:45. Although it was given in Dutch which is a language I have never studied I think I got the gist of it as Dutch is closely related to Engish and German. I learned that this ballet is a co-production with the San Francisco Ballet, about Ashton's influence over Wheeldon, the significance of the tree and all sorts of other useful facts.

The ballet will run to 1 Jan 2019 and is playing to full houses. Readers who miss it this month in Amsterdam will have a chance to see English National Ballet perform a version in the round in the Albert Hall between 6 and 16 June 2019.

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Birmingham Royal Ballet The Nutcracker 29 Dec 2019 14:00 Royal Albert Hall

Each of the five largest ballet companies of the United Kingdom has a version of The Nutcracker in its repertoire. I have seen all of them at one time or another and the ones that I like best which is Scottish, Northern's and the Birmingham Royal Ballet#s more than once. If I had to choose one it would be Peter Wright's production for the BRB. Last year I saw it in the Hippodrome in Birmingham. Yesterday I saw it upscaled fro the Royal Albert Hall.

This was not the first time I had seen ballet in that auditorium. On previous occasions, I had seen Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake in the round performed by the English National Ballet. Birmingham Royal Ballet used the space quite differently. They created a stage at one end of the floor above which they positioned the orchestra. On either side of the stage, they placed enormous screens upon which all sorts of images such as pine branches and baubles to represent a growing Christmas tree and falling snow for the snow scene. Seating was installed in the part of the floor not used as a stage and the gallery was closed off altogether. My view from the centre of the Rausing circle was comparable to the view from the front of the amphitheatre at Covent Garden.

The libretto was very similar to the one for the version that I had seen at the Hippodrome last year and used about the same number of dancers. The one big difference was a voiceover by Simon Callow which was probably harmless enough but not particularly necessary. He was supposed to represent Drosselmeyer who was already represented in dance more than adequately by Rory Mackay. What rankled a little bit with me was that Callow spoke in a thick continental accent that made Drosselmeyer appear to be some kind of foreigner which was unlikely as he was Clara and Fritz Stahlbaum's godfather. Unlike Sir Peter Wright's production for the Royal Ballet, there was no subplot of the nutcracker being Drosselmeyer's nephew imprisoned in wood. Nor were there an,y angels in the Birmingham version.

The other three lead characters yesterday were the Sugar Plum danced by Celine Gittens, her prince Brandon Lawrence and Clara who was Arancha Baselga. On 26 June 2018, I had been captivated by Gittens's portrayal of Juliet although she had been one of my favourites for some time (see MacMillan's Masterpiece 29 June 2018). I chose yesterday's matinee specifically to catch Gittens and I am glad to say that she did not disappoint me. I was too far away to see her face which had been so eloquent when she danced Juliet but her elegance was unmistakable. As in June, she was partnered by Lawrence who demonstrated his strength and virtuosity. Baselga delighted her audience with her energy as she threw herself into the divertissements in Act II. I admired and liked her particularly in the Russians ance as she was tossed from dancer to dancer like a bag of cement.

Another of my favourites is Ruth Briill who danced Clara's grannie with Kit Holder. I had thought of auditioning for that role if and when Powerhouse Ballet ever performs that ballet but having seen Brill in Birmingham's production and Hannah Bateman in Northern's (see Northern Ballet's "The Nutcracker" - All My Favourite Artists in the Same Show 14 Dec 2018) that may be a little bit too ambitious. I had also contemplated auditioning for Mrs Stahlbaum until I saw Yvette Knight's impressive solo. Maybe I could be a rodent but not the rat king like Tom Rogers yesterday.

Plaudits are due to Harlequin, Columbine and the Jack in the Box danced by Gus Payne, Reina Fuchigami and Max Maslen, the Snow Queen (Alys Shee) and each and every one of the dancers in the divertissements in Act II. I particularly liked Laura Purkiss as the Spanish princess and Beatrice Parma as the rose fairy.

I must also congratulate the orchestra and its conductor Koen Kessels whom I had the pleasure of meeting ar the party following the Dutch National Ballet's gala on 8 September 2018. I attended the ballet with the nearest I have to a grandson and his mum who is the nearest I have to a daughter. She was particularly affected by the music saying that it had touched her in a way that previous performances of the score had not/. Clearly, I was not the only one to regard the music as special

Altogether it was one of the best performances of The Nutcracker that I have ever attended and a great way to end the year. It is in the running for my ballet of the year as indeed is the Birmingham Royal Ballet for company of the year. Upon the merger of my chambers with Arden Chambers earlier this year we acquired an annexe at Snow Hill in Birmingham which I intend to use to the full. As I shall be spending far more time in their city I hope to see even more of the Birmingham Royal Ballet and get to know it even better.

Fiona Noonan

On 16 Sept Terry Etheridge held a workshop in Leeds where he created a beautiful ballet for us. He invited not only the dancers he had selected for the piece at an audition that we had held the previous day but also everyone who had attended the audition. It was a glorious day and it was then that we became a company. We had come from different adult ballet classes from across the North of England and North Wales. Although we had been very courteous to each other we had flocked to our own groups. All this changed at the workshop. Everyone chatted to everyone else. I sensed that some real friendships were being formed.

Those friendships were reinformed the very next week when Yvonne Charlton visited us in Liverpool. I described her visit as Our Best Day Yet in a post to the company's website. I wrote:

"I have already received requests to bring Yvonne back to the UK. In response to those requests, I have asked her whether she would like to license us to perform her work so that we could add it to out repertoire. She has no objection in principle and is prepared to return for an audition and workshop similar to the one we did with Terry Etheridge in Leeds."

Yvonne is coming back on 23 Feb 2019 when she will take the company class ar the Dancehouse Studios between 13:30 and 15:00. The next day she will teach us one of her ballets at Dance Studio Leeds between 09:00 and 14:00. Her music is Morning Mood from Grieg's Peer Gynt. Alena Panasenka, one of Northern Ballet's accompanists, will play for us.

Yvonne has to catch a plane to Amsterdam immediately after her workshop so she cannot coach us but Fiona Noonan has very kindly agreed to do so. Fiona was the teacher who led me back to ballet after many years and I shall always be grateful to her for that. She attended Terry's audition on 15 Sept and danced with us at our workshop with Ballet Cymru on 28 Nov 2018 (see More than a Bit Differently: Ballet Cymru's Workshop and the Launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle 29 Nov 2018). Last Saturday Fiona gave us an excellent company class. It was one of the hardest classes I have ever done because we started with centre barre to develop our strength. However, it paid dividends when we tackled pirouettes and a balancé, pas de bourré, pirouettes, dedans and dehors enchainment.

Many of the members of our company train regularly at KNT Danceworks which holds classes in the Dancehouse's studios every day of the week except Sundays and public holidays. KNT's principal is Karen Sant and she gave us one of our best company classes ever on 1 Dec 2018. KNT is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary with a gala at the Dancehouse on 4 May 2019 the tickets for which are already on sale. Karen has kindly invited Powerhouse Ballet to premiere the ballet that Terry Etheridge has created for us at her gala as her special guests. As KNT has been listed in several publications as one of the top adult ballet classes in the UK this is a singular honour which I acknowledged on the company's website on 25 Jan 2019.

We now have to rehearse in earnest and our next rehearsal is fixed for 10 Feb 2019 at 15:00 at York St John University. We will of course also hold rehearsals of Morning Mood and Fiona will suggest dates, times and venues after Yvonne's workshop, As we are as much a North Wales company as a Northern English one we are planning a day-long workshop in Mold which Martin Dutton of the Hammond has already agreed to teach. We shall hold company classes at the end of each month and I have already booked our Jane Tucker for our anniversary class.

If our debut goes well we shall convert into a charitable incorporated organization and seek funding from Arts Council England and maybe the Arts Council of Wales, the National Lottery and other organizations. As part of our social mission, we shall perform at hospitals, care homes and other institutions whose residents do not get many opportunities to watch dance.

Several readers have asked, "what has happened to my dance reviews?" The fact is that I have not seen any ballet since Birmingham Royal Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker in the Albert Hall. Talk about Dry January. I have been so busy with Powerhouse I have had little time for anything else. But all that will change as of tomorrow when I shall see Scottish Ballet's Cinderella in Newcastle and Saturday when I shall see The Nutcrackerby Ballet West in Stirling.

Ballet West The Nutcracker McRobert Centre, Stirling 2 Feb 2019 19:30

Ballet West is a ballet school on the outskirts of a little village not far from Oban. Every winter it tours Scotland with a full-length ballet to give its students stage experience. This year it offers a new production ofThe Nutcracker. I have been following Ballet West for nearly 6 years and I have seen at least one performance of every show that it has taken on tour. I say without hesitation that this is the company's best show yet. I add that I don't think I have ever enjoyed a performance of The Nutcracker as much as tonight's.

The production is an original interpretation of Hoffmann's tale of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King that nevertheless remains true to the story. The Stahlbaums' house is set by a lake in the country rather than in a town in Germany. Some nifty computer-generated graphics take the audience inside where we see falling snow through the windows. There Mr and Mrs Stahlbam (Alex Hallas and Hannah Tokely) with their children Clara (Michaela Fairon) and Fitz (Luciano Ghidoli) receive their guests who include Ballet Cymru's Miguel Fernandes. The most important guest is, of course, the conjurer, Drosselmeyer, danced impressively by second year student, Rahul Pradeed. I noticed that young man for the first time last year and I am convinced he is going places. Another impressive character dancer was the grandmother, Lauren Pountney-Barnes. She grabbed Fritz by the ear, patted Clara on the head before performing a spirited solo before the guests and collapsing in a heap. A small role, maybe, but an important one that has been performed by the likes of Marion Tait and Hannah Bateman in other productions.

A detail of a previous version of The Nutcracker which seems to be unique to Ballet Weast is the furtive dram taken by the servants after the Stahlbaums have taken to their beds. I was delighted to see that Daniel Job, who has staged this work, has retained that detail in the new production. They assemble around the butler glass in hand. Like traffic drill, they look to the left, then to the right and even to the ceiling before downing their bevvy. I don't know why because that scene could occur anywhere but it just seems so Scottish - like the children dancing around their patents as in an eightsome reel. Yet another fragment of the former production that has been preserved.

It is in the fight scenes of act I that the computer-generated graphics come into their own. Toy soldiers descend from the sky by parachute. An intrusive rodent with the word "PRESS" on its back takes photos of a dying murine. The artist who designed those graphics is a genius. I wonder how long it will take for Sir Matthew Bourne or someone like him to snap up that animator. "Never," said the director with the force of the late Sir Ian Paisley, "we're keeping him" and I fervently hope they do.

The first act concluded with a delightful pas de deux by Hallas who had morphed from Clara's dad into the snow king and Natasha Watson, his queen. The recording that Ballet West used for their show made better use of the choir than in most productions. The voices seemed to linger to the very end of the snow scene which I appreciated. I left the auditorium at the interval grinning like a Cheshire cat. The director and Mr Job could see from my face how much I had enjoyed that act.

The kingdom of the sweets is very saccharine with representations of lollies and bonbons in most productions. However, "sweet" can have a figurative meaning and it was the figurative meaning that the designer seems to have had in mind for this work. The backdrop was more Far Pavilions or Shangrila than Willy Wonka or the witch's hut in Hansel and Gretel. The usual divertissements - the Spanish, Arabian and Chinese dances representing chocolate and tea followed by Cossacks, mirlitons and flowers - were performed with verve. There were also new divertissements that gave Sara-Maria Barton's associates a chance to shine. One divertissement was performed by some very young kids but they were kids who knew how to hold an audience. Three, in particular, dazzled us with their acrobatics. In previous productions, there had been a scene for kids called "Mother Ginger". She has been dropped from this version and I doubt that the show has suffered from her absence in the least.

The highpoint of the ballet is the pas de deux by the sugar plum fairy and her cavalier. It is the bit that audiences remember and it is the yardstick by which some print critics seem to rate a Nutcracker. Those roles were performed by Lucy Malin, another student who impressed me last year. and Maxine Quiroga. They were magnificent. They were exciting to watch. They justified my trip to Scotland. Those folks are seriously good. They deserve to go far.

This is a short season and the students never stray furth of Scotland. If you want to see them - and if I were looking for dancers I would want to see them for they consistently win medals at the Genée and other competitions - you have to travel. London may be a Weltstadt and its ballet schools are good but they have no monopoly of excellence.

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Scottish Ballet Cinderella Theatre Royal, Newcastle, 1 Feb 2019

I first saw Christopher Hampson's Cinderella in Edinburgh on 19 Dec 2015 and I loved it (see Scottish Ballet's Cinderella 20 Dec 2015). I saw it again in Newcastle on Friday and loved it all the more. I have been asking myself why I love it so much. I think it is because it is multilayered. Very different from the pantomimes and films of childhood.

At one layer there is the narrative. The libretto is conventional enough but, to get a better idea of the theme, watch the video, DesigningCinderella. Hampson and his designer, Tracy Grant Lord. explain the significance of the rose. That is the second layer. Roses are even more important than glass slippers because Cinders's slipper is discovered and shredded. "How is the prince to authenticate his bride?" the audience wonders as the rest of womankind force their hooves and flippers into the discarded shoe. Happily, Cinderella had another memento of the evening, namely the silver rose that the prince had given her at the ball. She produced that rose and all was well. Roses are everywhere. In the backdrop, the clothes and of course the cemetery where Cinderella's mum is buried.

But there is a layer below the roses and I think that it explains why the ballet appeals so much to me. Hampson's ballet is a study of emotion. After the death of his first wife, Cinderella's father seeks solace in a second marriage but it fails to work. Cinderella is a constant reminder. He takes to drink incurring the contempt of his stepchildren and the despair of his new wife. Reason enough to explain her resentment of Cinderella.

In most interpretations of the story, Cinderella is a victim. Not so much in this ballet, Not even as a scullery maid, She is resourceful. She has the cash for her mother's portrait which the stepmother is desperate to remove She can dance in contrast to her stepsisters' stumblings. Even her work clothes eclipse her stepsisters' finery. The prince for all his wealth and power is lonely. It is Cinderella who rescues him from his loneliness at least as much as he rescues her from her servitude.

Such complex characters are difficult to portray. When I saw the show in Edinburgh I was enchanted by Bethany Kingsley-Garner and Christopher Harrison. They were so good I had to see them in those roles a second time. Kingsley-Garner commands a stage like few others. An actress as much as a dancer and she is a dancer of considerable strength and virtuosity. Hampson demands a lot from his Cinderellas such as successions of relevés combined with dévelopés and his trade mark backwards jump. Delightful to watch but probably exhausting to perform. Another favourite, Araminta Wraith, danced Cinderella's stepmother. She is also a fine communicator. She helped me understand and sympathize with her character better than I had ever done before. Nicholas Shoesmith portrayed Cinderella's broken father with pathos. Claire Souet and Aisling Brangan the ridiculous stepsisters with bathos. Grace Horler charmed us as the fairy godmother.

In my estimation, Hampson is the best narrative ballet choreographer that we have, He may be less prolific in this genre than other choreographers but everything he produces is good, Next year he will presentThe Snow Queento mark the 50th anniversary of the company's move from Bristol. With music by Rimsky-Korsakov and designs by Lez Brotherston, it should be splendid.

Krasnoyarsk State Opera House

Author MaxBioHazard
Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
SourceWikipedia Krasnojarsk

The Russian State Ballet of Siberia La Fille mal gardée 15 Feb 2019 Liverpool Empire

Krasnoyarsk is a city in Siberia with a population of just over a million on approximately the same latitude as Dundee. According to Google Maps, it is 4,559 miles away and takes over 14½ hours to reach by air or 5 days by surface transportation.

An opera house with a resident ballet company opened in that city in 1978. The company's founder members included graduates of the Vaganova Ballet Academy and the Moscow State Academy of Choreography. Krasnoyarsk has produced some fine dancers over the years despite its remoteness and modest population. They include Anna Ol of the Dutch National Ballet and Viktoria Tereshkina of the Mariinsky. Many of those dancers trained or began their training in the city and some such as Ol danced with the Krasnoyarsk opera house company.

Every year artists from the Krasnoyarsk opera house ballet tour the United Kingdom as The Russian State Ballet of Siberia (see Anna Lidster Promoting Krasnoyarsk: How the Russian State Ballet of Siberia has won British hearts 3 March 2013 The Siberian Times). I am not sure why they chose that name. It may be that they think that the name of their city might be a bit of a mouthful for British tongues or it may be because they recruit a few extra dancers for the tour such as Francesco Bruni and Francisco Gimenez. However, it is clear from comparing the Russian State Ballet of Siberia's programme with the Krasnoyarsk opera house's website that the two companies are substantially the same.

The tourists have a punishing schedule. They opened at St David's Hall in Cardiff with The Snow Maiden on 19 Dec 2018 and they will finish in Oxford on 16 March 2019 with Swan Lake. By the end of their tour, they will have performed 6 full-length ballets in 24 venues in every one of our constituent nations except Northern Ireland. On Friday they reached Liverpool which is where I saw them for the first time.

I was attracted to Liverpool by the show rather than by the company. They were to dance La Fille mal gardée with music by Hertel rather than Lanchbery and choreography by Gorsky rather than Ashton. La Fille mal gardée is in one sense the oldest ballet in the modern repertoire having first been performed at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux less than a fortnight before the storming of the Bastille but the version that we know was premiered in 1960.

To my great surprise and joy, Friday's performance was not at all inferior to the Ashton-Lanchbery-Lancaster version. I would go so far as to say that I left the Empire somewhat more elated than when I left the Lowry in October after seeing BRB's latest production which had somehow expanded into three acts. The story was very much the same. The only significant difference is that Colas gets into Simone's house disguised as a notaire rather than hidden under a bundle of wheat sheaves.

There were a few other differences. Instead of churning butter half-heartedly, a distracted Lise collected a couple of eggs from the henhouse while her mother gathered a basketful. Nobody dressed as poultry though there were computer generated animations of pigs and other animals crossing the backcloth which earned a few laughs from the audience. There was a sort of ribbon dance but it did not end up as a love knot and Simone performed a clog dance though not the one we know. Alain was not swept into the sky by the storm clutching his umbrella. Nor was he made to resemble a carthorse.

But there were elements that do not occur in the Ashton version such as a full-blown classical pas de deux complete with entrée, male and female solos and coda. Lise dons a classical tutu which could not possibly have been in the Dauberval version. In the Russian version, Lise dances at least as many fouettés as Odile in Swan Lake or Kitri in Don Quixote.

As in Ashton's version, Simone was danced by a man. In this case Pavel Kirchev, a Bulgarian guest artist who dances with the Varna ballet. He reminded me quite a lot of Stanley Holden. Elena Svinko was a delightful Lise, coquettish and feisty. She had teeth and she used them on poor Alain (Ilia Kaprov) biting his fingers and ear and stamping on his foot as he tried to express affection. Marcello Pelizzoni, who trained in Moscow and dances with the Krasnoyarsk ballet, was Colas. He has impressive elevation, power and grace and I delighted in his virtuosity.

Considering the time they must have spent on the road and the need to pack and repack almost every day I was pleasantly surprised that the sets and costumes seemed so fresh and that the cast had so much energy. I shall try to catch their Swan Lake when they come to Halifax or Sheffield.

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Dutch National BalletRequirem Music Theatre (Stopera) Amsterdam, 27 Feb 2019, 20:15

David Dawson's Requiem is a double bill of two of that choreographer's recent works: Citizen Nowhere which was first staged in 2017 and Requiem which was premiered on 12 Feb 2019. These are formidable works which were performed to a packed house that gave them a standing ovation.

The first of those works was Citizen Nowhere. I am not sure whether to describe it as a solo or a duet. There was only one artist on stage, namely Joseph Massarelli but an outside image of Sasha Mukhamedov appeared on screen and there was certainly a dialogue between Massarelli and the screen throughout the show. According to the programme notes, one of Dawson's sources of inspiration was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Le Petit Prince. However, in the weeks before my nation is dragged with at least half our population including me kicking and screaming out of the European Union against our will, I could not occlude from my mind the shameful speech of our Prime Minister to the 2016 Tory party conference that a citizen of the world is a citizen of nowhere. The programme hints that that speech may have been in the choreographer's mind:

"For Dawson, an Englishman by birth who has been living and working in Europe for a long time, this famous story has gained extra meaning because of some of the political issues the world faces today due to nationalism, the building of walls, and the displacement of people who find themselves far from home."

It was clear from the guffaw that May's speech was in the mind of my audience when I invited my audience for my talk on developments on English law at C5's Pharma & Biotech Patent Litigation to follow we down to the Stopera to see this double bill by one of the world's greatest dance companies.

Though a very short work Citizen Nowhere was demanding both for artist and audience. Massarelli, stripped to the waist, circled the stage like a colt stallion. Powerful but constrained by the screen much like Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984. On to the screen bounced letters which gathered and were swept away like autumn leaves. Occasionally quotations from Saint-Exupery's book appeared like "One sees clearly only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eye" from Fox. "Why in English?" I asked myself. If people here read Saint-Exupery at all it would be in Dutch or perhaps in the original French which most schoolchildren in the Netherlands master at the same time as they as they study English and German. Be that as it may, it was spectacular and breathtaking as was Szymon Brzóska's score with Matthew Rowe's interpretation. Congratulations to Altin Kaftira who made the film and indeed all who collaborated on this multidimensional and absorbing creation.

Requiem is more than a work of art. It is an act of worship. Surprisingly, perhaps, in this day and age. Living, as I do, close to Huddersfield with its famous Choral, I related immediately to this work. Especially to the Kyrie and Agnus Dei. This is a choral work upon which I felt dance was but a commentary. I loved Gavin Bryars's music and even though one of my very, very, very, very special and very favourite ballerinas, Mukhamedov, was performing ethereally before my eyes I felt them closing as I focused on the sound. "How could I do that?" I kept saying to myself for it was not just Mukhamedov that I was missing but also other favourites such as Floor Eimers, Yuanyuan Zhang, Riho Sakamoto, Nancy Burer, Clara Superfine, Thomas van Damme and Nathan Brhane whose careers I follow closely and whom I greatly admire. There was just so much to see, so much to hear, so much for intellect and spirit to absorb that I felt overwhelmed. This is a work that requires multiple visits to understand and, alas, this is my only opportunity to see it this season.

This double bill is the sort of programme that makes the Dutch National Ballet special. Perhaps Hampson's Scottish Ballet could do it too but I can think of few other companies in the world who would do it justice and even fewer audiences who would value it as much as those in the Stopera who stood and cheered.

Through following the Dutch National Ballet I made the acquaintance of the Dutch teacher and choreographer Yvonne Charlton. Yvonne is married to an Englishman and visits this country frequently. On one of those visits, she gave Powerhouse Ballet a great repertoire class (see Our Best Day Yet 24 Sept 2018). Our ballet mistress, Beverley Willsmer, who is not exactly known for lavish praise, rated her class as the best ever. Before I had even left Z-Studios I was overwhelmed with requests to bring her back as soon as possible.

Yvonne emerged from international arrivals at Ringway airport at 08:20 last Saturday My former ward and her little boy, Vladimir, who had met Yvonne at the National Ballet gala in Amsterdam last September, came with me to meet her. As she would have got up while wilis were still about in order to drive the 32 miles from her home to Amsterdam airport, the first thing we did after she arrived was to entertain her to a full English breakfast at John Lewis's at Cheadle Royal.

Yvonne's first engagement was company class at the Dancehouse at 13:30. As we had some time before that class I gave her a tour of my dear, native city. I started with the castra of Mancunium at Castlefield from which our city derives its name. I showed her the Lowry and some of the paintings in the permanent exhibition. We looked out for a video of Gillian Lynne's ballet A Simple Man with Moira Shearer and Christopher Gable but the assistant at the souvenir shop could not be sure that the DVD would work on continental apparatus.

We arrived at the Dancehouse just in time for class and what a class it was. It was certainly the most taxing that I have ever known and it seemed to challenge even our best dancers. "No! No! No! That's not how you do a port de bras,"she said to one of our stars, forcing her head to well below her knees. And Yvonne was not afraid of correcting our ballet mistress the very next day. Even the pliés were a challenge for they finished with a relevé and then a weight shift. Frappés on demi nearly did for me but the real killer was a type of rond de jambe that required a 90-degree sweep from a demi plié. Her centre exercises were no easier than her barre. She set us a rolling pirouette exercise starting with a tiré, a pas de bourré and then single, double or dynamo turns.

As I was 70 a few weeks ago I had told one of my favourite teachers who regards "easy" as a 4 letter word that I was slowing down. Having survived Yvonne's class I know I can survive anything. I told my esteemed instructor that I shall be back at the barre whenever I can get to Leeds by19:00 on a Wednesday evening. Indeed, I am really going to work at that lady's classes.

After class, I invited my classmates to the Revolution by Oxford Road viaduct for a libation. Almost everyone came and we were joined presently by Karen Sant and Mark Hindle of KNT. For a birthday present Mark gave me this beautiful bouquet of flowers. I curtseyed and tried to remove a single flower for Mark just as I had seen Sibley do for Dowell and Fonteyn for Nureyev in my youth. That would have been a cue for Mark to raise the bloom to his nose and savour the perfume but I am not sure that modern principles do that any more. I have certainly not seen it at Northern Ballet and I am not sure even about Covent Garden. In Holland, it is unnecessary because the boys seem to get flowers too.

After drinks, I drove Yvonne to her hotel near Huddersfield where we threw a little party. Several good friends from Powerhouse Ballet were able to attend as you can see from the photo to the right.

The very next morning we assembled at the Dance Circle Leeds for a 5-hour workshop with Yvonne. I arranged for Alena Panasenka, one of Northern Ballet's accompanists to play for us. I also invited Fiona Noonan to learn any ballet that Yvonne might teach us and coach us in it until we are word perfect.

Our warm-up class after a late night was even more punishing than Saturday class but we set to work with a will. Yvonne taught us a delightful dance to the music of Morning Mood from Grieg's Peer Gynt. We have been invited to perform this piece at Dance Studio Leeds's gala to raise money for St Gemma's Hospice on 12 Oct 2019.

Anyone who wants to audition for this piece should stay for our first rehearsal at Dance Studio Leeds on 23 March 2019. The Eventbrite card will appear shortly.

Maria Chugai as Myrtha

Last November I witnessed a remarkable performance of Giselle by the Dutch National Ballet. I saw it not in Amsterdam but in Heerlen, a former mining town in the far southeast of the Netherlands that reminded me very much of Doncaster. I reviewed that show in Terpsichore (see Mooie10 Nov 2018).

One of the dancers who had impressed me the most was Maria Chugai. She danced Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis. I described her as “a formidable Myrtha, one of the most chilling but also one of the most elegant I have ever seen.” I had also admired her performance in The Sleeping Beauty a year earlier (see The Dutch National Ballet's "The Sleeping Beauty" - I have waited nearly 50 years for this show 20 Dec 2017). I interviewed Ms Chugai while I was in Amsterdam at the end of February.

I started our conversation by discussing that performance in Heerlen. In my review I wrote:

“Tonight's performance of Giselle by the Dutch National Ballet was indeed beautiful but it was also so much more. It was outstanding. It was one of the best performances of that ballet that I have ever seen and I have attended a lot of performances of Giselle in my 50 years of regular ballet going. I have seen some of the world's best dancers and many of the world's greatest companies. The rest of the audience was aware of something special for we rose to our feet at the curtain call as one and clapped until our palms were raw.”

I wondered whether she was aware that something very special had happened that night so I asked her what had been in her mind. She spoke of the exhilaration of being on centre stage as the orchestra struck up and of the sublimity of being as one with the music.

While researching for this article, I found that she had said something very similar inThe Best Ballet School in the World. That was a programme on the Vaganova Ballet Academy that had been made by the English language television service RT when Ms Chugai was a student of the academy. She had featured in that programme because she was to dance the lead role in the Vaganova’s production of The Nutcracker. The recording refers to that role as “Princess Masha”. “Masha” is a hypocorism of Maria or Marie in Russian. There the character known as “Clara” in productions of The Nutcracker in English speaking countries is often called “Marie”. Marie or Masha also dances the role that is performed by "the Sugar Plum Fairy" in British productions (see Clara grows up- Grigorovich Nutcracker transmitted directly from Moscow 21 Dec 2014).

Ms Chugai’s mother appeared on the programme. She said that her daughter’s passion for ballet had been sparked by a performance of The Nutcracker that she saw when she was 4 years old. The child’s enthusiasm could not be contained. Her mother recalls how she was constantly dancing the role of Princess Masha. Ballet lessons followed, of course, and she made remarkable progress going on pointe when she was only 9.

Her father, a civil engineer, had hoped that his daughter might follow him into his profession. She would certainly have had the aptitude as she was good at all her subjects and not just dance. She must have been particularly good at modern languages. Her written and spoken English is faultless. Her Dutch is obviously good because a waitress answered her question about an item on the restaurant menu in Dutch. That is a compliment that the Dutch rarely pay to foreigners because they find it easier to converse in English than suffer our contortions of their tongue. Before she started English and Dutch she had studied French. Ms Chugai told me that she had impressed her teachers with a presentation in that language, I could not help musing on the elegance of the bridges, dams and other structures that she might have built had she become an engineer.

Her mother, on the other hand, dreamt of her studying at the Vaganova (the successor to the Imperial Ballet School about which Tamara Karsavina reminisced in Theatre Street) and dancing with the Kirov as the Mariinsky was called until 1992. There were books on ballet in her home as well as photos of stars of the Kirov and Mariinsky, the teachers of the Vaganova and their illustrious alumni which sustained that ambition. Her mother inspired her with that dream and encouraged her through her studies. When the opportunity arose for her to be assessed by the Vaganova, her mother accompanied her on the 1,100-mile journey from their home in Donetsk to St. Petersburg. The examination must have been difficult for both of them. Her mother was not allowed to watch the audition but had to sit in a waiting room. Then there was a long wait for a decision followed by an interview and medical. It was so stressful that she passed out at one point.

Happily, for her fans, Ms Chugai was accepted into the Vaganova. She spoke about her first few weeks in St Petersburg. The intense cold of her first winter in the city had been a shock. Donetsk, not far from the Black Sea, has relatively mild winters. St Petersburg is on the same latitude as Shetland but without the benefit of the Gulf stream. Her mother had to stay with her in rented lodgings in St Petersburg for the remainder of the first term because a place could not be found for her in the academy’s boarding house until the Christmas holidays. The RT programme showed the room that she shared with three other girls, the refectory where they took their meals, the studios in which they attended class and rehearsed their show, the language lab where she had acquired her excellent English with a group of girls from an English class practising Jingle Bells.

Whenever I interview a dancer I ask about inspirations and influences at ballet school. Ms Chugai singled out Altynai Asylmuratova who became Artistic Director of the Vaganova. She had spotted the young Maria Chugai’s potential and cast her as Princess Masha a year before her graduation when she was only 17. She continued to mentor Ms Chugai after she had left the Vaganova. The teacher drew Ms Chugai’s attention to the Dutch National Ballet commending the quality of its productions, dancers and management, It was on the strength of that commendation that Ms Chugai applied to join the Dutch National Ballet. Other instructors who had inspired her included Olga Iskanderova-Baltacheeva, Alisa Strogaya and Liudmyla Kovaleva who had also taught Diana Vishneva. Despite the harsh winters and some difficulty in making friends when she first joined the course, Ms Chugai describes her days at the Vaganova as a “most bright and happy time.”

Ms Chugai graduated from the Vaganova with top marks and full honours. She was immediately accepted into the Mariinsky. She distinguished herself in international competitions winning the second prize in the Junior Group of the Talin International Ballet Competition in 2000 and coming joint second in the Vaganova Prix in St Petersburg in 2006. The jury for the Vaganova Prix (headed by Natalia Makarova) did not award a first prize that year so Ms Chugai and the other second prize winner were the best in the competition. Ms Chugai regards her performance in the Vaganova Prix as one of her career highlights.

When I asked her about others she referred me to her YouTube channel. One of the reasons why this feature has taken so long to appear is that there are some gorgeous clips in that channel and I have watched them all, some several times. They include a recording of an earlier performance as Myrtha, an extract from her graduation performance and my personal favourite, the second shade from La Bayadȅre. I love that dance and actually tried to learn it once (see La Bayadère Intensive Day 1: There's Life in the Old Girl Yet 16 Aug 2016).

We talked about the future. I asked her about choreographers whom she admires and with whom she would like to work. Intriguingly, they include Crystal Pite. Imagine what they could accomplish together. I discovered that Ms Chugai has a talent for choreography. She has already created a delightful, lyrical work for three dancers to Debussy’s Clair de Lunewhich she presented to the Dutch National Ballet’s New Moves programme in 2016. I look forward to more of her work. For the longer term, she is training for a graduate qualification as a ballet mistress from the Vaganova Academy. She already does some teaching. Rather cheekily I invited her to give a masterclass in Manchester. Amazingly, she said “yes”.

I had a very pleasant trip to Amsterdam. I was there primarily to speak at a patent lawyers’ conference which I thoroughly enjoyed and I also saw David Dawson’s Requiem by the Dutch National Ballet. Unquestionably, the highlight of my visit was my interview with Maria Chugai. I learned a lot from her about ballet in general and the Vaganova Academy, the Mariinsky and Russian ballet in particular. This year I intend to see Theatre Street for myself. I enjoy the company of dancers and have met many over the years but few (if any) have been as affable or as personable as Maria Chugai.

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Northern Ballet Victoria, Leeds Grand Theatre, 16 March 2019, 19:30

Victoria may have been the title rôle but the star of last night's show was Pippa Moore who danced Princess Beatrice. That is not because the ballet is really about someone other than the character in the title like Coppelia or Don Quixote. Queen Victoria has a very substantial role in Cathy Marston's ballet and it was danced beautifully by Abigail Priudames whom I admire greatly. But last night was the night the company and its audience said goodbye to Moore who is, for the time being, Northern Ballet's last remaining female premier dancer and one who enjoys great respect and affection.

At the end of the performance, Moore was presented with an enormous bouquet of flowers. Something that does not happen very often outside London (see Flowers for Dreda 9 June 2018). David Nixon came on stage and gave the best speech that I have ever heard him make (I have heard more than a few from him over the years) and handed Moore a picture of herself as Beatrice. I am a hard-bitten patent lawyer and I have seen some great moments in the theatre but I could feel the tears welling up inside me. Several members of the audience including yours truly rose to out feet. Just as well that the curtain fell when it did because I am not sure for how much longer I could have contained my emotions.

The show in which Moore and Prudames danced was Cathy Marston'sVictoria, a co-production between Northern Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada. The score was by Philip Feeney and the sets and costumes were designed by Steffen Aarfing. There was some stunning choreography in the ballet of which the duets between the queen and John Brown, danced by Mlindi Kulashe, and the queen and Prince Albert (Joseph Taylor) were perhaps the most striking. I was particularly struck by the invocation of the saltire as the queen splayed her arms in open fifth and legs second in defence of Brown. There were other touches that I loved like the relevés to convey excitement when Victoria met Albert for the first time.

However, regular readers of my blog will by now have sensed a "but" coming. I cannot deny it is there but I don't want to exaggerate it. Victoria was still a work of considerable merit. I am a great fan of Cathy Marston even though I have not seen much of her work on stage. Most of her works that I have seen have been on YouTube. When I saw Jane Eyre in Richmond in 2016 I described it as "the best new ballet from the company in 20 years." I think I was even more impressed with The Suit when I saw it for the first time (seeExcellence - Ballet Black's Double Bill 17 March 2018). Though I admired it very much, Victoria did not have the same effect on me as Jane Eyre or The Suit.

I have asked myself "why?" as there was a lot of good in this ballet. I think the weakness lies in the libretto. This was a very complex story but I don't think that was the main problem. It is never easy to create a ballet around a recent historical figure as Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Anastasia shows. The only choreographer to have pulled it off in my humble opinion is Ted Brandsen with his Mata Hari (see Brandsen's Masterpiece 14 Feb 2016). I think he succeeded because he kept the story simple with hardly any flashbacks, unlike Anastasia and Victoria. Had I not read the synopsis I would not have had a clue as to what was going on and I think that would have lost me.

My only other criticism (and it is a minor one) is of the costumes for the corps. They were clad in a stripey top and what appeared to be a red skirt for dancers of both genders. From row P of the stalls, they looked like a crocodile of schoolgirls on an outing. When I read the programme properly on the train to London later this morning I shall probably discover the significance of that apparel. All I can say that it was less than obvious yesterday.

But this was still a magnificent evening. I would not have missed it for the world. It is still a fine ballet and Cathy Marston is still one of my favourite choreographers. I saw Anastasia when it was first staged in 1971 and have never had a desire to see it again. Unlike Anastasia, I am going to give this ballet a second view. I am sure it will go down well at Sadler's Wells. It has already had a good press. I have very heterodox tastes having no time whatsoever for The Favourite despite its many awards and nominations. So see Victoria for yourself. Don't let my niggles at the plot and costume designs put you off

The original cast of the Rite of Spring, Paris 2013

Phoenix Dance Theatre The Rite of Spring The Lowry, 8 March 2019

In my review of Windrush, Movement of the People 8 Feb 2018, I described the work as "the best show that I have ever seen in Leeds." "What could possibly follow that?" I asked myself. My answer came on 8 March 2019 when I saw Phoenix Dance Theatre's Rite of Spring with Opera North's Gianni Schicchi at The Lowry. As Vanessa Vince Pang led Maestro Garry Walker on stage to acknowledge the audience's applause I thought to myself that Phoenix had truly come of age.

The foundation of any production of The Rite of Spring is Stravinsky's music which sets out a framework in two parts starting with an introduction and ending with the sacrificial dance of the chosen one, Some choreographers have kept the music but chosen not to follow the framework. Jeanguy Saintus has not done that and although his choreography reflects his genius I did not fear that Nijinsky's shade would be troubled. In fact, I felt that Santus's work was the next best thing to a time machine that would transport me to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées for the 29 May 2013.

For the first time, I saw Phoenix perform before a live orchestra and they did so magnificently. Five members of the cast I already knew well but Manon Adrianov, Aaron Chaplin and Michael Marquez were new to me. They complimented Carmen Marfil, Carlos Martinez, Vaness Vince-Pang, Prentice Whitlow and Natalie Alleston seamlessly. The stage was a caldron of movement and sound. It was everything that Stravinsky, Nijinsky and indeed Diaghilev must have imagined. The applause at the end was deafening.

The Rite of Spring was performed not with another dance piece but with a one-act opera by Puccini, Stravinsky and Puccini may have lived and worked at the beginning of the last century. I have long admired them both. But until their works were juxtaposed I never thought that they had much in common. To my great surprise and joy, The Rite of Spring and Gianni Schicchi seemed to work very well together. The latter work is not nearly as well known as the former though it does contain one very well-known air, O mio babbino caro by Lauretta.

The libretto, incidentally, was about something that actually happens in real life from time to time though happily in England the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 alleviates the need for a deceased's disappointed relations to impersonate the testator or forge his will. The opera was staged beautifully by Opera North. I hope that the success of this production will lead to similar collaborations between Opera North and Phoenix and indeed other opera and contemporary dance or ballet companies.

There is just one more performance of The Rite of Spring and Giani Schicchi at the Theatre Royal Nottingham on 22 March 2019. If you live anywhere near Nottingham this is the show to see even if you see nothing more all year.

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Ballet Black, Triple Bill (Pendulum, Click! Ingoma) Barbican Theatre, 17 March 2019 15:00

I see a lot of dance every year and one of my highlights is Ballet Black. I usually them in London whenever I can get a ticket because they perform to packed houses and again when they go on tour. I have come to expect a lot from them and they have never failed to meet my expectations.

Their matinee at the Barbican last Sunday was stunning. I mean that quite literally and I was not the only one. Neither the family to my left nor the one to my right could get up after the performance. We just sat still coming to terms with what we had seen on stage. When we found the strength to move I slumped into the first unoccupied chair I could find. And there I stayed until I was forced to sprint to the Central Line by fear of being marooned in London.

I had brought my Chromebook with me with a view to reviewing the triple bill while it was still fresh in my mind but it was just too soon. The words would not flow. However, I did make notes. I wrote that Mthuthzeli November's Ingoma was the most impressive new work that I had seen in a while. It is a work of considerable substance. It is all the more remarkable in that it was created by one so young.

According to the programme, Ingoma means "prayer" in Xhosa. In this case the Lord's Prayer though I must say that I had guessed that before I read the note. The performance began with the house lights burning. Two miners came on stage carrying their equipment. They were joined shortly by the rest of the cast dressed identically irrespective of gender.

November wrote about two strikes: one in the 1940s that had been suppressed brutally by the authorities and a more recent one at Marikana in post-apartheid South Africa which was also put down violently with a grievous loss of life. While I think there was more to the ballet than that there was a scene where Ebony Thomas seemed to fall to a rat-tat-tat that reminded me of automatic gunfire.

For me, the most moving part was the women's dance in the last phase of the piece. It was danced with considerable energy and force by the company's four female members dressed identically in light blue smocks and head ties. Having lived through the 1984-1985 miners strike 7 miles from Barnsley I can attest how it was the women who kept the coalfield communities intact and indeed still do even though the mines are long gone. Having been married to an African for 27 years I was reminded of my sisters in law, strong, fierce women. Just as in the choreography. It took a lot of courage to be a miner and perhaps more to be married to a miner for there was always the threat of accidents with injuries and death not to mention pneumoconiosis and poverty even when the men were not on strike. All of that fierceness and passion came through in that dance.

The piece was greeted enthusiastically even in London which never had mining and has now lost its heavy industry. I think ti will strike a chord when it goes on tour to Derby and other former mining communities. It may have been set in South Africa but it will speak to folk here in a way that few other works can do. This is not the first time Ballet Black has moved me. They did so the first time I saw Chris Marney's War Letters at the Bernie Grant Centre and they did so again last year with Cathy Marston's Suit. But I don't think the effect of those ballets was anything like as great or as longlasting as Ingoma.

Because he had created and staged Ingoma we did not see much of November this year. That was a shame because he has the habit of stealing shows as he did with Little Red Riding Hood (seeBallet Black Triumphant 7 March 2017). I have been following him since 2015 when he was with Ballet Central (see Dazzled3 May 2016). He appeared in Pendulum, the first ballet of the evening, with Sayaka Ichikawa. With music by Steve Reich this was a revival of a work that Martin Lawrence had created for the company in 2009. The wors starts with silence and then a gentle heartbeat cuts in. It gathers pace until it becomes compelling. This is a thrilling work amplified by those dancers' vigour.

The middle work was Ckixk! by Scottish Ballet's Sophie Lapllane whom I have long admired. It shows her sense of fun. Jose Alves, Isabela Coracy, Marie Astrid Mence, Cira Robinson and Ebony Thomas are in primary colours. The piece opens with some dialogue:

"Eddie consulted his therapist because he could not stop clicking his fingers,
The therapist asked Eddie why he thought he was clicking his fingers,
'To keep the tigers away' he replied.
'But Eddie there are no tigers here within 6,000 miles of here.'
'I know' he replied, 'It works pretty good."

Ballet Black can make us laugh just as easily as it can make us cry, This was our chance to laugh before Ingoma.

A sixth star of Click! was David Plater, the company's lighting designer. I have never mentioned him before and I should have done because he is a genius. Noweher did his genius shine more brightly than in Click! I love that piece and can't wait to see it again.

The company will tour Cambridge, Northampton and Bristol next month before venturing to Derby on 14 May and Birmingham on 23 and 24 May and Edinburgh on 8 June (see Upcoming Performances on its website. It has not announced a date just yet but it usually comes to Leeds in November. I shall see them at least a couple more times this year. I know this will be a season we shall long remember.

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing

Author: Willliam Blake
Source Wikipedia, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Chelmsford Ballet Company A Midsummer Night's Dream 20 March 2019 19:30 Chelmsford Civic Theatre

It is very hard for me to review a performance by the Chelmsford Ballet Company objectively because I am an associate member of the company. Because I live in Yorkshire I cannot participate in its performances but I have attended all its shows since 2014 and even one of its AGMs. I am very proud of my connection with the company. I have come to expect a lot from the Chelmsford Ballet and its dancers have always delivered. This year's show was no exception.

The evening was in three parts: it opened with preparations for Hippolyra's wedding to Theseus. It then switched to Coppelia starting with the dolls' scene, That comprised the whole of the first act. The second act was a transposition of the play without Pyramus and Thisbe. A computer-generated graphic flashing the years back to 1949 indicated why Coppelia had been substituted for the play within a play. Coppelia had been the company's first full-length ballet so there was no need for a lion, wall or even a man in the moon which would not have been easy for a choreographer transpose into dance. There are also some parallels between Hermia and Swanhilda in that Franz makes a pass at the strange new girl reading a book upside down but maybe that is reading too much into the juxtaposition of the Athenian wood and Swabian village.

Although I love Coppelia I enjoyed the second act much better than the first. It told the story beautifully. It started with the quarrel over the changeling boy and continued with the troubles of the lovers, Puck's blunder, Titania's infatuation with Bottom and the final reconciliation. I think Annette Potter was right to include Coppelia into the 70th-anniversary production though it might have been better to have Midsummer Night's Dream with an extract of Coppelia as part of a double bill.

There were some memorable performances. Andrew Potter danced both Dr Coppelius and Oberon. James Fletcher was a hilarious Botton. Olivia Riley was a splendid Puck. Women can often dance that role at least as successfully as men as Isabela Coracy has shown in Arthur Pita's version for Ballet Black. Titania, the fairies, lovers all danced well,

I have already mentioned the computer-generated graphics. Whoever created them for Chelmsford Ballet is a genius. I am surprised he has not been snapped up by New Adventures years ago. I think his best work was the overgrown palace in The Sleeping Beauty. The other things the company does particularly well are the costumes. They were gorgeous. Particularly the fairies' tutus and in some cases headgear.

Wednesday's opening night was attended by both of the company's patrons, Doreen Wells and Christopher Marney. Readers of this blog will know I have always been one of Marney's fans. Wells, who danced with what was then called the Touring Company, was one of the big names when I began to follow ballet. She was and remains one of my favourites. The city's lord mayor was in the audience resplendent in her chain of office. It was altogether a very good show. Well worth the long drive from Holmfirth,

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Dutch National Ballet Swan LakeThe Music Theatre, Amsterdam, 24 March 2019, 14:00

Rudi van Dantzig is one of three towering geniuses who have given Dutch ballet its reputation for excellence, The others are Hans van Manen and Toer van Schayk. Van Dantzig and van Schayk collaborated in the 1980s to stage one of the best versions of Swan Lake that I have ever seen.

As I entered the auditorium, I saw a screen bearing a likeness of Tchaikovsky, his name and the title of his ballet in Dutch and Russian. As the house lights faded and the orchestra struck up, the principal characters of the drama appeared behind the screen. The tale of Odette's enchantment by Von Rothbart is sketched out. The screen rose to reveal the palace gardens where Prince Siegfried's coming of age took place. From there until the final act the ballet proceeds in the same way as most other versions of Swan Lake until the last act. There, the story deviates.

According to the programme notes:

"Von Rothbart tries to drive Siegfried away from the lake, but although Siegfried manages to defy him, he drowns in the waters."

That appears to be an accident rather than a deliberate sacrifice by Siegfried and Odette to break von Rothbart's spell as in other versions. The drowning is represented by a pale blue sheet of silky material suddenly fanned across the stage. The lifeless Siegfried is carried ashore by his companion, Alexander. The programme concludes:

"In Alexander, Siegfried's ideals will live on."

That is how the ballet ends. No epilogue of lovers ascending to heaven on a swan-shaped barque as in the versions with which we are familiar.

Every performance of Swan Lake turns on its lead ballerina. She has to assume two very different personalities in the same work. There are some who dance Odette well but are less convincing as Odile and vice versa. The superabundantly talented Maia Makhateli can do both. She is pure and delicate as Odette and brazen and explosive as Odile. Never have I seen Legnani's 32 fouettés performed with greater aplomb. Her virtuosity is thrilling and her acting was compelling. She was perhaps the best Odette-Odile I have seen since Sibley.

Sibley was partnered in Swan Lake by Sir Anthony Dowell who later created a beautiful version of Swan Lake for the Royal Ballet. Comparisons are odious but Camargo does have a lot in common with Dowell. He is equally graceful and just as strong. His solo in the seduction scene was a thrill to watch emphasized by a single fiddler striking out his tune.

Swan Lake is a struggle between good and evil as personified by von Rothbart. Liam Scarlett portrays von Rothbart as a treacherous courtier as well as a magician. Indeed the costume and makeup department make him look like the real-life head of a nuclear-armed potential adversary. In that regard, he was truly scary. Van Dantzig dressed his evil one in a suit of green which is the colour of reptiles, slime and decay. Jared Wright flapped his wings with menace and paced the floor with foreboding.

Jane Lord, a former principal with the National Ballet who is now with the National Ballet Academy, danced Siegfried's mother. Tall and elegant she exuded regal authority. Her role is pivotal. By insisting on his contemplating marriage and acknowledging his state responsibilities, she started a chain of events that ended with the drowning of her son. The tragedy is that she brought about this catastrophe out of an abiding sense of duty. That prompted home thoughts from abroad about another female leader courting catastrophe as a result of such a sense of duty.

Van Danzig has expanded the role of the prince's companion. The companion is called "Alexander" in this work and the role was danced by Semyon Velichko. Alexander comforts the prince as he bemoans his approaching adulthood and state responsibility. He is with the prince when he is asked to choose a bride. He tries to warn the prince that Odile might not be Odette. Finally, as I observed above, it is he who retrieves Siegfried's body from the water. Benno plays a similar role in David Dawson'sSwan Lake for Scottish Ballet (see Empire Blanche: David Dawson's Swan Lake 4 June 2016). Since seeing van Dantzig's work I have been wondering just how far his Alexander inspired Dawson's Benno.

I was pleased to see that many of the dancers whose careers I follow closely were in yesterday's show. Maria Chugai (whom I had featured most recently in Meet Maria Chugai of the Dutch National Ballet on 8 March 2019) appeared with Vera Tsyganova as one of the two lead swans in act two. Chugai also led the Hungarian dance with Dario Elia. The czardas happens to be one bit of the ballet that I know well (see KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1 18 Aug 2015). I watched it particularly intently.

There were some interesting little touches in van Dantzig's ballet that I have not seen elsewhere. I have already mentioned the fiddler in the prince's solo during the seduction scene. Here is another. One of the prospective brides breaks from the others and hides. She is coaxed back by one of the other girls. When she dances, she does so with flamboyantly and energetically. On the other hand, no images of Odette fluttered onto the screen during the seduction scene or after the palace is destroyed.

I was delighted to see the pas de six which is often cut from other productions and I must congratulate Tsyganova, Martin ten Kortenaar, Jingjing Mao, Sem Sjouke, Floor Eimers and Timothy van Poucke on their performances. I liked all the divertissements but I think we do the Neapolitan dance better than HNB or, at least, Wayne Sleep did. Here is a clip of Sleep and Rosemary Taylor in that piece. I am glad to see that English National Ballet retains that choreography.

Yesterday's matinee was a stupendous performance that was aptly rewarded by a standing ovation, but not by many curtain calls. Had the show taken place in London there may not have been a standing ovation but there would have been umpteen curtain calls many for the lead dancers and the stage would have been covered with flowers. A bouquet certainly for Makhateli and probably also for Lord and several of the other female dancers who richly deserved them. Amsterdam and London are very close but we have very different ballet traditions. A ripple of applause meets a principal when he or she appears for the first time. We count Legnani's fouettés and explode with applause and roars on the 28th turn - never on the 27th nor the 29th. There was applause for Makhateli but it started just as Camargo got into his stride.

I could not say that this is my favourite Swan Lake. Derek Deane's for English National Ballet is very hard to beat (see English National Ballet's Swan Lake: Kanehara conquers the Empire 25 Nov 2018) and I also love David Dawson's for Scottish Ballet. However, it is certainly up there with them.

This show will continue until 2 June. There are convenient and inexpensive flights to Amsterdam from most British airports. My seat in the centre of row 14 of the stalls cost a mere €87 and that includes the programme. I have paid more than that for the amphitheatre before now. Tariffs for hotel accommodation, food, drinks and public transport are about the same as in Manchester. It would be a shame to miss this show.

Ballet Cymru Made in Wales Dance House, Cardiff, 22 March 2019 19:30

One of the reasons why the Dutch National Ballet is so strong is that it provides "a stepping stone for young dancers to make the leap from the Dutch National Ballet Academy to The Dutch National Ballet, Holland’s largest ballet company." That stepping stone is the Junior Company and it has launched the careers or some of HNB's most exciting young dancers such as Michaela DePrince, Martin Ten Kortenaaar, Riho Sakamoto and Sho Yamada.

I have often argued for a British junior company and I think I may have found one at Rogerstone in South Wales. Rogerstone is a small town near Newport where Ballet Cymru is located. One of Ballet Cymru's initiatives is a Pre-Professional Programme for "talented, aspiring and highly motivated young dancers with bold ambitions." Like the Junior Company, the Pre-Professional Programme is "designed to facilitate the transition from full time training into professional company life in a focused, nurturing environment."

Last Thursday, I was lucky enough to meet those motivated young dancers and to watch them rehearse. There are 13 of them:

Natalia Cimpeanu
Beau Dillen
Kibyusa Forcos
Anais Gentjens
Colleen Grace
Emma Ikavalko
Caitlin Liston
Renan Alvez Manhaes
Sophie Morris
Guilia Machado Rossi
Michaela Skuce
Naomi Stientstra, and
Ann Wall.

They come from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Romania, the UK and Ukraine and have trained at some of the world's top ballet schools such as the Australian Conservatoire, Ballet West, English National Ballet School, the International Dance Academy of Berlin, Kiev State Choreographic College, the National Ballet School of Finland, Northern Ballet Academy, the RAD Academy, Royal Ballet School of Flanders, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School and the State School of Municipal Theatre in Rio de Janeiro.

They have all done well to have progressed as far as they have. Awareness that they have achieved a lot gives them confidence and poise in their dance but there is no cockiness about them. They are 13 of the most likeable young people that I have ever met or am ever likely to meet. When we discussed connections I told Sophie Morris, who had graduated from Ballet West, that I had attended the first year undergraduates' class with Jonathan Barton and that I have dined out about it ever since. They laughed heartily imagining the honour to have attended such a class but also the exertion it must have required of me (see Visiting Taynuilt 6 May 2018).

The piece the dancers rehearsed for me was an excerpt of As We Are choreographed by Emma Lewis who had been teaching them when I arrived. They were to perform it the following evening at the Dance House in Cardiff. Ballet Cymru had very kindly offered me a ticket to the show which I had declined as I had to be in Leeds to set up Powerhouse Ballet's company class on Saturday morning. After watching those angels move I just had to see them again even if though it would mean driving through the night to Yorkshire. I asked whether I could change my mind about the ticket and, happily, I could.

The Dance House is behind the Wales Millennium Centre, an auditorium that I had visited once before to see Ballet Cymru's Little Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs (see Ballet Cymru's 'Sleeping Beauty' Moment 5 Dec 2016). It is very close to the National Assembly for Wales and reminded me of The Quays near Manchester with its waterfront, pubs and restaurants and expensive looking flats and townhouses. The Dance House is the home of the National Dance Company of Wales which is a frequent and very welcome visitor to the North of England.

The Cardiff Dance House is somewhat smaller than ours in Manchester but it appears to be very well equipped. The auditorium reminds me of the Stanley and Audrey Burton in Leeds and the Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler's Wells in that it is a very intimate space. The front row is within inches of the dancers.

We saw five pieces on 22 March 2019:

Excerpts from Child's Christmas by Darius James OBE and Amy Doughty
As We Are by Emma Lewis
Concerto Junkins by Alex Hallas
Ex Situ by Jack Philps, and
Divided We Stand by Patricia Vallis.

Each work was introduced by a short video from the choreographer just as the Junior Company's shows.

The Child's Christmas is very familiar to me as I had seen it in Leeds and Bangor and described it aptly as the company's best work ever (see Ballet Cymru's Dylan Thomas Programme: The Company's Best Work Ever 13 Dec 2018). I had even danced a little bit of In My Craft or Sullen Art at Ballet Cymru's workshop in Leeds on 28 Nov 2018 (see More than a Bit Differently: Ballet Cymru's Workshop and the Launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle 29 Nov 2018). When the words "Not for the proud man apart" I felt myself bracing as I had been taught to do in the workshop.

I loved all the works but one that made a particularly deep impression on me was Alex Hallas's Jenkins Concerto. That is partly because I like Carl Jenkins's music and in particular, The Armed Man and Dies Irae which formed the bulk of Hallas's contribution, partly because it was an opportunity for Renan Alvez Manhaes (the only gentleman on the course) to show his potential which is considerable and partly because the ballet enabled all the artists to shine. Not an easy work but, I should imagine, an immensely satisfying one to perform.

Hallas, a Yorkshireman, has impressed me several times in Ballet Cymru's Cinderella and the Dylan Thomas double bill and Ballet West's The Nutcracker. He attended our reception in Leeds after Ballet Cymru's workshop and he taught at KNT's Day of Dance in December. I have booked him for a workshop for Powerhouse just as soon as he is free. Maybe he can teach us some of his Concerto Jenkins or other choreography.

Even though I had to stop for an espresso at every service station between Cardiff and Sheffield and arrived so full of caffeine that I could not sleep once I made it to my bed in Holmfirth at 05:45, I would not have missed the evening for all "the cats in Wales standing on a wall" with a 6 foot drift of snow. Or, indeed, even a fire in Mrs Prothero's parlour.

English National Ballet's Swan Lake: Kanehara conquers the Empire

More than a Bit Differently: Ballet Cymru's Workshop and the Launch of the Powerhouse Ballet Circle

Christmas at the Dancehouse

Ballet Cymru's Dylan Thomas Programme: The Company's Best Work Ever

Northern Ballet's "The Nutcracker" - All My Favourite Artists in the Same Show

Cinderella in the Stopera

The Nutcracker returns to the Royal Albert Hall

Powerhouse Ballet January Update

Ballet West's Best Show Ever

Hampson's Cinderella: Coming up Roses

A Fille that owes Nothing to Ashton or Lanchbery

Dawson's "Requiem"

An Exceptional Weekend

Meet Maria Chugai of the Dutch National Ballet

A Great Send-off for a Great Lady

Phoenix Comes of Age with its Rite of Spring

Stunning - Ballet Black's Triple Bill

Chelmsford Ballet's Seventieth Anniversary Show

Van Dantzig's "Swan Lake"

Made in Wales