English National Ballet’s enchanting Coppélia opened at the London Coliseum on 23 July. Here is a sample of what the critics had to say:
**** “a light-hearted romp” “Perfect for all ages” [Read Full Review] The Telegraph
**** “The dancers are charming and the orchestra means business” “Yet again, ENB have given us a thoroughly delightful evening at the ballet” [Read Full Review] The Arts Desk
As ENBYouthCo carry out their final rehearsals for their new piece Kinetic Echo – Our Dancing Voices, choreographed by Cameron McMillan, we caught up with dancer Emma Farnell-Watson, to talk about what being in English National Ballet’s Youth Company means to her…
Emma told us why being part of a youth company appealed to her;
I was preparing for auditioning at vocational school so I thought ENBYouthCo would be a great opportunity to gain experience and develop further as both an artist and a performer.
And did ENBYouthCo stand out from other potential options? I knew it would provide me with the insight into the workings of a company. Joining a youth company within a professional dance organisation was a vastly different experience to anything I’d had before. It was incredible to be passing by principals of ENB on the way to the studio.
Does this professional environment extend into your work within the youth company? Yes the professional atmosphere carries through into class too and it really gave us an idea of what company life would be like. We often had chances to see the professional company, watching dress runs at the London Coliseum and even performing alongside them in Petrushka. Having the youth company under the name of ENB gave us a big responsibility; we are representing the company whilst performing, and were proud to have this opportunity.
And you are now an alumni member of the company; having moved on to vocational training in the last year. Did ENBYouthCo help you decide what your next steps would be? Being a member of the youth company confirmed that a career as a performer was definitely what I wanted. The regular rehearsals and variety of performances gave me a taste of the career as a performer that I’d love to have. We were given so much help and advice about vocational school auditions and support through this time of uncertainty and of course audition nerves. I was very grateful for the guidance as it made clearer my options and pathways.
Have you enjoyed this opportunity to come back and work on a creative process like Kinetic Echo – Our Dancing Selves, as an alumni ENBYouthCo dancer? It feels very different! I didn’t realise how much I’d changed until I came back to the youth company. It’s great to transfer and apply the skills I’ve learnt at vocational training into a different environment. Having been in vocational training I was able to see the process in a more open and experienced perspective, applying my new knowledge and understanding, which I only realised I had gained since returning to the youth company
I have also gained an understanding of how important it is for you to take responsibility and ownership of your place within the piece. I found I had far more confidence, being able to just throw myself into things, take risks and challenge what I was doing and the way I was thinking.
Go to setKinetic Echo - Our Dancing Selves in Rehearsal
What are you enjoying most about being a part of the creative process for Kinetic Echo – Our Dancing Selves? So many thanks! This project with Cameron McMillan has definitely been a highlight of my time with ENBYouthCo; perhaps because we were able to have so much time working with him, allowing us to really delve into the concept. Having more time for the process meant that we could each find ourselves in the work, and really explore what the piece meant to us.
Cameron has created such great atmosphere in the studio, encouraging us to use it as a safe place to take risks, fall over and look silly! He’s supported us through the challenges and just experiencing the way he works during the creation process has been so inspiring. I feel very fortunate to have been able to receive such rich knowledge from someone with so much experience.
With the concept of self and place and the idea of identity being so relevant to us as artists I have really enjoyed exploring it and having discussions as a company. It has brought up some very interesting questions and made me think more about how the digital age affects and influences me as an artist.
Do you have any special insights you could provide the readers into the choreography of Kinetic Echo? We have played a lot with the idea of tumbling, a concept drawn from the constant over flowing of information on social networking sites. Watch out for sections of constant falling, tumbling and over flowing.
We also played with the idea of initiation and echo. What is the reaction of one post on Facebook or a picture on Instagram? What happens next; what is the echo that subsequently follows? We played with this in many areas of the piece. You can watch out especially for how this happens in our bodies. As we initiate from our hip, what is the echo in the rest of our bodies?
What should the audience expect to see from you as a dancer in this piece? They should expect to be questioned, challenged and consider their place in the world we as a company create on stage.
Any last comments? It has been a real pleasure to come back to the company and see how it has evolved and changed. I have loved working and collaborating with new people, it’s been very inspiring!
You can see Emma and the rest of ENBYouthCo performing the site-specific piece Kinetic Echo – Our Dancing Selves, live in the North Atrium at Westfield London (W12) on Saturday 12 July in the North Atrium at 2pm and 5pm.
Kinetic Echo is co-commissioned by English National Ballet and the Foundation for Community Dance for the Big Dance Weekend 2014 and Westfield Presents.
"So What If I Loved You," a one-woman show that delves into the life of a young girl marred by nightmares of her "lost lover" will debut in Jersey City on Aug. 21. The show, also known as "SWIILY," will feature producer, writer, and actress Summer Dawn Hortillosa in a unique multimedia performance consisting of video, original music and modern ... (more)
SOURCE: Modern Dance News - Read entire story here.
“It is interesting to see any company in class, to glimpse behind the greasepaint and the glamour to see the sheer hard work and repetitive grind which makes onstage greatness possible. But it is particularly fascinating to watch the Mariinsky in action, partly because their dancers are so famous – but mainly because their style is so pure.” (includes video)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal» DANCE - Read entire story here.
“Although the ballet did not provide an explanation for letting her go, from the beginning, [Assis] Carreiro was a controversial choice for the role of artistic director. … Dancers wrote a letter to the organisation’s board late last year citing that 69{b29860ee6b7af5bf99d3058cca3182816eed414b47dab251265e93b8c00e69b1} of them had voted no confidence in the artistic director. Eventually, one-third of the company left.”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal» DANCE - Read entire story here.
“In ballet, the muscles on the inside part of your legs work, but here you use the muscles on the outside of your legs. There’s a lot of pressure on the knees, which you don’t get in classical ballet, and you dance practically barefoot, which is also unusual. Lots of falling movements – when we were rehearsing we were covered in bruises, all beaten and battered!”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal» DANCE - Read entire story here.
At the end of a season filled with dramatic ballets like Romeo and Juliet, and angst-inducing abstract pieces where the dancers seemed to be carrying the world on their shoulders (sometimes literally!), ENB’s Coppélia came as a breath of fresh air. In the words of the critic Edwin Denby, ‘If Giselle is ballet’s Hamlet, Coppélia is its Twelfth Night’, and on a warm summer evening at the Coliseum, its blend of comedy, character dances and famous classical variations, all accompanied by that wonderful Delibes score, proved irresistible.
ENB is reviving its now 30-year-old production by former Royal Ballet dancer Ronald Hynd. He bases his version on Petipa’s, but introduces small changes to provide narrative context. Swanilda is here the Burgomaster’s daughter, and her fiancé Franz has been given more to do in the way of interactions with members of the village and participation in the various character dances. The designs and settings – which seem lifted off a cartoon storybook – are by Desmond Heeley. They are charming in their simplicity and fit well with the sunny palette of the ballet: flowers and colours everywhere, embroidered vests and skirts with hints of Bavaria, Moldova, and everywhere-in-between.
While Swanilda is not a role one would naturally associate with Tamara Rojo – and, in fact, she had not performed it for over ten years – she gives us a truly spunky heroine in this staging. Her jealousy at Franz’s flirting with the doll Coppélia (as well as every other girl in the village) was infused with just the right amount of melodramatic flair, with hints of coquette. She made use of her wonderful arches and beautifully articulated feet during Swanilda’s solos, and to top it off, she even got to play Kitri during the Spanish variation in Act II (you can take the Spaniard out of Spain, but you can’t take Spain out of the Spaniard).
Danish star Alban Lendorf, making his debut as Franz, truly made something out of a role that is so often overlooked for its relative lack of substance. From the moment he entered, we knew he was best mate to all the boys and loved by all the girls. When he wasn’t dancing, his presence still registered: you could see him exchanging pleasantries with the tavern people, or fooling around with his friends. He reminded me of that other great Dane, and it is interesting to observe how well the role of Franz suits those raised in the Danish tradition. Look no further than Lendorf’s dancing for proof: beautiful and detailed in every movement, at every sharp turn, clean and bouncy jump, with the best use of a plié outside the classroom. If only we could see him more often…
The music, as usual, was top-notch, with conductor Gavin Sunderland giving shape and form to this wonderful score. Other highlights were Michael Coleman’s Dr Coppélius, here more the eccentric inventor than a pure doll-maker, and creator of the Slinky-powered Stephenson’s Rocket, no less! I also admired the perfect comedic timing of Begoña Cao as one of Swanilda’s friends. Alison McWhinney, Laurretta Summerscales and Ksenia Ovsyanick were a well matched trio. With the end of the season starting to take its toll on the dancers, it wasn’t all smooth sailing on Thursday evening, but the energy of ENB’s artists ensured that they did justice to this most charming of classical ballets.
Meanwhile, Alice Pennefather was at the general rehearsal and photographed the double debuts of Shiori Kase & Yonah Acosta, who is now ENB’s newest principal:
San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet are two world-class companies notable for continuing to focus on mixed programmes. New pieces enter the repertory every year, from established choreographers and young voices alike. These short, one-act ballets have always been the main canvas on which young choreographers can develop their skills. Indeed, some of the greatest choreographic voices have regarded short work as their cornerstone: from Balanchine’s many masterpieces to some of Ashton’s and MacMillan’s best works. This summer, SFB brought no less than 18 short ballets to Les Etés de la Danse, a three-week festival at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. More than ten choreographers were featured, and half of the creations had been made on the company, with many receiving their European premieres.
The last three days of the festival featured works by Balanchine, MacMillan, Scarlett, Ratmansky, Tómasson, van Manen and Wheeldon. To see these works performed side by side makes for a very interesting experience, as they portray the evolution of modern classical choreography and the links between the leading choreographers of today and masters of the past. The middle duet of Liam Scarlett’s Hummingbird, for instance, inherits many of the intricacies in MacMillan’s Concerto pas de deux (which found in Sarah Van Patten an extraordinary interpreter), while Helgi Tómasson’s The Fifth Season showed clearly the influence of Balanchine. This neo-classical piece is all about speed, space and precise technique, featuring two couples and a ‘tall girl’ (think Rubies), plus a corps de ballet of 12. Davit Karapetyan made a strong impression with his clean tours and Yuan Yuan Tan was her lyrical self in the Largo, but it was Sofiane Sylve who made a statement of the choreography, revealing both playfulness and strength during the Tango. However, for all of Tómasson’s skill, it seems unfair to measure it against Allegro Brillante, one of those Balanchine creations that condenses the story of classical ballet in a single short work. Here, Maria Kochetkova devoured space, showing us why she has been called a ‘delicate dynamo’. Former POB dancer Mathilde Froustey also demonstrated the confidence she has gained since moving to the Bay.
The differences and similarities between the works by Christopher Wheeldon, Alexei Ratmansky and Liam Scarlett were compelling to observe: Within the Golden Hour is one of my favourite Wheeldon works. There is something very effective in the way he creates moods by using classical vocabulary and then suddenly takes it out of context with more contemporary movements, and opening the body more widely. Even so, there is an underlying feeling that Wheeldon has to work hard at putting together a structure, something which is not apparent in the works of Ratmansky or Scarlett.
Ratmansky in particular – a choreographer whom we greatly admire, and whose works we save all our pennies to travel to see – is never afraid to unleash a big corps de ballet, and part of the fun of watching his pieces is attempting to peel back the layers to see all the detail he puts into a single phrase. If Wheeldon can be thought of as a minimalist at times, Ratmansky is the opposite, and Piano Concerto No 1, the third work of his Shostakovich Trilogy (which Emilia reviewed at its ABT premiere) is a good example. Clearly there is a structure, but there is infinite variety, with flurries of dancers in red and grey, rapidly changing formations. And there’s proof that Ratmansky never shies away from a wow moment if he can have it: why have just one blazing grand jeté when you can have four?
Scarlett’s Hummingbird sits comfortably somewhere in the middle. His natural ability to create beautiful things with the corps de ballet is in evidence here, with duets coming together before disintegrating into solos or condensing into trios. This is not unlike Ratmansky, but where the latter pushes for more, Scarlett stays restrained. There’s also the legacy of MacMillan’s “pashmina” pas de deux and the suggestion of a narrative, which always emerges from even his most abstract ballets. Scarlett gives this all a great shot, with Yuan Yuan Tan and Luke Ingham bringing dramatic tension to a duet built around events that are left unsaid. The formulaic Philip Glass music, however, proves limiting, and the third section feels disconnected from the main body of the piece.
Performing 18 works over three weeks is an almost superhuman artistic endeavour, and one would certainly not expect everything to pass without a hitch. But even then, it was disappointing to find unexpected changes to the programmes at curtain-up. Injuries happen, of course, but swapping full works for others at the very last minute was a bit inconsiderate to an audience that was counting on specific ballets. Tómasson has assembled a company of outstanding dancers at all levels, so it is hard to believe that no one could have stepped up. But this somewhat sour note didn’t, in the end, detract from the fact that SFB did something special here, which companies around the world would do well to try to emulate.
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Huntsville Ballet Company will present a twist on a few classic productions along with some eclectic performances in this season's lineup.
