Broken Wings – British Ballet Now & Then

Gender Fluidity Now & Then: fairy tale, myth and icon

Gender Fluidity Now

The Sleeping Beauty now

When the curtains rises on Marius Petipa’s 1890 The Sleeping Beauty, we are left in no doubt that we are entering a world of rigid codes in terms of clothing, etiquette, and hierarchy. And as the ballet progresses, we quickly become aware of its binary nature, with clear-cut distinctions between good and evil, beauty and ugliness, youth and age, male and female.

Based on Charles Perrault’s “old fairy”, the Evil Fairy Carabosse is indisputably female. Nonetheless, following perhaps the example of Old Madge in August Bournonville’s La Sylphide (1836), Carabosse was originally performed by the renowned virtuoso and mime artist Enrico Cecchetti, and is still frequently performed by a male dancer. Another contributory factor to this decision may have been the nature of Baba Yaga, the “supreme scare figure of the Russian nursery”, who in mythographer Marina Warner’s words “breaks the laws of nature. Baba Yaga isn’t quite a woman, and certainly not feminine; there’s something of Tiresias about her, double-sexed and knowing” (more about Tiresias in the Then section of this post).

Writing in 1998, American historian Sally Banes describes Carabosse as “old, ugly, wicked, hunchbacked” (54). Clearly Carabosse is guilty of wickedness (although we are not given any explanation why), and her other attributes are implied through her name: bosse meaning hump or swelling, and cara meaning face. This is indisputably the archetypal figure of the ugly old crone (Warner; Watson; Windling).

Banes analyses the ways in which Carabosse flaunts all the codes integral to Sleeping Beauty’s court life:

She breaks the polite bodily codes of the courtiers. She takes up too much space; her movements are angular, spasmodic, and grotesque. She transgresses the boundary between female power seen as beautiful and good (as in the Lilac Fairy’s commanding presence) and female power seen as ugly and evil … Usually played by a man (like Madge in La Sylphide, symbolizing her distinctly unfeminine traits and behavior), Carabosse has all the wrong proportions, above all gigantic hands. She is a monster precisely because she is a category error, seemingly violating gender boundaries by combining aspects of male and female.

In this world a woman can be either powerful, good and beautiful or powerful, evil and ugly. However, not only is Carabosse ugly and evil, and old, but like Baba Yaga she simultaneously embodies an archetypal female stereotype and fails to adhere to ideals of femininity. And in this world of classical ballet, she is incapable of executing la danse d’école: “Unlike the good fairies, who balance confidently on one leg while dancing, she cannot even balance on two legs, for she walks with a cane” (Banes 54).

Kristen McNally as Carabosse, 2023 © ROH/Johan Persson

The Royal Ballet’s last run of Sleeping Beauty showcased a variety of female dancers in the role, including Kristen McNally, who has been performing Carabosse since 2009. Reviews of McNally demonstrate that in her interpretation, while the Evil Fairy may indeed be a monster by nature, she strays far from Banes’ description of Carabosse: Gerald Dowler describes her as “icily beautiful” with “an evil heart”, while Jann Parry sees her as similarly “glamorous and spiteful”. One of McNally’s predecessors Genesia Rosato, who performed the role in the first decade of this century, and is our favourite Carabosse, was perceived by reviewers not as “a grotesque old hag …, but a rather sexy and dangerous woman” (Titherington), a “beautiful fairy turned spiteful and gothic” (Liber).

Genesia Rosato as Carabosse with artists of The Royal Ballet, 2011 © ROH/Johan Persson

Fortunately for us, both of these compelling performances are available commercially, so we were able to analyse the dancers’ movements closely in relation to Banes’ words and our knowledge of non-verbal communication and gender representation. As is characteristic of women, both Rosato and McNally walk with a narrower gait and keep their gestures rather closer to the body than do their male predecessors, such as Anthony Dowell and Frederick Ashton, and they use their canes to poke rather than beat the offending Catalabutte, who forgot to invite Carabosse to the Christening. Unlike the figure of the “ugly old crone” they walk upright, their skin is smooth, and their lips red; and there are no “gigantic hands”. Nonetheless we still see some “violation of gender boundaries” in their behaviour: they command the space around them; their gestures are strong, broad and intrusive, their eye contact ferocious. In fact their behaviour in general exhibits the kind of dominance more typical of men (Argyle 284; Burgoon et al. 381; Carli et al. 1031; Mast and Sczesny 414).

It seems clear that these renditions of Carabosse as glamorous and beautiful do not transgress the gender binary in the way that Banes has in mind, even though some masculine traits are visible. However, for us, the critical point about gender here is that in this particular world of Sleeping Beauty, a woman can be powerful and evil … and yes, beautiful.

Over at English National Ballet, who last performed The Sleeping Beauty in 2018, Kenneth MacMillan’s 1986 production provides a different, but equally fascinating, lens through which to view Carabosse, thanks to the costuming of Nicholas Georgiadis. Luke Jennings’ colourful description of Carabosse with her “sallow features and madly crimped [red] hair” is an unmistakable reference to Queen Elizabeth I, so renowned for her combination of masculine and feminine traits.

In 2018 casts included both male and female performers. Clearly, from critic Vera Liber’s point of view, there was a noticeable distinction between the interpretations of the first and second casts, one male, one female:

On first night, James Streeter revels in playing up the panto villain, giving it plenty of gothic largesse, whereas second cast Stina Quagebeur is a deliciously spiteful Nicole Kidman lookalike, a vengeful woman wronged.

James Streeter as Carabosse in English National Ballet’s *The Sleeping Beauty*, 2018 © Laurent Liotardo

Even though not explicit, the comparison with a female actor and choice of words “deliciously spiteful” and “vengeful woman” do strongly imply that, to Liber, Stina Quagebeur appears markedly more feminine than James Streeter. And her depiction of Quagebeur’s Carabosse is very much in line with the descriptions of Genesia Rosato and Kristen McNally in the role, combining evil, beauty and power.

What Carabosse and Elizabeth I have in common is that they both have the power to wreck the dynasty: Elizabeth through her choice not to bear children, and Carabosse by scheming to prevent Aurora from producing an heir. And this parallel with Elizabeth informs our understanding of Carabosse as a character that does not fit comfortably within a single gender category.

The Scottish preacher and author John Knox (1514-1572) declared that “God hath revealed to some in this our age that it is more than a monster in nature that a woman should reign and bear empire above man” (2). So whether performed by a male or female dancer, this Elizabeth-Carabosse can been seen as “a monster … seemingly violating gender boundaries”. And on a personal note, we would have to say that Stina Quagebeur is without a doubt the most terrifying Carabosse we have ever encountered.

Cinderella now

Last season Scottish Ballet explored gender fluidity, again in the context of a familiar, well-loved fairy-tale ballet, but in an unusual and innovative way.

Bruno Micchiardi as Cinders in Scottish Ballet’s Cinders. Credit Andy Ross

Renamed Cinders! the narrative of Cinderella on some nights featured the usual female Cinders, who falls in love with the Prince, while on others, romance blossomed between a male Cinders and the Princess.

The cast was deliberately not released in advance, so each audience remained uncertain of Cinders’ gender until their appearance on the stage. Consequently, when purchasing tickets, audiences had at least to be open to the challenge of a new way of viewing the work.

Scottish Ballet describes Cinders! as “an evolution and adaptation of Christopher Hampson’s [2015] Cinderella”. Given ballet’s rigid gender codes in terms of roles, behaviours, technique and vocabulary, you may, like us, be wondering how such a gender swap could ever be achieved. Critic Kathy Elgin asks with apparent consternation, “Would a man have to cope with girly bourrée-ing?”. Evidently, however, the adaptations were far more subtle than these musings suggest, as Elgin asserts that “the choreography is much the same irrespective of who’s playing what, except for some obvious variation in solos to accommodate male / female specialities. That is, in pas de deux, each is dancing the steps they would have danced in any pairing”. Yet despite the subtlety of the changes, it is clear that for both dancers and viewers the approach to characterisation made a substantial difference, resulting in fresh insights into of the nature of the protagonists.

Bruno Micchiardi as Cinders and Jessica Fyfe as Princess Louise in Scottish Ballet’s Cinders. Credit Andy Ross

Principal Dancer Bruno Michiardi reflected on the rehearsal process:

What I’ve found most interesting about the fluidity of the roles of the Cinders leads is just how different and new it’s made the ballet feel. We all know and love the classic story of Cinderella, but this new version means we’re suddenly working in this amazing upside-down realm, where the male part (previously a more traditionally stoic character) is a complex mixture of vulnerability and resilience, and the female role (usually quite timid and downtrodden for most of the original ballet) is empowered and full of charisma… I’m excited at the prospect of exploring this further and sharing that with the audience! (“Introducing Cinders”)

Reviewer Tom King sees this exchange of gender as a “re-written … dialogue of the dance between the Princess and Cinders … so the gender prominence of this work now changes completely too as it is the male lead who now dominates and performs so much of this ballet”. In contrast Elgin notes that “the commanding style of a princess in her own right reminds us how rarely women get the chance to make that kind of confident statement”.

These different perspectives highlight what is most important to us about the Cinders! gender swap—that is, the opportunity for both dancers and audience to reappraise how they perceive gender roles within the context of a traditional ballet narrative.

Broken Wings and the Male Fridas

In 2016 choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa created a very different world to that of The Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella for English National Ballet. Based on the life of artist Frida Kahlo, this ballet presents gender fluidity in a unique way—unique, but completely in line with Kahlo’s life and art.

Like Queen Elizabeth I, Kahlo was known for her own peculiar union of masculinity and femininity. In the ballet this is perhaps most notable through the presence of eleven “Male Fridas” who bring Kahlo’s paintings into three-dimensional life.

Performed by male members of the company, these Fridas, described by designer Dieuweke van Reij as an “extension of Frida herself”, sport billowing full-length ruffled skirts, in bright, contrasting colours, inspired by traditional Tehuana dress. Their headdresses include flowers, butterflies, antlers, and the ceremonial resplandor, referencing specific self-portraits by Kahlo, including Self-Portrait with a Necklace of Thorns (1940), Self-Portrait as a Tehuana (1943), and Self-Portrait with a Monkey (1948). Their torsos are painted to match their skirts.

Tamara Rojo & Artists of English National Ballet, 2016 © Dave Morgan

The costumes are inspired by Kahlo’s iconic dress style, which is undeniably feminine, with the soft folds of the material and decorative headdresses. But Kahlo was also known for a more androgynous style of dressing: even as a teenager she was known to wear a man’s suit with waistcoat and tie, and in her 1940 Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair she has cut her hair short and wears a man’s dark suit. Her monobrow, moustache and strong features were also celebrated, even exaggerated, in her paintings. And neither in terms of her behaviour did Kahlo conform to stereotypical femininity, with her forthrightness, her revolutionary politics, and her sexual appetite for both female and male lovers. But despite the evident femininity of the Broken Wings costumes, they also connote power. This is because the Tehuana dress is the traditional dress of the Zapotec women from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, who are unconventional in being considered, to some extent at least, a matriarchal society, and from which, significantly, Kahlo’s mother hailed.

As the Male Fridas swirl and sway with bold lunges and leaps, and expansive leg gestures, they make full use of their skirts, creating a riot of colour and energy. And Frida joins them, dressed in an orange Tehuana skirt, dancing in the same bold but non-gendered style, sometimes in unison. Her dominance is writ large as the Male Fridas hold her aloft, and she boldly leads and directs their movements, displaying Kahlo’s own peculiar fusion of masculinity and femininity.

Tamara Rojo & Artists of English National Ballet, 2016
© Tristram Kenton

Further, the non-binary nature of the “Male Fridas” is accentuated by their strong resemblance to the “muxes” of Zapotec culture. The muxes are considered neither female nor male, but instead are a recognised third gender. While they are assigned male at birth, as adults they exhibit more stereotypically female attributes in their behaviours, and economic and societal roles. This can be seen, for example, in the way they dress, their skill at embroidering and weaving, and their caregiving to elderly relatives (Balderas; Plata).

And now we return to The Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella to discover how gender fluidity manifested itself in British ballet in the past, before exploring a less conventional work …

Gender Fluidity Then

The Sleeping Beauty then

As we said in the Now section of this post, in 1890 Marius Petipa created the character of Carabosse for Enrico Cecchetti. However, it’s interesting that when Sergei Diaghilev mounted his production of The Sleeping Beauty in London in 1921, Carabosse was performed by Carlotta Brianza, the originator of the role of Princess Aurora. Over the last century there have been phases of male and female Carabosses, and following the lead of Petipa and Diaghilev, the calibre of dancers has sometimes been extraordinary, including Frederick Ashton, Robert Helpmann, Monica Mason, Lynn Seymour, Anthony Dowell, Edward Watson and Zenaida Yanowsky.

Frederick Ashton, 1955 © Showcase Productions

While it’s of interest that Brianza performed Carabosse for Diaghilev, it’s even more fascinating that it was not the role of Carabosse that the Impresario originally had in mind for Brianza; rather, it was her original role of Princess Aurora (Christoudia 201). By 1921 Brianza was in her mid-50s. According to the drama The Ballerinas, it was Brianza herself who suggested that she perform the part of the Evil Fairy. It would be understandable if Brianza had considered herself unsuitable for Aurora at this point in her career (Tamara Rojo famously stated that she believed ballerinas should not be performing Aurora beyond the age of forty, and the first night went to the 26-year-old Olga Spessivtseva). Ironically though, Carla Fracci, who performs sections of Aurora’s choreography as both Brianza and Spessivtseva in the programme, was herself just shy of fifty when it was recorded, and we would defy anyone to say she looks anything but youthful in both her appearance and her dancing. At the 1890 premiere designer Alexander Benois described Brianza as “very pretty”, while reviews highlighted her grace and elegance (qtd. in Wiley 189). Perhaps the most celebrated photograph of Brianza as Aurora shows her balancing sur pointe in cou de pied, her hands placed demurely by her neck, so that her forearms partially hide her décolleté, and attired in a tutu that gives her the perfect wasp-like waist. The picture of femininity. There seems no logical reason then that in her 50s Brianza would have lost all of her beauty, grace and elegance.

It is difficult to know what Brianza was like as Carabosse, but we were able to find a small number of photos of her in the role, which make it crystal clear that Carabosse in this production was bereft of beauty, grace and elegance. One photo shows her surrounded by her entourage of rats that seem to tower over her, making her appear a rather petite figure, her stature diminished by her hunched back and lankness of her hair (“Carlotta Brianza as Carabosse”). Feminine, but hardly the ideal of femininity. In another she is seems to be mistress of all she surveys. The stoop and the lank hair are still in evidence, but her silhouetted profile brings a baleful mystery to her lone, and in this image androgynous, figure (MacDonald 280).

Luckily, however, we have a very good idea of how Carabosse was portrayed in the 1950s by the Royal Ballet in the celebrated 1946 production by Nicholas Sergeyev and Ninette de Valois, thanks to two recordings of the work, made in 1955 and 1959. On opening night Robert Helpmann accomplished the astonishing feat of performing both Carabosse and the Prince. However, it is Ashton who appears in the 1955 recording, while the 1959 film features Yvonne Cartier, who by this time was focussing on mime due to an inoperable ankle injury.

Yvonne Cartier, 1959
© Royal Academy of Dance / ArenaPAL

Even though these two performances feature a male and a female dancer, they both exhibit a remarkable likeness to the image of Carabosse that we outlined in the Now section of this post. With their blemished skin and stooping gait both Ashton and Cartier display the attributes of the archetypal “ugly old crone” or “grotesque old hag”. More particularly, the words of Sally Banes could have been written specifically for these renditions of the Evil Fairy: Ashton’s movement are indisputably “angular, spasmodic, and grotesque”, while Cartier spreads her arms wide like enormous wings, and as a result “takes up too much space”. And they have “the wrong proportions”. Ashton has an exaggerated prosthetic nose, and they both have “gigantic hands” due to their long fake nails, threatening gestures, and in the case of Cartier, the spreading of her fingers like a raptor’s talons.

It seems that not even Brianza, the hyperfeminine Aurora of 1890, could escape the curse of being transformed from benign and pulchritudinous to malevolent and unsightly. But as we have seen, the figure of Carabosse has evolved quite drastically over the last decades of the 20^th century and into the current century, challenging the binaries of female vs. male, ugliness vs. beauty, good vs. evil. How will that evolution continue, we wonder?

Cinderella then

The Royal Ballet’s decision to cast female Stepsisters as well as the traditional male Stepsisters in their 2023 production of Ashton’s Cinderella caused quite a stir (“Ashton’s Cinderella”; Pritchard), and we were excited about this “new” development. However, we soon discovered that it had been Ashton’s original intention to create his choreography on female dancers, more specifically on Margaret Dale (the pioneer ballet filmmaker) and Moyra Fraser. It was in fact Fraser’s unavailability that caused the change in plan, resulting in the celebrated Ashton-Helpmann Stepsister twosome.

Robert Helpmann and Frederick Ashton, 1965 © Royal Academy of Dance / ArenaPAL

Although critic Judith Mackrell has referred to the Stepsisters as “monsters”, in stark contrast to Carabosse, they are “monsters of delusional vanity” (“Girls Aloud”) rather than monsters of evil. Their behaviour and movements are noticeably “feminine”: they preen in front of the mirror, fuss about their clothes, bicker, walk in a flouncing manner and perform “female” variations at the Ball. These variations overtly reference typical vocabulary from classical pas for ballerinas: small sissonnes piqué arabesque into retiré, a series of pas de chat, développé à la seconde, emboîtés en tournant; they even include lifts and fish dives supported by their male partners. In fact the solo for the timid Stepsister, performed by Ashton, draws on the Sugar Plum Fairy variation, and perhaps also on Walt Disney’s hippo ballerina Hyacinth (Fantasia, 1940), inspired by the Baby Ballerina Tatiana Riabouchinska.

Further, there are additional layers of femininity to these characters. Firstly, with their exaggerated costumes and comedic manners, they recognisably reference the tradition of the Pantomime Dame, so familiar to audiences in this country. Secondly, Ashton had performed the Prince in Andrée Howard’s 1935 Cinderella, and according to David Vaughan (234) was influenced by some aspects of the characterisation, costumes and wig of the sister which Howard choreographed, designed and performed herself. And thirdly, both Ashton and Helpmann were known for their mimicry, notably of women, and both were said to have been influenced by specific “female eccentrics” (Kavanagh 365): Helpmann by Jane Clark (renowned for her feistiness) and comedienne Beatrice Lillie (Vaughan 234), and Ashton himself by Edith Sitwell (Kavanagh 365).

According to dance critic and historian David Vaughan, a female cast was unsuccessful, because “the kind of observation of the female character that lay beneath these performances could be achieved only by men” (234). However, we would argue that, as in the case of the Pantomime Dame, performers and audience share an understanding that the performers are male, and much of the humour resides in this shared understanding, despite the overt performative femininity: “The audience and the character comically share the knowledge that the Dame is not really a woman” (“‘It’s behind you!’”). And there must have been a delicious additional irony attached to the first cast at the premiere in 1948, given the status of both Ashton and Helpmann as key figures in the development of British ballet.

While the Sisters each perform a ballerina solo, their dancing is very poor in classical terms, with turned-in feet, shaky balance, poor coordination and spatial confusion. This of course adds to the humour of the work, a humour that perhaps loses some of its edge when these Pantomime Dames are performed by women. However, it also suggests that female characters who are not fully female, as it were, are in some way lacking, incapable as they are of performing female danse d’école, even when they are female dancers pretending to be male dancers pretending to be female.

Moyra Fraser and Margaret Hill, 1958
© Royal Academy of Dance / ArenaPAL

Although Ashton and Helpmann were the most fêted “twin monsters” (Mackrell, “Girls Aloud”), the 1957 recording of the work featured Kenneth MacMillan instead of Helpmann. Writing about MacMillan’s performance, Peter Wright spotlights the humour that arises from the play on gender in this context:

Kenneth’s performance is remarkably considered, recognisably feminine but still decidedly masculine in the best tradition of pantomime dame … He was very funny. (149)

Tiresias

Happily, undertaking research for this post gave us the opportunity to discover more about a lesser known ballet by Frederick Ashton which, according to the Royal Opera House performance database, was performed only fourteen times over a period of four years after the premiere in 1951. Based on the titular figure from Greek mythology, Tiresias was a tale of sexual identity and pleasure, following the life of Tiresias, who was transformed from man into woman and then back to manhood as the result of his reaction to witnessing a pair of copulating snakes. Having experienced life as both man and woman, he is asked to decide the quarrel between Zeus and Hera as to whether males or females gain more enjoyment from the sexual act.

As we might expect from a ballet of this era, the eponymous Tiresias was not gender fluid in the way that Frida and her corps de ballet are in Broken Wings. Instead, Tiresias was performed by two dancers: Michael Somes as the male Tiresias, and Margot Fonteyn as his female counterpart. Nonetheless, David Raher, writing in The Dancing Times (15) after the premiere, made some comments about Fonteyn’s performance that are pertinent to our discussion:

Instead of contrasting femininity, she conveyed a masculinity in the attack and brio of her dancing. Incontestable evidence of her gender, however, lay in the soft yet firm arm placements and in the unsurpassed magic of controlled développés …

While we ourselves may not make the same gender associations as Raher, the critic’s commentary clearly demonstrates that he perceived aspects of male and female in Fonteyn’s performance.

David Vaughan, who also wrote Ashton’s biography, refers to the “wonderfully ambiguous eroticism” of the pas de deux (254), perhaps implying that the representation of gender is not as straightforward as is generally the case in ballet. Although there seems to be no publicly available video footage of the ballet, we have found some sources that suggest the sensual nature of the choreography: Julie Kavanagh’s description of the pas de deux as “fizz[ing] up into a kind of orgasm” (391), and John Wood’s photograph of Tiresias and her Lover (danced by John Field) showing them in a stylised pose of post-coital bliss, splayed across one another on the floor in a mirror image as they gaze into one other’s eyes.

Judging from the reviews, the number of performances, and the literature on Tiresias, the ballet was neither a critical nor a commercial success. Perhaps the sexually charged choreography and risqué subject matter (glossed over in the programme notes) were too ahead of their time. After Fonteyn’s fiancé forbad her from performing the role again, her replacement Violetta Elvin took on the role, and when her she remarried, the same thing happened: her new husband banned her from dancing in further performances (Macaulay).

Clearly the erotic nature of the choreography was challenging in 1951. And this seems to have been the sticking point However, the iconoclastic choice of gender fluidity and sexual identity as subject matter, in addition to sexual pleasure, should in our opinion not be forgotten, as it is a testament to the daring nature of a choreographer who is perhaps too often associated with conventionality.

Concluding Thoughts

From this exploration of a small number of British ballets based on fairy tales and myth, it is clear that ballet is not entirely new to the concept of gender fluidity, and the more we dig into the characters, the more complex they become. Nonetheless, while attitudes towards gender, and the stereotypes associated with two strictly defined genders, are becoming more open in everyday life, ballet is only very slowly reflecting this cultural shift. Happily, this autumn two British companies have announced upcoming productions that will clearly feature gender-fluid characters: Northern Ballet’s Gentleman Jack, choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and Scottish Ballet’s Mary Queen of Scots in choreography by Sophie Laplane.

As long ago as 2012 Gretchen Alterowitz urged her readers to “contemplate the possibility of multiple or varied genders having a place in the ballet world” (21). We would suggest that the example of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Broken Wings based on the icon Frida Kahlo shows us that ballet does in fact have the capacity to create worlds where a greater diversity of gender representation can be explored—a diversity more suited to our current world and more relevant to the global art form that ballet has become.

Next time on British Ballet Now and Then …
Autumn 2024 saw Noel Streatfeild’s 1936 novel Ballet Shoes adapted for the National Theatre. We investigate this new stage production, television adaptations, and the original book itself.

References

Alterowitz, Gretchen. “Contemporary Ballet: inhabiting the past while engaging the future”. Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies, no. 35, 2015, pp. 20-23.

Argyle, Michael. Bodily Communication. 2^nd ed., Routledge, 1988.

“Ashton’s Cinderella – new Royal Ballet production”. BalletcoForum,https://www.balletcoforum.com/topic/26439-ashtons-cinderella-new-royal-ballet-production/. Accessed 1 Sept. 2024.

Balderas, Jessica Rodriguez. “Muxes, the third gender that challenges heteronormativity”. Institute of Development Studies, 3 Feb. 2020, https://alumni.ids.ac.uk/news/blogs-perspectives-provocations-initiatives/513/513-Muxes-the-third-gender-that-challenges-heteronormativity.

“The Ballerinas”. YouTube, uploaded by markie polo, 24 May 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx2D40Wavwg&t=10586s.

Banes, Sally. Dancing Women: female bodies on the stage. Routledge, 1998.

Burgoon et al. Nonverbal communication. 2^nd ed., Routledge, 2022.

Carli, Linda L. et al. “Nonverbal Behavior, Gender, and Influence”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 68, no. 6, 1995, pp. 1030–1041, https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.68.6.1030.

“Carlotta Brianza as Carabosse with her entourage of rats in the opening scene of The Sleeping Princess 1921”. Victoria and Albert Museum, https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/diaghilev-and-ballets-russes/more-diaghilev-and-film-industry.

“Cinders! 2023”. Scottish Ballet, https://scottishballet.co.uk/discover/our-repertoire/cinders/. Accessed 16 May 2024.

Christoudia, Melanie Trifona. “Carlotta Brianza”. International Dictionary of Ballet, edited by Martha Bremser, pp. 200-01

Dowler, Gerald. “The Royal Ballet – The Sleeping Beauty”. Classical Source, 3 Jan. 2017, www.classicalsource.com/concert/the-royal-ballet-the-sleeping-beauty-3/.

Elgin, Kathy. “Scottish Ballet’s Cinders! confirms Hampson is a savvy theatre-maker”. Bachtrack, 9 Jan. 2024 https://bachtrack.com/review-cinders-scottish-ballet-hampson-glasgow-edinburgh-december-january-2023-24.

Fracci, Carla. “The Ballerinas”. YouTube, uploaded by Markie polo, 24 May 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx2D40Wavwg.

“Introducing Cinders with a Charming Twist to the Tale”. Scottish Ballet, 2013, scottishballet.co.uk/discover/news-and-articles/introducing-cinders/.

“‘It’s behind you! A look into the history of pantomime’”. University of York, 2010, www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/features/pantomime/.

Jennings, Luke. “The Sleeping Beauty/English National Ballet – review”. The Guardian, 9 Dec. 2012, www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/dec/09/sleeping-beauty-english-national-ballet.

Kavanagh, Julie. Secret Muses: the life of Frederick Ashton. Faber & Faber, 1996.

Knox, John. 1558. The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. Blackmask Online, 2022, http://public-library.uk/ebooks/35/36.pdf.

Liber, Vera. “The Sleeping Beauty”. British Theatre Guide, 2009, www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/RBsleepingbeauty-rev.

Macdonald, Nesta. Diaghilev Observed. Dance Horizons, 1975

Macaulay, Alastair. “Ashton and Balanchine: parallel lines”. NYU The Center for Ballet and the Arts, 2018, https://balletcenter.nyu.edu/lkl2018-script/

Mackrell, Judith. “Chase Johnsey’s unlikely success is a bold and beautiful victory for ballet”. The Guardian, 6 Feb. 2017, www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/feb/06/chase-johnsey-success-national-dance-awards.

—. “Girls Aloud”. The Guardian, 1 Dec. 2003, www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/dec/01/dance.

Mast, Marianne Schmid, and Sabine Sczesny. “Gender, Power, and Nonverbal Behavior”. Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology, vol. 1, Jan. 2010, pp. 411-25, SpringerLink, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1465-1_20.

Plata, Gabriel. “Celebrating diversity: Meet Mexico’s Third Gender”. Inter-American Development Bank, 19 May 2019, https://www.iadb.org/en/story/celebrating-diversity-meet-mexicos-third-gender.

Parry, Jann. “Royal Ballet – The Sleeping Beauty – London”. DanceTabs, 14 Nov. 2019, https://dancetabs.com/2019/11/royal-ballet-the-sleeping-beauty-london-2/.

Pritchard, Jim. “The Royal Ballet exhibits Ashton’s Cinderella choreography in their Disneyfied new staging”. Seen and Heard International, 14 Apr. 2023, https://seenandheard-international.com/2023/04/the-royal-ballet-exhibits-ashtons-cinderella-choreography-in-their-disneyfied-new-staging/.

Reij, Dieuweke van. “Broken Wings: interview with designer Dieuweke van Reij”. English National Ballet, 20 Jan. 2019, www.ballet.org.uk/blog-detail/broken-wings-interview-designer-dieuweke-van-reij/

Rojo, Tamara. “Tamara Rojo South bank show 3”. YouTube, uploaded by Kabaiivansko2, 23 Apr. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfOoX16RLFM.

Titherington, Alan. “Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty (Royal Ballet – 2006)”. Myreviewer.com, 29 Sept. 2008, www.myreviewer.com/DVD/108291/Tchaikovsky-The-Sleeping-Beauty-Royal-Ballet-2006/108400/Review-by-Alan-Titherington.

Vaughan, David. Frederick Ashton and his Ballets. Rev. ed., Dance Books, 1999.

Wright, Peter. Wrights and Wrongs: my life in dance. Oberon, 2016.

Warner, Marina. “Witchiness”. London Review of Books, vol. 31, no. 16, 2009, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n16/marina-warner/witchiness.

Watson, Paul. “On Fairy Tales and Witches”. The Lazarus Corporation, 6 Jan. 2015, https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/on-fairy-tales-and-witches.

Windling, Terri. “Into the Wood, 9: Wild Men & Women”. Myth and Moor, 31 May 2013, https://windling.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/into-the-wood-8-wild-men-and-women.html.

SPOTLIGHT ON ANNABELLE LOPEZ OCHOA

THE MOTH AND THE BUTTERFLY

The ballet A Streetcar Named Desire (2012) begins and ends on a dimly lit stage with Blanche Dubois reaching up towards a lightbulb to the sound of an eerie, unnerving tremolo on the strings. Moth like, her fragile body is torn between desire and caution, her fluttering hands betraying her extreme vulnerability, her sharp withdrawals from the light accentuating her fear.

The ballet Broken Wings (2016) begins with Skeletons sitting on and leaning against a large black box, which represents different spaces in Frida Kahlo’s life through the course of the work. Frida arises from the dark cube, aided by the Skeletons. The ballet ends with her encased in the same construct, but now opened to reveal a vibrant orange, red and yellow butterfly inside, to which Frida forms the centre. After the black box is closed by the Skeletons, a brightly coloured bird emerges and turns continuously as the curtains close, fluttering into eternity, as it were.

Both of these ballets were choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, whom we introduced to our readers in one of our early posts, Female Choreographers Now and Then. Although based in Amsterdam, Lopez Ochoa works for ballet companies across the globe—from Seattle to Cuba, Estonia to Australia. The two works that form the basis of this post, however, were both created for British ballet companies. Former Artistic Director of Scottish Ballet Ashley Page commissioned Streetcar, while Broken Wings was choreographed as part of English National Ballet’s 2016 She Said programme, commissioned by Tamara Rojo, and comprising three new works by female choreographers. In both cases Lopez Ochoa worked with the theatre and film director Nancy Meckler, which highlights for us the centrality of characterisation, narrative and drama in these ballets.

On the face of it, Tennessee Williams’ fictional Blanche and the artist Frida Kahlo have little in common. But we are fascinated by the imagery used by Lopez Ochoa that tempts us to make comparisons that we would otherwise undoubtedly have failed to notice.

Marge Hendrick with Ryoichi Hirano in A Streetcar Named Desire
© Andy Ross

Katja Khaniukova as Frida Kahlo in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Broken Wings © Laurent Liotardo

Loss

The three protagonists of Williams’ play are Blanche, her sister Stella, and Stanley, Stella’s husband. Set in the New Orleans of 1947, the year in which Williams wrote his play, the action takes place in the claustrophobic atmosphere of Stella’s apartment where Blanche has come to escape her old life. Blanche is trapped by memories of the past, combined with a fantasy world of her own imagination. The story of Blanche’s past and the losses that she has incurred are revealed gradually, bit by bit, as the play progresses. In contrast, Lopez Ochoa’s ballet depicts Blanche’s life chronologically, beginning with her wedding as a young girl, which visibly portrays her as the “tender and trusting” character that Stella describes to Stanley (Williams 81).

Scottish Ballet company in A Streetcar Named Desire. Photo: Andy Ross

But the joyous wedding is followed by a brutal stream of losses occurring one after the other in unremitting succession. First comes the suicide of Blanche’s young homosexual husband, Allan, for which she feels an inescapable, hounding guilt, demonstrated by his haunting blood-stained reappearances through the course of the work. After Stella leaves for New Orleans, their relatives disappear from the tableau of the family photograph, represented by the cast collapsing one after the other with a sickly inevitability. The structure of Blanche’s life as she knows it finally gives way with the loss of Belle Reve, the ancestral home, which without warning, suddenly disintegrates block by block, crashing to a pile on the floor. For Marge Hendrick, one of Scottish Ballet’s Principals who performs Blanche, this approach to communicating the narrative explains the reasons for Blanche’s behaviour (qtd. in O’Brien 15). Hendrick further asserts, “We can see her in her best light at the start, and really see the decline, which is progressive” (1:14-1:23). And for us, this means that we are seeing the narrative through the eyes of Blanche: Lopez Ochoa has given her a “voice”.

Kahlo’s life is also depicted as a chronology in Broken Wings. After her “birth” from the black box, a structure that is central to the narrative and, as noted, symbolises various locations and aspects of Kahlo’s life, she meets her first love, who is with her when she experiences the accident that will change her life forever, causing permanent damage to her spine and pelvis. The severity of her injuries impacts on her ability to bear children, and leads to a series of operations over the course of almost three decades. Like the loss of Belle Reve, Kahlo’s accident is depicted vividly and symbolically. Four of the Skeletons, two moving towards Frida’s front and two towards her back, form a line that travels through her centre, representing the bus handrail that pierced right through her pelvis. The slow motion of the action reflects Kahlo’s own memory of the incident: “It was a strange crash, not violent but dull and slow” (qtd. in Svoboda). The Skeletons place her inside the black box, now transformed into the hospital.

Response to loss

Lopez Ochoa and her collaborator Meckler leave us in no doubt as to the impact of loss and guilt on Blanche in Streetcar. Living a lonely, haunted life alone in a hotel room, she turns to alcohol to escape from her savage memories, and to promiscuity (“intimacies with strangers”, as she describes it in the play) to fill her “empty heart” (Williams 87). In dance critic Sara Veale’s pithy words, we witness Blanche “drowning her sorrows with bottle after bottle and stranger after stranger”. Hendrick sees the sexual encounters, conveyed with a sensual, tactile fluidity, as “the only thing that makes her feel alive” (1:03-1:06). But the garish neon hotel sign accentuates the insalubrious nature of Blanche’s pitiful existence, as well as the impersonal atmosphere of the environment. The scene makes for a drastic contrast to the warmth of the “soft and sprightly” duet for Blanche and Allan back at Belle Reve (Veale). This chapter of Blanche’s life culminates in inappropriate sexual behaviour with a minor, for which she is driven out of town “by a chorus of disapproving, stomping grey people” (Parry). This aggressive crowd is patently devoid of the empathy the creators of the ballet wish us to feel for Blanche.

And so Blanche arrives in New Orleans in the hope of starting a fresh life. Her actions reveal her insecurity: she surreptitiously swigs from a bottle, flirts demurely with Stanley, and takes a bath as if she can cleanse herself of her recent past. But the image that she presents is based on her young affluent life, her upbringing as a Southern belle, and consequently clashes harshly with her new environment. On entering Stella and Stanley’s apartment, she scans the room with visible dismay and swipes the dirt uneasily from her hands. Blanche’s genteel demeanour and the stylish wardrobe she has brought with her belong to the world of her youth, a world to which she retreats to preserve her sense of self-worth and dignity. Towards the end of Act II she wears a deep fuchsia gown, made of heavy silk and covered with rhinestones and diamantes, behind which she can indulge in her memories and in her fantasy world, where she is a gentlewoman of great refinement and respectability, with a host of admirers. Eve Mutso, who created the role of Blanche, comments on the symbolism of the dress: “You can’t see through this dress: it’s a cover; it’s a façade she puts on. And it’s fake” (9:45-9:50).

Guest Principal Ryoichi Hirano & Principal Marge Hendrick in Scottish Ballet’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Photo by: Andy Ross

Like Blanche, Frida too must begin a fresh life after the accident that creates such a devastating impact on her health. In the hospital interior of Broken Wings’ black cube—white, cold, impersonal— we witness Frida’s despair, the paralysis of her trauma, her physical pain and feelings of hopeless entrapment imposed upon her by the two-dimensionality of her surroundings. But from this clinical environment is born Frida’s life of imagination, as her paintings are brought into three-dimensional life by a group of 11 Male Fridas, sporting billowing full-length ruffled skirts in bright, contrasting colours, inspired by traditional Tehuana dress. Their headdresses include flowers, butterflies, antlers, and the ceremonial resplandor. Through their reference to Kahlo’s self-portraits, such as Self-Portrait with a Monkey (1948), Self-Portrait with a Necklace of Thorns (1940), and Self-Portrait as a Tehuana (1943), these costumes, designed by Dieuweke van Reij, simultaneously refer to Frida’s iconic dress style and to her phenomenal imagination and talent as an artist. As the Male Fridas swirl and sway with bold lunges and leaps, and expansive leg gestures, they make full use of their skirts, creating a riot of colour and energy, filling the stage with Kahlo’s own peculiar union of masculinity and femininity. Frida now strides purposefully out of the black box, dressed in an orange Tehuana skirt to dance in the same style. She is held aloft by the Male Fridas, dances in unison with them, and boldly leads and directs their movements.

The strength of Frida’s imagination comes to her aid again after she endures a miscarriage, portrayed on stage with a red cord reminiscent of her painting Henry Ford Hospital (1932). Now the cube becomes a blood-bespattered hospital room in which she cowers after her desperate struggle to keep hold of the cord, which is inevitably wrenched from her grasp by one of the Skeletons. But in spite of the pain that engulfs her being, she is distracted by leaves creeping through the gap between the door and frame of the cube, as if they are growing through an open wound, making us think of Roots (1943), in which Kahlo is “stretched out on the ground dressed in her Tehuana costume, with leafy green stems full of sap, emerging from her chest and taking root in the arid, fissured landscape” (Burrus 90). Significantly, this painting, such a rich evocation of rebirth, depicts Kahlo in an orange skirt, the colour of Frida’s skirt in Broken Wings. And indeed the leaves emerge as fantastical creatures, who gradually entice Frida out of the box again.

For both Frida and Blanche fantasy becomes integral to their survival. As an unmarried, unemployed woman with no family apart from her sister, Blanche is both suspect and vulnerable. To survive she needs a husband, so the fantasy she creates about her life is in part to this end, even telling Stanley’s friend Mitch, a prospective spouse, “I don’t want realism … I’ll tell you what I want. Magic!” (Williams 86). Blanche sees Mitch as “a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in” (88). Like the moth, which Williams considered for the title of the play, she avoids the light of reality.

In contrast, the fantasy of Frida’s life is of an entirely different ilk: it is not Kahlo’s way of hiding from the world; rather it is her way of coping with the catastrophes that beleaguer her, making sense of her troubled life through drawing from the treasure trove of her prodigious talent. Kahlo “paint[s] her reality”, as art writer Christina Burrus emphasises by quoting the artist’s own words in the subtitle of her biography of Kahlo: images inspired by bodily and emotional torture share the canvas with symbols of the natural world and the manufactured world. In Broken Wings Frida’s reality is communicated not only through the choreography of suffering, but through her costume based on The Broken Column (1944), in which Kahlo’s damaged body is held together by a brace, and later through the figure of The Deer, who is pierced by an arrow, referring to the 1946 painting The Wounded Deer.

The Presence of death

Just as tragic loss and harsh reality connect Blanche and Frida, so does the constant presence of death.

The Skeletons, present at both the start and end of Broken Wings, make regular appearances throughout the course of the ballet, either actively observing or participating in the action. Ominous though this may sound, and it is ominous, they are often rather comical characters, lounging against the black box in their boredom, playing with a ladder, cavorting with sombreros, mimicking guitar playing; and when they interfere too much, Frida gives them a sharp rap over the knuckles.

This is not only a reflection of Frida’s feisty spirit, but also of her culture. In Mexico death is perceived as a part of everyday life (Burrus 77), and traditions connected to the Dias de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), when people dress up as skeletons and have their faces painted as skulls, are laced with irony and humour (Ward). Having survived polio as a child and escaped the eager clutches of death in her near-fatal accident, Frida seems to have the upper hand over death. At the end of the ballet two of the Skeletons slowly fold the doors of the box shut, and as the brightly plumaged bird bourrées around and around atop the black cube, Kahlo’s own words come to mind: “Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away” (qtd. in Almeida).

Reminders of death in Streetcar Named Desire escalate not only through the recurring appearance of Allan in his blood-drenched shirt, but through the lone Mexican Flower Seller from Act I multiplying into a corps de ballet of dark figures carrying flowers for the dead in Act II.

Dance critic Judith Mackrell describes the “horror” of the rape scene in the ballet as “focused not on the act of penetration but on the preceding struggle, during which Blanche is stripped, manhandled and degraded by Stanley to become an abject thing”. That Blanche is stripped is significant: she is robbed of her fuchsia gown, which has enabled her to hide from reality and given her some sense of hope and identity. Now, having been reduced to an “abject thing”, she no longer has the capacity to cope with real life at all. Although Blanche has not experienced a death that takes her physically from this world, this metaphorical death creates the final irreversible rift between herself and the reality of the world around her—a reality that has passed sentence on her but has acquitted her assailant.

Through the vision of Lopez Ochoa, we come to understand how the “tender and trusting” young Blanche becomes the doomed moth of Tennessee Williams’ play.

Equally our eyes are opened to the butterfly that is Frida Kahlo, reborn and transformed in all her glory: vulnerable and ephemeral, but with the capacity for rebirth and transformation through the life of her creations.

Begona Cao as Frida Kahlo and James Streeter as Diego Rivera in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Broken Wings © Laurent Liotardo

References

Almeida, Laura. “Quotes from Frida Kahlo”. Denver Art Museum, 28 Dec. 2020, https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/blog/quotes-frida-kahlo.

Burrus, Christina. Frida Kahlo ‘I Paint my Reality’. Thames & Hudson, 2008.

Garcia, Peyton. “Inside the Fantastical World of Frida Kahlo”. RED, 8 Apr. 2022, https://red.msudenver.edu/2022/inside-the-fantastical-world-of-frida-kahlo/#:~:text=I%20paint%20my%20own%20reality,of%20Denver’s%20Department%20of%20Art.

Hendrick, Marge. “Scottish Ballet: A Streetcar Named Desire – Becoming Blanche”. YouTube, uploaded by Scottish Ballet, 8 June 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG1aQDZiIFU&t=87s.

Mackrell, Judith. “A Streetcar Named Desire review – erotic and tragic ballet”. The Guardian, 1 Apr. 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/apr/01/streetcar-named-desire-sadlers-wells-scottish-ballet-review.

Mutso, Eve. “Scottish Ballet: A Streetcar Named Desire Uncut”. YouTube, uploaded by Scottish Ballet, 9 Mar. 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUT7wJxzxKE&t=592s.

O’Brien, Róisín. “Getting Lost in the Story”. Programme for A Streetcar Named Desire, 2023, pp. 12-16.

Parry, Jann. “Scottish Ballet – A Streetcar Named Desire – London”. DanceTabs, 29 Apr. 2012, https://dancetabs.com/2012/04/scottish-ballet-a-streetcar-named-desire-london/.

Svoboda, Elizabeth. “How a Devastating Accident Changed Frida Kahlo’s Life and Inspired Her Art”. Sky History, 9 Mar. 2022, www.history.com/news/frida-kahlo-bus-accident-art.

Veale, Sara. “Real Magic”. Fjord Review, 2 Apr. 2015, https://fjordreview.com/blogs/all/scottish-ballet-streetcar-named-desire.

Ward, Logan. “Top 10 things to know about the Day of the Dead”. National Geographic, 14 Oct. 2022, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/top-ten-day-of-dead-mexico.

Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. Penguin Modern Classics, 2009.

Spotlight on British Ballet Lockdown

How does ballet function in lockdown? Julia and Rosie have been closely following the activities of British ballet companies during the COVID-19 lockdown. Here are our thoughts …

When people started to absent themselves from public places, and events started to be cancelled we became quite nervous, as we had various performances planned, including the Heritage programme in the Linbury Theatre (a programme of works by Ninette de Valois, Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan), Kenneth Tindall’s Geisha created for Northern Ballet, and Akram Khan’s Creature choreographed for English National Ballet. We cheered when Geisha received its world premiere in Leeds, but once lockdown was announced, it was clear that the London performances would be cancelled. And even more devastating was the cancellation of Creature – Khan’s third collaboration with English National Ballet, featuring the extraordinary Jeffrey Cirio, who has excelled in roles as diverse as Ali in Le Corsaire, Des Grieux in Manon and Hilarion in Akram Khan’s Giselle.

However, we were amazed at how quickly dancers and companies, in the face of a lockdown, started to organise a whole host of online activities, both for themselves and for their audiences.

The first event we recall was actually just prior to lockdown when Tamara Rojo both taught and did class herself with a small number of English National Ballet dancers at City Island, the Company’s new home. The class was streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, and it was wonderful to see the comments – people were clearly so appreciative, not only of Tamara’s teaching and the skill and dedications of the dancers, but also of the music, as it was the amazing Nicki Williamson playing. After two classes, Tamara had to move what became daily streamed classes to her kitchen.

Tamara-Rojo-C-Paul-Stuart-2 — Tamara Rojo – Photo by Paul Stuart

Although it’s a professional class, it’s still manageable for people who regularly take ballet class at an intermediate level, and Tamara explains really clearly, which makes it easy to modify exercises if necessary. Because she teaches from her kitchen, it has a very personal feel. This also came across in Birmingham Royal Ballet’s class, which launched their Home from Home series: you can see the dancers in different parts of their houses – Carlos Acosta at the banister, for example. It was a beautiful sunny day, so it was delightful to see Mathias Dingman doing the centre work in his garden with one of his small sons “joining in”. In fact, seeing dancers “make do” in their living rooms and dining rooms, holding on to various bits of furniture as makeshift barres and adapting to spaces quite different from a dance studio has become an inspiring symbol of these times. Beth Meadway of Ballet Cymru even demonstrated and danced a lovely “grand allegro” in a tiny space between bed and wardrobe.

But it’s not only ballet classes for professionals and experienced amateurs that are offered. English National Ballet was a pioneer of Dance for Parkinson’s, and other companies have followed suit, as well as developing other classes to support people with various health issues. And these members of the population have not been forgotten. English National Ballet Artist Kate Hartley-Stevens is teaching Dance for Parkinson’s classes, while Katie Mason delivers sessions for ballet lovers with restricted mobility. Meanwhile, Scottish Ballet live stream Health classes every week day, including Dance for Parkinson’s Scotland, Dance for Multiple Sclerosis, classes for people with dementia, and more generally for people over the age of sixty.

As we have been researching for this post and keeping our eyes open for new initiatives, it seems that each day brings something new, from English National Ballet’s array of ballet classes at various levels delivered by members of the Company, to Scottish Ballet’s Family Barre for parents and children led by Principal dancer Bethany-Kingsley-Garner, to Birmingham Royal Ballet’s recently announced Baby Ballet uploaded on YouTube in bite-size chunks, including “Stretch those Feet”, “Butterflies” and “Fireworks”. As the country’s flagship opera house, the Royal Opera House have announced a more ambitious project which will run over the next twelve weeks entitled Create and Learn. Children are introduced to ballet and opera, if they are not already familiar with the art forms, and given the opportunity to write, make videos, engage in art, and make dances. The activities are very clearly structured with guidance regarding age suitability and time requirements. Learning outcomes are even provided.

Even smaller adult ballet enterprises, such as Everybody Ballet (led by Bennet Gartside of the Royal Ballet) and The Ballet Retreat, have now developed digital platforms. The Ballet Retreat, as the name suggests, is a little different from attending a regular ballet class. It was co-founded by Hannah Bateman of Northern Ballet and David Paul Kierce, formerly of the same company, and they run adult ballet intensives (from 1 to 3 days), where people are given the opportunity to learn extracts from the traditional ballet repertoire. Although they still have courses planned for late spring and summer in London and Leeds, currently they are offering a range of ballet classes run by members of Northern Ballet, which has included a Disney ballet barre by Gavin McCaig.

So far our focus has been very strongly on classes, with dancers being wonderfully creative in both doing class themselves and in teaching class, thereby developing additional skills. As lecturers ourselves, we know that teaching requires a range of intellectual, interpersonal and communication skills, and an extra layer of complexity is demanded for online delivery, we feel. However, performances of various types are also being offered online, from works previously released on commercial DVD, such as the Royal Ballet’s The Metamorphosis and The Winter’s Tale, and Northern Ballet’s 1984, to performances created in people’s homes for the specific purpose of bringing us cheer.

Northern Ballet in Jonathan Watkins’ 1984. Photo by Emma Kauldhar

Northern Ballet are well known for their children’s ballets, such as Puss in Boots and The Ugly Duckling. These ballets are adapted for television in collaboration with CBeebies. This year it was heart breaking that they had to cancel the tour of their latest children’s production Little Red Riding Hood, but the show has been made available on BBC iPlayer with the usual supplementary activities on CBeebies, such as jigsaw puzzles at various levels and movement to try at home.

Without a doubt the most entertaining of the performances have been the films made by Sean Bates and Mlindi Kulashe of Northern Ballet in their flat and the adjacent car park. They made the news with their renditions of “The Greatest Show” and “Tomorrow”, evidently breaking some furnishings in the procedure.

At the other end of the scale, one of the most stirring performances was the except from Raymonda played by the English National Ballet Philharmonic under the baton of Music Director Gavin Sutherland. The orchestra members were all playing from their homes, and the film was beautifully edited to highlight different sections of the orchestra, enhancing the gorgeous melodies and sumptuous textures of Alexander Glazunov’s score. But what made this performance particularly rousing was its dedication to NHS Staff and its title “Play for our Carers”. While of the surface, this might seem quite random, let’s remember that Tamara Rojo’s new adaptation of Raymonda opening in the autumn is inspired by Florence Nightingale. Not someone to do things by halves, Tamara has been researching the life of Florence Nightingale for four years in preparation for this production, so the dedication was more than fitting.

As we were writing this post, English National Ballet announced the most exciting initiative yet – their Wednesday Watch Parties. Each Wednesday a full recording of a Company performance will be premiered online; no complete recordings of these works have ever been made available before. For the first two Wednesdays two jewels of their recent repertoire are being released on Facebook and YouTube for 48 hours: Akram Khan’s Dust (2014) and Anna Lopez-Ochoa’s Broken Wings (2016). And there will be more jewels to come no doubt …

Tamara Rojo and James Streeter in Dust by Akram Khan – Photo by ASH

At this time of crisis, British ballet companies are working assiduously to keep themselves fit and ready to return to work, but they are also demonstrating their creativity in ways that help to bolster the nation in body, mind and spirit. We hope that their generosity of spirit and invaluable contribution to people’s health and well-being at this time will be recognised and rewarded in both the short and the long term.