Tag: #ENB

ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET’S EMERGING DANCER 2022: IN CONVERSATION

At British Ballet Now & Then we have been writing posts on English National Ballet’s annual Emerging Dancer Competition since 2018.  To us it seems a really important event.  So often we have enjoyed watching the contestants participate in the competition and then seen them develop into versatile artists.  Winners that come to mind are Aitor Arieta, Dani Mccormick and Julia Conway.  But even participants who do not win any prize seem to gain from the experience.  One dancer who fits this description and shines in so many roles is Emily Suzuki.  Two years ago in Emerging Dancer she performed the Satanella pas de deux with pristine classical technique, as well as Stina Quagebeur’s moving choreography Hollow.  And she has an extraordinary ability to transform herself to dance with utmost conviction in a whole plethora of works in contrasting styles: The Chosen One in Pina Bausch’s visceral Rite of Spring (1975), the gentle Marie in Creature, (Khan, 2021), the enigmatic aura of William Forsythe’s 2016 Blake Works “The Colour in Anything” and the irrepressible exuberance of the “Ratchuli” in Raymonda (Petipa, 1898/Rojo, 2022).  This year Emily, like Aitor, Dani and Julia, were promoted, and Emily also won Emerging Dancer at the National Dance Awards.  

With the importance of the event in mind, BBNT would like to congratulate all of this year’s six finalists: Matthew Astley, Ashley Coupal, Noam Durand, Chloe Keneally, Eric Snyder and Angela Wood. This year’s winner of the Emerging Dancer Award was Eric Snyder, with Emilia Cadorin as the winner of the Corps de Ballet Award, and Precious Adams winning the People’s Choice Award. 

The programme consisted of three 19th century grands pas de deux (Coppélia, Sleeping Beauty, Paquita) and three duets created specifically for the competition: NEFES by Ceyda Tanc, Cha Cha and Tiara by Rentaro Nakaaki, and Interlude on the Jubilee Line by Hamish Longley.

Lauren: I am ashamed to say that I have not watched Emerging Dancer before …. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this first experience!

Rosie: Well that’s great to hear.  Usually I watch this event in the theatre, or at least on the livestream, but this year I wasn’t able to do this, so I cheated by checking out who the winner was.  On Instagram there was a short clip of Eric Snyder performing the Prince’s variation from The Sleeping Beauty, and I could immediately see why he had taken the Prize.  Then when I watched the full version it simply reinforced those qualities that I had noted in the extract.  No matter how virtuosic and demanding, every phrase is completed with extraordinary elegance, as if had been no effort, and presented like a gift to the audience with lovely relaxed hands and arms—this is very important to me as a viewer.  

Chloe Keneally and Eric Snyder performing The Sleeping Beauty in Emerging Dancer 2022 (c) Laurent Liotardo

Lauren: And to me, especially for this kind of purely classical role.  What I was also thinking about was that Eric’s style seemed very “English” with his clear lines and understated presentation.  Yet he’s from Arizona, though he did study at English National Ballet School before joining the Company in 2020.  

Rosie: Yes, I know exactly what you mean, and it’s so interesting.  We’ve written before about how versatile ENB dancers are in their ability to embody different styles.  I also noted the detail in his movement and phrasing and his ease of movement in Cha Cha and Tiara, although it was such a completely different style of moving.

Chloe Keneally performing Rentaro Nakaaki’s Cha Cha and Tiara in Emerging Dancer 2022 (c) Laurent Liotardo

Lauren: This was a really fun piece! Chloe Keneally starting the piece, dancing with no music, was extremely engaging and held my attention. I like that the mood of the piece changed once the music started. When Eric came on stage it made me smile. This was such a charismatic performance with excellent use of facial expressions. I think it was his performance in this piece which ultimately won him the competition.

Rosie: I’d already noted Eric in performance, as well as Noam Durand (in Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Laid in Earth), Matthew Astley (for example in Stina Quagebeur’s Take Five Blues) and Angela Wood (particularly in Blake Works). However, I wasn’t familiar with Chloe (even though she was Winner of the BBC Young Dancer Competition in 2019), or Ashley Coupal, so this was especially exciting for me. 

Lauren: Chloe and Eric Sleeping Beauty’s pas de deux was my favourite partnering.  Not only were they both very spirited dancers, but they also had great chemistry.  I was really pleased to see that in her review Vera Liber describes them as a “superlative couple”.

Rosie: Sleeping Beauty was a good choice for Chloe too, I feel.  She does have a lovely classical line: no exaggeration—carefully placed arabesques and developpés that create a line through the whole body rather than emphasising the height of the leg (which is something I don’t like in this ballet).  And I noted a gentle lilt in her torso as she danced.  I think the importance of these qualities for Aurora can’t be overemphasised. 

Lauren: Yes, Chloe had a really nice demeanour. I particularly loved her arms—like we were saying before, good port de bras is really important to me, perhaps even my favourite thing about a dancer and something I look for. The feeling in her arms continued right to the ends of her fingertips. 

Matthew Astley performing Paquita in Emerging Dancer 2022 (c) Laurent Liotardo

Rosie: Yes, I agree with you about the placement and energy of Chloe’s port de bras.  And it did mean that she and Eric complemented one another well.   Nevertheless … the couple that for me seemed to have the best rapport were Ashley Coupal and Noam Durand.  This struck me immediately in the Coppélia pas de deux. This may have been because of the nature of Coppélia: it’s less formal than Sleeping Beauty, or even Paquita, even though it depends on the same kind of technique.  I thought the relationship between them was noticeable in obvious ways—such as taking the time for warm smiles and eye contact, the way they visibly paid attention to one another—but also in the ways in which Noam complemented Ashley’s line so well in the adage; and it’s a really challenging adage with its sustained pointework and promenades—they made it look easy. 

Ashley Coupal performing Coppélia in Emerging Dancer 2022 (c) Laurent Liotardo

Lauren: I think line is super important for you, isn’t it? I preferred their performance in the new piece NEFES. They really demonstrated a strong connection here (and I don’t think this was just because they were wearing identical costumes!).  There was all the unison, canon, mirroring, both of them dancing with the same dynamics, so a very different kind of working together from classical supported adage. 

Noam Durand and Ashley Coupal performing Ceyda Tanc’s NEFES in Emerging Dancer 2022 (c) Laurent Liotardo

Rosie: I found the sensing between them to be almost tangible.  They also looked quite different in this work, which I loved.  Ashley in particular looked almost unrecognisable (in a good way) because of the way she adapted her style.  Very impressive.  I’m looking forward to seeing her in future … But let’s talk about the final couple: Angela Wood and Matthew Astley.  I think that Angela possesses the kind of breadth and grandeur that Paquita requires.  This was also noted by Jim Pritchard in his write-up.

Angela Wood and Matthew Astley performing Paquita in Emerging Dancer 2022 (c) Laurent Liotardo

Lauren: Yes, I agree.  For me Angela has an authoritative stage presence that is impressive and captivating. She was particularly good at movements that required sharp dynamics. However, perhaps there could be more contrast for those movements which would have benefited from a softer quality—this would have given more light and shade to her performance. 

Rosie: In contrast to Angela, Matthew seemed very buoyant—perhaps accentuated by the sense of ease and ballon in his jumps—he looks at home in the air, although I did also note his use of épaulement and use of the back in his variation.  Matthew’s buoyant spirit seemed ideally suited to Interlude on the Jubilee Line, but here I enjoyed seeing a different side to Angela’s dancing: she engaged fully in the playfulness and quirkiness of the choreography.  

Lauren: Interlude on the Jubilee Line was a highlight for me.  I enjoyed the interviews with the choreographers where they spoke about the inspiration or story behind their choreography, but I didn’t need to hear the explanation for this piece, and as a London commuter myself, I really liked the concept of imaging a relationship growing between two people who initially meet on a station platform. I felt the style of this work really suited Angela. As such, I preferred her performance of this to her classical work. I enjoyed Angela and Matthew’s partnership in this—they had great eye contact throughout the piece. 

Rosie: I also thought they both gave the piece a touch of tenderness to reflect the hesitancy of the two characters who have just met … But the highlight of the evening for me was probably Ivana Bueno in Le Corsaire.  She was the winner in 2020, and we commented then on how much she had developed as a dancer since she joined the Company.  I can give no higher praise than to say she reminds me a bit of Tamara Rojo in this role with the general lusciousness of her dancing, her soft port de bras and seamless, silky turns; they both also convey a sense of enjoyment through their dancing in this role.  Ivana was dancing with Victor Prigent who won the People’s Choice Award the same year… I’ve noticed him since then.  He has a warm aura, and I particularly liked him in Creature as Creature’s friend.  It’s a really important role, because there are not many sympathetic roles in that work.    

Victor Prigent and Ivana Bueno performing Le Corsaire in Emerging Dancer 2022 (c) Laurent Liotardo

Lauren: Obviously the Emerging Dancer Competition is primarily about the dancers, but as a first-time viewer, it struck me that it also provides a forum for Company members to explore other talents.  This year, for example Rentaro Nakaaki (who I notice himself competed as a dancer in 2019) choreographed Cha Cha and Tiara for Chloe and Eric, while Fabian Reimair composed the score for NEFES.  I’m looking forward to seeing next year’s competition to see how it compares.  And I’m glad I was able to take part in this conversation and contribute to making a record of Emerging Dancer 2022, as it will be the last competition under Tamara Rojo’s directorship, and we have noticed such a tremendous development in the Company since she took over ten years ago.

Epilogue

As we were completing this post, the news was announced that Tamara Rojo had received an outstanding achievement award for her “ten transformational years as artistic director of the English National Ballet” (Al-Hassan). BBNT would like to congratulate Tamara and thank her for everything she has done for ballet as both dancer and artistic director since she moved to the UK twenty-five years ago.

© British Ballet Now & Then

References

Al-Hassan, Aliya. “Tamara Rojo and James Graham Triumph In Sky Arts South Bank Awards”. Broadway World, 11 July 2022, www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/Tamara-Rojo-and-James-Graham-Triumph-In-Sky-Arts-South-Bank-Awards-20220711.

Liber, Vera. “ENB Emerging Dancer Award 2022”. British Theatre Guide, May 2022, www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/enb-emerging-da-mulryan-centre-20919.

Pritchard, Jim. “How Erik Snyder became the English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer 2022”. Seen and Heard International, 25 May 2022, seenandheard-international.com/2022/05/how-erik-snyder-became-the-english-national-ballets-emerging-dancer-2022/.

Manon Designs Now & Then

Manon Designs Now

If you have seen the beautiful promotional video for English National Ballet’s Manon, with Alina Cojocaru and Isaac Hernández, you cannot fail to have been struck by the location and designs: the building through which the dancers move, with their longing glances and soft sensuous caresses, is furnished with plush deep red drapes and sparkling chandeliers; and yet, at the same time, it shows signs of disrepair in the crumbling walls and ragged upholstery.

This video, lasting only 32 seconds, encapsulates some of the driving themes of the three-act ballet by Kenneth MacMillan, choreographed in 1974.  Based on the 1731 novel by Abbé Prévost entitled Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, the ballet is frequently described as a tale of Manon’s struggle between love and riches, for example on the current ENB promotional flier: “The young and naïve Manon is torn between two lives: privilege and opulence with the wealthy Monsieur GM, or innocent love with the penniless student Des Grieux”.  Equally it could be interpreted as a battle for survival versus a desire for love.

manon-by-jason-bell-crop-square
English National Ballet, Manon. Dancers: Alina Cojocaru and Isaac Hernández © Jason Bell. Art Direction and Design Charlotte Wilkinson Studio.

Autumn 2018 saw a rare UK tour of the ballet, by ENB, and this month the Company brought it to the London Coliseum. But not with the original designs by Nicholas Georgiadis. Instead ENB uses the designs by Mia Stensgaard, which she created for the Royal Danish Ballet in 2003, almost three decades after Manon’s premiere.  Although the choreographer’s widow Deborah MacMillan describes the production as “a very worthy alternative to Nicholas Georgiadis’s version performed by The Royal Ballet”, Stensgaard’s designs give the ballet a very different visual impact, and some aspects have come up against criticism.  However, being more familiar with the Georgiadis designs, and having now seen ENB’s production in both Milton Keynes and in London, we were struck by a number of design features that to us seemed to bring new life to the ballet.  Here are our thoughts …

The lighting

alina-cojocaru-and-fabian-reimair-in-manon-c-laurent-liotardo
Alina Cojocaru and Fabian Reimair in Manon © Laurent Liotardo

Stengaard’s sets and costumes are complemented by Mikki Kunytu’s evocative lighting.  Two moments in particular were literally and metaphorically illuminated by the lighting: the fight in Act II and the opening of Act III. As the swords clash and Monsieur GM’s rage flares up, shadows of the combatants loom over their brawl, making the tension palpable, creating a sense of foreboding, and highlighting the centrality of this scene for the narrative.

As the curtains rise on Act III a feeling of stifling heat seems to emanate from the stage and engulf the auditorium air.  In the narrative Manon is transported to New Orleans as a convict; in the theatre the audience is transported with Manon, as bright haze and shadows conjure up the heat and with it the sense of discomfort and alienation Manon feels in her new unknown environment.

The make-up

james-streeter-alina-cojocaru-jane-haworth-and-jeffrey-cirio-in-manon-c-laurent-liotardo
James Streeter, Alina Cojocaru, Jane Haworth and Jeffrey Cirio in Manon © Laurent Liotardo

Before tanned skin came into fashion in the early part of the 20thcentury, pale skin was prized.  The faces of 18thcentury portraits are pale, even white, the paleness accentuated by pink cheeks of various shades.  This look was fashionable amongst the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie for men and children as well as for women.  It denoted a particular status, or at least aspiration to that status, as tanned skin was associated with outdoors manual labour of the lower classes that exposed them to the sun.

In this production artificial pale skin is prominent amongst The Clients perusing the prostitutes, but two pivotal characters stand out for us in particular: Monsieur GM and the Gaoler. As performed by Fabian Reimar and James Streeter respectively, even at a distance from the stage their white faces seemed mask-like; and in the production photographs by Laurent Liotardo, where the roles are reversed, equally so.  In performance their denaturalised/synthetic features remind us of the Diplomats from Kurt Jooss’ 1933 The Green Table, whose masks strip them of their humanity as they debate the fate of the land.  The 18thcentury trend for prominent dark eyebrows, particularly for men, is a conspicuous addition to the Gaoler’s make-up, starkly framing his features and hiding any emotion or compassion that might live beneath the surface, if indeed there is any.

Monsieur GM and the Gaoler (who are frequently performed by the same dancers on different nights) are both characters who benefit from the lot of the prostitutes and more particularly play a decided role in the events that lead to the doom of Manon and Des Grieux. Again, The Green Table springs to mind: the Profiteer, the figure who gains from the loss of others in war, has a painted white face that makes him more visibly impervious to the suffering of those around him.  In contrast to the depersonalised faces of Monsieur GM and the Gaoler, the faces of Manon and Des Grieux look natural and real, underlining their social status, as well as their humanity and vulnerability.

The dresses

english-national-ballet-in-manon-c-laurent-liotardo-2
English National Ballet in Manon © Laurent Liotardo

Brightly coloured frou-frou dresses with their frills, flounces and ruffles fill the stage in Act II.  Vibrant pinks, reds, yellows, greens and blues vie for attention with lustrous whites.  The girls are adorned with cute hats and fascinators.  A sense of light and fun pervades.  And into this hive of colour and light walks Manon in her shimmering white cloak and gown bringing a focal point to the drama that radiates over the stage.

This atmosphere of frivolity and youthfulness never returns to Manon.  So, in our opinion, the costumes in this scene in all their decorativeness and blasts of colour serve a crucial purpose in highlighting the mood of this scene, which seems so distant from the dark drama of the ensuing scenes.

Manon Designs Then

Ballet productions are regularly redesigned to give them a fresh “look”, or when a work is taken into the repertoire of a different company.  Frederick Ashton’s 1948 Cinderella has acquired fresh sets and costumes several times over the years, while Birmingham Royal Ballet and La Scala Milan all have their own designs for MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet (1965).

The nineteenth century classics are sometimes retained in the same production for decades, as in the case of Anthony Dowell’s Swan Lake, replaced by Liam Scarlett’s production last year only after thirty-one years.  And a new production comes with a new design concept, which can suggest new meanings to the viewer.

The Royal Ballet has kept Nicholas Georgiadis’ original sets and costumes for Manon, perhaps because choreographer and designer were frequent collaborators, working together over a substantial period of MacMillan’s choreographic career.  In addition to Manon, notable collaborations were The Burrow (1958), The Invitation (1960) Romeo and Juliet, and Mayerling (1978).

Like Romeo and Juliet, Manon is a work performed by companies across the globe, including Australian Ballet, The Mariinsky and Paris Opera Ballet.  Mia Stensgaard is not the first to have created new designs for the ballet, but Peter Farmer’s sets and costumes for the Australian and Mariinsky Companies strike us as closer to Georgiadis’ original concept than Stensgaard’s version of Manon’s world.  So let’s have a look at why that might be …

The rags

In the tradition of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, such an influence on the development of British ballet, MacMillan believed that design was absolutely integral to the identity and meaning of a choreographic work (Woodcock, 19).  One of the aspects of Manon’s story that he felt passionate about and wanted to convey in no uncertain terms was the poverty that was a driving force in her life and the decisions that she makes.  Therefore, crucial to Georgiadis’ décor is a cyclorama of rags cascading down the full height of the stage space.  Characters emerge on to the stage through these rags from their carriages, representing the poverty that divides the population of Manon: the Beggars and the Gentlemen; Des Grieux and Monsieur G.M.; the Gaoler and the deported Prostitutes.  Manon herself is a liminal character, who in the course of the ballet inhabits different worlds according to the decisions she makes.  But the rags are a recurring reminder of how fragile the border is between survival and destitution.

The richness

Critics have highlighted how rich the original designs are compared to Stensgaard’s more recent offerings, which in comparison can look quite sparse.  The word “sumptuous” has been used to describe both the costumes (Clarke 31) and the sets (Mead).  There are undoubtedly a number of reasons for this, the first being Georgiadis’ style. Consider the splendour of the ballroom scenes in both Romeo and Juliet and Mayerling for example.  You will probably be less familiar with his designs for Rudolf Nureyev’s Nutcracker (1968), which have been described by critic and historian Jack Anderson as “far too grand”, “autumnal” and “somber” (168).

Manon was created for the UK’s premiere ballet venue – the Royal Opera House in London – and as full-evening narrative ballet of high drama, a certain degree of ostentation would be expected.  But also, in terms of the subject matter, Manon is a sombre tale, so that a heaviness of tone and hue – the burnt orange, dark brown and olive greens worn by Lescaut’s Mistress, for example – seems appropriate.  And the richness of the costumes makes for a thought-provoking contrast with the rags of the cyclorama.

The dress

Despite the fact that we love Stensgaard’s designs for Act II, and Manon’s light luminous dress is both in keeping with the colour palette and marks her out as the jewel in the crown onstage, we miss Georgiadis’ glorious gown for Manon.  Here she is at her most ravishing.  As she whirls seductively through her solo with Des Grieux and Monsieur GM circling around the rest of cast freezes.  The solo crystallises Manon’s predicament and the choices available to her. And the dress with its ornate black lace embellished with silver detail complements her tantalising but perturbing dance.

Georgiadis’ sets undoubtedly emphasise the gulf between the haves and the have-nots, in accordance with the choreographer’s wishes.  In Stensgaard’s designs this theme is perhaps not so prominent.  However, characterisation, drama and atmosphere, all vital to MacMillan’s oeuvreare writ large in her costumes and sets.  In our opinion, we are really fortunate to have both of these productions in the British ballet repertoire.   With two such distinct design concepts, the choreography is enriched, opening further opportunity for insight and interpretation from performers and audiences alike.

 

Next time on British Ballet Now and Then… March sees the world premiere of Cathy Marston’s new ballet Victoria commissioned by Northern Ballet to commemorate the bicentenary of the monarch’s birth.  So we will be discussing bio-ballets with some thoughts on this new work and Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling based on the life of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austro-Hungary.

© British Ballet Now and Then

References

Anderson, Jack. The Nutcracker Ballet. Bison Books, 1979.

Clarke, Mary. “Manonin Copenhagen”, The Dancing Times, vol. 93, no. 1113, 2003, pp. 31-33.

MacMillan, Deborah. “Manon”. Manon, English National Ballet, Oct.-Nov. 2018.

Mead, David. “Jurgita Dronina Spellbinding in English National Ballet’s Manon”, SeeingDance, 4 Oct. 2018, http://www.seeingdance.com/enb-manon-26102018/. Accessed 21 Jan. 2019.

Woodcock, Sarah C. “MacMillan and Design”, The Dancing Times, vol. 93 no. 1108, 2002, pp. 19-25.

 

The Nutcracker Now & Then

The Nutcracker Now

It strikes us that despite its ever-growing popularity, The Nutcracker presents something of a conundrum.  As last year, all the major ballet companies in the UK are performing runs of The Nutcracker, which stretch from the end of November into the new year. Of the three Tchaikovsky ballets Swan Lake (Petipa/Ivanov, 1895), The Sleeping Beauty (Petipa, 1890), and The Nutcracker (Ivanov, 1892), with their magnificent scores, the Christmas ballet is the work with the least dramatic coherence and the most varied choreography from production to production.  The result of this is that the identity of the work relies predominantly on the musical score, made famous by the suite of numbers performed in the concert hall, used for Disney’s 1940 Fantasia and numerous television adverts, and perhaps on a few key figures and events, such as Drosselmeyer, the Sugar Plum Fairy, the battle between the Toy Soldiers and Mice, and the growing Christmas Tree.

One problem for lovers of narrative ballet is that we are accustomed to works that offer the ballerina a central role combining complexity and variety in choreography, and development and contrast in characterisation.  Just think of Giselle (Coralli/Perrot, 1841), Swan Lake, Onegin (Cranko, 1965), and Manon (MacMillan, 1974), to name but a few examples. In fact, the original production of The Nutcracker was criticised for including “only one classical pastor the ballerina, and this near the end of the second act” (Wiley 199).  Yes, it’s a long time to wait, if you have booked a ticket specifically to see a beloved ballerina dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy …

In the eyes of some audience members this situation is undoubtedly exacerbated by the fact that the main character, Clara, is a child, and Act I is populated by children.  Dick Godfrey highlighted this issue in his review of Scottish Ballet’s performance last year, a revival of Peter Darrell’s 1973 production after over forty years: “Darrell’s bold – and in many ways admirable – decision to cast children in the roles of the children instead of the more commonly found young professionals limits the amount of dance he offers”.  The Royal Ballet production addresses this dilemma by casting a young-looking company member as Clara.  This can be seen in recordings on DVD, for example with Miyako Yoshida as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Alina Cojocaru as Clara in 2001, and Lauren Cuthbertson and Francesca Hayward in the same roles in 2016.  And in truth the opportunity to see a budding star of the calibre of Cojocaru or Hayward can imbue the performance with a wonderful sense of excitement.

In English National Ballet’s current production staged by Wayne Eagling in 2010 the child Clara dreams of growing up and falling in love, and consequently dances the grand pas de deux that concludes the ballet.  In this case we can gain an enormous amount of pleasure from seeing a ballerina capable of expressing both Clara’s teenage youthfulness and the grandeur required of the grand pas de deux.  Describing Tamara Rojo’s performance at the end of Act I Graham Watts writes: “it is astonishing how Rojo peels away the years to become an excited, wide-eyed teenager on stage”.  In contrast, by the end of Act II, “her experience shows in the way that she deploys contrast, from the soft-backed swoop of her promenades with Berlanga in their opening duet to the steely verticality of her triple fouettés in the coda” (Jennings).

At the start of December we saw Northern Ballet perform their production in Woking.  One of the delightful features of the performance was the fact that the children were notably of different heights, creating a vivid sense of a family gathering in the first act.  The production is similar to the Royal Ballet’s in that Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy are danced by two different performers, but the two acts are securely connected not only through the figure of Clara, but through the resemblance between the characters of her life in Act I and her dream in Act II, for example between her elder sister and the Sugar Plum Fairy, both performed by the same dancer. However, this in no way makes the libretto complex, and David Nixon, Artistic Director and creator of this production, is keen to emphasise his desire “not to change the story drastically or to bring a psychological overtone.  I wanted it to be festive and joyous … It is based on a dark story, but … I kept my version simple and childlike” (qtd. in Monahan 12).

The Nutcracker Then

If you think of The Nutcracker more as family entertainment than as high art, you might think it odd to question the practice of including child dancers as principal characters in the ballet, and you might be puzzled or even perplexed by the decision to bring greater depth to the work with a “psychological overtone”.  Yet there have been two British productions that have notably aimed to give the ballet more gravitas, both in part by aligning the narrative more closely to E.T.A Hoffmann’s 1816 Nussknacker und Mausekönig, the story that inspired the ballet’s original libretto.  These were Rudolf Nureyev’s version, performed by the Royal Ballet from 1968 into the early 1980s, and the version created by Peter Schaufuss for London Festival Ballet in 1986, which remained in the repertoire until 1992.

Nureyev is known for his eagerness to expand male roles, having choreographed additional solos for the male protagonist in The Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake, for example, and changing the end of Swan Lake to highlight the fate of Siegfried in preference for either Odette or the love between Odette and Siegfried.  Therefore, Nureyev’s decision to combine the role of Clara’s Godfather Herr Drosselmeyer and the Nutcracker Prince could simply be considered as a way of creating a role equal in substance to that of the ballerina. But the fact that Drosselmeyer, with his eccentric mannerisms, is so very different from the Nutcracker Prince offers an arguably greater challenge to the male protagonist than to the ballerina, who portrays Clara maturing into a young woman. For the dancer it affords the opportunity to bring out different facets of the old magician and his relationship with his Goddaughter; for the audience it adds an interesting dramatic layering and the rare chance to see male dancer in a dual role   Apart from Nureyev himself, notable exponents of the role were Anthony Dowell and David Wall, both of whom we discussed in our Male Dancers Now & Then post.  On the other hand, historian and critic Jack Anderson has criticised Nureyev’s production quite bluntly for its sombre atmosphere, its Freudian overtones and its pervasive “images of cruelty” (149).

With its Gingerbread Men and Lemonade Sea, Peter Schaufuss’ 1986 production was not pervaded by the same dark atmosphere, but through both including added detail from Hoffmann’s story and introducing Tchaikovsky and his family into the libretto, the narrative became quite complicated and perhaps even burdened with additional elements.  This included a toy theatre where the Tale of the Nut “Krakatuk” was played out, the illness of Tanya, (the character usually known as Clara, and in this version also Tchaikovsky’s niece), and a prologue with Tchaikovsky working on the Nutcracker score, learning of the death of his beloved sister Sasha, and reminiscing about a past Christmas spent at her family home.  The premise for the production was Schaufuss’ idea that “Tchaikovsky may have seen himself as the central figure, Drosselmeyer” (Clarke 400), and indeed one of the joys of these performances was watching Christopher Bruce as the Tchaikovsky/Drosselmeyer figure.  The programme notes included a Tchaikovsky family tree to clarify the various familial relationships.  We could argue that, as with Nureyev’s version, this approach helped to bring more substance to the ballet, giving it more gravitas as an art work, and perhaps making it seem more historically and artistically significant.

 

Share your thoughts!

In a brilliant review of the Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker this year Observer critic Luke Jennings noted that the only thing lacking in the “dreamlike perfection” of the production is the sense of melancholy so integral to Tchaikovsky’s score.  Similarly, film critic Ryan Gilbey criticises Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms for “failing to acknowledge the darker side of Christmas”.

So how do you prefer your Nutcracker? How important is the ballerina role to you? Are you interested in producers incorporating the “darker side of Christmas”? Is dramatic cogency important to you? Are you keen to see a romantic plot? Are you more in favour of a Nutcracker with lots of children and a simple clear storyline?

We’d love to know what you think!

© British Ballet Now and Then

References

Anderson, Jack. The Nutcracker Ballet. Bison Books, 1979.

Clarke, Mary. “The Nutcracker Season”. Dancing Times, vol. 77, no. 917, pp. 400-01.

Gilbey, Ryan. “No wonder Disney’s Nutcracker is a flop – festive films thrive on despair”. The Guardian, 8 Dec. 2018, http://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/08/nutcracker-christmas-films-need-darkness-as-well-light. Accessed 20 Dec. 2018.

Godfrey, Dick. “Scottish Ballet’s revival of Peter Darrell’s Nutcracker restores the famous sparkle”. ChronicleLive, 2 Feb. 2018, http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/whats-on/theatre-news/scottish-ballets-revival-peter-darrells-14232709. Accessed 20 Dec. 2018.

Jennings Luke. “The Nutcracker – review”. The Guardian, 23 Dec. 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/dec/23/nutcracker-english-national-tamara-rojo. Accessed 20 Dec. 2018.

—. “The Nutcracker review – in every sense a delight”. The Guardian, 9 Dec. 2018, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/dec/09/the-nutcracker-royal-ballet-review-nunez-muntagirov-osullivan-sambe. Accessed 20 Dec. 2018.

Monahan, Mark. “An Awfully Big Adventure”. The Nutcracker, Winter 2018, New Victoria Theatre, pp. 12-13.

The Nutcracker. Choreographed by Peter Wright after Lev Ivanov, performance by Alina Cojocaru, Miyako Yoshida and Royal Ballet. 2001, Opus Arte, 2001.

The Nutcracker. Choreographed by Peter Wright after Lev Ivanov, performance by Francesca Hayward, Lauren Cuthbertson, and Royal Ballet. 2016, Opus Arte, 2017.

Watts, Graham. “Review: English National Ballet – The Nutcracker- London Coliseum”. londondance.com, 15 Dec. 2014, http://londondance.com/articles/reviews/english-national-ballet-the-nutcracker-2014/.. Accessed 20 Dec. 2018.

Wiley, Roland John. Tchaikovsky’s Ballets. Clarendon Press, 1985.

War Ballets Now & Then

 War Ballets Now

Over the last four years the arts have played an inestimable role in the commemoration of the First World War Centenary, notably the poppy installations and tour, and Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old, broadcast on national television on Armistice Day.  New ballets have been created by British choreographers for British companies dealing specifically with aspects of the Great War. This month sees the premiere of a new work by Alastair Marriott, The Unknown Soldier, for the Royal Ballet, while in September English National Ballet repeated its 2014 programme Lest We Forget comprising No Man’s Land by Liam Scarlett, Russell Maliphant’s Second Breath, and Akram Khan’s Dust.

But as we revaluate this War and its significance a century on, how can choreographers in an art form known for its conservative traditions and codes engage with the topic to make it meaningful and relatable to contemporary audiences?

We have chosen two of the ballets from ENB’s Lest We Forget for our discussion, No Man’s Land and Dust, because they approach this task in very different ways.  In many regards No Man’s Land is quite traditional, with costumes clearly representing the era, and its choreography based on classical ballet vocabulary and technique, with emotion-laden pas de deux incorporating sweeping runs, lifts and catches, embraces and swoon, supported pirouettes and promenades.  However, there are less traditional choreographic features, which in conjunction with an ingenious set create a work that starts to question the role of experience of men and women in the War and the spaces they occupied.

Even on its own the set, designed by Jon Bauser, ingeniously represents the title of the work No Man’s Land: “Disputed ground between the front lines or trenches of two opposing armies” (“no man’s land def. 1.1”).   Only in this case the dispute seems to be where exactly the men and women belong and where the War is being fought.  A shattered opening in a partially destroyed munitions factory upstage leads to and from the battlefields. Ramps and steps connect the opening to the empty downstage area which serves as a fluid location where life both at home and life at war are depicted.

When the women are working in the factory, fatigued and lethargic in their repetitive, mechanical movements, they are in fact preparing explosives to destroy enemy soldiers while their own beloved soldiers are in their line of vision; and they are poisoning themselves in the process.  This appalling irony is encapsulated in the incisive words of Luke Jennings, who describes the women as “separated from their loved ones even as they themselves fed the production line of slaughter”. Both the men and the women walk wearily along the ramps, and the women sit in stillness waiting on the steps. For news. For the inevitable. For dreaded confirmation of the worst.  In this way movement and design create a synergy that emphasises the everyday anxiety and repetitive monotony of war life as well as its extreme emotions.

Central to No Man’s Land are three duets that express these extreme emotions.  The first and third represent parting: parting for the battlefield and parting for the grave.  The middle duet, however, is more distinct in character.  Here a soldier returns from war to a difficult homecoming, but clearly doesn’t feel that he belongs at home any more; for us this was the most poignant of the duets.   As is still traditional in ballet, the women are the emotional heart of the work, but the men also make emotional bonds with their fellow fighters, with the result that their home relationships are also unsettled, disrupted, under dispute – it’s not clear where their hearts belong – and the bonds they made on active service, the losses they endured are disrupting the lives they knew and longed to return to.

Of all the war themed dance works we have seen created within this centenary period, in our opinion Akram Khan’s Dust offers the most modern representation of the conflict with his radical portrayal of the female role in particular, providing an alternative to the male-centric narrative traditionally told. Throughout the piece, the female dancers demonstrate physical strength through firm, decisive movements, alongside a sense of independence reinforced through the absence of men within the large female-only section of the piece. Here the female dancers deliver sharp, percussive, grounded movements which complement, even embolden the strong accents of the accompanying drum beat. The repetition of their movement, along with their regimented unity and “piston-pumping arms” (Mackrell), provide the feeling that they are working with machinery, without the need for props; in fact, they almost seem to become machines themselves. Not only does this demonstrate, as articulated by Zoë Anderson, the notion of “growing independence” (65) for women during this time, but also shifts the female WWI role away from being confined to grief, to being active contributors to the war effort. This is further enhanced through the use of the famous WWI song, “We’re here, because we’re here” within the closing duet. These words, usually associated with male soldiers in the trenches, accompanying a duet performed by both a male and a female dancer, points towards the idea that women should be included within this use of the word “we’re” and that their contribution to the war effort should be equally valued.

Raised in South London as the son of Bangladeshi parents, Khan’s cultural identity is complex.  As a result, immigrant identity is often central to his work (Patterson).  Our knowledge of this fact invites a reading of Dust in relation to the ethnic pluralisation of British national identity; an identity which both World Wars have played a large part in constructing. For instance, when the piece was first performed in 2014, Khan offered an alternative to the overriding image of the white western male solider dominant within British collective remembrance by performing the lead male role himself. Similarly, Japanese ballerina Erina Takahashi performed the lead female role when the piece was performed on the Pyramid Stage of Glastonbury Festival in 2014, again presenting an alternative to the dominant image of the war as a solely westernised conflict.

When considering the ever increasing awareness of mental health in recent years, Khan’s focus on what is now recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder, again demonstrates how Dust offers a 21st Century understanding of the conflict. The male soloist’s sharp, erratic twitching motions, which appear to be beyond his control, arguably make for uncomfortable viewing, yet poignantly bring the horrors of this conflict to life. We find this even more visceral than Wilfred Owen’s Mental Cases (1918), which graphically describes soldiers suffering from shell shock.

War Ballets Then

One of the war ballets from the past we are sure you will be very familiar with.  Kenneth MacMillan’s Gloria, inspired by Testament of Youth and an overt memorialisation of World War I, has been staged by the Royal Ballet repeatedly since its premiere in 1980, and has been staged across the globe. Last year for the first time Northern Ballet took the work into its repertoire.

Antony Tudor’s Echoing of Trumpets, created for Royal Swedish Ballet in 1963, will be less familiar to the British ballet public, although it was performed by London Festival Ballet (later ENB) from 1973 to 1990. The visual impact of Echoing of Trumpets and No Man’s Land is similar, in that again the stage is dominated by an evocative set, this time representing a destroyed village, with stone ruins, archways, and again with ramps, and a view through a barbed wire fence into a bleak barren distance. Judith Chazin-Bennahum describes it as “harsh, jagged, multi-level” and notes that one of the women oversees the surroundings from a higher level (432).  This is also a “no man’s land” in the sense that the village is bereft of its male inhabitants – only the women remain.

The work has a connection to a particular incident from World War II – the destruction of a Czechoslovakian village and brutalisation of its female inhabitants by Hitler’s forces in 1942.  While there seems to be some contention as to whether or not the women are raped by the soldiers (Kisselgoff; Perlmutter 272), there is no doubt that the women are depicted as human beings of enormous strength, courage and willpower, capable of intense rage that leads them to commit acts of violence, and intense grief that equips them with preternatural physical strength.  After the soldiers viciously hang a villager who has returned to see his beloved, the women wreak their revenge by strangling one of their tormentors with their scarves.  The bereaved woman hauls the corpse around the stage in her searing anger and despair. Footage of the ballet shows the women to be forceful in their movements, conspiratorial, bold, united and unhesitant in their decision making (Antony Tudor; “Antony Tudor’s Echoing of the Trumpets”).  So the women are victims, but not completely devoid of power over their situation.  And they don’t align with typical representations of women in ballet whose power lies in their ethereality, seductiveness or desire and ability to wreak havoc and cause evil.

Yet, while the women’s dancing in Echoing of Trumpets is emotionally resonant at the deepest level, the movement is also stark, and in this way the work is reminiscent of Tudor’s 1937 Dark Elegies, which also deals with devastating loss and grief. Jennifer Homans describes the choreography as without “hysteria or emoting” and highlights the simplicity of the closing scene: “a few desolate gestures, such as a woman cradling a friend’s head in her hands” (481).  Tudor’s extraordinary gift for expressing the very depth of emotion by such economy of means can perhaps be seen to a lesser degree in the stillness of Scarlett’s women sitting on the steps of No Man’s Land.

Before 2014 and the creation of the Lest We Forget ballets, notably Dust, Kenneth MacMillan’s Gloria was indubitably the most prominent British war ballet.  MacMillan had deeply personal reasons for wanting to create a war ballet, particularly one evoking the First World War, as his father was gassed at the Battle of the Somme, but the catalyst was the 1979 BBC TV dramatisation of Testament of Youth.  As in the case of Dust, the music score is highly significant – Francis Poulenc’s Gloria, after which the ballet is named, is in essence a celebratory piece of music written for the Catholic Mass, and as such there is a painful irony about its use in juxtaposition to the visual impact of the ballet.  As the curtain rises and the dancers emerge from the back of the stage walking up over Andy Klunder’s sparse slanting construct, reminiscent of both trench and grave, images of World War I start to flood the stage: the men’s Brodie helmets, the sombre hues of their tattered costumes and the scenery, dark with the reds and browns of the bloody trenches; and later on the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener’s iconic recruitment poster.

In this work there is a distinct differentiation between the movement dynamics choreographed for the men and women: in accordance with traditional ballet values, the men use stronger weight, and are far more grounded than the women, whose light-weight movements and wraith-like appearance resemble the ethereality of Romantic ballet’s sylphs and wilis from La Sylphide (F. Taglioni, 1832) and Giselle (Coralli/Perrot, 1841) respectively.  Elizabeth Robinson draws a vivid picture of the gendered movement and costume working in conjunction with one another: “The men appear to be part of the earth, with rust coloured unitards and grounded movement, whilst the women offer an ethereal contrast: white, shining unitards beneath a gauzy, flowing, chiffon skirt, with vertical, high level choreography” (24).  The women appear as phantoms, haunting visions of a young life of hopes and dreams lost forever, perhaps, and consequently physically absent from both battlefield and the war effort.  This does not however fully represent the reality of the female experience in WWI: Brittain herself, for example, was a military nurse throughout the War, as well as losing both her brother and her fiancé.  Robinson recognises this and offers an interpretation of the women’s choreography as symbolic of psychological and emotional trauma:

The often calmer and higher movement vocabulary arguably aligns their movement with the psychological trauma of war, as a representation of another, less visceral, but still traumatic war experience. Their height and verticality suggests a distance away from the frontline of fighting, so closely aligned with the ground, but their calm movement vocabulary betrays a lethargy that suggests another type of battle-weary sorrow. (33)

We find it interesting that the representation of women in these ballets varies so markedly from one work to the next.  Women’s contribution to the war effort has been highlighted in documentaries and news bulletins during these centenary years, and as such it is completely appropriate that their physical and emotional strength, their courage and endurance has been recognised in the two Lest We Forget ballets, as well as in Echoing of Trumpets. But it is Dust that also foregrounds other hidden and forgotten aspects of the War – the extreme trauma, the invaluable contribution made by people of diverse backgrounds – and in so doing demonstrates how ballet, conservative and tradition-bound though it can be, is an art form for our times.

Next time on British Ballet Now and Then… English National Ballet has been touring MacMillan’s Manon this autumn, and there will be performances in the new year at the London Coliseum.  However, Mia Stensgaard’s designs are markedly different from the originals by Nicholas Georgiadis.  Therefore we will be thinking about how this affects the interpretation of the ballet in “Manon Designs Now and Then”.

© British Ballet Now and Then

References

Anderson, Zoë.  “Lest We Forget”. Dancing Times, vol. 106, no. 1262, 2005, pp. 65.

Antony Tudor. Directed by Viola Aberlè and Gerd Andersson. Dance Horizons Video, 1992.

“Antony Tudor’s Echoing of the Trumpets”. YouTube, uploaded 11 Mar. 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWCcbv7UtOo. Accessed 26 Oct. 2018.

Chazin-Bennahum, Judith. “Echoing of Trumpets”. International Dictionary of Ballet, vol. 1, St. James Press, 1993.

Jennings, Luke. “La Fille mal gardée; Lest We Forget – review”. The Guardian, 6 Apr. 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/apr/06/fille-mal-gardee-mikhailovsky-lest-we-forget-enb-review. Accessed 26 Oct. 2018.

Kisselgoff, Anna. “Reviews/Dance; Tragedies that Follow the Trumpets of War”. The New York Times, 6 May 1994, http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/26/arts/reviews-dance-tragedies-that-follow-the-trumpets-of-war.html. Accessed 26 Oct. 2018.

Mackrell, Judith. “English National Ballet: Lest We Forget review – Compelling quartet on war”, The Guardian, 3 Apr. 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/apr/03/enb-lest-we-forget-review. Accessed 13 Nov. 2018.

“No man’s land”.English Oxford Living Dictionaries, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/no_man’s_land. Accessed 26 Oct 2018.

Perlmutter, Donna. Shadowplay: the life of Antony Tudor. Viking, 1991.

Robinson, Elizabeth. Dancing Remebrance: examining the intersection of Romantic ideas and First World War memoralisation in Kenneth MacMillan’s Gloria (1980). Royal Academy of Dance, 2018. Unpublished dissertation.

 

 

 

 

Spotlight on James Streeter of English National Ballet

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

On October 5th Julia and Rosie went to Markova House, headquarters of English National Ballet, to watch company class and talk to James Streeter.

In our last Britishballetnowandthen post we wrote about male dancers and their impact on the development of performance style and repertoire in British ballet.  One of the dancers we focussed on was James Streeter and the way in which he brings each character that he dances to life, no matter how varied or disparate.  As we researched, discussed and wrote about James, remembering his performances in various roles, we became increasingly intrigued … How does James ignite the choreography with such real-life substance? How does he give the characters their lifeblood? And what is it that makes James Streeter the dancer seem to disappear and leave us with the human being of the story?

Our curiosity led us to ask for an interview with him in which we discovered that his ability to inhabit a role seems to be intrinsically connected to a particular view of life: James sees life as a constantly evolving journey peopled by fascinating human beings all with their individual histories and ways of being.

James’ relish for life is evident in the bright enthusiasm of his features, and his love for his work permeated the discussion, which was continually peppered with lively gestures and facial expressions culminating in a demonstration of the different ways a man and woman might get up from the table – a mesmerising “performance” in itself.

Although James seemed unsure whether he has a natural thespian talent (a doubt not shared by ourselves, having watched him perform in numerous roles and now having sat for an hour seeing him spontaneously transform himself into a plethora of characters mid-sentence), the trajectory of his career from joining the English National Ballet straight from the school leaves no room for doubt as to his dramatic flair.  His first stage role was the Lead Capulet Servant in Rudolf Nureyev’s Romeo and Juliet (1977), but as a young Company member he was also given the role of Tybalt in the same ballet, as well as the Duke of Courland in the traditional version of Giselle (Coralli/Perrot, 1841).  This information was delivered to us accompanied by hilarious stories of puzzled looks from the wigs department or disgruntled remarks from more senior colleagues sharing the same role at the sight of so green a performer taking on roles of some maturity.

It seems clear that one of the keys to James’ success in giving life to characters is the fact that he recognises the complexity of human nature.  Tybalt, for example, he perceives not simply as the aggressive villain of Romeo and Juliet, but as a young man who loves his cousin Juliet, and is aware of his status within the family, even though he as yet lacks the maturity and stability of mind to be able to recognise the consequences of his seething temper.  James is very aware that what might feel right to him in terms of his reading of the character when preparing a role may not be clearly perceived by the audience, so he makes sure that checking his character in the mirror is integral to the preparation and rehearsal process.  And reviews of his performance in this role do suggest that his reading of Tybalt reaches over the footlights, with both Zoe Anderson and Mark Monahan recognising a duality within Romeo’s enemy: “James Streeter’s Tybalt has affection for Juliet as well as family pride” (Anderson); “Streeter dared to be almost sympathetic in an early scene with his cousin, but later tapped wells of white-hot ferocity in his disappointment at her choice of beau” (Monahan).

One of James’ most celebrated roles is Carabosse in the classical Sleeping Beauty (Petipa, 1890), a character who on the surface could be interpreted as a straightforward symbol of evil.  Although we didn’t manage to see James in this role in the recent run of performances at the London Coliseum, (we saw a terrifying, chilling Stina Quagebeur), we were captivated by Luke Jennings’ description of James’ “fabulously vicious Carabosse, who prowls the stage with the sallow features and madly crimped hair of a vengeful Tudor queen”.  We queried James about the reference to Elizabeth I, wondering whether he made a connection between the two women, their childlessness highlighted by the celebration of a long desired baby princess. He responded with a vision of Carabosse as an individual who has been ostracised for no good reason, maybe simply for being different, whose bitterness and desire for revenge are to some degree forgivable.  An evil fairy she may be, but one who experiences the depths of human disappointment and hurt, who can therefore give us insight into human nature, and for whom James clearly has some sympathy.

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

As we discussed the whys and wherefores of Carabosse’s nature, James showed us with ever-changing dynamics in gestures and mien the difference between a camp depiction of Carabosse and the same character portrayed through feminine body language. During the conversation he observed and mimicked to a T Julia’s hand and arm gestures, giving them as an example of how he draws on everyday life and people’s changing demeanour in creating believable and relatable characters.

From James’ perspective he has only a few weeks to create a whole life history for the character he is portraying and to discover ways of moving true to the character’s history and temperament.  He constantly asks himself how the person would react to everyday occurrences, such as being jostled in the tube.  Tube journeys are one daily opportunity to observe people’s body language, features of which he then incorporates into a reservoir of visible traits that he uses to depict character.  Early on in his career it was suggested to him that if he could behave in character during a tube ride without drawing attention to himself, he would know that he “had” the character, so to speak.

But this doesn’t quite address the question of exactly how James manages to look as if he is walking into a room rather than walking onto the stage, so real and apparently spontaneous is his demeanour.  So probably the most pressing question for us was the relationship between preparing for a role and allowing himself “to be truly in the moment” (qtd. in O’Byrne). In this part of the discussion James acknowledged the influence of both Akram Khan and Tamara Rojo.  He smiled at his younger self, remembering how after preparing and rehearsing with great rigour he then wanted every performance to be identical in accordance with his painstaking preparations, as if he wanted it to be “exactly right”.  But with experience came the confidence to be more spontaneous in performance.

We have experienced watching Tamara Rojo in a run of performances in the same ballet and revelled in the immediacy of her renditions, varying as they did from night to night, as if she were reborn into the role each time.  James explained to us that in rehearsals of Akram Khan’s Dust and Giselle Tamara Rojo and he would spend a lot of time discussing character, motivation and feeling, but also experimenting and discovering the limits of movement and emotion.  This then enabled them to give performances that were authentic to the characters, their feelings and relationships, without being overdramatised.

And just as our feelings, moods and behaviours as human beings fluctuate from day to day, James perceives each performance to be a new day for his character.  As he prepares for each performance a kind of transformation takes place, for which costume, wig and make-up are crucial.  Now he embodies all his ideas about the character’s history, temperament, status, mood, typical gestures, posture and facial expressions, using his observations from theatre, film, art, literature and daily life, and moves into the performance as if experiencing events and responding to the people around him for the first time – as if in real life. But James did also discuss a specific unknowable factor that feeds into this sense of spontaneity and freshness, that is, the energy of the audience, a phenomenon which James clearly feels keenly and that can give the performance an extraordinary sense of occasion.  A recent example that he cited was English National Ballet’s performance of Lest We Forget to the Royal British Legion, the memory of which noticeably still fills him with awe.

Amongst the dancers whose influence and support James talked about with visible ardour and gratitude were Michael Coleman, Lionel Delanoë, Frederic Jahn, Matz Skoog, Fabian Reimair, and above all David Wall.  Because James’ admiration for this great actor-dancer was so prevalent within the discussion, and we wrote about David Wall’s interest in theatre in our last post, we asked James more particularly about the importance of theatre for his work, and discovered that James not only enjoys both cinema and theatre, but has quite an analytical approach to acting, relishing the finer points of skilful acting.  The only point at which James hesitated in the course of our conversation was when we asked him about actors whom he particularly admired: he was clearly perplexed by the number of actors that inspire his admiration.  However, given that the British ballet world seems to be entranced by the BBC’s Killing Eve, based as it is on the fictional writing of The Observer dance critic Luke Jennings, it was apt that he then proceeded to describe a scene from Episode 2 of this drama (“I’ll Deal with him Later”).  Set in the pub, two of the protagonists, Bill and Eve, deliver a minimal script:

Bill: Did you know about his wife?

Eve: Mm-hmm. You?

Bill: Mm-hmm

Eve: Oh those poor kids …

Bill: Yeah.

Yet the delivery of the script is laced with sardonic, wry humour, and James’ appreciation for the skill of the actor David Haig in giving the scene its sharp wit flowed exuberantly through his description of this snippet of the episode that had lodged itself so firmly in his memory.

During our talk James was brimming with delight regarding this profession that allows him to create a “bubble”, a world for his character who lives a completely different life from his own.  Because he enters this bubble anew at each performance, he makes fresh “discoveries”, as he calls them, that he can use to enrich his understanding and portrayal of the character in subsequent performances.  As we have witnessed on stage, this is an approach that he takes to all of his roles. He explained that in the culture of English National Ballet, the notion of a minor character does not in fact exist. When the Company first staged Petipa’s classical Le Corsaire in 2013, as Artistic Director, Tamara Rojo insisted that the curtain rise on a bustling, vibrant marketplace teeming with folks of all kinds, some intent on going about their business, others more interested in the dramatic action going on around them.

As our conversation came to a close, like the gentleman he clearly is, James thanked Julia for the hand gestures she had inadvertently introduced to him, assuring her that he would make use of them one day.

We are very grateful for the support of Alice Gibson, PR Manager, and Laurent Liotardo, Staff Photographer, for their support in the production of this post.

References

Anderson, Zoe. “Romeo and Juliet, Royal Festival Hall, London, review”. Independent, 2 Aug. 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/romeo-and-juliet-royal-festival-hall-london-review-an-uphill-struggle-a7872441.html. Accessed 14 Oct. 2018.

“I’ll Deal with Him Later”. Killing Eve, series 1 episode 2, BBC, 29 Sept. 2018, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06kc8mb. Accessed 17 Oct. 2019.

Jennings, Luke. “English National Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty review – a way with the fairies”.The Guardian, 10 June 2018, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/jun/10/english-national-ballet-sleeping-beauty-review-alina-cojacaru. Accessed 6 Oct. 2018.

Monahan, Mark. “ENB make Nureyev’s drama soar – Romeo and Juliet, Festival Hall, review”. The Telegraph, 2 Aug. 2017, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/dance/ballet/enb-make-nureyevs-drama-soar-romeo-juliet-festival-hall-review/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2018.

O’Byrne, Ellie. “Classic Love Story gets a Modern Twist”. Irish Examiner, 23 Apr. 2018, http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/culture/classic-love-story-gets-a-modern-twist-838618.html. Accessed 6 Oct. 2018.

Male Dancers in British Ballet Now & Then

Every year ballet lovers await with excited anticipation the announcement of promotions in the hope that there will be good news for their favourite dancers.  This year has seen some significant promotions amongst male dancers: Fernando Carratalá Coloma and James Streeter of English National Ballet, Mlindi Kulashe and Joseph Taylor from Northern, and The Royal Ballet’s Matthew Ball.  So altogether a good excuse for us to focus our attention on particular male dancers who have played a notable, even remarkable, role in British ballet companies and repertoire.  Although dancers often contribute in ways other than dancing, for example through choreographing, directing, coaching, and outreach programmes, we are concentrating on the influence of the dancing careers of our selected danseur son British ballet.  As our focus we have chosen three dancers who have until recently performed, or are still performing, with British companies, and three from an earlier generation.  In our male dancers now section we are discussing Carlos Acosta, Eric Underwood and James Streeter.  We hope that you will discover the reasons for our choices as you read on …

Male Dancers Now

Two years ago Carlos Acosta staged The Classical Farewell at the Royal Albert Hall, marking the end of one stage of his career.  This autumn sees a celebration of his 30-year career at the same venue, and on October 15thhe will be receiving a Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award.  These events are tangible evidence of the importance of Britain to Acosta’s career as well as his influence on ballet in this country. Winner of the Prix de Lausanne competition at the age of 16, the Cuban Carlos Acosta became one of the most celebrated dancers of his generation.  He was still a teenager when Ivan Nagy, artistic director of English National Ballet at that time, invited him to perform with the company.  Despite enjoying an international career, Acosta’s dancing life was concentrated in London, at the Royal Ballet, where he was principal guest artist from 2003 to 2016.  As well as being an extraordinary dancer, Acosta was a wonderfully supportive, thoughtful and sensitive partner, known in particular for his partnerships with Tamara Rojo and Marianela Núñez.

Famed for being the first black principal at the Royal Ballet, his popularity as a dancer was perhaps fuelled by the stark contrast between the well documented poverty of his childhood in the backstreets of Havana and his technical ability in what is so often considered to be an elitist art form, lending a certain “exotic” element to his profile.  Tales of his breakdancing on the streets in the 1980s have been eagerly pitted against his fabulously successful career in ballet.  One of the reasons for this success was undoubtedly that despite his understandable protestations that he had “no clue” how to portray a prince onstage, he appeared to perform the classical roles with great ease, as if to the manner born.  The way in which he took to the stage with a nobility of bearing, combined with luscious épaulement and amplitude of movement was magnificently complemented his virtuosity.  The stylishness of his dancing was shaped by the ways in which he tempered the athletic thrust of his dancing.  This he achieved through his sophisticated control and phrasing, for example by decelerating at the end of multiple pirouettes in order to accentuate a clean finish, and through the easy rhythm of his dancing.  And unforgettable are his tours en l’air travelling downstage in the coda of Siegfried’s solo in the Black Act of Swan Lake, which despite the complexity of the setting chosen by Acosta communicate the ebullience and excitement felt by Siegfried at this point in the narrative.  This balance of bravura matched with elegant style and expressivity made Acosta a remarkable exponent of the 19thcentury repertoire so vital to large-scale companies such as the Royal Ballet.  In a review of Swan Lake Ismene Brown said of him: “This Cuban with the athlete’s body and the noble poet’s soul is a dancer one can hardly have enough of”. So fortunately Acosta’s repertoire was broad, including works by Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Kenneth MacMillan and William Forsythe.

James Streeter, who has just been promoted to First Soloist at English National Ballet, is striking in a different way from Acosta.  Firstly, in this age of transnationalism, multiculturalism and portfolio careers, it is noticeable that after completing his training at English National Ballet School, he entered the Company in 2004 and has remained there as a dancer, moving up the ranks and expanding his repertoire.  Perhaps this stability in his professional life is something that has enabled him to develop what appears to be a natural dramatic talent, but we are convinced that this must be an aspect of his work that he has striven to develop over time.  For the range of Streeter’s acting abilities seems to us to be unsurpassable.  No matter how minor the role, whether it be a mime or dancing role, comic, tragic or romantic, Streeter inhabits it, bringing the character to life.  “Minor” characters with whom we are so familiar that they almost seem to dissolve into the rest of the stage action suddenly emerge in graphic relief with an almost uncanny vividness.  We experienced this for example in his portrayal of the English Prince in Act I of The Sleeping Beauty (Petipa, 1890), whose main purpose is to support Aurora reliably and sensitively in the “Rose Adagio”. As important as this task is to the performance, Streeter in addition imbued the potentially cardboard cut-out Prince with credibility as a human being.  As he strode energetically across the stage, impressively flourishing his cavalier hat, the Prince sprang to life as a worthy contender for Aurora’s hand.  In stark contrast is Streeter’s “fabulously vicious Carabosse, who prowls the stage with the sallow features and madly crimped hair of a vengeful Tudor queen” (Jennings, “English National Ballet”).  Luke Jennings’ evocative description conveys the quality and force of Streeter’s movements and expressions that enable him to embody the evil nature of the Fairy and dominate the stage revealing her in all her crazed malevolence.  But even in MacMillan’s Song of the Earth, a work inclined towards more abstract representation, Streeter stands out as a member of the group in the Fourth Song “Of Beauty”, with the boldness and buoyancy of his dancing that imbues the role with character and makes the choreography seem fresh and vivid.

In our opinion Streeter’s ability to inject lifeblood into a role and project character, mood and emotion across the footlights has been brought to fulfilment in Akram Khan’s 2016 re-envisaging of Giselle in which he dances the role of Albrecht, a character torn by moral dilemmas, who in the course of the ballet is guilty of betrayal and cowardice, but at the same time is gripped by love, anger, jealousy, fear and remorse.  Although Streeter recognises that Albrecht’s infidelity and the part he plays in Giselle’s death “hardly makes him a likeable character”, he also regards Albrecht as a victim of the class system (O’Byrne).  And despite the technical challenges and stylistic hybridity of the choreography Streeter comes across above all as a human being expressing the emotions that have arisen in him from his situation.  This achievement was recognised in the 18thNational Dance Awards in November, when he was nominated for the Dance Europe Award for Outstanding Male performance (classical).

Of our three selected dancers, the one whose name is most closely associated with specific choreographers is Eric Underwood, who became celebrated as a muse for both Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon, Resident Choreographer and Artistic Associate of the Royal Ballet respectively.  Joining the Royal Ballet in 2006 from American Ballet Theatre, Underwood drew media attention for his ethnicity as an African American and a childhood dominated by violent crime, as well as for his modelling career (Rafanelli).  Due to his height (6 foot 2 inches) and quiet but magnetic energy, he cut an imposing figure on stage.  Like Acosta he formed significant partnerships, and the recording of McGregor’s Infra (2008) and Limen (2009) shows exactly why.  Not only is there an arresting contrast between the paleness in skin tone of Sarah Lamb and Melissa Hamilton and the rich darkness of Underwood’s skin, but his attentiveness and skill in working together with the ballerinas gives seamless expression to the choreography, while the intensity of his gaze emphasises its sensuousness and dramatic potential.

The same works by McGregor reveal an interesting combination of features integral to Underwood’s individual movement style: on the one hand an exceptional ability to articulate the torso in fluid, rippling movements and to execute a huge range in extension; on the other, the ability to create long classical lines and sculptural poses of great beauty.

Underwood himself recognises the good fortune he has had in working with McGregor and the impact this collaboration has had on the development of ballet as an art form.  In a 2015 interview he stated: “Wayne’s work offers me great opportunities to explore new movements, new forms of ballet …These newer forms of ballet bring new vitality, a limitless sense of creativity to rejuvenate the art of ballet”.  We would go further than this and suggest that Underwood’s collaborations with two choreographers so central to the work of the Royal Ballet have created a new strand of the English style originally established by Ninette de Valois and Ashton. In his perceptive review of Limen, Luke Jennings draws our attention to a lineage we might not otherwise notice: “… when Lamb, lifted by Underwood, performs little gallops in the air, the sequence could have been created by Ashton”.

Yet as the Royal Ballet embarks on a run of MacMillan’s Mayerling, it is deliciously tempting to imagine what a performance of this led by Underwood and Hamilton would be like.  And picture Underwood’s Romeo opposite Sarah Lamb’s Juliet …These are roles that the dancer named in 2010 as Royal Ballet repertoire that he coveted the most.  Or what about Oberon in Ashton’s The Dream, a character that demands superb command of the stage in addition to great partnering skills, fluidity of movement and clean penché arabeques? We would have welcomed the opportunity to witness Underwood commanding the stage in a greater variety of roles.  Unfortunately, given that he left the Royal Ballet last year having reached the rank of soloist in 2008, it is unlikely that our wish-list for Underwood’s repertoire will be fulfilled.

Male Dancers Then

From the 1960s to 1980s there were three prominent male dancers who played similar roles in the development of British ballet to Acosta, Streeter and Underwood: Rudolf Nureyev, the international ballet superstar who had such a monumental impact on the status of male dancing in the West (Freeman and Thorpe 116); the supreme dance-actor David Wall; and Anthony Dowell, one of Frederick Ashton’s muses, who personified the notion of the English style of ballet.

Surely no one could have foretold the arrival of Nureyev from the Soviet Union in 1961 and the stupendous impact that he would have on the world of ballet, including the development of the art form in this country.  By the time Nureyev defected, the Royal Ballet had established itself as a company of international repute with Margot Fonteyn still at its helm, London Festival Ballet was in its twelfth year, Rambert was still operating as a ballet company, and the troupe that was to become Scottish Ballet had already been formed.  In the course of his long and extremely active performing career Nureyev performed with all of these companies, undoubtedly raising their profile with his prodigious talent, energy and unrivalled fame.

De Valois and Ashton had led the development of a choreographic and performing style that had become recognisably “English”, embodied by the Royal Ballet’s internationally acclaimed Prima Ballerina Margot Fonteyn. Yet the arrival of Nureyev not only most famously prolonged and enhanced Fonteyn’s career, but also galvanised a generation of British male dancers to new technical and dramatic heights, thereby elevating the status of the male dancer in this country.  David Wall, who at the age of 20 became the Royal Ballet’s youngest male principal, declared that Nureyev had had a “life-changing effect” on his perception of male ballet dancers (“Obituaries”).

Nureyev took the British ballet audience by storm.  The combination of his glamour and charisma, his virtuosic Russian technique, voracious appetite for work, and the ferocity of his passion for the art form were unprecedented in British ballet, though it is important not to forget that ballet as a national enterprise was still a young art form when Nureyev became permanent guest artist with the Royal Ballet in 1962.  Both Ashton and MacMillan created roles for Nureyev, most famously the male protagonist partnering Fonteyn in Marguerite and Armand (Ashton, 1963).  However, we find it interesting that in 1960, the year before Nureyev’s arrival in the West, Frederick Ashton had already created a major role for a male dancer in his La Fille mal gardée.

Colas, the male protagonist in La Fille mal gardée, was choreographed on the British David Blair, and is a virtuoso role in comic disguise requiring enormous strength and dexterity in terms of both dance and partnering technique.  In fact over the following two decades, while Nureyev was still guest artist with the Company, both choreographers concentrated on the young British dancers, creating complex characters through inventive and challenging choreography that were at least as central to the works as the ballerina roles.  Striking examples of roles created on Dowell are Oberon in The Dream (1964) and Believe in A Month in the Country (1976), both created by Ashton, and Des Grieux from MacMillan’s 1974 Manon. For David Wall the creation of works, which included Lescaut, Manon’s scheming brother, culminated in the role of Rudolph in MacMillan’s Mayerling (1978), a prodigious role, still 40 years later, unsurpassed as a male dancing role.  Even though Nureyev controversially danced the eponymous hero on the first night of MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, the three central male characters were created on three British dancers: Christopher Gable as Romeo, David Blair as Mercutio and Anthony Dowell as Benvolio.

As part of our research we discovered that Wall’s natural dramatic flair was noted by the critic Clive Barnes early on in his career when he performed the Persian Princein the “Rose Adagio” (Freeman and Thorpe 131), a wonderfully serendipitous parallel with our own experience of watching James Streeter. Wall had a passion for theatre that clearly fed into his approach to his roles, enhancing his instinctive talent and enabling him to create ambiguous characters such as Lescaut and Rudolf with consummate skill.  As stated in his Telegraph obituary, “MacMillan saw in Wall a performer brave and curious enough to develop a new kind of male ballet character, enabling more complicated and realistic storytelling than the traditional hero-heroine format”.  Very similar to Streeter’s interpretation of Albrecht, Wall went to pains to communicate what he perceived as Rudolf’s sympathetic side (“Mayerling”). Again The Telegraph highlighted his “ability to find pathos in even the most damaged of characters”.

Dowell was a dancer of a different ilk, specifically known for his embodiment of the English style of his era with its emphasis on refined classical lines, lyricism, musicality and understated virtuosity.  Both Ashton and MacMillan used these attributes in solos for Dowell in The Dream, The Sleeping Beauty (Ashton’s 1968 interpolation for the Prince), Manon and A Month in the Country with swooping, yearning or elegiac arabesques and elegantly challenging turns.  In his analysis of Dowell’s dancing Jennings accentuates his “impeccable technique and purity of expression”, the “supreme elegance” of his line and the “quiet finesse of his phrasing” (“MoveTube”).

The power of Dowell’s physicality was totally different from Nureyev’s, but power it was.  Jennings describes him as “perfectly proportioned … possessed of a dazzling tensile pliancy … the choreographer’s ideal instrument” (“Farewell”).  He was only 21 and a member of the corps de ballet when Ashton chose him to create the role of Oberon, an event that led to a fruitful creative collaboration between the two men for almost two decades.  According to Carrie Seidman, Oberon “set a new standard for male dancers of the day”. This can be seen in the speed and complexity of the Scherzo with its continuous variety of turning jumps, followed shortly afterwards by the pas de deux, which requires a quite different quality with its intricate partnering and luscious use of the body. Crucially, while Dowell himself referred to the role as “a real killer”, it was vital to him that audiences would never be aware of the effort necessitated by the deceptively challenging choreography (qtd. in Jennings, “Farewell”).

Given the enduring centrality of the pas de deux to ballet, we cannot omit the fact that celebrated partnerships were integral to the dancing careers of Nureyev, Dowell and Wall.  While the Fonteyn-Nureyev is probably the most famous partnership in British ballet, and perhaps internationally too, Jennings suggests that the Sibley-Dowell partnership, which began with The Dream, was equal to it “in its empathy and intensity” (“Farewell”).  Wall considered his partnering to be integral to communicating through movement (Freeman and Thorpe 138), and not only were his partnerships with Lynn Seymour and even Margot Fonteyn celebrated, but incredibly he had to partner six different ballerinas in Mayerling in addition to coping with extraordinarily demanding choreography.  The Dream pas de deux performed by Sibley and Dowell is indelibly imprinted on our memory for its sheer magic, as are the pas de deux in Mayerling for their blistering sensuality when danced by Seymour and Wall.

Unlike the three dancers whom we selected from more recent years in British ballet, these three dancers had similar repertoires with the Royal Ballet, all dancing the 19thcentury classics, in addition to a range of 20thcentury work. However, their distinctiveness as performers lent a richness to the performances of the Company, enabling audiences to see a variety of articulations and interpretations of the growing and increasingly interesting repertoire for male dancers.  The ways in which Dowell and Wall inspired Ashton and Macmillan, the two giants of British choreography, led to the creation of roles that continue to challenge male dancers of the highest calibre today, both in this country and internationally.  Further, and equally importantly, these collaborations between choreographers and dancers upheld and enhanced two hallmarks of British ballet: the distinctive English style and an emphasis on the dramatic expressiveness of ballet.

Concluding Thoughts on Male Dancers Now and Then

What has become very clear to us in doing our research for this post is that while the ballerina indubitably still dominates the ballet stage, male dancers too have made enormous contributions to the advancement of British ballet in the 20thand 21stcenturies.  However, it is not necessary for a dancer to reach the highest echelons of the ballet company hierarchy in order to make an impact on performances, the development of performance style, and repertoire.  In these days of celebrity culture we feel it is crucial to emphasise this.  We celebrate the momentous influence of Carlos Acosta, Anthony Dowell, Rudolf Nureyev and David Wall as dancers.  But simultaneously we also look forward to tracing the legacy of Eric Underwood in future performances by male dancers in British companies and to following the continued unfolding of James Streeter’s career.

© Rosie Gerhard

Next time on British Ballet Now and Then… to mark the contribution of British ballet to the commemoration of the First World War Centenary, we will be writing a post on war ballets created by British choreographers.

 

 

References

Brown, Ismene. “Rojo is Queen of the Swan Queens”. The Telegraph, 29 Nov. 2002, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/3586430/Rojo-is-queen-of-the-Swan-Queens.html. Accessed 28 Sept. 2018.

Freeman, Gillian, and Edward Thorpe. Ballet Genius: twenty great dancers of the twentieth century. Equation, 1988.

Jennings, Luke. “Agon/Sphynx/Limen; Mayerling”. The Guardian, 8 Nov. 2009, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/nov/08/royal-ballet-acosta-mcgregor-mayerling. Accessed 21 Sept. 2018.

—. “English National Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty review – a way with the fairies”. The Guardian, June 2018, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/jun/10/english-national-ballet-sleeping-beauty-review-alina-cojacaru. Accessed 23 July, 2018.

—. “MoveTube: Anthony Dowell dances the Prince’s solo from Swan Lake Act I”. The Guardian, 10 Nov. 2011, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/nov/10/movetube-anthony-dowell-swan-lake. Accessed 23 July, 2018.

“Mayerling: South Bank special, part 3, 1978”. YouTube, uploaded 21 Sept. 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m41t5OKA9Y0. Accessed 8 Sept. 2018.

“Obituaries: David Wall”. The Telegraph, 20 June, 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10133035/David-Wall.html. Accessed 23 Sept. 2018.

O’Byrne, Ellie. “Classic Love Story gets a Modern Twist”. Irish Examiner, 23 Apr. 2018,  http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/culture/classic-love-story-gets-a-modern-twist-838618.html. Accessed 26 Sept. 2018.

Rafanelli, Stephanie. “Royal Opera House ballet star Eric Underwood: ‘I want to be a great dancer regardless of my colour’”. Evening Standard, 15 Oct. 2015, http://www.standard.co.uk/es-magazine/royal-opera-house-ballet-star-eric-underwood-i-want-to-be-a-great-dancer-regardless-of-my-colour-a3091036.html. Accessed 16 Sept. 2018.

Seidman, Carrie. “Anthony Dowell hands down his breakthrough role in Ashton″ ‘The Dream’ to Sarasota Ballet”. Herald Tribune, 24 Feb. 2018, http://www.heraldtribune.com/entertainmentlife/20180224/anthony-dowell-hands-down-his-breakthrough-role-in-ashton-the-dream-to-sarasota-ballet. Accessed 25 Sept. 2018.

Three Ballets by Wayne McGregor: Chroma, Infra, Limen. Performance by Eric Underwood, Melissa Hamilton, Sarah Lamb and The Royal Ballet, Opus Arte, 2011.

Trebay, Guy. “Eric Underwood, the American star of the Royal Ballet: ‘I never wanted to be the ‘black’ dancer – I wanted to be a great dancer’”. The Independent, 26 July 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/eric-underwood-royal-ballet-strictly-come-dancing-al-green-marvin-gaye-a7860836.html. Accessed 15 Sept. 2018.

Underwood, Eric.Interview by Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel.“In Conversation with Eric Underwood”.Network of Pointes, vol. 35, 2015, p.25, Society of Dance History Scholars.

ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET’S EMERGING DANCER: IN CONVERSATION

On Monday 11th June ENB’s Emerging Dancer Competition took place for the ninth year.  The six finalists are judged on classical pas de deux and contemporary solos.  Rosie watched the competition live at the Coliseum, while Julia and Libby watched the live stream on YouTube.  Then we all shared our thoughts …

Libby

For me two dancers stood out for their technical ability and artistry in the pas de deux: Daniel McCormick performing Le Corsaire (with Francesca Velicu), and Connie Vowles dancing William Tell (with Giorgio Garrett).

It was interesting that of the three pas de deux two were created by Marius Petipa choreographed at the turn of the 19th-20th century: Le Corsaire (1899), and Harlequinade (1900).  The William Tell pas de deux by August Bournonville was originally choreographed not so much earlier than this, in 1873, but required quite a different style to the Petipa work.  Precious Adams and Fernando Carratalà Coloma created playful Harlequins, although unfortunately neither dancer fully embodied the roles – the movement looked a little studied, as if imposed on them, so it didn’t quite correlate with their personal styles.

Rosie

Yes, I really appreciated the fact that we saw not only a variety of styles from the 19th century, but also pieces that are quite unfamiliar – I’m not sure I’ve ever seen either the Harlequinade or the William Tell pas de deux.  Thankfully it wasn’t like one of those galas where you’re fed Don Quixote, Black Swan and Corsaire pas de deux and then go home reeling from an overindulgence in fouettés!

For me it was a bit of a different experience, because I watched the performance in the theatre.  The two dancers who stood out for me are dancers that I already enjoy watching.  I always notice Francesca in the corps de ballet, no matter the style – whether it be in Akram Khan’s Giselle or Sleeping Beauty.  Although she has a very particular style of her own, that I personally find very harmonious, she adapts to suit the style of the work she is dancing.  I think this is really interesting, because more and more I am finding this to be a trait of the company as a whole.   As far as Francesca is concerned, it was most evident in her performance of the Chosen One in Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring performed by ENB last year.  It’s so impressive that in this way she is representative of the company, even though she only joined in 2016.  In Le Corsaire, as well as being very secure in the more obviously technical aspects, like pirouettes à la seconde, fouettés, she individualised her dancing through her phrasing, varying the speed of her movements, lingering in balances, her musicality and expressive use of head; her port de bras is always beautifully held and co-ordinated with the rest of her movement. Her entrance was accompanied by rapt hush in the audience (at least, where I was sitting).

Julia

What I noticed was the attention to detail in the upper body, particularly from Francesca, Daniel and Fernando.  I was disappointed that we didn’t get to see Francesca and Fernando as the Bluebird and Princess Florine in The Sleeping Beauty last Saturday.

Rosie

I was lucky enough to see Fernando as the Messenger of Death in Song of the Earth in January this year, where I noticed his ease of movement.  His youthfulness also seemed to lend poignancy to the role.  Through the pyrotechnics of Harlequin, I saw this same ease – it’s as if he’s doing nothing! And the characterisation was equally engaging. 

Libby

Yes, I can see that, but I enjoyed Daniel’s partnering in Le Corsaire – it was excellent – but when he performed the solo that Rudolf Nureyev made famous in the West after his defection from the Soviet Union, he really came into his own – the energy and height of his leaps, the security, speed and number of turns.  But neither did he lose character at the expense of spectacle, remaining poised and commanding as Conrad the Pirate at all times.  Connie’s performance in William Tell stood out due to her exquisite footwork.  Whilst the characterisation was a little “added on” the technical aspect had mesmerising moments.  You could easily picture her dancing any of Frederick Ashton ballets. 

Rosie

Yes, I can see what you mean about Connie, and in fact Jann Parry describes her as a natural Bournonville dancer, saying “she has the ballon and the neat footwork for the girl’s role, as well as a deceptively modest charm”. 

Julia

I can imagine her as the Katia or Vera in A Month in the Country, or as Lise in La Fille mal gardée.  It always seems to me that there’s a bond between the choreographic styles of Bournonville and Ashton, despite the distance in time and so in influences; it’s that combination of nuanced and intricate movement simultaneously in the torso and lower legs, as well as a particular lively aura.  Although Giorgio Garrett wasn’t as polished or “natural” in the Bournonville choreography, I felt a lovely rapport between the dancers and an effervescence in his personality, which was built upon in his quirky solo Fraudulent Smile created by Ross Freddie Ray.  It made much of his expressive talents – not only did his facial expressions changed dramatically, but even when he had his back turned to the audience, he seemed to be able communicate with us.

Libby

Francesca’s solo, Toccata, choreographed by Nancy Osbaideston, was another work that really felt like it was choreographed with the dancer in mind.  It suited Francesca, whose neat steps and precise movements punctuated the choreography in a harmonious way.

Rosie

So we’re back to harmony again with Francesca …

Libby

We are, although saying that, it didn’t have the visual impact of A Point of Collapse choreographed by Mthuthuzeli November from Ballet Black and performed by Precious.  Unlike in Harlequinade, here Precious fully engaged with every iota of the choreography, like the movement was right in the marrow of her bones.  It was utterly compelling.

Rosie

Yes, looking back over more than a week, it was the most memorable and striking performance.  Precious completely transformed herself from the coquettish Columbine to a distraught human being, conveyed through the use of her whole body: sweeping mournful arcs of motion were contrasted with nervous hand and head gestures, culminating in jerky, convulsive movements.  Jann Parry also noted this transformation, in fact questioning whether this achievement should have singled her out as the winner of the competition. 

Julia

There was support on social media for Precious Adams from professional dancers, for example, Hannah Bateman from Northern Ballet, and from Madison Keesler, who was with ENB until last season.  I particularly enjoyed James Streeter’s interview available on the live stream on YouTube. As a finalist in the competition in 2011, James commented on how dancers support each other as they go through the rehearsal process and preparation for the final performance. I believe this has been nurtured over Tamara Rojo’s directorship in the last few years and this is something that really excites me about ENB.  The finalists are selected by their colleagues and judged by a panel (this year Julio Bocca, Lauren Cuthbertson, Johan Kobborg, Kerry Nicholls and Tamara Rojo).  However, as well as the Emerging Dancer Award, the other awards – Corps de Ballet Award and People’s Choice Award – give dancers the opportunity to receive recognition and an award from members of the company and from the audience.

Rosie

I was so impressed by the progress made by last year’s winners, Aitor Arrieta and Rina Kanehara.  They both danced the Grand pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty with markedly greater sophistication than their performances in the 2017 competition.  Not only did they complement one another beautifully, but Aitor’s bearing and posture were very regal, and Rina’s port de bras was exquisite.  It seems to me that the dancers really gain from this process and experience.  And this doesn’t only apply to the winners.  Take for example Isabelle Brouwers.  She has been a finalist for the past three years, and like Francesca, she’s very noticeable in a group of dancers, with her striking arabesque, lovely use of the upper back and general radiance.  I’m convinced that she has learnt a lot from this process.

Libby

Next year will be a landmark – the tenth competition!

Rosie

Yes, I am excited! I think we should all go together.  It was a great atmosphere – so positive, with students from the school and members of the company rooting for their role models, their friends and colleagues.

Julia 

Next year we hope to watch the live performance together!

© Julia Delaney, Libby Costello, Rosie Gerhard

References

Parry, Jann “2018 English National Ballet Emerging Dancer Competition – performance and results” http://dancetabs.com/2018/06/2018-english-national-ballet-emerging-dancer-competition-performance-and-results/

The Sleeping Beauty Now and Then

The Sleeping Beauty Now

When the Evil Fairy Carabosse’s strident chords open a performance of The Sleeping Beauty, they augur not only a magnificent evening of dance and music, but, as if her magical powers hold sway over the fate of not only Aurora but of the ballerina herself, Carabosse’s theme foreshadows one of the most fiendishly difficult feats in the repertoire for the classical ballerina: the “Rose Adagio”.  And indeed experience has taught us that the “Rose Adagio” can be nerve wracking not only for the dancer but also for the viewer.

The “Rose Adagio” comes at a point in the ballet when Princess Aurora is of an age to select a life partner, and as such the occasion should be an entirely joyous one.  Of course, as the audience we know that Aurora must suffer before she finds her beloved, but here Aurora is meeting her four suitors for the first time, and she is the person who gets to choose.  Consequently, although this is a momentous and exciting occasion, it is hardly the time for nervous nail biting or anxious butterflies in the stomach.  Both critics and dancers have emphasised the difficulty of the sequence.  Former Royal Ballet ballerina Deborah Bull describes it as “the most terrifying dance in the ballet repertoire” (qtd. in Jennings), while dance critic Judith Mackrell suggests that including so many unsupported balances in a single sequence of dancing “feels like cruelty”.

Structurally it is a major climax, because the audience has had to wait for an entire act for Aurora’s entrance, and then this entrance itself leads immediately into the celebrated attitude balances: firstly on their own, and then at the climax of the “Rose Adagio” itself, the promenades attitude followed by balances.  It is a symbolic pas d’action marking Aurora’s coming of age and new independence.  Tchaikovsky’s music is a glorious treat for the ears and Marius Petipa’s choreography an equally glorious sight.

Anyone who has watched Sleeping Beauty repeatedly will know that not only are different ballerinas more or less successful in making this passage appear joyful and easeful, but that the same ballerina on different nights might appear a lot more or less relaxed and confident in this same passage of the ballet. A cursory search on YouTube will testify to the frequent nervousness of the dancers, shown in their lack of interaction with their partners, their almost grim focus, visible reluctance to release the hand of their partner, or in contrast, their exaggerated smiles.

In Russia there is a tradition of the ballerina simply lifting the hand for the balances rather than taking the arm to fifth position, and indeed in our experience some of the most confident and elegant balances have been performed in this way.  One instance was one Monday evening in 1993 with the Mariinsky ballerina Irina Shapchits, not so well known in this country; but another was with their prima ballerina of that time Altynai Asylmuratova. However, not all Russian ballerinas always choose this version, and probably for some audience members these are simply not as exciting as long held balances with the arm taken to fifth position; some people even prefer the ballerina to hold the balances for as long as possible while ignoring both the music and her partners.

On occasion the anticipatory anxiety seems worth it, that is, when the ballerina shows a beautifully held clear attitude line through the leg and torso, and calmly raises and lowers her arm, while timing her balances with the music and acknowledging each of her four partners.  Lesley Collier in 1977 and Maria Almeida 11 years later are two former Royal Ballet ballerinas who dwell in my memory for achieving this breath-taking feat.  As Judith Mackrell points out, “Every dedicated balletgoer has a story to tell of the great and disastrous Rose Adagios they have seen”.

Just as the “Rose Adagio” is a highlight in the choreography of The Sleeping Beauty, it is also frequently highlighted in reviews of performances, either sympathetically pointing out the ballerina’s tension and the “sigh of relief” when it is over, or revelling in how she conquered the balances, as in Neil Norman’s 2011 review of Marianela Núñez, who delivered “the fiendishly difficult balancing act of the Rose Adagio with bravura style, leaning into her phrase like an Olympic swimmer”.

And it’s not only the technical difficulty of the “Rose Adagio” that the dancer has to deal with: there seems to be an external pressure associated with this dance. Deborah Bull maintained that the balances and promenades were quite achievable in the studio, but in performance “a combination of dazzling lights, jangled nerves, and the absence of the studio’s four comforting walls makes balance an impossibility” (qtd. in Jennings).  Hanna Weibye of The Arts Desk seems to empathise with this when she writes of the dancer waiting for an hour after the start of the performance until her entrance, when she has to “run on stage straight into the gimlet gaze of two thousand people watching for a wobble”.

But where, we wonder, does this extra pressure come from? When the critic Konstantin Skalkovsky of the Saint Petersburg Gazette reviewed the premiere in 1890 he described Carlotta Brianza’s dancing in Act I as “extremely elegant, masterfully and freely performed” (374).  He referred to the “bright red costume which goes beautifully with the Italian ballerina’s black hair and eyes”, but there is nothing in the review that suggests that the choreography for Aurora in Act I is any more difficult than in the following two acts; and while the difficulty of the pirouettes and “steel points” are mentioned, there is no mention of perilous balances.  Similarly, when Serge Diaghilev mounted his production of The Sleeping Princess in London, 1921, the critics concentrated on Léon Bakst’s extravagantly opulent designs, some of them in addition complaining that the production gave Aurora little opportunity to shine (MacDonald 274-76).  In contrast, Cyril Beaumont wrote that Olga Spessivtseva, the first Aurora “had a splendid technique, poise, control which she displayed with art.  Style, line, timing, poise, control – such were her attributes.  Her pirouettes, her batterie, and her développés were models.  Her poise and control when extending her raised leg in a développé were quite remarkable” (The Diaghilev Ballet 203-04). So, still no mention of “Rose Adagio” balances and promenades…

The question is then: when exactly did the “Rose Adagio” become so central to the meaning of the work, to the extent that in 2011 and 2012 Luke Jennings and Judith Mackrell respectively wrote a MoveTube just on this brief section of the ballet? We are suggesting that in this country it is inextricably bound up with the history of The Royal Ballet and the ballerina whose name became synonymous with the role of Aurora: Prima Ballerina Assoluta, Margot Fonteyn.

The Sleeping Beauty Then

In the 1930s the notion of British ballet, that is, the possibility of ballet becoming a part of British culture with its own repertoire, style and traditions, was just emerging.  To help her to build a repertoire for her fledgling company, at that time named the Vic-Wells Ballet, Ninette de Valois employed Nicholas Sergueyev who had escaped the Soviet Union bringing with him notation scores of ballets from the Russian Imperial (now Mariinsky) Ballet that later came to be regarded as the “classics”, among them The Sleeping Beauty.  The first production was staged in 1939 with Margot Fonteyn as Aurora.  During the course of World War II ballet as an art form blossomed in Britain as companies toured the country, bringing much-needed entertainment to new audiences, including the armed forces.  The prestige of de Valois’ company, now named the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, flourished, as the dancers’ stalwart persistence despite air raids, rationing and the daily toil of constant touring and performing was recognised as integral to the War effort.

During the War the Royal Opera House had functioned as a dance hall.  In 1946 it reopened as a performance venue for opera and ballet with a new lavish production of the balletThe Sleeping Beauty danced by the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, now the resident company of Covent Garden, again with Margot Fonteyn in the eponymous role.

Since 1939 Fonteyn had gained much performing experience, but neither she nor the other dancers were accustomed to dancing in such an enormous venue.  Frederick Ashton taught Fonteyn to hold positions so that they would register clearly throughout the house (Kavanagh 309).  It seems highly unlikely that those positions would not have included the “Rose Adagio” balances in attitude.  There are several recordings of Fonteyn dancing this scene, and on most occasions she lifts her arm swiftly, in response to Tchaikovsky’s score, holds it for a moment and then lowers it once the next prince has stepped forward to offer her his hand.  Her smile is radiant, and she gives no sense of being nervous.  The speed and ease of the port de bras together with her strong wrist control mean there is no distraction from the balances.  It could also be that the promenades are taken at a slightly more leisurely pace than is currently customary, because she doesn’t seem to spend so much time assuring herself of her balance before releasing her partner’s hand.

The gala opening night of The Sleeping Beauty at the Opera House has gone down in the annals of British ballet history as a triumph. With the Royal Family in attendance as well as the Prime Minster and his cabinet, and dignitaries from the arts world, the tale of Aurora, symbol of the dawn, seems to have been perceived as a metaphor not only for the coming of age of British ballet and the Sadler’s Wells company, but a reawakening of British culture (albeit based on a Russian ballet) in an appropriately grand setting, and a return of daylight for the whole country after the dark night of the long years of war.

Beaumont states that the “Rose Adagio” “was well danced by Miss Fonteyn” (Dancers under my Lens 51).  Given the reputation that Fonteyn developed, this almost seems like damning with faint raise, so to speak, but here at least is a specific reference to what has become such an iconic passage of dance.  Fonteyn’s reputation was further boosted in 1949, when the company visited New York for the first time, again opening with The Sleeping Beauty, again with Fonteyn, and by all accounts scoring an even greater triumph.  And Fonteyn’s “Rose Adagio” was no small part of this triumph, being elevated to the status of legend.  As if foretelling this victory, Richard Buckle had asserted about Fonteyn’s “Rose Adagio”: “She supports the honour and glory of our nation and empire on the point of one beautiful foot!” (qtd. in Homans 428).

Robert Helpmann, Fonteyn’s long-time partner recalls the audience reaction on the opening night in New York to an unplanned moment: “When she came to the third prince, she’d caught such a miraculous balance that she didn’t even take his hand – she just smiled at him.  Well I thought the audience would explode” (Dance on 4).

In our opinion historian Jennifer Homans is the writer who most effectively expresses the significance of these performances for the reputation of the company that was to receive a Royal charter just seven years later: “This kind of history does not easily fade from collective memory.  In postwar Britain, ballet was recognised as a national art, a jewel in the (shrinking) British crown, and de Valois, Ashton and Fonteyn were its justly celebrated leaders” (428).  It seems to us that in its connection with the establishment of ballet as an art form and the early glory days of the Royal Ballet, the “Rose Adagio” has become a hurdle, even a millstone, for ballerinas who perhaps feel they need to live up to the image of Fonteyn, and in this way put additional pressure on themselves when performing what is already a huge technical challenge.

What are your thoughts on the “Rose Adagio”? Is Margot Fonteyn the ballerina who comes to mind? How do you prefer the balances to be performed? How important are musicality and characterisation to you? Do you have any “Rose Adagio” treasured memories? Join the conversation on Twitter #RoseAdagio.

© Rosemarie Gerhard 2018

Next time on British Ballet Now and Then… Judith Mackrell, who has been dance critic of The Guardian since 1995 and of The Independent for nine years prior to that, is leaving to pursue other projects. In recognition of her exceptional contribution to ballet criticism in this country, we will be thinking about ballet criticism now and then.

 

References

Beaumont, Cyril W. Dancers Under My Lens. C. W. Beaumont, 1949.

—. The Diaghilev Balletin London. New ed., Putnam, 1945.

Dance on 4: Margot Fonteyn. Directed by Patricia Foy, 1989.

Garafola, Lynn. Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Oxford, UP, 1989.

Homans, Jennifer. Apollo’s Angels: a history of ballet. Granta, 2010.

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

MacDonald, Nesta. Diaghilev Observed. Dance Books, 1975.

Mackrell, Judith. “MoveTube: the Rose Adagio from Sleeping Beauty”,The Guardian, 25 Oct. 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/oct/25/movetube-rose-adagio-sleeping-beauty. Accessed 5 June 2018.

Jennings, Luke. “MoveTube: Alina Cojocaru dances the Rose Adagio from The Sleeping Beauty”,The Guardian, 24 Nov. 2011, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/nov/24/alina-cojocaru-rose-adagio-sleeping-beauty. Accessed 5 June 2018.

Norman, Neil. “Ballet Review – The Sleeping Beauty, The Royal Ballet”, Sunday Express, 27 Oct. 2011, http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/theatre/280024/Ballet-review-The-Sleeping-Beauty-The-Royal-Ballet. Accessed 5 June 2018.

Weibye, Hanna. “The Sleeping Beauty, The Royal Ballet”, The  Arts Desk, 23 Feb. 2014, https://theartsdesk.com/dance/sleeping-beauty-royal-ballet-1. Accessed 5 June 2018.

 

ENB Voices of America: in conversation with British Ballet Now and Then

Last weekend Julia, Libby and Rosie went to the closing night of Voices of America at Sadler’s Wells. After discussion and reading reviews of the first night performance, here are our thoughts.

There was a lot of publicity around Forsythe’s new work Playlist (Track 1,2), and the reviews emphasised the strength and skills of the company in their performance of it. What are your thoughts on this?

Over the past few years, it’s become clear to us that the company has been growing in strength and becoming very versatile in adapting to different styles. Rosie has written about this in our recent post The Rise & Rise of ENB: Style Matched by Substance. Therefore, it came as no surprise to us that the dancers were able to show off a lot of tricks and that they also worked cohesively as a group to give the performance its exuberant ambiance.

Libby thought that the dancers’ ability to work as group was particularly evident in the first work Fantastic Beings by Aszure Barton, where there was a collective energy between the dancers which united them. The unison sections evidenced precise movement and impressive timing that didn’t suffer from “over rehearsal” but rather remained fresh and vibrant.

 

Emma Byrne from the Evening Standard refers to Fantastic Beings as a “fantasy fairytale”. Did it strike you like that?

Yes, absolutely! It reminded Julia of watching Disney films as a child with all the stars in the backdrop, the glittery and magical feel in the music, and the black creatures creeping across the stage. For Rosie, in contrast to its first showing as the closing work of She Said in 2016, this worked much better as an opening piece, due to its fragmented, less climatic structure.

In fact, Jann Parry from DanceTabs comments on this saying “there’s no apparent structure, other than one quirky number following another for a different combination of dancers. The music keeps promising dramatic climaxes that come to nothing”.

For us this means that as a whole evening there’s a sense of moving up to a satisfying climax of the final Forsythe piece Playlist (Track 1,2).

So are you saying that these climaxes are partially dependent on the music choices?

We are sure they are. The audience reaction to Playlist (Track 1,2) was particularly interesting. There was already a sense of anticipation because Forsythe had not choreographed for a British company for more than 20 years, and after the premiere an online video of Forsythe himself freestyling with the dancers increased the anticipatory excitement making it palpable in the theatre.

Playlist is beautifully crafted and easily legible in terms of spatial patterning, rhythm, and vocabulary, despite some examples of typical Forsythe deconstruction of classical lines and codified steps. This is Forsythe at his most buoyant. Rosie went to see it twice and found it as delightful the second time around as the first time, but not as intellectually engaging. On both occasions, however, the audience as whole were clearly enthralled from start to finish.

 

Do you think then that the music is as important for the audience as the choreography?

Libby was the first to ask to what extent the audience reaction was dependent on the house and club music in Playlist.Would the work have had the same impact if danced to 19thcentury ballet music, like Le Corsaire for example, we wondered. Or if “Black Swan pas de deux” were danced to Playlist? It made us think of the YouTube clip of the Royal Ballet dancing excerpts of their repertoire to Tinie Tempah’s Pass Out.

As Julia pointed out, basically Forsythe’s vocabulary in Playlist (much more obviously than in Approximate Sonata 2016) is drawn from la danse d’école: épaulement, tendus, brisés, and pirouettes are central to both Playlist and daily class. But the combination of the music and the way in which Forsythe inflects the movement gives a sexier quality to the classroom steps, like the sensuous skimming sideways courus.

For Rosie, the music scores were striking for the whole evening. The subject matter of predatory female insects in Jerome Robbins’ 1951 The Cage seemed oddly juxtaposed to Stravinsky’s Concerto in D for string orchestra, which reminded her too much of Apollo, whereas Sacre du printemps (Rite of Spring) with its ritualistic pounding force would have offered a more fittingly violent soundscape to the choreography, making the kind of fusion that Forsythe created in Playlist.

On the other hand, for Approximate Sonata 2016 Forsythe eschews this type of fusion, highlighting the independent rhythms of the movement.  For us, the complexity of movement, particularly in the duets, is counterbalanced by the bright costumes on the one hand and the understated music on the other. Here the technical challenges are presented in a much subtler and more fascinating way than in Playlist.

 

Three of the works are new to ENB, Barton’s Fantastic Beings is the only one that wasn’t – are there any of these works that you would like to see again? 

Yes, we really appreciated seeing the Forsythe works because there’s restricted opportunity to see his works in this country currently. How about an all-Forsythe evening? ENB already perform In the Middle Somewhat Elevated and it would be a delight to see perhaps the ebullient  The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude (1996) or the witty pas de deux from Herman Schmerman (1992).

© Julia Delaney, Libby Costello, Rosie Gerhard

 

References

Byrne, Emma. “ENB – Voices of America review: Fast and furious movement from English National Ballet”. London Evening Standard, 16 Apr. 2018, http://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/enb-voices-of-america-review-fast-and-furious-movement-from-english-national-ballet-a3814641.html. Accessed 27 Apr. 2018.

Parry, Jann. “English National Ballet – Voices of America bill – works by Forsythe, Robbins & Barton – London”. DanceTabs, 16 Apr. 2018, http://dancetabs.com/2018/04/english-national-ballet-voices-of-america-bill-works-by-forsythe-robbins-barton-london/. Accessed 27 Apr. 2018.

“The Royal Ballet. Not What You Think” YouTube, uploaded 16 Feb. 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-46BZD4zNlk. Accessed 27 Apr. 2018.

 

 

Female Choreographers Now & Then

Female Choreographers Now

At British Ballet Now and Then we have been following the debate on female choreographers.  In 2009 The Guardian critic and historian Judith Mackrell asked “Where are all the great female choreographers?”, and considered reasons why we see so few dance works choreographed by women, particularly on major stages by the world’s most prestigious companies.  Since then the question seems to have become simply “Where are all the female choreographers?”. Luke Jennings, author and dance critic of The Observer, has published thoughts on this topic on several occasions (“Female Choreographers”), highlighting work by Vanessa Fenton and Cathy Marston that he had admired in the smaller venues of the Royal Opera House that had not led to opportunities to create for the main stage (“Sexism in Dance”), and culminating in his response to Akram Khan’s position on redressing the gender balance in choreography (“You’re Wrong, Akram. We Do Need More Female Choreographers”).  Female ballet choreographers, including Cathy Marston (qtd. in Jennings), and Crystal Pite (qtd. in Mackrell), whose work we discuss below, have joined in the debate.

The current Artistic Directors of the UK’s two most prestigious companies have been tackling this conundrum.  As soon as Kevin O’Hare was in post as Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet (RB) in 2012, he commissioned the much-sought-after Canadian Crystal Pite to choreograph a new work for his company.  By the time the work, Flight Pattern, premiered in March 2017, the company had not performed a work from a female dance maker for 18 years.  Under Tamara Rojo English National Ballet had already the previous year taken more radical action by staging a triple bill of new works created by female choreographers entitled She Said, thereby highlighting the voice of women in the creative process.  Mackrell referred to the programme as a “campaigning first for an industry in which most of the repertory is created by men”.  And indeed David Bintley, Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, a company that already has a “strong record” of performing works by female choreographers (Anderson “Birmingham Royal Ballet”), has followed suit with plans for a triple bill of choreographies by Ruth Brill, Jessica Lang and Didy Veldman next season.

So, in case you haven’t had a chance to see Flight Pattern or She Said, here is a short outline of the works to at least give you some impression of their focus and diversity.

Characteristic of Pite’s oeuvre is her concern with the human condition, and the world as it is with all its conflict and trauma.  Referring to Flight Pattern she says: “This creation is my way of coping with the world at the moment” (qtd. in Spencer).  On this occasion, the plight of refugees is her theme.  But the work also demonstrates her skill in moving large numbers of dancers in imaginative and compelling patterns, groupings and configurations around the stage, ideal for a large-scale company such as the RB.

At the heart of She Said were two iconic women (one real, one mythological), and the act of dancing itself.  Broken Wings by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa portrayed the life of Frida Kahlo in a swathe of vibrant colours and imaginative stage sets evoking the artist’s work.  Kahlo’s life of love and suffering was portrayed in quite a literal way in terms of movement content, unlike Yabin Wang’s M-Dao, a sparse, pared down but searing account of the Medea myth, in which Medea’s dead children were represented by fallen drapes that she gathered in her arms, and her vulnerability portrayed by one bare foot. In stark and satisfying contrast, Aszure Barton’s virtuosic Fantastic Beings “inflects the classical language with a wonderful strangeness – brooding missed beats, skittering deviations, and an exhilaratingly bold eye for pattern” (Mackrell), and the choreography skilfully captures the unique movement style of each dancer (Kechacha).

The theme of strong women is an important focus for British choreographer Cathy Marston (qtd. in Winter), whose 2016 Jane Eyre is currently being performed by Northern Ballet (NB).  Marston has been choreographing professionally for almost two decades in this country and internationally, and Jane Eyre is her third work for NB, the first being Dividing Silence, as early as 2004.  Three years prior to this a pas de deux by the name of Three Words Unspoken was premiered in the Clore Studio at the Royal Opera House with Brian Maloney and a young Tamara Rojo whose intense and dramatic performance enriched the compelling choreography.  Nonetheless, even though Marston held the position of Associate Artist at the Royal Opera House from 2002 to 2006, she was not given the chance to create work for the main stage.

Happily, over the coming months two of Marston’s works will be touring in various locations throughout the UK, giving thousands of people the opportunity to see her work.  In addition to NB’s tour of Jane Eyre, Ballet Black is performing a brand new work that she has created for the company entitled The Suit.  This is based on a fable by South African author Can Themba, and has already received positive reviews highlighting her skill and inventiveness in conveying various relationships, emotions and dramatic situations (Anderson, Roy, Wonderful News).

Christopher Hampson, Artistic Director of Scottish Ballet (SB) since 2012, has been proactive in expanding his company’s repertoire with works by female choreographers, including Kristen McNally from RB and former resident choreographer for the Atlanta Ballet, Helen Pickett.  Although he may not have commissioned choreography from Crystal Pite, in 2016, while the Royal Ballet were waiting for work to begin on Flight Patterns, SB in fact performed the European premiere of Pite’s 2009 Emergence, originally created for National Ballet of Canada (Crompton).  Four years previous to this SB had premiered A Streetcar Named Desire, created for them by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, later to choreograph Broken Wings for ENB.  This work has been seen in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness, and London.

It would seem then that it is possible to see a variety of work created by female choreographers here in the UK, but it takes time, and either patience, or the willingness and means to travel.  Thanks to forward-looking directors, next season we have more to look forward to: as well as BRB’s triple bill of new choreographies by women, ENB are staging She Persists, a triple bill of Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring, Broken Wings and a new work by first artist Stina Quagebeur.

Female Choreographers Then

While we have been appreciating the opportunities we now have to experience a range of works by female choreographers (limited though it still is), as we ponder on two female choreographers from the past, we are focussing on the crucial contributions they made to shaping British ballet style, contributions that are perhaps not generally fully recognised or acknowledged.  One of them, Ninette de Valois, we tend to associate more with her crucial role in establishing the Royal Ballet; the name of the other, Andrée Howard, may even be completely unfamiliar to you.

Despite de Valois’ inestimable role in the establishment of British ballet and the fact that she was quite a prolific choreographer, few of her works are still performed.  Amongst her most celebrated ballets are The Rake’s Progress (1935) and Checkmate (1937), available on DVD in a 1982 performance by Sadler’s Wells (now Birmingham) Royal Ballet, and her 1931 Job. With their moral themes of faith against all the odds, human frailty, and the battle of good against evil, these works are rather sombre in tone.  However, amongst her hundred or so works were a 1950 single act version of Don Quixote to a score by the Spanish Catalan Roberto Gerhard featuring Robert Helpmann as the Don and Margot Fonteyn as Dulcinea, as well as the comic 1940 Prospect Before Us about two rival 18th century theatre managers.

If you watch the scene with the Dancing Master from The Rake’s Progress, with its swift and intricate footwork complemented by quick changes in direction and bends and twists of the torso, you might be forgiven for thinking that this is a ballet by Frederick Ashton, the Founder Choreographer of the Royal Ballet, who is generally thought of as the architect of the English style.  Critic Alastair Macaulay has pointed out the similarity in the styles of de Valois and Ashton in this scene (205), while Judith Mackrell has presented an intriguing and perspicacious argument that particular aspects of de Valois’ choreographic style were more inherently English in nature than were Ashton’s: “… De Valois’ choreography was in certain respects even more British in temper than Ashton’s – uncluttered, clear-eyed, and almost literary in its detailed realisation of character and plot” (“Vanishing Pointe?”).  So, even though most of her works are no longer performed, it seems that de Valois made a significant contribution to the development of a recognisably English style in her capacity as a choreographer as well as in her role of founder-director of Britain’s national ballet company.

And so to Andrée Howard.  Even though you are probably unacquainted with Howard’s choreography, she was in fact a founding member of The Ballet Club (later renamed Ballet Rambert, the company that eventually became Rambert Dance Company) and started choreographing in the 1930s.  In 2005 the RB revived her best known work, La Fête étrange (1940), and the following year Rambert Dance Company revisited her Lady into Fox, the work that initially made her name in 1939.  Other than these two ballets all of Howard’s works have been lost.  Nonetheless, she is a truly fascinating figure in British ballet; in fact historian and archivist Jane Pritchard describes her as a “key choreographer from the founding years of 20th century British ballet”.

Both La Fête étrange and Lady into Fox are characteristic of Howard’s oeuvre in that they deal with dark subject matter based on literary themes.  La Fête étrange tells the story of a young man who chances upon an engagement party and precipitates the break-up of the betrothal. More startling is the subject matter of Lady into Fox, as the title summarises exactly the narrative of the work: a young woman metamorphoses into a vixen.  Howard’s choice of daring subject matter is perhaps at its most pronounced in her 1947 adaptation of David Garnett’s novel The Sailor’s Return concerning a mixed race couple trying to settle in Victorian England.  Important for the current debate on female dance makers is Professor Susan Jones’ assessment of Howard’s oeuvre as “evoking in dance a specifically female experience” (261): “In several ballets Howard returned to the theme of the abandoned woman, isolated by social and patriarchal forces beyond her control, where the dissemination of narrative through choreographed movement principally charts the inner conflict of the female protagonist” (261-62).

In the late 1940s to early 50s Howard staged works for both Sadler’s Wells Opera/Theatre Ballet and Sadler’s Wells Ballet (now BRB and RB).  It is very interesting to us that a young Kenneth MacMillan was performing with these companies at that time and even danced in her ballets Assembly Ball (1946) and La Fête étrange (Parry 64, 71). This means that he had plenty of exposure to her work.  With her penchant for disturbing, or at least unsettling, subject matter, it seems inconceivable that Howard would not have made a lasting impact on this giant of British ballet, celebrated for bringing realism to the art form. (You can read about MacMillan’s choral works in our January 2018 post.)

Therefore, in our opinion, it not only important to give female choreographers opportunities to create ballets, but also to ensure that their most effective works are preserved and that their influence as choreographers appropriately acknowledged.

Next time on British Ballet Now and Then … Next month, just one year after its creation, Aszure Barton’s Fantastic Beings will be the first of the three works from ENB’s She Said to be revived (with some reworking).  It is being performed as part of the Voices of America bill, which will be reviewed by our editor, Libby Costello.

© Rosemarie Gerhard 2018

References

Anderson, Zoë. “Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sadler’s Wells, London, Review”. The Independent, 6 Nov. 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/birmingham-royal-ballet-a8040666.html. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.

—. “Ballet Black, Barbican Theatre, London, Review”. The Independent, 20 Mar. 2018, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/ballet-black-review-barbican-a8264861.html. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.

Crompton, Sarah. “Scottish Ballet: Crystal Pite; Angelin Preljoçaj review – one great, one good”, The Guardian, 21 Aug. 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/aug/21/scottish-ballet-crystal-pite-emergence-angelin-preljocaj-mc-14-22-edinburgh-festival-review. Accessed 25 Feb. 2018.

Jennings, Luke. “Female Choreographers: further thoughts”, Luke Jennings, 2 Mar. 2015, https://thirdcast.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/female-choreographers-further-thoughts/. Accessed 25 Feb. 2018.

—. “Sexism in Dance: where are all the female choreographers?”, The Guardian, 28 Apr. 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/apr/28/women-choreographers-glass-ceiling. Accessed 25 Feb. 2018.

—. “You’re Wrong, Akram. We Do Need More Female Choreographers”, The Guardian, 18 Jan. 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/jan/18/akram-khan-more-female-choreographers-for-the-sake-of-it-luke-jennings-reply. Accessed 25 Feb. 2018.

Jones, Susan. Literature, Modernism and Dance. Oxford UP, 2013.

Kechacha, Rym. “She Said: the enduring power of the female voice in dance at ENB”. Bachtrack, 14 Apr. 2016, https://bachtrack.com/review-she-said-lopez-ochoa-wang-barton-english-national-ballet-sadlers-wells-april-2016. Accessed 21 Feb. 2018.

Macaulay, Alastair. “Ashton and De Valois”. Ninette de Valois, Adventurous Traditionalist, edited by Richard Allen Cave and Libby worth, Dance Books, 2012, pp. 199-208.

Mackrell, Judith. “Crystal Pite: ‘In ballet, girls are less likely to be prized for being mavericks’”. The Guardian, 2 May 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/may/12/crystal-pite-girls-ballet-choreographer-prized-mavericks. Accessed 14 Feb. 2018.

—. “English National Ballet: She Said review”. The Guardian, 14 Apr. 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/apr/14/english-national-ballet-she-said-review-sadlers-wells-london. Accessed 14 Feb. 2018.

—. “Vanishing Pointe: where are all the great female choreographers?”. The Guardian, 27 Oct. 2009, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/oct/27/where-are-the-female-choreographers. Accessed 14 Feb. 2018.

—. “Where would we have been without her?”. The Independent, 6 June 1993, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/dance-where-would-we-have-been-without-her-dame-ninette-de-valois-celebrated-her-95th-birthday-1490132.html. Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.

Masterpieces of British Ballet: Checkmate, The Rake’s Progress. Choreographed by Ninette de Valois , performance by Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet. 1982, VAI, 2006.

Parry, Jan. Different Drummer: the life of Kenneth MacMillan. Faber and Faber, 2009.

Pritchard, Jane.  “Women Choreographers and English National Ballet”. ENB, 8 Mar. 2018, http://www.ballet.org.uk/blog-detail/women-choreographers-english-national-ballet/. Accessed 18 Mar. 2018.

Roy, Sanjoy. “Ballet Black review – Shakespeare in tutus for enchanting double bill”. The Guardian, 18 Mar. 2018, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/mar/18/ballet-black-review-shakespeare-in-tutus-for-enchanting-double-bill. Accessed 20 Mar. 2018.

Spencer, Mel. “Crystal Pite: Flight Pattern is my way of coping with the world at the moment”. Royal Opera House, 9 Mar. 2017, http://www.roh.org.uk/news/crystal-pite-flight-pattern-is-my-way-of-coping-with-the-world-at-the-moment. Accessed 25 Feb. 2018.

Winter, Anna. “Cathy Marston: ‘Many of my works are led by strong women’”. Exeunt, 28 June 2016, http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/cathy-marston-many-works-led-strong-women/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2018.

Wonderful News. “Ballet Black’s The Suit & A Dream Within A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an emotional and joyous journey”. The Wonderful World of Dance, 16 Mar. 2018, http://www.thewonderfulworldofdance.com/ballet-blacks-suit-dream-within-midsummer-nights-dream-emotional-joyous-journey. Accessed 20 Mar. 2018.