Terpsichore

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Royal Ballet Don Quixote 30 March 2019, 13:30, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Except when I was a graduate student in Los Angeles, I have visited Covent Garden several times a year, every year, since 1969. Seldom have I enjoyed a performance at the Royal Opera House more than last Saturday's matinee of Don Quixote. I had already seen that production several times in the cinema and once on television and had been somewhat underwhelmed by those transmissions (see ¡Por favor! Don Quixote streamed to Huddersfield 17 Oct 2013). I think that must be because no screening comes close to communicating the colour, movement and energy of the live show.

Although Gerard Davis referred to this production by Carlos Acosta as a remake in the programme notes, it seems to be pretty much the same as other companies' versions of the ballet. The prologue begins with the dotty Don Quixote sheltering the shoplifting Sancho Panza. The rogue kits the old man out with a bedpost for a lance and a shaving bowl for a helmet. He is dubbed a knight by an imagined dulcinea and is confronted immediately by equally imaginary hooded demons. As in other versions, he meets Kitri and Don Basilio in the town square and helps them elope. On their travels, they meet gipsies. He falls ill fighting ambulatory windmills. In his delirium dreams of dryads or tree spirits. They return to the town where Kitri's suitor is partnered up, KitrI marries Don Basilio and Don Quixote and his squire slip away for more adventures. I understand that the score had been rearranged and reorchestrated by Martin Yates but I did not detect any variations even though I know the music well. Aspects of the show that impressed me particularly were the lavishness of Tim Hatley's sets and costumes and the slickness and energy of the dancing.

My enjoyment of the show was facilitated greatly by the casting of Alexander Campbell as Don Basilio. A year or so ago I read about his taking part in a scheme by the RAD and MCC to encourage kids to take up ballet and cricket. Perfectly natural in my view as I have always had a passion for the two. I think it was Arnold Haskell who observed that cricket had predisposed the British to ballet pointing out many parallels between the two. Like another of my favourites, Xander Parish, Campbell had been a promising cricketer as a boy. I had long surmised that that might be the case before I had read that article for Campbell commands the stage like a batsman at the crease. There is something about his manner - perhaps his grin - that makes it impossible not to like him. He wielded his guitar while wooing the coquettish Kitri as an extension of himself just as a batsman holds his bat. As he seized her fan in the same scene I imagined his diving for a catch. In his jumps and lifts, he is much an athlete as an artist. It may be a figment of my imagination as it may be have been years since he last played the game, but I think that his youthful cricketing prowess has contributed more than a little to his appeal as a dancer.

Campbell's Kitri was the Brazilian first soloist, Mayara Magri, She excelled in that role. I was told by a well-informed acquaintance whom I met in the interval that last Saturday's matinee had been her debut. If that was the case, her performance was all the more impressive. I mentioned her coquetry in the previous paragraph but the role also requires virtuosity and prodigious stamina. She displayed those qualities in abundance, particularly in the last act where she dances in the pub and in the final pas de deux where she performs lots of fouettés. She dazzled me with those displays.

Other artists who particularly delighted me included Itziar Mendizabal as Mercedes, Claire Calvert as the queen of the dryads. Lara Turk as the Dulcinea and, of course, Gary Avis as Don Quixote. It was also good to see Jonathan Howells as Sancho Panza. I had been looking forward to seeing Thomas Whitehead as Gamache. I am one of his fans and that is not just because he comes from Bradford. That role was danced by Benet Gartside whom I also follow. I hope that Whitehead's absence was not the result of injury or illness but, if it was, I wish him a full and speedy recovery. Valentino Zucchetti had been advertised to dance the matador and he was also indisposed through illness or injury. I wish him a full and speedy recovery too. He was replaced if my memory is correct, by Reece Clark but sadly he was also hurt and had to be replaced (I think) by Thomas Mock. Like the rest of the cast, Mock and Clark danced well. I wish Clark too a full and complete recovery. I congratulate everyone who took part in that performance.

I have been lucky enough to see two other fine performances of Don Quixote. On Christmas day of 2017, I saw Mathieu Ganio and Isabella Boylston in the ballet company of the Paris Opera (see
Paris Opera Ballet's Don Quixote 28 Dec 2017). I wrote:

"Spectacular choreography needs virtuoso dancers and Isabella Boylston is a virtuoso par excellence. She launches into grands jetes almost as soon as she appears on stage and hers seemed as graceful and effortless as any I have seen before. She danced Kitri who ends the show with spectacular fouettés. I have seen plenty of those from lots of Odiles but the excitement that Boylston generated with hers at the Bastille last night could not have been exceeded by Legnani herself."

A few weeks later, on 28 Feb 2019, I was delighted again by Sho Yamada and Riho Sakamoto in the lead roles in the Dutch National Ballet's performance of that work (see A Day of Superlatives - Dutch National Ballet's Don Quixote 1 March 2018). I enjoyed that show a lot:

"I don't think I have ever seen a better Don Quixote even though I have seen artists like Isabella Boylston and Marianela Nuñez dance Kitri and Carlos Acosta dance Don Basilio. Above all, I don't think I have ever seen the Dutch National Ballet dance better."

Comparisons between three great performances by three great national companies would be odious. They all had strengths. For me, the Royal Ballet's were Hatley's designs and the casting of Campbell, Magri and Avis. It is enough for me to say that the Royal Ballet's Don Quixote is right up there in my esteem with the Paris Opera's and HNB's.

Without wishing to be too political I had booked my ticket to Don Quixote to cheer me up for what had been scheduled to be the day after brexit. As it happened it wasn't but that has prompted me to think of parallels. Don Quixote lived in the past and looked back to a mythical golden age. In that regard, he reminds me very much of our brexiteer MPs living in the past with their notions of English exceptionalism being the modern equivalent of courtly love and chivalry. The battle with the windmills raises obvious analogies with our noble ministers battling against an intransigent commission. Cervantes intended his novel to be a satire. He would have had a field day had he been alive now.

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Source Wikipedia Queen Victoria

Northern Ballet Victoria 6 April 2019 Curve, Leicester

"How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear Queen!" The Oxford Essential Quotations attributes that remark to A Laugh A Day Keeps the Doctor Away by the American humorist, Irvin S Cobb which was published in 1924. It is said to have been overheard at a performance of Antony and Cleopatra in which Sarah Bernhardt played Cleopatra.

The conversation is probably apocryphal but the reason why the quotation is remembered is that the home life of Queen Victoria was unremarkable. Of course, there was sex. How could it be otherwise with 9 children? But it was almost certainly within marriage notwithstanding speculation over her relationships with John Brown and Abdul Karim. Queen Victoria gave her name to an age of momentous cultural, economic, political, scientific, social and technological change throughout the world but, as a constitutional monarch, she had very little to do with any of that.

According to "Creating Victoria" in the programme the idea of a ballet about Queen Victoria was David Nixon's. He asked Cathy Marston whether she would be interested in making such a work, Evidently, someone mentioned the TV series for Marsrion spent part of a weekend watching a recording of the series before deciding to accept.

To make a full-length ballet about a home life that is a byword for respectability and normality must have been something of a challenge. Marston responded to that challenge by selecting incidents from the queen's life that she had recorded in her diary. Those incidents were presented not as they had happened but as they had been perceived by Princess Beatrice upon reading her mother's diary for the first time. An impression was given that some of those incidents bordered on the scandalous for there were for there were several scenes where Beatrice tore pages from the diary.

On the whole, I think Marston's approach worked well, particularly in the second act. There were moments of great beauty such as the passionate duet of the queen and prince consort towards the end. There were also some comic moments such as the childbirth scenes with Mlindi Kulashe delivering baby after baby. Some of the scenes in the first act were still lost me even though I had seen them before and had read and digested the synopsis. Someone - I could not work out who it was - drew a revolver and shot John Brown. I could find no reference to that in the synopsis. It certainly did not happen in real life for Brown died in his bed in Windsor. I had a vague recollection from my criminal law studied that Queen Victoria survived an assassination attempt because it was from that incident that we have got the M'Naghten rules but it seems to have nothing to so with that. I concluded that the assassination must have been an analogue for character assassination. There were several other analogues in the piece such as the ritual kissing of the queen's feet.

The cast I saw in Leicester was almost the same as the one I saw in Leeds (see A Great Send-off for a Great Lady 17 March 2019). Abigail Prudames was the queen, Joseph Taylor the prince consort, Pippa Moore was Beatrice and Kulashe doubled as John Brown as well as an obstetrician. All the cast danced well but I particularly enjoyed their interaction with a curious piece of furniture that I can best describe as a Victorian round sofa and their tussle over the red dispatch boxes. Everybody in the show danced well and it would be unjust for me to select any for special praise,

Steffen Aarfing's set worked well. A semicircular structure doubled as a gallery in a palace and the stacks of a library. I am not quite so satisfied with the costumes. The queen's white gown with its blue sash was effective. The red and cream costumes of the corps were less so. Philip Feeney's score was pleasant enough. It was said to be derived from the music of the period. I am sure that must be so but I struggle to remember a note of it even though I have heard it twice.

Though the auditorium was far from full the audience seemed to appreciate the show. There was some cheering and the curious masculine growls that one sometimes hears in live streaming from the Bolshoi and even Covent Garden. Several folk in the stalls rose to their feet which does not happen quite so often in England as in other countries. I think Northern Ballet can chalk up Saturday evening's performance as a success.

The ballet's tour continues to Edinburgh, Cardiff, Milton Keynes and Belfast and it will be streamed to cinemas throughout the nation on 25 June 2019. I think it is worth seeing and probably more than once since I appreciated it more the second time around. Marston is a master of her craft and while I still prefer The Suite and Jane Eyre I appreciate Victoria. Her many fans (of whom I am one) can look forward to her Snowblind which the San Francisco Ballet will bring to London at the end of May and beginning of June. We will have another chance to see The Suit in Birmingham in September

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Phoenix Dance TheatreThe Rite of Spring and Left Unseen 9 April 2019, 19:30 CAST in Doncaster

On 8 March 2019, I saw Phoenix Dance Theatre perform Jeanguy Saintus's Rite of Spring with a live orchestra on the main stage of the Lowry Theatre. It was a magnificent performance that I described as Phoenix's coming of age. It had been part of an evening of dance and song - a very successful collaboration with Opera North that I should like to see repeated.

On 9 April 2019, I saw the Rite of Spring again at the Cast in Doncaster as part of a double bill with Left Unseen by Amaury Lebrun. The company had already performed those works in Poole and will take them to Malvery, Keswick, Dundee, Cheltenham and the Peacock.

The evening opened with Left Unseen which is the first of Lebrun's works that I have seen. However, we shall shortly see another because he told me that he has been commissioned to create a work for Northern Ballet. Lebrun was born in France and trained at the School of the Ballet du Nord in Roubaix and the School of American Ballet in New York. He danced with several companies before joining the Compania Nacional de Danza in Spain as a principal.

Left Unseen opens with a spotlit single dancer. According to the programme notes, the work explores inclusion and isolation. I was particularly impressed by an interaction between Prentice Whitlow and Vanessa Vince-Pang. She reaches out to him but he recoils from her. She tries again to similar effect. He approaches her but she steps aside. He tries again but she pushes him out of the way. Finally, she leaps onto his back as an act of aggression - not of affection. The score was contributed by Alva Noto, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Hildur Guðnadóttir. It was integrated into a single piece so seamlessly that I thought it had been a single work.

The main difference between the performances of the Rite of Spring at the Lowry and the Cast is that the company had to rely on recorded music in Doncaster. They have chosen a very good recording by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Pierre Boulez. The work that the Ballets Russes had performed in Paris in 2013 had been set in Pre-Christian Russia. Using the same score by Stravinsky, Saintus set his work in contemporary Haiti drawing heavily on voudou rituals that invoke Ogou (the spirit of fire, iron, war and blacksmiths), the Marasa (divine twins) and Damballa (the serpent spirit and creator of life). In Saintus's version as in the Ballets Russes', there is a chosen one but she is chosen not for sacrifice but to host the spirit of Damballa.

I was much closer to the stage in Doncaster than I had been in Salford and I could see and admire the intricate robes worn by both male and female dancers with their tassels and drapery. For one of the movements, two of the dancers' hands were coloured green, For another, the hands of all the dancers were coloured red. At one point a red cushion which I had assumed to be a heart was passed on stage but, on reflection, I think it may have been the spirit of Damballa.

Saintus's production is an original work anchored in the traditions of the Caribbean and probably also Africa. However, I also think it is a very faithful one. As I said in my previous review, Nijinsky's shade would not have been troubled by Saintus's reimagining. There is something unsettling about the idea of human sacrifice even though it is only on the stage. That was largely absent in Saintus's work. It felt like a celebration rather than an oblation.

KNT Danceworks has held three Day of Dance events at the Dancehouse studios. For a Day of Dance, Karen Sant hires guest teachers from the stage and leading ballet schools. She has brought us Harriet Mills, principal ballerina of the Karlsruhe Ballet, Alex Hallas of Ballet Cymru, Martin Dutton of the Hammond and other great teachers. I have attended all three of those events. They have all been good but, last Saturday's was perhaps the best one yet.

Ironically, I very nearly missed the event even though I had been looking forward to it from the day it had been announced. That was because I could barely walk on Saturday. My legs were like jelly - or rather melting sorbet - and I was stiff and achy in every single limb and muscle. I could barely step into the shower. How on earth was I to achieve ronds de jambe let alone grands battements? Reluctantly I messaged Karen to say I was unlikely to make it. Sympathetically she advised me to rest up.

So I abandoned plans to visit Manchester and settled in front of a computer screen to write about trade marks. But then tweets and Facebook messages about the morning's sessions started to ping. I thought about what I was missing. I tried to put the Day of Dance out of my mind but I couldn't. Even if I did not dance a step I still wanted to be at the Dancehouse. I quickly donned some leggings and a leotard and set off for Manchester. There was no way I could arrive in time for the 13:30 class but I could still make the 15:00 one.

I arrived at 13:45 by which time Amanda Van Hoof Gilliland would have been on glissés if not further into the barre. She subsequently informed me that she would have let me join the class late. I have done that with teachers I know but I had not previously taken a class with Amanda. In any case, arriving late is discourteous to other students as well as the instructor. I waited in the cafeteria until the class was due to end before making my way to the studio where it was taking place in order to find my classmates. I caught the last few minutes and could see it was good. Amanda received resounding applause at the reverence. I shall certainly look out for one of her classes in future.

The class that I did join was excellent. It was given by Joey Taylor of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. He taught us the Jack in the Box solo from the first act of Sir Peter Wright's version of The Nutcracker. That is a production that I know very well. I had last seen it at the Albert Hall just after Christmas with my former ward and her little boy, Vladimir, who are the nearest I have to a daughter and grandson. In my review, The Nutcracker returns to the Royal Albert Hall30 Dec 2019, I wrote:

"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 are 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."

Vlad loves ballet and The Nutcracker in particular. One of the bits that he liked best was the Jack in the Box solo. He applauded until the palms of his hard were sore.

It is a very fast piece. It starts with 4 jumps followed by 4 grands battements then 4 sets back in arabesque, a soutenu, some spectacular tours en l'air, then some steps to the left which I can't even begin to describe, a gesture to the children at Mr and Mrs Stahlbaum's party, a coupé, two cartwheels, a run around the stage, more jumps and finally a collapse into a box. It is over very quickly but requires a lot of energy and even more skill. Needless to say, I did not achieve very much of that though I did do some despite the discomfort. But several members of our group did manage more. In particular, Christie Louise Barnes, who is a member of the cast of Powerhouse Ballet's Aria, performed some very impressive cartwheels. I should add that she is one of the most congenial persons I know and working with her on the Aria project has been a pleasure.

One of the reasons why I had crossed the Pennines was to answer questions on the constitution and business plan for Powerhouse Ballet that I had drafted on Friday (see Please do not let Powerhouse Ballet wither on the Vine 20 April 2019 Powerhouse Ballet). I have been running Powerhouse Ballet in my spare time meeting the odd expense here and there as and when it arrived which was fine for the first few months but not for the long term. Hopefully, we shall have an organization in place to take over the management of the company after 4 May 2019 when we make our debut at KNT's Tenth Anniversary gala.

I met lots of dancers from Powerhouse Ballet as well as the regulars from KNT. They are the loveliest bunch of people one could ever hope to meet. Karen once referred to us as "the KNT family." That's not a bad description. I am so glad I made the effort to attend the Day of Dance on Saturday.

Theatre Severn from the Welsh Bridge, Shrewsbury

Birmingham Royal Ballet Seasons in the World/Peter and the Wolf Saturday, 18 May 2019m 19:30, Theatre Severn

Great dance is not always to be found in great theatres in major cities. Some of the best shows that I have seen have been in places like Heerlen and Oban. Yesterday I saw another at Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury. It was a double bill consisting of Seasons in Our World by Laura Day, Kit Holder and Lachlan Monaghan and Peter and the Wolf by Ruth Brill.

On the train back to Manchester I tweeted

@BRB, I have been following you even before you went to @brumhippodrome and have seen some great shows but tonight at @theatresevern was a high point. Huge congratulations to all the artists and choreographers, particularly @ruthbrill. Her Peter & Wolf comparable with Facades.
— Terpsichore (@jelterps) 18 May 2019

This was not hyperbole or flattery. It came from the heart after a lifetime of ballet going. Nobody should be surprised by this because touring with innovative works is what the Birmingham Royal Ballet has always done and has always done well. Indeed, as the company's director reminded us in his programme, Dancing in the Blitz, its wartime tours of airfields, camps, factories and naval bases during the second world war did much to sustain military and civilian morale as well as introduce a whole new public to ballet.

The two works were different but complementary. Seasons in Our World was created by three different choreographers to a new score by Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian. Brill reinterpreted a score and monologue that many if not most members of the audience will have known backwards. Both works shared the same designer and lighting designer, Spike Kilburn and Peter Teigen. I had already seen work by Brill (Matryoshka and Arcadia) and Holder (Hopper and To Fetch a Pail of Water) which I admired greatly but Day and Monaghan were new to me as choreographers. Having seen Day's Spring and Monaghan's Summer and Autumn I hope to see much more work from each of them in future.

Seasons in our World consisted of five movements starting and ending with Spring. The dancers performed around a single grill-like stage item that was transformed by Teigen's lighting from growth and abundance in Spring to barrenness in Winter reinforced with the sound of pelting rain. According to the programme notes, the ballet was inspired by a poem entitled Seasons by David Laing. David Bintley used it as "the basis for a new ballet created by young choreographers, designers and composer that would be suited to being taken outside the regular major venue circuit." According to Day and Brill who spoke about their works just before the show, it has been performed in Laing's county town of Northampton, Day's home town of Cheltenham and now Shrewsbury and will be taken to Malvern and Wolverhampton.

My favourite bit of the work was Day's Spring and particularly the jaunty, cheery dance by Miki Mitzutani, James Barton and Gus Payne in green that opened and closed the piece. The music helped. An easy to remember tune - so easy, in fact, that I can't get it out of my head. Summer was brown and languid with Samara Downs and Yasuo Atsuji. In his programme notes, David Mead explains how Monaghan wanted to get away from the mildness of the British temperate summer and explore the harshness of the Australian season with drought and bush fires, especially as the world's climate zones are showing signs of changing. Holder's Winter was also harsh but also magical with snow. And before we know it we were back to Spring.

I can see why Bintley commissioned the work for the smaller Midland's venues. It was experimental work with new choreographers and composer that could easily have gone wrong. But it didn't. I hope he and his successor, Carlos Acosta, keep Seasons in our World in the repertoire and show it in places like Sadler's Wells and the Hippodrome. I think Londoners and Brummies would like it.

Peter and the World is just so well known and well loved it could not possibly fail to appeal. I first heard the score and dialogue on Children's Favourites with Uncle Mac on the Light Programme in the early 1950s and I have seen countless performances in various genres on different mediums at different levels of performance ever since. So, no doubt, would a lot of other people in the audience,

Yet Brill created something new. First, she set it in the urban wilderness and not a rural one. The set was scaffolding. A tree only in a child's imagination. There was a pond for a duck that was probably a burst water main or a crater. And the wolf was very much of the two-footed kind as in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Little Red Riding Hood. Secondly, she cast Day as Peter, Tori Forsyth-Hecken, Alys Shee and Eilis Small as the hunters and Tzu-Chao Chou as the little bird. I have to be careful here for I once got into trouble with several of the company's dancers by discerning a dimension that upset them but I detected a feminist twist here. If Peter is a boy and the hunters are men, as they usually are, it is the female duck that is eaten by the male wolf (Mathias Dingman) it is the makes who remove the pest and lead him into captivity. Whether intended or not there was a strong feminist twist Brill made it clear that women can take care of threats without the need for heroes thanks very much.

Day may have been cast as a boy but she danced like a girl and one with spirit - particularly when her granddad (Barton) scooped her from the meadow (building site) and lectured her about keeping safe. Like a girl, she showed ingenuity in catching the wolf and I think also like a girl she interceded with the hunters to save its life. Downs made a great cat. I loved the way she probed the air with her paw just like a real moggy. And there was a lovely performance of the duck by Shee taking the place of Brooke Ray. I enjoyed her riposte to the bird's taunt: "What sort of bird are you if you can't fly?"

Peter and the Wolf will be danced in Birmingham and London as well as other places and I think audiences will love it. There is a lovely trailer on Vimeo to whet my readers' appetite,

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Ballet Cymru Rome a Juliet 31 May 2019 Riverfront Theatre, Newport

This is the third time I have seen Darius James and Amy Doughty's Romeo a Juliet and each time I see it I have found something new. Last night I saw two exceptional talents: Danila Marzilli, one of the finalists in the ballet category of the BBC Young Dancer of 2019, for the first time; and Beau Dillen whom I had seen two months earlier in Made in Wales. Marzilli danced Juliet in the second professional performance of her life (the first being the previous night) and Dillen the nurse, standing in for Krystal Lowe at the very last moment.

To give a young dancer straight out of ballet school the leading role is an incredibly risky thing to do both for the dancer and the company. James and Doughty did that once before with Gwenllian Davies the last time I saw Romeo a Juliet and it worked spectacularly well (see A Romeo and Juliet for Our Times 7 Nov 2016). It also worked last night with Mazilli. Mazilli is very accomplished technically but she can also act. The despair in the bedroom was palpable after Romeo had taken flight and her parents, grief-stricken with the loss of Tybalt, were piling on the pressure for her to marry Paris. So, too, was the fear as she considered whether to take Friar Larence's potion. So, also, was the agony of finding Romeo's body in the Capulet family grave. These and all the other thoughts and feelings fleeting through young Juliet's consciousness were communicated with considerable eloquence.

In most versions of Rome and Juliet and, of course, the play the nurse is much older than Juliet and her social inferior. In James and Doughty she is a confidante. In previous performances by this company, she has been called Cerys. In last night's show, she was referred to simply as "Juliet's friend." As such, she adds a dynamic to the narrative that actually enhances Shakespeare. She recognizes Romeo at her parents' ball and tries to lead Juliet away. She tries to intercede with Juliet as she rejects Paris. It is she who finds Juliet stone cold the morning of her wedding. This is a role that requires maturity and authority which is why it is usually performed by one of the company's most experienced dancers. Dillen is the company's apprentice yet she filled that role magnificently.

Romeo was danced by Andrea Maria Battagia who performed that role the last time I saw the ballet. He is everything a male lead should be. A virtuoso who thrills with his solos but nevertheless displays his ballerina like the setting of a precious jewel so that she dazzles. I think we owe a lot to Battagia for the way he partnered Mazilli last night, much as he did with Davies in 2016. Battagia can also act. For the first time ever I saw Romeo as a flawed hero. Possibly because he despatched Tybalt and Paris with plebian knives rather than gentlemen's swords. A whiff of brexit Britain rather than renaissance Verona.

That brings me on to another quality of James and Doughty's work. It is set in our time and our country. The first time I saw the work I noted Tybalt's dragon tattoo and the substitution of Cerys as a confidante of Juliet in place of the nurse (see They're not from Chigwell - they're from a small Welsh Town called Newport 14 May 2013). Instead of a duke, the brawl between the Capulets and the Montagues is broken up by the flashing lights and shadowy figures of the Gwent Constabulary. The knifings of Mercutio and Tybalt took place not in the Piazza of Verona but underneath the flyover of the exit lane from the bridge over the Usk. I recognized the setting in the projections against the backdrop. Again there were the flashing lights of the Heddlu.

Talking of Tybalt it is always a delight to watch Robbie Moorcroft swagger on stage. Our hearts go out for Miguel Fernandes as Mercutio, the cub of the Montague pack with something to prove. Romeo tried to hold him back but too late. He takes on the wily Tybalt who knifes him. His bravado after his first wound is one of the most heart-rending scenes of classical dance. The second knifing turns Romeo and Juliet from a saccharine romance into drama. Romeo has to get involved. He then has to go on the run. There is no way this story could end otherwise than badly.

Lord and Lady Capulet danced by two of my favourite dancers, Alex Hallas and Beth Meadway, added yet another quality to the work. Other productions show a tearful, vengeful Lady Capulet but her husband's role is usually minor. Not in James and Doughty's work. They are sleek, powerful, authoritarian - and Northern. It just so happens they are both from Yorkshire. I could almost hear them:

"Now listen up, our kid. There's nowt wrong with Paris. You could do a lot worse than wed him. I know he's not much to look at but he's got brass and he's not wanted by the law. Not like that Romeo Montague. Ooh, I do hope they catch him, lock him up and throw away the key. How could you even look at him after what he did to Tybalt?"

And with her friend joining in, is it any wonder that Juliet buried her face in a pillow before quaffing Friar Lawrence's potion and eventually killing herself?

Everyone in this show danced well. Joshua Feist was a perfect Paris, another recent recruit whose career I shall follow with interest. Isobel Holland was an impressive Friar Lawrence. Much closer to Shakespeare than the manipulative cleric in Jean-Christophe Maillot's version of the ballet. Maria Teresa Brunello was a convincing Benvolio. Not easy to dance a role of the opposite gender. Holland and Brunello are to be congratulated for that alone. Especially as there are some in ballet who would not countenance it. I recently met a teacher and choreographer who was scandalized by my learning to dance the bronze idol in an adult ballet intensive.

James and Doughty have big plans for their company. They are touring China soon where I am sure they will be admired. They hope to employ their dancers on full-term rather than short-term contracts. Ballet Cymru reminds me a lot of Scottish Ballet when they first moved to Glasgow 50 years ago.

Like Scotland in the 1970s, Wales is changing fast. I sense a growing sense of nationhood. The National Assembly now makes primary legislation. The Supreme Court already sits in Cardiff and there are calls even from Unionists for a separate Welsh court system. Until a few years ago the economy of the North was largely rural and that of the South was not unlike that of the American rust belt. The economy is changing rapidly into one that is knowledge-based. I see signs of that transformation every time I visit M-Sparc, Aber Innovation or the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre. The entrepreneurs, innovators and creative folk who are driving that change need the arts and expect the best. They demand world-class dance and Ballet Cymru is delivering it to them.

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The San Francisco Ballet The Infinite Ocean, Snowblind and Björk Ballet 1 June 2019, 14:00 Sadler's Wells

The San Francisco Ballet was founded in 1933 which makes it one of the oldest ballet companies in the United States. It was founded by William, Harold and Lew Christiansen who were born in Utah. They were the first American company to dance Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. Balanchine was an important influence but he was not the wellspring of inspiration. There have been plenty of other influences from around the world including Buornonville, Ashton and van Manen Helgi Tomasson, the company's artistic director since 1985, was born, trained and began his career in Iceland. The San Francisco Balet is therefore different from the companies on the East Coast and in many respects much more interesting.

The company has brought a portfolio of new work to London which includes many ballets by British choreographers such as David Dawson, Cathy Marston, Arthur Pita and Liam Scarlett. Having seen Jane Eyre, The Suit and Victoria I am something of a Marston fan. When I heard that Marston had been commissioned to create a work for the San Francisco Ballet to be premiered on my 70th birthday I seriously considered a trip to San Francisco as a birthday treat to myself. Happily, I did not have to cross the Atlantic because the company has brought Marston's new ballet to London.

The new work is called Snowblind. It is a one-act ballet which forms part of a triple bill. The other works in the programme were Edwaard Liang's The Infinite Oceanand Arthur Pita's Björk Ballet. I do not recall seeing anything by Liang at all but I have seen Arthur Pita's Dream within Midsummer Night's Dream for Ballet Black at least 8 times plus once in rehearsal and I love it to bits.

Although I must have seen the San Francisco Ballet when I was a graduate student at UCLA in the early 1970s because I spent much of my time watching ballet, I do not have a clear recollection of them as I do American Ballet Theatre, the New York City Ballet and the Dance Theatre of Harlem. I do not think they were as well known or well regarded in those days as they are now. I had seen many snippets of their performances on YouTube as they were one of the Royal Ballet's partners on World Ballet Day. I knew they were good but I did not know that they were that good until I saw them in the flesh yesterday. Some of their physical feats - particularly by the women - were amazing. In The Infinite Ocean, for example, there were several scenes where they on pointe with their lower legs ramrod straight but their upper legs forming a perfect 90 degrees but their upper bodies bolt upright. That must have been so uncomfortable, yet they kept it up for some time.

The title of Liang's work was inspired by a Facebook message from a friend who was suffering from a terminal illness:

“I will see you on the other side of the infinite ocean.”

According to the programme notes, Liang lost his father to cancer at the age of 13. His ballet is an exploration of the time between life and death. I was expecting something morbid but it was far from that. The ballet opened with the dancers clad in gold and white walking slowly towards a golden orb like the sun to the music of Oliver Davis played on a Stradivarius violin by Cordelia Merks. I was reminded a little bit of Macmillan's Gloria which was also set against a slope though I only noticed it in the last moments of Liang's piece when one of the dancers suddenly dropped behind it. There were 12 dancers in the piece including duets by the principal dancers, Sofiane Sylve with Tiit Helimets and Yuan Yuan Tan with Vitor Luiz. The impression I formed was that each character was facing his or end in a different way, some with resignation, others with serenity and yet others with regret. Something that we all have to think about but never do.

Snowblind is a narrative ballet inspired by Edith Wharton'sEthan Frome of which I regret to say I had never heard until I read about it in the programme notes. It appears to be a very simple story of a husband with an infirm and ever demanding wife in a remote farmstead who falls in love with a young woman he employs to care for his wife with predictable consequences. The set is very plan. There is a bed for the wife and a chair for husband. The husband meets the young woman at what appears to be a square dance. She is resplendent in red while all the rest are in featureless grey. For her score, Marston approached Philip Feeney who arranged the music with pieces by Amy Beach, Arthur Foot and Arvo Pärt. The husband, Ethan, was danced by Ulrik Birkkjaer, the wife by Jennifer Stahl and the woman in red by Mathilde Froustey. A hallmark of Marston's work is what I call the dance equivalent of the chorus in classical Greek drama. I had first seen that technique in Jane Eyre and she used it very effectively in The Suit. The ballet opened with the chorus bending in the wind like snowflakes in a blizzard. This is the best work from Marston that I have seen so far - or perhaps, less pretentiously, the work I have enjoyed most. She appears to be very busy with new commissions. I look forward very much to seeing her next one.

I guess that Pita chose a ballet on the music of one of Iceland's most popular entertainer because Tomasson also came from that country. It opens with miniature golden palm trees that eventually fall to the ground with a thud. Some of the women appear to be wearing yashmaks at one point which must be as far from Iceland as one can get. The man with a very long fishing rod wears a tragedy mask but then fishes up a comedy mask from the orchestra pit which he wears on the back of his head. I was reminded of Pita's Dream several times as I watched Björk Ballet. The fishing rod made me think of Damien Johnson's butterfly net. Also like Dream was the sudden juxtaposition of classical and popular music, the glittering costume of one of the female dancers and quirky interludes like the dropping palm trees. Pita's quirkiness and sense of fun shone through. I described the ballet on twitter as "the icing on the cake, the piece de resistance, the real McCoy for it was all those things. The perfect end to a very log but also very enjoyable programme.

The Liang, Marston and Pita part of The San Francisco Ballet's season ended last night and I fear we shall have to fly to San Francisco if we are ever to see those works again. However, the company remains at Sadler's Wells until 7 June. There is a lot more to see and if I lived in London and did not have to labour in the law courts for a living I should have seen them.

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English National Ballet Cinderella Royal Albert Hall 9 June 2019, 14:30

I have seen three of English National Ballet's productions in the Royal Albert Hall: Romeo and Julietin 2014, Swan Lake in 2016 and now Cinderella. The last of those is by far the best. I would go so far as to say that it was one of the best shows by that company I have ever seen in a lifetime of pretty regular ballet going.

This was not an entirely new show for me, or indeed for London, as it is an adaptation of Christopher Wheeldon's production for the Dutch National Ballet. That company performed it at the Coliseum in 2015 (see Wheeldon's Cinderella 13 July 2015). I saw it again in Amsterdam just before Christmas (see Cinderella in the Stopera 24 Dec 2018). Wheeldon has used the same creatives: Craig Luca for the libretto, Julian Crouch for sets and costumes, Basil Twist for the tree and carriage, Daniel Brodie for the video and Natasha Katz for the lighting design.

There are several big differences between the Albert Hall and the Stopera or Coliseum. The first is that the audience surrounds the stage and dancers make their entrances and exits down the gangways. A wonderful opportunity, incidentally, to admire the dancers' costumes, hairstyles and makeup. The second is scale. The projectionist did some wonderful things with a massive screen that stretched from floor to ceiling. One scene showed the royal palace with portraits of the royal family looking down sternly on the antics of the coming generation. One developed horns, another blushes and yet another a withering frown of indignation. The third big difference was that the orchestra performed on a platform high above the stage where they had enough space to swing a leopard. So much better than being cooped up in an orchestra pit under the stage.

The story progressed very much as it had in Holland. Little Cinders is playing with her parents when her mum suddenly coughs up blood. The scene changes to the graveyard where her father introduces a new lady in his life. At first, she does not seem to be such a bad old stick because she presents (or rather gets one of her daughters to present) a bouquet to Cinderella. Cinders lets the flowers fall to the floor. Perhaps not surprisingly, the new step mum just does not like her new stepdaughter.

The two stepsisters are actually girls, unlike Ashton's version in which he and Robert Helpmann put on drag. One of them is a little kinder to Cinders than the other. Wheeldon cuts out the dancing lesson and visits from the cobbler, dressmaker and milliner and substitutes spirits of lightness, generosity, mystery and fluidity representing the seasons. These take the form of tree trunks, unicorns and conkers instead. He even does away with the fairy godmother but gives her four fates, Skyler Martin (formerly of HNB), Daniel McCormick, Erik Woolhouse and Aitor Arrieta instead. They arrange for Cinders to be conveyed to the ball ib one of the most ingenious carriages I have ever seen.

The second act is the prince's ball where the step mum and her daughters turn up with Cinders's dad but no Cinders wearing quite the wrong outfits and generally making fools of themselves. Things got worse when the drink was served because the stepmother drank just a teeny weeny bit too much and had to be lifted off the floor and carried to a couch. That role was performed by Sarah Kundi who is one of my favourite dancers. I have followed her ever since she was with Northern Ballet in Leeds. She used to remind me of a famous dancer of my youth whom she still resembles in many ways. Since she joined ENB I have begun to appreciate her for her own qualities. Kundi stole the second act if not the show and she raised more than a few laughs in the third act when she showed up at the breakfast table with one almighty hangover.

Back to the story. Cinders arrives in a lovely golden dress. She is spotted by the prince who falls for her. Everything goes swimmingly until midnight when the clock chimes, the fates arrive and her stepmother cottons on as to who she must be. Cinders scarpers leaving one of her shoes behind. The third act begins with Cinders serving her dad, Her step mum arrives nursing her head and pukes into the porridge bowl. The prince then tours his kingdom slipper in hand auditioning for brides. Some improbable candidates show up. A knight in armour. One of the trees. A unicorn. Something with very smelly feet. The step mum and her two daughters one of whom is molested by her mother with a mallet.

And, finally. Cinderella who fits the slipper perfectly. The stepmother peevishly tosses it onto the fire but, happily, Cinders kept the other one. There is a royal wedding and everyone is happy. Cinderella even has a kiss for her former tormenter. And the kinder of the two step-sisters finds love with the prince's best friend. I have been rather spoilt watching Anna Tsygankova and Matthew Golding in the leading roles in London and Remi Wörtmeyer and Anna Ol in Amsterdam but Erina Takahashi was a lovely Cinders and Joseph Caley was a great prince. Good to see Gavin Sutherland from Huddersfield conducting the orchestra, But the star for me on Sunday was definitely Kundi.

Richard Burbage, an Early Romeo

Author Unknown
Source Wikipedia Romeo and Juliet

New Adventures Romeo and JulietThe Lowry, 15 June 2019, 19:30

As I hate to dis a show in which a lot of resources have been invested and in which brilliant young artists have danced their hearts out, let's start with the positives. There was some dazzling dancing, particularly by Paris Fitzpatrick and Cordelia Braithwaite in the title roles and Daisy May Kemp as the Rev Bernadette Lawrence, the Verona Institute's chaplain. There was some very clever choreography for the inmates. I particularly liked the exercise in which the dancers did everything they could with a chair except sit on it. There were some brilliant designs by Lez Brotherston as always. It was a very slick and polished production that almost everyone in the audience rewarded with a standing ovation.

I was not one of them. I remained firmly in my seat. The show was good in many ways but not that good. Certainly not in comparison to some of the recent performances in that auditorium by Phoenix Dance Theatre, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Northern Ballet, Or, indeed, other works by Sir Matthew Bourne such as Red Shoes, Highland Fling andThe Car Men. "What was wrong with it, exactly?" asked my friend who had spent the evening at the Bridgewater Hall listening to the BBC Philharmonic playing a new work by Mark Simpson as well as Mozart and Mahler. I replied that it was shorn of just about everything that makes Shakespeare's play and almost every other version of the ballet so gripping.

It was set not in Verona, Italy, but in some gruesome psychiatric hospital called the Verona Institue, There were no Montagues and Capulets or even Reds and Fascists as in Krzysztof Pastor's version, Just clipboard-wielding medics and brutal armed guards one of whom was called Tybalt, Romeo was not a scion of one of the leading families but a disturbed young man who was ambushed by the inmates, debagged and clad in hospital whites as his loveless parents took their leave of him. Juliet was also disturbed and apparently abused by Tybalt. The couple met at an inmates' ball where most of the patients danced as woodenly as the dolls in Coppelia. Romeo and Juliet's duets were different. Their dances, particularly the last passionate one just before Juliet knifed herself, were the bits of the performance that I enjoyed the most. There were no sword fights. Just a shot from a drunken Tybalt and his strangling by the inmates for which Romeo allowed himself to take the rap. There was no grief-stricken Lady Capulet. No attempted forced marriage. No drug inducing a catatonic state. No final encounter with Paris. No suicide by knife or poison in the Capulet family tomb.

Now I am all for restaging a ballet in modern dress if it can be done well as Darius James and Amy Doughty did with Ballet Cymru's Romeo a Juliet, Ted Brandsen with Coppelia and indeed Sir Matthew with his re-imaginings of La Sylphide and Cinderella but change for change's sake as in Nixon's Swan Lake or Akram Khan's Giselle is pointless. There is nothing wrong with creating a new work to a well-known score as Jean-Guy Saintus did with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring or, indeed, as Milena Siderova did with the Dance of the Knights in her pillow dance for Bart Engelen. This was not so much a restaging of a gripping, complex work as a degutting.

Now I am a blogger, not a critic. I keep this blog to remind me of shows that gave me joy. If I can't say anything nice I say nothing at all. If I really hated this work I would have kept it to myself. There were things to admire which is why I started with the positives. It is just that I think Sir Matthew has done better and I have certainly seen better versions of Romeo and Juliet, not least Ballet Cymru's which is in Bracknell today.

Don't let me put you off New Adventures's version. Everyone else in The Lowry seemed to think it was outstanding. It is coming to Cardiff this week, London in August, Norwich, Birmingham, Canterbury and Southampton in September and Nottingham and Newcastle in October. See it for yourselves and make your own minds up about it. As I say, I am a dance fan not a critic and my only qualification to cast an opinion is that I have seen an awful lot of dance in my 60 years or so of fairly regular theatre-going.

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Birmingham Royal Baller [Un]leashed (Lyric Pieces, Sense of Time and Peter and the Wolf) Sadler's Wells, 25 June 2019, 19:30

I enjoyed Peter and the Wolf so much when I saw it in Shrewsbury on 18 May 2019 that I booked to see it again in London on 25 June 2019. Sadly, that performance clashed with the transmission of Nothern Ballet's Victoria which I believe to have been the first time that Northern Ballet had streamed its output to cinemas. Although I always prefer stage to screen, the big advantage of HDTV is that offers close-ups of the artists, their costumes and the sets. Having seen the show in Leeds and Leicester several curiosities on my part could have been satisfied.

Returning to Peter and the Wolf, it appeared at the end of a triple bill with Jessica Lang'sLyric Pieces and Didy Veldman's Sense of Time. The title of the show was [Un]leashed and I wondered why. I considered whether it was something to do with the wolf. It would explain the letters in square brackets for the animal had been leashed in the sense that it was lassoed by Peter and led off to the zoo. The nearest I got to an explanation in the programme notes was in the welcome from David Bintley. He wrote that "[Un]leashed epitomises Birmingham Royal Ballet's enthusiasm for and commitment to new work." I have to say that it had never previously occurred to me that the Birmingham Royal Ballet's artists had been constrained in any way. With Brill, Holder and Day to name just three, the BRB has always struck me as a prodigiously creative company.

Lyric Pieces is the second of Lang's pieces that I have seen. In 2016 she contributed Wink based on Shakespeare's 43rd sonnet to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death (see Birmingham Royal Ballet brings Shakespeare to York 18 May 2016). The piece consists of 10 dances set to selected short solo piano compositions by Edward Grieg. With titles like Elves Dance, Peasants Song, Norwegian Melody and March of the Trolls they are clearly connected with Norwegian folklore. The dancers' space is defined or in some cases marked by expandable or contractable black kraft paper. They constructed fan-like props for themselves. I enjoyed all of the pieces, particularly Phantom, a duet by Celine Gittens and Brandon Lawrence, and March of the Trolls by Maureya Lebowitz, Yvette Knight, Yijing Zhang, James Barton and Max Maslen.

Didy Veldman's Sense of Time explores our relationship with time. Possibly because busses, trains and aeroplanes run to timetables the central feature of this piece is a pile of suitcases some of which fall away. Others are removed to reveal cosy boltholes through which artists climb. The piece is not just about the dominance of time. It is also about time as a resource and how we sometimes squander it. In one scene the dancers appear to squint at mobile phones. The score was composed by Gabriel Prokofiev who also created the music for Shobana Jeyasingh's La Bayadere - The Ninth Life. There is a sort of connection with Peter and the Wolf as Gabriel Prokofiev is Sergei Prokofiev's grandson. The music combines the sort of melodies the grandfather could have written with strident electronic sounds. Gittens, Lawrence, Zhang and Knight were in Sense of Time together with Tyrone Singleton,Delia Matthews, Gabriel Anderson,Edivaldo Souza da Silva, Yaogiang Shang, Lachlan Monaghan, Beatrice Parma and Aitor Galende.

Even though I liked Lyric Pieces and Sense of Time very much, the highlight for me was Peter and the Wolf. The cast was the same as it had been in Shrewsbury except that Brooke Ray was able to dance the duck. Laura Day danced Peter as charmingly as she did in Theatre Severn, Matthias Dingman the wold, Tzu-Chao Chou the bird, Samara Downs the cat, James Barton the grandfather and Tori Forsyth-Hacken, Alys Shee and Eilis Small the hunters. As I forecast in my review of their performance in Shrewsbury, the audience at Sadler's Wells loved Peter and the Wolf. I don't think that they danced any better in London than they did in Shrewsbury but a London audience somehow lifts a show. I think that is because a show is a sort of conversation. An audience that sees a lot of dance appreciates a good show and responds accordingly. That, in turn, is picked up by the cast who shine even more. It was a great atmosphere and it was lovely to see the choreographer acknowledging our applause at the reverence.

Peter and the Wolf have more performances in Plymouth in October and children will be introduced to that ballet with a special hour-long, interactive show, called First Steps: Peter and the Wolf. I hope that they will bring it to the Lowry or some other Northern theatre one day. Sadly, we have to wait until March to see them again but as they will bring us their Swan Lake it will be worth the wait. Two shows that I shall try to catch in Birmingham will be Giselle and The Nutcracker. I also recommend The Nutcracker in the Albert Hall.

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Dutch National Ballet Junior Company Young Talent Festival Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House 5 July 2019, 19:45

Last night I dashed down to London to welcome the Dutch National Ballet, Junior Company back to the UK. I have been following them since 24 Nov 2013 when I first saw them at the Stadsshouwburg in Amsterdam. They visited London for the first time in 2014 (see And can they fly! The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company at Covent Garden 30 May 2014) and again in 2015 (see Junior Company in London - even more polished but as fresh and exuberant as ever 7 June 2015). Since then the Linbury has been closed for refurbishment. Last night they returned as part of the Royal Ballet's Young Talent Festival.

I went to Amsterdam in 2013 to see Michaela DePrince whom I had first mentioned in April 2013 - several months before she joined the Junior Company, I saw her at the Stasshouwberg and was impressed:

"I had come to Amsterdam to see Michaela dePrince about whom I have written a lot. She appeared as Diana in Diana & Actaeon a ballet originally choreographed by Agrippina Vaganova for the Kirov in 1935. Soviet ballet was athletic and spectacular requiring enormous virtuosity. I had seen something of dePrince's virtuosity in her YouTube videos but she is even more impressive in real life. She is quite simply the most exciting dancer I have seen for quite a while."

But I was also impressed by the other 11 dancers. I have followed their careers and those of their successors ever since. I have seen many performances by several cohorts of the Junior Company but I don't think I have ever seen the Junior Company dance better than they did last night.

More satisfyingly, the audience loved them. London sees a lot of dance - possibly more than any city in the world with the possible exception of New York - and balletomanes in our national capital do not easily rise to their feet for anything. I have always stood up for the Junior Company but in London, I have often been the only one. Yesterday I was joined by others and there was certainly a lot of noise even from those who had remained seated.

The programme started with Ernst Meisner's No Time Before Time. That is one of my favourite ballets from one of my favourite choreographers of all time. Meisner's work touches my emotions in a way that only one other work has ever done. When I see Embers, for example, my eyes begin to water, I start to sniffle, my body begins to tremble. I deploy every single sinew to control myself. Only Fokine's Dying Swan has the same effect on me and that is at least partly because of its association with Pavlova. No Time before Time is exuberant and makes me want to join the dancers on stage. It has a beautiful score by Alexander Balanescu that echoed tin my brain all the way back home to Yorkshire. Lasr night's cast interpreted it differently from those who danced it at Lausanne and the Meervaart in 2016. Perhaps more sensitively and delicately but equally delightfully.

The next work was Charlotte Edmonds's Fuse which I had also seen at the Meervaart in 2016. Set to Armand Amar's Dam in Chinaand Paddy Fieldsit begins with three dancers who appear to be bound to each other with their bonds behind their back. As the music changes from vocals to percussion the dancers appear to break free. In a short speech before the show, Ernst Meisner explained that the idea for Fuse had originated on the Linbury stage the last time the Junior Company had visited London. They had been so impressed with Edmonds's work that the company had invited her to create a work for the Junior Company in Amsterdam. In a short video which was shown before the piece was performed Edmonds reflected on the encounter between different cultures, interests and traditions. "Fuse" in this context appears to mean the result of mixing rather than the ignition of explosive (though it could also have meant that). The first time that I saw that ballet, I wrote: "This was the first time I had seen Edmonds's work and I look forward to more." Since then I have seen more at Northern Ballet's Tell Tale Steps 2 and I look forward to her work with Ballet Cymru.

Daniela Cardim's Cardim's What got you here was the only work that I had not seen before. It was a thought provoking piece but one that was not entirely bereft of humour. There was a commentary which started with a celebration of the genetic accident that each individual represents but continued with the chilling thought that well over 99% of all life forms that have ever existed are now extinct. There was an exchange of finger pointing that seemed to result in a realization that any responsibility for such mass-extinctions is pretty widely shared. There was the interesting discussion of the circularity of time and movement. If a traveller started in a straight line to travel to the end of the universe he would eventually return to his starting point. More disturbing was considering what would happen if we knew the world would be destroyed within 4 years by the explosion of a neighbouring star, Would farmers bother to plant crops or deliver them to stores? The work ended dramatically with the dancers pointing accusingly at the audience before retracting their fingers and directing them to themselves.

An interval followed Cardim's work in which members of the audience were equipped with tiny red and green torches for Juanjo Arques's Fingers in the Air. That was a work I had seen at the company's fifth anniversary show on 15 April 2018 (see "In the Future" - Junior Company's Fifth Anniversary Performance 17 April 2018). This time the commentary was in English. The audience was asked to vote on whether the men or women should dance, whether we wanted to see solos or duets and whether we wanted the dancers to perform with or without lights. It did not matter because at the end we were shown what we had been missing but the audience voted for the women, duets and lights. The site of the whole company dressed in the same black leotards was compelling. Arques was in the audience. I greeted him just before his piece started. It happened to be his birthday, What a way to celebrate!

The last work was Hans van Manen's In the Future. I had seen that work in the fifth anniversary show and also at last September's gala. Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, two new movements were added to In the Future. According to the programme notes, these were Winter and The Sound of Business which were part of David Byrne's Music for the Knee Plays album. I enjoyed Winter and the Sound of Business but I would have preferred to see them as separate pieces. Each of those works is a complete work itself in words and music as well as dance. It was, however, a spectacular way to end a very successful evening and a triumphant return to London.

The Junior Company will perform again tonight at 19:45. I do not know whether tickets are still on sale at the box office but if they are and you can reach the House in time I strongly recommend this show,

Dutch National Ballet Academy and the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company Dansers van Morgen Theatre of the Dutch National Opera and Ballet, 9 July 2019, 20:00

On 13 Sept 2018 Ernst Meisner was appointed artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet Academy (see Ernst Meisner appointed as interim artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet Academy and René Vlemmix as business manager 13 Sept 2013 Amsterdam University of the Arts). He combined that appointment with his existing role as artistic coordinator of the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company. I featured Meisner and the Junior Company in Ernst Meisner’s Work with the Dutch National Ballet on 2 Dec 2014. On Tuesday 9 July 2019, Meisner's students from the academy and his artists from the Junior Company united to perform Dansers van Morgen (Dancers of Tomorrow)

The performance took place in the principal auditorium of the Dutch National Ballet with the company's own orchestra under the direction of Matthew Rowe, its director of music. Seven works were presented:

Part of Paquita by Marius Petipa
Together(E) by Wubkje Kuindersma
Part of Wayne McGregor's Atomos
Revelry by Ernst Meisner
Made in Holland by Didy Veldman
Ode aan Fred by Iva Lešić, and
Bolero by Gregor Seyffert and Larisa Dobrozhan.

I enjoyed all of those pieces, particularly Revelry. Ode aan Fred ("Ode to Fred") and Bolero.

If I understood the programme notes correctly, Meisner created Revelry for the 2017 gala for which I had been unable to get a ticket. Set to Lowel Liebermann's composition of the same name An infectiously exuberant work it is perfect for dance and particularly well suited for the individual personalities of the members of the Junior Company. Guests arrive at a party and throw themselves into the celebration with gusto. Clearly, they have a good time. So much so that when the music ends the audience see each and every one of them prostrate on the floor. This was the first time that I had seen Revelry but it is already one of my favourites. It is a work that they could easily have taken to London last week and I am sure the audience would have loved it.

I am guessing that "aan" means "to" in Dutch. When I saw Ode aan Fred I thought this would be an ode to Ashton and that we would see lots of developpés, arabesques, pas de bouré and pas de chat. In fact, this Fred was a well-loved instructor at the National Ballet Academy. The music started with what sounded to me like didgeridoos and I wondered whether Fred Berlips was an Australian. On consulting the programme notes I found that the opening had been Andrea Geraks Jews Harp Music and that there was also music by Goran Bregovic. I understand from friends who know him that Berlips specialized in teaching younger students. He was invited onto the stage for the curtain call and auditorium exploded in applause. Meisner came on stage and made a short speech. Berlips was presented with an enormous bouquet. The affection for the man was palpable.

The last work was set to Ravel's Bolero and was quite different from Maurice Béjart's which I had seen at the Coli or the Wells many years ago. It began with a spotlit single dancer but in this version, it was a young woman on the floor. The arc widened to reveal more women on the floor and then more. As the music gathered pace so did the dancers. The stage cleared and another group of dancers performing ever more energetically than the last. As the music reached its conclusion the stage erupted in colour and movement. It was the perfect way to end a perfect evening,

The show started with Paquita cannot be the easiest work for students. It includes a pas de deux which requires a lot of lifting, some spectacular jumps and turns and 32 fouettés which seem to be at least as difficult as Kitri's in Don Quixote or Odile's in Swan Lake. There were several difficult solo bits for both men and women as well as work for the corps. In the absence of a cast list, I cannot identify the dancers otherwise than by the colours of their costumes but I have to commend Yellow for her jumps. White, of course, was also impressive.

Set to Anthony Fiumara's haunting Aerial for piano and orchestra, Together(E) featured the academy's younger students. The music reminds me of waves breaking on a beach and that was reflected in the precise movements of the students, With its bar of red light and almost sculpted dancers, the hand of Wayne McGregor was unmistakable. Another difficult piece which was executed well by the students.
Having seen Sense of Time in [Un]leasted just a few days earlier I was curious to see more. Set to Simeon ten Holt's Canto Ostinato which is another work for a single pianist Made in Holland was a beautifully crafted work.

Meisner appeared on stage immediately after Paquita with the academy's business manager. As his speech was in Dutch (a language I have never formally studied) I did not pick up every word but he explained that he was the artistic director and described the works that were to follow. He said that several of the pieces had been written especially for last Tuesday's show, that the programme included one of his own works and that Wayne McGregor and Didy Veidman had contributed works for the performance. He also introduced the National Ballet's Orchestra and its illustrious conductor. The manager mentioned the need for funding and tight management, He and Meisner had worked well together and he looked forward to their future collaboration.

I have made it my business to see student shows ever since 2007 when I saw Xander Parish and his sister Demelza and his sister steal a gala that included Marianela Nuñez and Samara Downs (see Charles Hutchinson Review: A Summer Gala of Dance and Song, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday 31 July 2007). I have seen many great shows in that time but I think last Tuesday's was in a class of its own.

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Central School of Ballet Summer Performance 18 July 2019, 19:30 Bloomsbury Theatre & Studio

Central School of Ballet has trained some excellent dancers. They include Sarah Kundi who stole the show as far as I was concerned with her hilarious performance as Cinderella's stepmother in the Albert Hall (see Cinders in the Round 13 June 2019). Hannah Bateman was at Central too. She is my favourite at Northern Ballet. So, too, was Rachael Gillespie whom I also admire greatly. The School trained Kenneth Tindall whom I described as "a many sided genius", and, of course, its current artistic director, Christopher Marney, who is my favourite living British choreographer. Central was founded by Christopher Gable whom I first saw as Romeo with Lynn Seymour ar Covent Garden. I saw him again many years later in A Simple Manand it was that performance that attracted me to Northern Ballet as it is now called. His term as artistic director was that company's golden age.

Yesterday, I got a chance to see some of those who will follow in the footsteps of those great names in Central School of Ballet's Summer Performance. That is not the same as the annual tour that the performing company, Ballet Central, make each spring and summer. The Summer Performance offers a chance to see the first and second-year students as well as those in the third year. Though there is some overlap, the programmes are different. Ballet Central visits about 20 theatres up and down the country between March and July, The Summer Performance takes place only at the Bloomsbury Theatre & Studio on the 18 and 19 July.

Heidi Hall, the Director, opened the show with a talk about the School and the performance. She reported that the £9 million appeal had been successful and that the School hoped to move into its new premises after Christmas. Funds were still needed, she reminded us, and she invited everyone in the audience to join its "Friends" scheme. She promised a great show and that was exactly what her young artists, the choreographers, staff and technicians delivered.

The show consisted of seven works divided into two acts:

Jenna Lee's Rock 'n' Roll
Calvin Richardson's Dying Swan
Louse Bennett's Twin Figures
Sandrine Monin's Hidden
Thiago Soares's Vossa Sinfonia
Leanne King's All in Four, and
Christopher Marney's Carousel Dancers.

I liked all of the works, particularly Lee's Rock 'n' Roll, Richardson's Dying Swam, Monin's Hidden, Soares's Vossa Sinfonia, King's All in Four and Marney's Carousel Dances most of all.

I became a fan of Lee when I saw her ballroom scene from Romeo and Juliet in 2017 (see Triumphant 1 May 2017) and my admiration of her work grew still more when I saw Black Swan at Stratford last year (see Half a Show is Better than None 16 July 2018). I enjoyed her Rock 'n' Roll best of all. Set in a 1950s US diner or maybe a high school hop, the girls wore the most gorgeous full-skirted dresses with yards of tulle petticoats while the boys wore white tops and black bottoms. The action revolved around a jukebox that played the fifties pop of my childhood. It was fun to watch a turns on pointe to Little Richard. I hope and suspect that it was fun to do those turns.

Next came Richardson's Dying Swan danced by Joseph Beretta. Like Michel Decombey's which was danced elegantly by Javier Torres in Northern Ballet's 45th-anniversary gala (see Sapphire 15 March 2015), this was a solo for a male. Pavlova died nearly 20 years before I was born so I never saw her dance Fokine's work but my mother did when she was 3 years old and it made such an impression on her that she could describe every detail of the choreography up to the day she died (see In Leeds of all Places - Pavlova, Ashton and Magic 18 Sep 2013). I have seen it performed twice by a modern ballerina - once by Elena Glurdjidze in the Gala for Ghana and a few years earlier by Marianela Nuñez of which I have no recollection at all. Though I like Decombey's work as performed by Torres, Richardson's work was closer in spirit to Fokine. He took no liberties with the score. Had Fokine created a version for a man I think it would have been like Richardson's.

Twin Figures by Louise Bennett was set to Boreslav Martinu's concerto for piano and cello. A very energetic work, it offered plenty of opportunities to the first-year students to demonstrate their virtuosity. Some 20 dancers took part. Clad in blue and green the effect was quite mesmeric. It was a good piece to take us through to the interview. At that point I tweeted:

Thoroughly enjoyed first act of @csbschool's annual performance, particularly @JLchoreographer's "Rock 'n' Roll" and Richardson's "Dying Swan". Looking forward to work by @_TSOARES @chrismarney and Leeds's own @sandrinemonin. Well done to all artists in Act I.
— Terpsichore (@jelterps) July 18, 2019

I dubbed Sandrine Monin as "Leeds's own" because I first got to know her work through Phoenix Dance Theatre for whom she created Calyx from Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal in 2018. Deep currents ran through Calyx as they did for Hidden which she created for the second years. Figures move about the stage their heads slightly bowed as though they were automatons. I got the impression that the work was inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis because that was the feel of the piece and the narrative that was communicated to me - but I could well be wildly wrong. The music which was contributed by Rusconi and Martinu added to the sense of mechanistic desolation. A very thoughtful piece that needs to be seen again and probably more than twice.

Thiago Soares's Vossa Sinfonia was delightful. It started with Beethoven, continued with Ernesto Nazareth, then Heitor Villa Lobos and Noel Rosa and finally back to Beethoven. Its juxtaposition of Beethoven with recent composers reminded me a little of Arthur Pita's Dream within Midsummer Night's Dream. The piece was the nearest we got to a classical work and in that regard, it would have done credit to Balanchine.

Leanne King's All in Four for the first years was a joyous work. The girls were barefoot. They wore long flowing skirts their hair in ponytails. They danced to Monteverdi's Beatus Vir (which I think means "blessed man" rather than "blessed be" as stated in the programme) arranged by Philip Feeney. Feeny actually played the piano accompaniments with a keyboard and took a bow at the end. As a work of dance, it was my favourite of the evening.

Ballet is, of course, more than just dance. It combines dance with drama, music, costumes, sets and more. It grabs all the senses. That is why I described Carousel Dances as the piece de resistance in my tweets. I saw several dancers who I think will go far. The man who played the male lead, the female lead and the mistress of ceremonies to note just three. There were plenty of circus thrills such as snake charmers, men crashing through hoops and acrobatics all forming the background to a romance. Choreographed to tunes by Rogers and Hammerstein that we all know, it was the perfect end to a great show.

There will be one more performance tonight at 19:30. If you are anywhere near Bloomsbury tonight and there are any tickets to spare go see this show. It is one of the highlights of my year so far.

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Arts of China In Mist and Rain 8 Aug 2019 19:30 Manchester Central Exchange Auditorium

Yesterday I was one of the guests at the premiere of In Mist and Rain, a remarkable collaboration between Chinese finest artists and talented young dancers working in the United Kingdom. One of those talented local dancers was Bo Zhang who danced in the premiere of Powerhouse Ballet's Aria at The Dancehouse on 4 May 2019. It was she who kindly invited me to that performance

In Mist and Rain was inspired by a poem of Su Shi who lived from 1037 to 1131. From the little I have been able to find out from my researches for this review, Su Shi is one of the greats of Chinese literature, but he seems to have been much more than a poet. Wikipedia describes him as Minister of Rites, poet, essayist, painter, calligrapher and statesman. The translation of the poem in our programme notes was "Calming the Wave". I believe that the original was 定風波 and, if I am right, I have found a delightful translation by Alice Poon inThe Monday Poem > "Calming Wind and Wave" by Su Shi (a Song poet) - Oct. 6, 2014. It puts me in mind of Horace's Solvitur acris hiems.

The work was created by Leon to music by Zhao Nan and Sun Ye, One of those composers was in the theatre for questions and answers after the show. He explained that he had written Autumn and Winter while his collaborator had composed Spring and Summer. Though firmly anchored in Chinese classical tradition they had used Western classical idioms and some Western instruments as well as Chinese ones with the result that it was pleasing to my occidental ear at least.

Much the same was true of the choreography which started with a figure proceeding across the stage while another was struggling with a burden. There were some bits such as a duet between the leading lady and the male lead that could have been in a ballet. There were other scenes where members of the corps (for want of a better word) seemed to take a few steps and retire. I was mindful that this was an art form that had existed much longer in China than ballet had existed in the West and that I was absorbing it only at the most superficial level.

Of course, sets, costumes and lighting and the production as a theatrical experience can be appreciated even by those who are new to Chinese dance and I did. The set was plain with a single tree illuminated obliquely. The lighting throughout the show was restrained but not to the point that the dancers were obscure. The costumes were gorgeous as were some of the props like a red parasol with ribbons below which the male and female lead progressed. "A bride and bridegroom, perhaps?" I thought.

This was a great theatrical experience and I congratulate everyone who took part. In particular, I single out Susie Lu who founded Arts of China and produced In Mist and Rain.

On the "About Us" page of its website, Arts of China describes itself as a world-class company that combines education with entertainment. Classes in Chinese dance are available at The Dancehouse in Manchester and I have often commended the students' performances in my reviews of MoveIt. The company will perform In Mist and Rain at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre between 13:00 and 14:00 on Saturday, 10 Aug. If you can get to Edinburgh this afternoon, you will be rewarded with a splendid spectacle.

Hermann Vogel "Death of Spartacus"

Bolshoi Ballet Spartacus 10 Aug 2019 14:00 Royal Opera House

Ever since I saw a streaming of the ballet from Moscow nearly 6 years ago I have longed to see it on stage. I have had a long wait because few if any Western companies seem to perform the work and certainly no British ones. This year, however, the Bolshoi included Spartacus in its London season so I traipsed down to London yesterday to see it. The ticket in the centre of row G of the stalls wasn't cheap. Neither was the rail fare. The rail network was all over the place as a result of the high winds and the aftermath of Friday's power outage. Nevertheless, I can think of no better use of my time or a better way to spend my money. I have been going to the ballet for nearly 60 years and see about 50 shows a year. Rarely have I been more excited by a performance than I was yesterday by the Bolshoi's performance of Spartacus,

As I summarized the plot and discussed the background to the ballet in Spartacus - Streamed Direct to Wakefield 21 Oct 2013, I need not repeat them here. There is, in any case, a full synopsis on the Bolshoi's website and even a video of a performance of the whole ballet adapted for the screen featuring the incoming director of Birmingham Royal Ballet on YouTube. The show that I saw yesterday featured Igor Tsvirko and Ruslan Skvortsov as Spartacus and Crassus and Margarita Shrayner and Ekaterina Krysanova as Phrygia and Aegina.

I had already seen Tsvirko on screen in the peasant pas de deux in Giselle (see The Bolshoi does the Business - Giselle streamed from Moscow 12 Oct 2015), the jester in Swan Lake (see Grigorovich's Swan Lake in Bradford 25 Jan 2015), Count Pepinelli in Marco Spada (seeMarco Spada Streamed from Moscow 31 March 2014) and the jester in A Legend of Love (see The Bolshoi's "A Legend of Love" streamed from Moscow 27 Oct 2014). Magnificent though he was on screen he is so much more impressive in person. His strength and endurance are amazing, Spartacus is a long ballet and he is on stage for most of the show. There were frequent bursts of applause as he demonstrated that strength such as hoisting Shrayner into the air with one hand as though she were a feather.

The last time the Bolshoi came to London I saw Skvortsov dance Siegfried in Swan Lake (see Grigorovich's Swan Lake in Covent Garden 31 July 2016). Although I thought that the Bolshoi has better shows and other companies have better Swan Lakes I enjoyed Skvortsov's performance very much. I listed Skvortsov as one of the outstanding male dancers of 2016. I had also noticed him in the screenings of A Hero of Our Time, The Bright Stream and The Golden Age. Intensely good looking, his was the first face that appears on stage from the centre of a testudo stamping his feet and brandishing a fasces. Another dancer of prodigious strength and agility.

I cannot recall watching Shrayner dance before but she is beautiful. She has a face that communicates emotion like few others. One of my friends who knows Spartacus well described it as a man's ballet. That is true because both the gladiators and legionnaires as well as the leading artists perform spectacular feats of endurance attracting ripples of applause throughout the show. But it is also a ballet about two strong women and Phrygia's role is by far the more dignified and graceful, The one bit of the ballet that the British public knows well is the theme from the Onedin Line largely because the show was never off our TV screens when I was young. That is, of course, Phrygia's solo and pas de deux with Spartacus and I could not help rooting for a tissue as she danced that piece.

I was already a big fan of Krysanova before yesterday's matinee. I loved her performance as Kathrona in Jean-Christophe Maillot's The Taming of the Shrew which is now one of my all-time favourite ballets (see Bolshoi's Triumph - The Taming of the Shrew 4 Aug 2016). She was a great Kitri in Don Quixote which I saw on screen in April 2016. Katharina and Kitri are heroines but Aegina is very different. There is a telling scene immediately after the legions goosestep off to slay the slaves when Aegina appears goosestepping like the soldiers. She had just lifted the defeated Crassus out of his despair after losing his fight with Spartacus, given him back his sword and filled him with a desire for vengeance. I admire her all the more for that.

When you watch a show from the amphitheatre as I did when I was a Young Friend the auditorium seems cavernous. When you sit a few rows from the orchestra the House is intimate. You feel the audience around you. When an audience fires up as it did yesterday there can be no experience in the theatre more thrilling. Yesterday, the audience was boiling. That brought out the best in the artists - the musicians under Pavel Klinichev as well as the dancers. It was a performance that I think I shall remember for the rest of my life.

PS I said that I was no British company had ever performed Spartacus but Sarah Lambert has sent me this footage of a rehearsal by Jenna Roberts & Iain Mackay of Birmingham Royal Ballet which suggests that I may be wrong. At least bits of it appear to have been performed in Symphony Hall and Northampton.

Xander Parish and Maria Khoreva in "Diamonds"

Dutch National Ballet Gala 10 Sept 2019, 19:30 Music Theatre, Amsterdam

The opening night gala of the Dutch National Ballet's new season is one of the highlights of my year. It is always a grand affair, the gentlemen in dinner jackets and the ladies in gorgeous evening attire. The Music Theatre (or Stopera as the building that combines Amsterdam's city hall (Stadhuis) and opera house is unofficially called) is packed. The video on my review of last year's gala conveys some of the excitement and atmosphere.

At 19:30 the lights dim and the conductor enters the orchestra pit. He (I have not yet seen a woman conduct an orchestra in the Music Theatre though I am sure many will do so in future) raises his baton and the orchestra plays the polonaise from The Sleeping Beauty. The curtain rises to a row of children, the first-year students of the National Ballet Academy. The first years are followed by the second and subsequent years, each year in different coloured uniforms. The Academy is now under the direction of the magnificent Ernst Meisner, still a young man but already a widely acclaimed choreographer. He is also artistic coordinator of the Junior Company The students are followed by the Junior Company, then the élèves, the corps de ballet,the coryphées, grands sujets,soloists and finally the principals. The women appear in dazzling white classical tutus and the men in dashing tunics. This is known as the Grand Défilé and although it is very simple it is an impressive spectacle.

The company then performs scenes from its current repertoire or works that are staged specially for the occasion. There is always something from Hans van Manen, usually something from one of the other great Dutch choreographers, Rudi van Dantzig and Toer van Schayk and often works by the company's artistic director, Ted Brandsen, David Dawson, Juanjo Arques and, of course, Meisner. I particularly look forward to Meisner's works because his choreography appeals to me more than almost any other. His Embersand No Time Before Time are among the most beautiful works that I have ever seen and I can't watch them without emotions welling up. Much of Meisner's work has been created for the Junior Company who must be the 12 most beautiful dancers on the planet. Their performance is always the highlight of my evening much as I admire the company's principals and other fine dancers.

Brandsen usually makes two speeches at the gala. One to welcome the audience and introduce the show. The other to present the prima ballerina, Alexandra Radius, in whose name the company's Friends award a prize to the dancer of the year. Usually, the winner is a principal but last year it was Timothy van Poucke who joined the Junior Company in 2016. Brandsen usually delivers long passages of his speeches in English as many members of the audience are from countries other than the Netherlands.

The gala is always a party. Wine, beer, soft drinks and canapés are offered the moment guests enter the theatre. The hospitality continues during the interval and after the show. As soon as they have changed the dancers make a grand entrance down the staircase of the lobby. This is the audience's chance to mingle with their heroes and heroines and perhaps dance with them in the disco at the entrance to the theatre. In that regard, anyone can say that he or she has danced with the Dutch National Ballet in the Music Theatre.

This year's gala was a little different from previous years. For a start, it seemed to be shorter. Only five pieces were performed in the first half and one on the second. There was no performance by the Junior Company as such though some of its members were in other pieces. Nor was there any work by Meisner. I would have been a little disappointed had I not reminded myself that I had seen the Junior Company at the Linbury in July for the first time in several years (see Welcome Back! Junior Company returns to the Linbury 6 July 2019) as well as in Dancers of Tomorrowat the Music Theatre a few days later. The third way in which this year's gala differed from previous years was that Brandsen delivered his entire speech in Dutch which is not unreasonable since the show took place in Amsterdam. Dutch is the first cousin to both English and German which I studied at secondary school and as I visit the Netherlands several times a year I have picked up a little bit of the language. I think I understood most of the director's speeches.

Despite those differences, I enjoyed the gala very much indeed, Matthew Rowe, one of my favourite conductors, lifted his baton. The Grand Défilé was as impressive as ever. Having seen those excellent young dancers in Dancers of Tomorrow in July I felt particularly close to them. I am doing my best to support the Academy in any way I can and I hope that I will be able to arrange for funding through lifetime gifts or legacies for talented young dancers like Conor Walmsley who studied in Amsterdam, joined the Junior Company and has recently graduated into the senior company.

The show continued with the pas de deux in Diamonds from Balanchine's Jewels by Xander Parish and Maria Khoreva from the Mariinsky. I have been following Parish's career since July 2007 when he and his sister Demelza appeared at A Summer Gala of Dance and Song at the Grand Opera House in York. I did not blog about ballet in those days but Charles Hutchinson of The Press reviewed the show. Those two young dancers performed with the likes of Samara Downs and Marianela Nuñez but it was their piece that impressed the audience the most and it has been etched in my memory ever since. Since then I have seen Parish in London as Romeo in 2914 and in Ballet 101 in Leeds in Northern Ballet's 45th-anniversary gala. I also had the pleasure of meeting him at the London Ballet Circle. Parish has always thrilled me but his performance on Tuesday was masterly. He commanded the audience's attention like a king. I do not recall seeing Khoreva before but I shall follow her in future. Not only did she partner him well. She showed considerable virtuosity in her solo. That pas de deux alone justified the trek to Amsterdam.

Parish and Khoreva were followed by Maia Makhateli and Young Gyo Choi in a pas de deux from Le Corsaire. I was very puzzled by the programme note for it stated that the piece was created by Samuel Andrianov and premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre on 12 Jan 1915. As the music for Le Corsaire was composed by Adolphe Adam who wrote the score for Giselle I knew that this ballet must be very much older. According to Wikipedia, it was first performed in Paris in 1856 but all modern productions are based on Marius Petipa's of 1863. I had never heard of Andrianov until I read the article on Balanchine in the French Wikipedia where I learned that he had been one of Balanchine's teachers. There is no similar mention in the English article. A short paragraph on the piece in Dutch - not a language that I have ever studied formally so I may well have got the wrong end of the stick - the piece was created for students and was introduced to the Netherlands by Rudolf Nureyev in 1965. That would make sense for Young is a powerful dancer who reminds me of Nureyev. Makhateli is always a delight to watch. The crowd was delighted.

The only work that seemed to be completely unconnected with Balanchine was van Manen's Trois Gnossiennes. This was set to a piano score by Erik Satie which was earlier used by Sir Frederick Ashton in an orchestrated version for his Monotones. Van Manen uses a single piano played by Olga Khoziainova mounted on a platform on castors which was pushed gently around the stage by four young male dancers. The dancers were Igone de Jongh and Jakob Feyferlik of the Vienna State Opera House's Ballet Company. It was very beautiful. I just can't make up my mind whether I prefer van Manen's work or Ashton's.

The last work of the first part of the gala was the first of Balanchine's Symphony in Three Movements to the score by Stravinsky by the same name. This is a work for 12 dancers including 6 soloists - Quian Liu and Young Gyu Choi, Anna Tsygankova and James Stout and Floor Eimers and Jozef Varga. This is an exuberant piece with a lively score. The women wore simple leotards and their hair in ponytails. It was fast and slick and left the audience on a high.

As in previous years, complimentary drinks and savouries were served during the interval. These were a bit different from ours in that chunks of cheese, ham or sausage were served without bread or biscuit. I took a sample of each of them as well as a glass of quite potable wine. I have got to know some of the Dutch ballet goers over the years and met several in the lobby. I usually find myself at the merchandise stand buying cards or t-shirts for friends in England but, as that stand has disappeared on Tuesday, I took advantage of the interval to stand on one of the terraces overlooking the Amsel and take in the September night air.

After we had returned to our seats, Brandsen stepped back on stage and announced that the time had come for the Alexandra Radius award. He explained that the money had been raised by Friends of the company and asked us to stick up our hands. At least, I think that is what he said because the conversation was entirely in Dutch. He then introduced Alexandra Radius who is still beautiful. He announced that the winner of the 2019 prize was Edo Wijnen and played a short film which showed Wijnen's achievements. Radius presented Wijnen with his prize which included a trophy. He gave a short acceptance speech part of which was in English. Both he and Radius received enormous bouquets.

The rest of the evening was taken up with Balanchine's Who Cares? A great celebration of New York to the music of George Gershwin and Hershi Kay. Readers can gain an idea of the energy and exuberance of the piece from the YouTube trailer. De Jongh and Makhateli performed solos in the piece together with Vera Tsyganova and Constantine Allen who joined the Dutch National Ballet only in 2018. I think this was the first time that I had seen him and it will certainly not be the last Yet again the audience rewarded the dancers with a standing ovation. One that they truly deserved.

Last year I missed the party because one of my guests was a child. This year I stayed and met many friends and acquaintances from the company and the audience. I had been looking out for Xander Parish, Ernst Meisner, Michaela DePrince and Matthew Rowe but I did not encounter any of them. Hardly surprising as the crowd was massive and the noise deafening. As far as I know, no British company holds a party for its audience after a gala like this. That is a shame because it is one of the reasons why every Dutch person I know has great pride and great affection for the national company even if he or she never actually attends any of its performances.

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Phoenix Dance Theatre Phoenix at Home Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre 27 Sep 2019 19:30

I have swelled with pride when I have watched Phoenix Dance Theatre perform at the Peacock, the Lowry or the Linbury in Covent Garden but nowhere are they better than at home in their own theatre before their local audience. This year it was particularly good with extracts from an exciting new piece called Black Waters which will be premiered at the Leeds Playhouse in February.

Black Waters was introduced by Sharon Watson, the company's artistic director, at the start of the show. In a short speech, she explained that it was inspired by two of the most infamous episodes of British imperial history. One was the murder of 130 Africans in 1782 by the owner of the vessel Zong who actually had the nerve to attempt to claim insurance for the loss of those slaves. The other outrage was the imprisonment of Indians in the Kala Pani prison over 100 years later. Watson mentioned that she was building on the success of Windrush: Movement of the People which is another aspect of this country's imperial past.

The piece is a collaboration between Watson and Shambik Ghose and Mitul Sengupta of Rhythmosaic in Kolkatta. The intention is to blend the heritage and strengths of both companies. That is to say, kathak and contemporary to a score by Dishari Chakraborty. The extracts that we saw are very uncomfortable to watch even centuries later but they are also absorbing. Clearly, this will be a very important work.

Our mood changed instantly with the next piece which was a work by the students of Phoenix Youth Academy. Those kids are wonderful. Their energy was boundless. They performed a work created especially for them by Sandrine Monin. She is the choreographer who created Calyx. Monin thrilled me as a dancer when she was with Phoenix and she continues to excite me with her choreography.

The last work of the evening was Jeanguy Saintus's Rite of Spring. I had seen that work in the mightly Lowry (see Phoenix Comes of Age with its Rite of Spring 27 March 2019) and in the CAST in Doncaster (see Phoenix's Rite of Spring and Left Unseen 11 April 2019) and I have described the work in those reviews. The Stanley and Audrey Burton is a much more intermediate auditorium and I have actually danced in it. For once I felt I was not just watching the performance but actually taking part in the ceremony. Never have I felt closer to the performers or more involved in the show than I did that night. It was an unforgettable theatrical experience.

Sadly, dancers move on. Carmen, Sandrine and Prentice have gone but the wonderful Vanessa Vince-Pang is still here as are Carlos Martinez and Michael Marquez. There are some very promising new faces whose careers I shall follow with interest.

Shortly after the show, it was announced that Sharon Watson had received a Black British Business Award (see Sharon Watson wins big at the Black British Business Awards 3 Oct 2019). This award delights me but not surprise me in the least. I have seen her in presentations in contexts quite unconnected with dance such as the Chinese IP Roadshow that I chaired two years ago and she is very impressive indeed.

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Birmingham Royal Ballet Giselle28 Sept 2019 Birmingham Hippodrome 19:30

Dasa Masilo Giselle12 Oct 2019 Bradford Alhambra 19:30

I have seen two fine productions of Giselle: David Bintley's for the Birmingham Royal Ballet at the Birmingham Hippodrome on 28 Sept 2019 and Dada Masilo's at the Bradford Alhambra last night. Both were impressive even though they could not have been more different.

Bintley's was a direct descendant of Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot's of 1841 with Marius Petipa's modifications. He created his version in collaboration with Galina Samsova who would have studied the lead role in Ukraine before performing it herself to great acclaim with the company that is now known as the English National Ballet in London. According to Susan Turner's note for Birmingham Royal Ballet's programme, Samsova found a tape in which Anton Dolin,Galina Ulanova and Alicia Alonso had recorded their recollections of the ballet which influenced Bintley too. Turner noted that he and Samsova set out to create a "proper Giselle" in contrast to Arthur Mitchell's for the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Mats Ek's for the Paris Opera or. now, Akram Khan's for English National.

With breathtaking designs by Hayden Griffiths and ingenious lighting by Mark Jonathan, Bintley succeeded spectacularly. The set for the first act with its apparently flowing waterfall was particularly arresting as the audience awaited Hilarion with his offering of game as well as Albrecht and his squire, Wilfred. For some reason, principals at the Hippodrome appear not to be applauded when they first appear. I experienced quizzical looks from fellow audience members when, instinctively, I began to clap Brandon Lawrence's entry on stage. I was more careful when Celine Gittens appeared at her door shortly afterwards.

Gittens was outstanding in the title role. An accomplished actor as well as virtuoso, it was hard to stay dry-eyed as she glided inexorably towards her fate. First, the plucking of the petals, the heart murmurs, the warning from her mother, feeling the hem of Bathikde's garment and finally the deception as Hilarion produced Albrecht's sword and Albrecht acknowledged his posh betrothed.

Lawrence also impressed me as he always does. He is a powerful dancer magnificent in his solos. I am not sure that Albrecht is his most natural role but he discharged it well. He came into his own in the second act with his soaring leaps and graceful turns.

Crucial to the success of any Giselle is a strong Myrtha for it is she who commands the wilis and indeed the audience. Her role is technically difficult requiring considerable strength and stamina. She must be tall, icy and aetherial. Yijing Zhang performed that role with flair.

I must also commend Matthias Dingmann and Yanquian Shang for their peasant pas de deux, Alexander Yap for his performance as Hilarion and Jonathan Pain as a worthy Wilfred. My companion who is a sports fan likes to choose a man or woman of the match when she watches a ballet and she chose Payn. Finally, I must also congratulate the corps for their highly polished performance. A lot is asked of them in Giselle and they gave their all. Bentley's was indeed a proper Giselle and one of the best.

I approached the Alhambra with a degree of trepidation for I love Giselle and would have hated to see it spoilt. While I am intrigued by innovation I detest change for change's sake. A choreographer who reimagines a classical ballet plays with fire so far as I am concerned. Ted Brandson got away with it with his Coppelia as did David Dawson with Scottish Ballet's Swan Lake. Others have been much less successful.

Masilo's reworking of Giselle succeeded for me in a way that Akram Khan's did not. I attended the premiere at The Palace three years ago have never been tempted back. By contrast, I have already booked my ticket at The Lowry to see Masilo again. Though transposed to the banks of a lake in rural Africa it was still recognizably Giselle. There were a few tweaks to the story. Obviously, Albrecht did not carry a sword. Instead, his smart trousers indicated his rank. Hilarion appears to have been Berthe's choice for an arranged marriage. She is nothing like the kind concerned mum in the traditional story. The mad scene is particularly poignant with Giselle reduced to nakedness on learning of Albrecht's betrayal. It is followed by her funeral to the haunting music of a beautiful Zulu hymn. The biggest change was with the wilis half of whom are men. Clad in identical raspberry costumes they are fiendish creatures. Myrtha, their leader, a sangoma, is danced by a man. In this version, Albrecht is shown no mercy. Giselle takes an elephant whip to him. The show ends with Giselle scattering white dust over his grave.

One of the reasons why I think Masilo's Giselle worked was her choice of score. She commissioned the South African composer, Philip Miller, to combine Western and traditional African instruments in a composition that was rooted in Africa but quoted Adam at many points. Sometimes it was just a chord. At other times a phrase or melody.

It was clear from their turnout and posture that all the dancers were classically trained but their steps were very different. There were hardly any jumps, precious few lifts, no pointework so far as I could see and not a single grand jeté. There were dialogues and soliloquies and plenty of grunts. But I think it would still be fair to call it ballet. And it was certainly gripping theatre. Unlike traditional Giselles, there was no break between act one and two, It was one of the tensest 80 minutes I can remember.

Masilo herself danced Giselle and like Gittens, she can act as well as dance, Her Albrecht was Lwando Dutyulwa. One of those most gripping moments of the show was a fight with Hilarion danced by Thshepo Zasakhaya. Also impressive was Berthe, nothing like the caring, considerate mummy in the traditional show. A three-dimensional character danced by Sinazo Bokolo. Though very different from the usual Myrtha, Llewellyn Mnguni commanded the stage at least as much as any other.

As I have seen nearly as many Giselles as I have had hot dinners I had no difficulty in following the libretto but that was not true of everybody in the audience. Even though I can understand why there was no interval I think it would have welcomed by the audience. There is only so much the senses can absorb at once. There were folk in the theatre who had never seen any other Giselle whose enjoyment would have been enhanced with a fuller synopsis and a better explanation of the cultural allusions. But Masilo is a remarkable dancer and choreographer and I can't wait to see her work again.

Any comparison between the work of one of our national companies and Masilo would be invidious and I am not going to try. I left both theatres on a high. Both versions of Giselle have their strengths. I learned a little bit about both works from seeing the other.

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Chantry Dance Company Alive Wonderland Through the Looking Glass Victoia Theatre, Halifax 3 Oct 2019

I have been following Chantry Dance ever since I attended their workshop at the Drill Hall in Lincoln in May 2014 (see Chantry Dance Company's Sandman and Dream Dance 10 May 2014). It was on the way to that workshop that I made friends with Mel Wong who has an encyclopedic knowledge of dance and been a great source of encouragement. I had come to watch that workshop and not take part. No sooner had I settled into my seat in the stalls when I was coaxed out by Gail Gordon, the company's dance director, and led to the stage. That was the first time I had danced in public and the moment is recorded on film.

In those days Chantry Dance had only recently been formed. They explained that they had been commissioned by Chinese calligraphers to translate their work into dance and had been asked repeatedly for the name of their company. The idea of freelance dancers seemed alien to those artists. Paul and Raw asked themselves "why not form a company" and, not long afterwards, Chantry Dance was established.

They were very ambitious and they have grown very quickly. A few months after their workshop I attended an open-air performance of a new ballet by Paul Chantry for Grantham's Gravity Fields science festival called Chasing the Eclipse featuring Dominic North of Sir Matthew Bourne's New Adventures and Rae Piper (see Gravity Fields - Chasing the Eclipse 28 Sept 2014). A few weeks after Gravity Fields they made their first appearance in Halifax with three superb one-act ballets, The Happy Prince, Rhapsody in Blue and All I can do is me - the Bob Dulan Ballet (seeThe Happy Prince in Halifax 24 Nov 2015).

They staged their triple bill at the Square Chapel which is a tiny auditorium. It was a great show and the audience loved them but their numbers were disappointing. Any other company would have written off Halifax but Chantry Dance persevered and they have now built up a loyal following. Every summer they tour the venues in advance with a free talk about their autumn show. They also reach out to local dance schools and groups with their young choreographer programme When they visited the Victoria - a much bigger theatre than Square Chapel - the place was heaving. There were a few empty seats at the back and sides of the stalls and the management had not opened up the upper levels but there was a definite buzz in the air.

Alice Wonderland through the Looking Glass is a full-length ballet. In fact, it is their third or fourth. That is an achievement in itself because not every small company has managed to stage even one full-length work. When I interviewed Kenneth Tindall about Casanova he explained that a full-length ballet is a much more difficult and complex proposition than a one-act piece. The choreography is by Paul Chantry and Rae Piper. The music was written by Tim Mountain who had provided the score for Chasing the Eclipse. Jenny Bowmam and Emma Darban designed the costumes.

The story, which was created by Rae Piper, could actually be considered a sequel to the other Alice books. Piper imagines Alice as an adult working in a teashop trying to establish herself as a writer. The connection with Lewis Carroll is an old looking class which turns out to be the one in Carroll's story. All Carroll's characters - the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts the Cheshire Cat et al - are in the ballet. The big difference is that they come into our world which they find as mad as Alice found theirs. The plot of the story is to prevent the Queen from doing mischief in our world. She is eventually neutralized by being turned into a chess piece. Alice writes all about it in a novel which is a runaway success. Her reputation as a writer is made.

Alice was danced by Shannon Parker who has had a long career which has included stints with the San Francisco Ballet, Northern Ballet and the Ballet du Rhin. The Queen of Hearts was danced by Rae Piper, the Mad Hatter by Paul Chantry, the March Hare by David Beer, the Cheshire Cat by Claire Corruble-Cabot and the Knave of Hearts by Vincent Cabot. The last two dancers had been two of my favourites with Ballet Theatre UK and it was good to see them again.

It was an ambitious undertaking and I think it worked well, I think I preferred Mountain's score in Chasing the Eclipse to this one. More than once I got a sense of délȁ vue, Perhaps a little less percussion and a variation of the instruments and tempo would have made it more perfect. But I liked the story and there were some good performances, particularly by Chantry and Parker. The very noisy applause that the dancers won at the reverence showed how much the public liked the work.

Before the show, David Beer introduced three short works by local dance groups. The titles and dancers are not in the programme and they were only mentioned once on stage so I cannot say who they were or name their pieces. One was about Bollywood. They danced to Jai Ho, the theme song from Slumdog Millionaire. Another was a solo about Anne Frank danced by a young woman of approximately the same age as the diarist. The last featured different coloured shirts and that is all I can remember about it other than that the choreography was put together well. From the sound of the cheering, I guess that many members of the audience were in Victoria to see and support the young people.

There is usually a question and answer session after Chantry Dance's shows and this was no exception. There were questions about pointe shoes and how long it took to create the work. I wanted to ask a question but I did not attract Rae Piper's attention in time. Probably just as well that I didn't because the remnants of a tropical storm were about to hit Halifax. The audience would have been caught in the deluge had they stayed a moment longer. I had intended to say hello to Paul and Rae at the stage door but there is no shelter there from the elements. If they read this review they will know that I was there and liked their show.

The company has come a long way in the time I have known it. It is now very slick and polished. There was an air of showmanship in the way that Rae Piper got the whole cast and audience to take part in a massive group selfie and in her speech at the end of the show. Having toured the country for the last few autumns we can almost certainly look forward to a smart new production next September.

Standard YouTube Licence

Sometimes one can have too much of a good thing and World Ballet Day is one of those times. There's a great temptation to drop everything to watch a whole day of classes, rehearsals, interviews and shows. This year I rationed myself to just one contribution on the day and this is it.

It will surprise nobody who knows me that I have chosen the Dutch National Ballet's slot. I have been following that company for the last 6 years and I have watched careers blossom like cherry trees in Spring. One of the folks I interviewed as a member of the Junior Company in 2014 was Martin ten Kortenaar. He is now one of the leads in Rudi van Dantzig's Romeo and Juliet.

The recording shows three scenes from the work: the Dance of the Knights, the balcony scene and the bedroom scene just before Romeo takes flight. I have seen many versions of this ballet: Lavrovsky's, Maillot's, Pastor's, James's, Nureyev's and, of course, MacMillan's but there seems to be a unique exuberance to this work. According to Ted Brandsen, the Director of the Dutch National Ballet this was the first full-length work to be created in Holland. With designs by Toer van Schayk, it must be gorgeous.

But, so too, will be Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Frida. I have long admired the work that she has done for Ballet Black, Scottish Ballet and other companies. This promises to be a tour de force. With Floor Eimers in the show, how could it be otherwise?

I have said many times in this blog that I can't watch Ernst Meisner's Embers without the tears welling up. I have seen it performed beautifully by different artists - Cristiano Principato and Jessica Xuan at last year's gala, Thomas van Damme and Nancy Burer and Cristiano again with Priscylla Gallo at Trecate in Italy. In this clip you will see two new young dancers in Embers whom I am sure will go far, They are Sebia Plantefȅve and Davi Ramos. I can't wait to see them live on stage.

Tomorrow I shall watch another clip from a favourite company that performed yesterday. A Russian company other than the Bolshoi or Mariinsky perhaps. Or maybe an American company that is not from New York. There is no shortage of choice.

Campbell and Magri in Royal Ballet's Don Quixote

Another Look at Victoira

Phoenix's Rite of Spring and Left Unseen

Best "Day of Dance" Ever

Two Gems: "Seasons in Our World" and "Peter and the Wolf"

A World-Class Company for a Changing Nation

San Francisco Ballet in London

Cinders in the Round

Wherefore Art Thou Romeo? Or Juliet for that Matter?

[Un}leashed

Welcome Back! Junior Company returns to the Linbury

Dancers of Tomorrow

Central School of Ballet's Summer Performance

In Mist and Rain

Spartacus

The Dutch National Ballet's 2019 Gala

Phoenix at Home

A Brace of Giselles

Chantry Dance's "Alice Wonderland through the Looking Class"

World Ballet Day - Dutch National Ballet