Sandra Powell School of Dancing

I had been eagerly anticipating this Royal Ballet Coppelia live stream for several reasons; firstly Coppelia is a ballet I hadn’t seen as an adult, secondly it’s a chance to enjoy Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov’s beautiful dancing and thirdly Enrico Cecchetti gets a name check on the choreography of this one, and as a Cecchetti trained dancer I am always intrigued when he finally gets some public credit for his work. Would I be able to spot his choreography here?

For sure, I could spot Cecchetti’s fiendishly quick and intricate footwork, coupled with smooth arm movements and expressive upper body positions. Kevin O’Hare set this up in the pre-match intro when he commented on the “tough technical work” for the ballerina. Although a “cheerful and bright” ballet with a light-hearted story and copious amounts of mime, Coppelia demands, “fast footwork” and “super-precise musicality” which we saw everywhere!

I loved the high level of dance content in the first act, performed brilliantly by everyone on stage. Particular shout outs to Swanildas friends, and to everyone in the heel-clicking Hungarian czardas who danced so joyously and perfectly it made everyone want to live in that little Eastern European village. The score by Delibes is packed full of recognisable tunes, and the half time interview with conductor Barry Wordsworth gave an insight into how enjoyable this action-packed score is for the whole orchestra to play.

The dancing at this performance really was superb. It’s definitely not easy for the ballerina or her friends, but no-one missed a pirouette, jump, landing or pas de bourrée (although Kevin O’Hare seemed to be ribbing Vadim about some landings in 5^th behind the curtain when the live stream was wrapping up!) I enjoyed the second act doll dancing and extensive mime sequences. Gary Avis was excellent as always, but after the ballet rush of technically demanding expertly danced sequences in the first act, I was keen for more and was willing the third act to come around!

The third act pas de deux was so well danced by Marianela and Vadim, her turn out and balance is incredible, and as always, I really admire her use of the foot up to pointe. Vadim (or Va-dream as I hear he’s now referred to) has a balon to die for and nailed everything with his signature lack of ego and humble, true-hearted on-stage interactions.

Above all I would describe this Royal Ballet performance as JOYOUS – it certainly brought Christmas joy to everyone watching around the world. Marianela seemed relaxed and to fully enjoy all her character work throughout the ballet. The tumultuous applause seemed to quite overwhelm her and I felt we really saw her true personality come through as she took her curtain calls. Well done to everyone!Tagged Coppelia, Gary Avis, Maianela Nunez, Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House, Vadim Muntagirov

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The Sandra Powell School of Dancing is pleased to announce they have appointed Jessica Clarke, Dip RBS (PDTC) AISTD, as their patron.

Jessica is currently the Artistic Manager of the Royal Ballet School, and has taught a variety of year groups at the Royal Ballet School since she joined the staff in 2008.

Jessica began dancing at a young age and was trained by her mother, Sandra Powell, until she was accepted into the Royal Ballet School aged 11. She progressed through the school and graduated into the Sadlers Wells company in 1988. She moved with the company when they became the Birmingham Royal Ballet and danced many varied soloist and principal roles. She created roles in works by Kenneth MacMillan and David Bintley amongst others. She retired from the Company in 1998 and gained her teaching qualifications. Jessica taught at the Rambert School for Ballet and Contemporary Dance for one year before joining the Royal Ballet School staff.

Jessica recently contributed to an article in theatrical magazine The Stage, which discussed what ballet and dance schools look for in prospective students. Jessica comments,

“The most important thing is that light behind the eyes, to see someone that’s engaged and really wants to be here. We’re looking for an artist, for a trainable physique and coordination and natural flow of movement.”

Jessica also commented on how advancements in sport science have positively influenced ballet training. Even the traditional structure of the class is sometimes deviated from,

“On some days, we’ve integrated our allegro into our centre work. It gives bodies – especially when they’re developing – time to recover. So they’re not doing half an hour of centre work followed by 20 minutes of jumping back-to-back.”

Jessica concludes by saying that for all the tricks ballet dancers in training can learn it’s also about “classicism of style and interpretation, musicality and interpretation.”

The full article can be found here https://www.thestage.co.uk/advice/2019/become-ballet-dancer-training/

This is certainly not a ballet to watch if you need cheering up! But if you want to see a tormented protagonist, an anguished set of mistresses and wives and a tragic story portrayed with the highest technical ballet skill and powerful acting – step right up!

Mayerling was a story that fascinated dancer turned choreographer Kenneth MacMillan who, “showed a flair for using the classical vocabulary in unorthodox ways, and as early as 1958 bgan exploring historical fact as the basis for a ballet.” In the true story of Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria-Hungary, MacMillan saw an opportunity to continue his passion for wanting, “ballet to do more than most choreographers believe it is capable of.” He truly pushes the boundaries of ballet into new territory with his tragic depiction of the last eight years of Prince Rudolf’s life and his delve under the facade of the Royal court which reveals a set up of sexual liaisons and dysfunctional relationships.

The tour de force which is Steven McRae played Crown Prince Rudolf with outstanding technical skill and a full commitment to portray this harrowing character to the last detail. When watching on the live stream we have the benefit of close ups, which showed his masterful grasp of all the emotions needed to take the audience on this tragic journey with him.

In the intro and interval sections, Darcy Bussell discussed at length the number of challenging pas de deux required in the role, which McRae performed flawlessly. A cast of multiple ballerinas made up his partner list including Meaghan Grace Hinkis who played his wife Princess Stephanie with great delicacy and characterisation and performed their challenging pas de deux very well. Add to that his mother performed by Kristen McNally, whose pas de deux was heart-breaking with her coldness, and the wonderful Sarah Lamb. Her technical skills, artistry and ability to communicate emotion through dance is only matched by McRae which created multiple transfixing pas de deux which included breath-taking acrobatic and boundary-pushing choreography which was all performed beautifully.

Although the tragic scenes are all-consuming to watch and have a hold on you in that way, the brothel scene and entertainment from Rudolph’s friends were welcome relief. James Hay performed a foot-perfect job of Bratfisch, and Mitzi Caspar was played with great character and skill by Mayara Magri. Mention also must go to the four soldiers, whom the ROH didn’t name in the cinema cast list, and a search on the ROH website doesn’t yield the names of either. Truly unknown soldiers who danced very well!

MacMillan’s wife spoke in an interval about how she likes to see new dancers taking on the mantle of the Mayerling characters. Surely MacMillan himself would have felt excited and proud with this excellent cast who surely performed this ballet to the highest of standards.

This was actually my first time seeing Romeo and Juliet on stage. Kenneth MacMillan created this version of the ballet in 1965 on Prokofiev’s famous score, which was composed in 1935, specifically for a ballet. Birmingham Royal Ballet has its own version (different from the Royal Ballet) as they asked Kenneth MacMillan to re-stage it in 1992, shortly before he died. He plucked a design student called Paul Andrews, fresh from his graduate show, to design it and the sets and costumes contribute a great deal.

I had hoped to see Brandon Lawrence as Romeo, as he is one of the dancers on the Enrico Cecchetti Diploma DVD, shortly to be released (plus he’s on the poster!). However César Morales did a fantastic job and Brandon was a step-perfect Benvolio. Juliet was danced by Momoko Hirata, whose interpretation of the role I really enjoyed. She didn’t over do it, which I can see it would be easy to do. I found her performance refined and expressive. My criticism of the role would actually be directed to MacMillan’s choreography. I found Juliet’s first scene with her nurse too impish and immature. I get it that she’s young and inexperienced, but for me her journey from playful child to suicidal lover in three acts was too much of a stretch.

César Morales danced a brilliant Romeo – again portraying the emotions of the role without over-acting so he was totally believable. Technically he danced fantastically, particularly in his mastery of the double turns and extensions required. He appeared to be a thoughtful partner and he worked with Momoko seamlessly which made every pas de deux so enjoyable to watch.

Tzu-Chao Chou did a very good job as Mercutio. He was athletic and bright and hit all his turns, jumps and positions spot on. Writing this it’s apparent that’s what this performance was – spot on. There was hardly a beat missed, it was technically accurate and beautifully danced, it was expressive in its story-telling, but totally believable, and the sets truly transported you to old Verona.

I really enjoyed the two stand-out group scenes. Firstly the sword fight where there was too much delight to take in as they battled on stage in pairs with their swords clashing in time to the music. BRB have done a fabulous short film showing rehearsal and performance footage of this https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155551377343085&id=90001263084

And secondly the ball scene (to the musical section made more famous by The Apprentice) which is truly moving and iconic and displays the inspired creativity of MacMillan in the arm positions of the women.

I started my notes for this by writing, “I always enjoy BRB productions and this one didn’t disappoint.” By the end of my post, I wondered why? I think my Cecchetti background is well reflected at this company, which means I watch the dancing and appreciate it as the pinnacle of the art. Although the Principles are truly an international mix (from China, Taiwan, USA, Canada, Chile, Australia, New Zealand and two each from Japan and the UK), they dance a truly English style of ballet. You can feel the influence of Cecchetti through Ninette de Valois, through David Bintley (Director) to the Company today. But most importantly you feel their connections with each other. You can’t tell on stage if there are egos and divas battling with each other, all you see is Bintley’s vision of a “non-exclusive extended family”. His company has heart and I think this is the reason BRB are so enjoyable to watch.

It is common nowadays to follow dancers, companies and critics on social media, which creates a pre-performance buzz raising expectations of the upcoming performance. Plus this is augmented in the live cinema relay with the grand introduction from Darcey Bussell and behind the scenes footage of Lesley Collier coaching Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae for the Sugar Plum pas de deux.

This year’s Nutcracker by the Royal Ballet opened beautifully and I tweeted the ROH# that the first act was flawless. The Royal Ballet School children were splendid, Clara’s pointe work was light and fluffy and spot on, all the characters in every scene played their parts and danced perfectly. Gary Avis as Herr Drosslemayer was masterful throughout, and brought such an over-arching confidence to the whole ballet, we could really relax and enjoy it.

The Snowflakes, whose relentless training we had seen in rehearsal were perfectly timed and placed, and the close camera work conveyed their enjoyment of the performance.

The the arrival of the Sugar Plum fairy and her Prince. Steven McRae shone with confidence as always – he is certainly at the top of his art form. Sarah Lamb seemed nervous from the outset, and although her costume was shinging with glitter and diamantes, I didn’t feel she enjoyed the performance. She didn’t seem to settle well on stage and I found her smile to be more automatic than expressive. I understand it’s an incredibly difficult pas de deux, but I ddin’t feel her command of the stage. I think she might be disappointed with her performance, but it’s all there, and perhaps the expressive joy will shine through another night.

It was a beautiful production and I look forward to watching it every year from now on to compare to my first experience.

On 23rd April, I attended my first Cecchetti Day as a newly qualified teacher. It was held at the Royal Ballet School in the Linden Theatre. The well-attended day began with Victoria Collinson, the Royal Ballet School Junior Associates teacher. She demonstrated pilates-based exercises to enable pupils to better understand their own bodies. She showed how the physical requirements of ballet can be achieved through exercises isolating movements controlling posture and turn-out. Her simple exercises seemed effective at developing student’s physical awareness and she explained how the exercises should be followed through from floor to standing to an actual Cecchetti exercise in order for the new muscle behaviour to be fully adopted. Excellent material for every teacher to return to their schools with.

Next came a rehearsal by David Nixon, OBE, Director of Northern Ballet, who said in his introduction how much he had been influenced by Cecchetti work in his training. He rehearsed pas de deux sections from two ballets with Abigail Prudames and Joseph Taylor. Firstly a section from Nixon’s own Swan Lake, and the second from Kenneth Tindall’s first full-length ballet Casanova. The work we saw was spellbinding. At first look the initial run through was not bad at all, but when David began to go into detail about the feeling, expression and physical nuances to every part of the sequence we saw his words and demonstrations transform the dancing into something much more special. It really highlighted the painstaking work of rehearsing a full-length ballet in this much detail. I think there is great value to the younger group of us teachers seeing this artistic and creative work live. I believe that on the whole we have chosen to become teachers as a career, rather than being professional dancers turned teachers. We have therefore not been exposed to this high level of artistic work in a Company environment, which I think is essential for us to be able to work it into class with our pupils.

After lunch the winners of the Choreography Competition performed their work. I found it interesting that the dances relied heavily on contemporary content mixed with ballet. Perhaps the prevalence of dance being taught in schools is encouraging this, but it feels a bit sad that the sometimes tormented and ungraceful moves of contemporary ballet are infiltrating the purity of classical ballet. It’s not that classical ballet cannot portray touching or sorrowful themes but the students aren’t necessarily seeing that it can do this for them. Since the event, I have heard of a new initiative called Ballet Now that  David Bintley has started between Birmingham Royal Ballet and Sadler’s Wells. It’s designed to encourage classical ballet choreography of major new works. You can read more here  http://www.brb.org.uk/post/ballet-now. Then came the Scholars and competition winners’ dances, which were very well performed and the CICB dancers looked like promising entrants.

Then came the section on the Diploma. The Enrico Cecchetti Diploma is the highest and most prestigious award to be earnt in the Cecchetti Classical Ballet faculty. It is devilishly difficult and extraordinarily long encompassing many enchainments set over six days of the week. We began with a short panel discussion led by Dame Monica Mason, with David Yow (formerly BRB), Richard Glasstone MBE and Diane van Schoor, who has coached, rehearsed and presented the Diploma work on a new film funded by the Legacy project and the Trust. As ever Mr Glasstone’s remarks were particularly insightful; the Diploma is “the most difficult and most advanced Cecchetti work”, and is “different for every artist”. He likened the enchainments to sheet music and said that every teacher and student of the Diploma will bring their own artistic qualities to the work, just as a composer and musician would do. The Diploma work is the basis for theatre performance and we must allow artistic expression to flow from those dancing it.

It was interesting to hear how the dancers felt about the work; that it was so controlled that it made them focus on the true physical technique needed to execute the moves, rather than using free arms to help them with pirouettes or tours en l’air for example. Doing everything backwards also got their brains working hard! We also heard how the Cecchetti enchainments have translated directly into demands of roles the dancers have been given in their companies. As was said Cecchetti was a contemporary of Petipa and the enchainments were designed to prepare for performance. Surely we should be using this new film to persuade companies around the work that teaching the Cecchetti Diploma syllabus will equip their dancers to perform the classics to the highest technical standards. And in doing this we will create a swathe of professional dancers in love with the Cecchetti principles who in later years may go on to lead and teach in companies and schools worldwide and therefore perpetuate the Cechetti method more securely.

I recently watched a live screening from the Royal Opera House of a Frederick Ashton double bill of Rhapsody and The Two Pigeons, neither ballet I had seen before. I really like abstract ballets, especially those with true classical ballet at their heart, so I was excited about the prospect of Rhapsody.

Steven McRae is a great dancer, his petits tours were amazing, he performed excellent pirouettes followed immediately by controlled jumps and you could see he was trying to embody the spirit of Michel Barishnikov on whom the role was created. However, although this ballet was created in 1980, it seemed more dated than that to me. The lead male costume was very traditional and the chorus girls hardly had any nice moves to do. The male chorus had a much better time of it and danced an exciting section as a line, which included neat royales and sissone changés. However, the contemporary moves which were thrown in throughout with turned in legs and strange jumps in second position, didn’t do anything for me and I felt they detracted from the potential elegance of the piece quite considerably.

Now, the leading lady, Natalia Osipova, I had only heard the greatest things about. Quite rightly, as she is amazingly fleet of foot which perfectly suited this role. She is very light and ethereal and very girlish in her dancing, which are charming qualities, however I did find her long arms and especially her fingers very distracting. There was also no chemistry at all between McRae and Osipova, and I found the love pas de deux flat and unemotional. I wonder if we have been spoilt by our red-blooded friend Carlos and we now expect love on the ballet stage to be fairly heart-racing and realistic? I enjoyed aspects of this ballet, and I would be interested to see it again with different leads, but for me, it won’t be one to return to frequently.

The Two Pigeons however left me feeling very positive towards Ashton and admiring of the principals involved. Perhaps it’s because it is very similar in style to La Fille Mal Gardee, which is a ballet I have enjoyed a couple of times. This is a typical English pastoral ballet. it is a story about a boyfriend and a girlfriend, he is trying to paint her but she is being playfully infuriating to him, he is distracted by a Gypsy girl who lures him back to their camp where things get threatening, he realises his mistake and returns to his girl to ask for forgiveness, accompanied by a pigeon.

Lauren Cuthbertson danced the young girl and she was brilliant – technically perfect and her characterisation was beautiful, just the right amount of humour without being silly. Vadim Muntagirov danced the young man and he did a very good job too. He was very sweet in a behind the scenes interview shown during the interval, saying that if he’d stayed in Russia he would never have got the chance to dance a role like this. And indeed it suited him so well it is a benefit to us all that he has danced it.

The gypsy girl was danced by Fumi Kaneko who again did a fantastic job and was very technically sound and brought energy and verve to the stage. However, my only negative on Ashton for this ballet is the pas de deux of the young man and the gypsy girl in her camp. It was like Ashton had forgotten where they were and they danced something very traditional and proper. Instead of the gypsy ruling the style and key movements in her camp, the style of the young man over-rode her, which didn’t seem plausible. He ran away for the heat and passion, and I didn’t feel that was reflected. Again, I wonder if I am prejudiced now after seeing Acosta’s Carmen previous to this, where the spirit of each dance fitted the situation perfectly and couldn’t fail to be seen as true.

So a mixed bag for me on this double bill. A good education though on some new ballets, and the extra content shown during the intervals did bring the preparation and behind the scenes aspect to life very well.