Northern Ballet - mixed programme - September 2018

[Jan McNulty]

Northern Ballet's mixed programme opens in Leeds on 12th September 2018 (when my ballet-watching famine ends, thank goodness).

 

Here's a little teaser of Kenneth Tindall's The Shape of Sound:

 

 

[Esmeralda]

This looks fantastic, thank you for posting this! I must really try to see more of them.

[Bruce Wall]

8 minutes ago, Esmeralda said:

This looks fantastic, thank you for posting this! I must really try to see more of them.

 

Agree this looks promising.

 

I'm not a huge fan of Nixon's choreography .. .but I must say the Canadian continues to show himself as one of the most imaginative directors in this Country.  I so admire his largess in growing significant dance makers and sharing in key international works that can inspire/provoke those same as much as his devoted NB audience.  We all benefit from such.  Bravo!

 

Edited September 1, 2018 by Bruce Wall

[SheilaC]

I saw an excerpt of this piece in rehearsal at an open day and thought that it had the most interesting choreography Kenneth Tindall has produced so far. And it's great for the dancers to be involved in creating and performing real choreography.

[Nicola H]

25 minutes ago, SheilaC said:

I saw an excerpt of this piece in rehearsal at an open day and thought that it had the most interesting choreography Kenneth Tindall has produced so far. And it's great for the dancers to be involved in creating and performing real choreography.

 

This does seem to be a growing picture with Northern 

 

the mixed program also includes a  piece  choreographed by Mlindi Kulashe ( with  his freshly  minted  and definitely deserved First Soloist  status for this season) 

https://northernballet.com/support-mlindi

 

also of note  for Northern's in house  choreographic  efforts is  a good number of the 'little ballets for little people'   have choreography by  people who were Northern company members at the time the piece  was first produced   as well as the  time set  aside in the company calendar  for  choreographic  workshops and experimentation for the company

 

[Jan McNulty]

And another teaser:  

 

 

[Terpsichore]

On 01/09/2018 at 10:10, Bruce Wall said:

 

. .but I must say the Canadian continues to show himself as one of the most imaginative directors in this Country.  I so admire his largess in growing significant dance makers and sharing in key international works that can inspire/provoke those same as much as his devoted NB audience.  We all benefit from such.  Bravo!

 

 

I think that is even more true of Christopher Hampson who has commissioned David Dawson to create  a new Swan Lake, Krzystof Pastor a new Romeo and Juliet,  Annabelle Lopez Ochoa  Streetcar named Desire,  Angelin Preljocaj MC 14/22 (ceci est mon corps). Crystal Pite Emergence .............I could go on.   I might add that Scottish Ballet is the only company other than New Adventures with a work by Sir Matthew Bourne. Having recently seen Highland Fling (Sir Matthew's take on La Sylphide) in Oban which is deep in Gurn and Effie territory I should add that Highland Fling is my favourite of Bourne's works.

Hampson is also a considerable choreographer in his own right both for narrative ballets such as Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella which are among the best of that genre and shorter works like the Rite of Spring.

 

As I am bankrolling Powerhouse Ballet I have had to cut back on my donations and subscriptions this year but Scottish Ballet together with the Dutch National Ballet, Ballet Cymru, Ballet Black and Phoenix Dance Theatre will continue to receive my support.

 

[Jan McNulty]

To get back to Northern Ballet, we had a WONDERFUL evening at Quarry Hill enjoying 3 newly commissioned works - one by an emerging NB choreographer, one by an established young choreographer and one by a choreographer who was encouraged by David Nixon when he was still a dancer with the company and now has a burgeoning choreographic career.

 

Needless to say I have a number of performances booked so will report back later.

[Terpsichore]

I am looking forward to the show and will review it in my blog.

I shall be accompanied to the performance by Terry Etheridge, one of the Northern Dance Theatre's original cast members who also trained Mlindi Kulashe in South Africa, so I shall try to get his take on the performance too.

 

 

[Nicola H]

saw   Saturday's evening performance   along with @Terpsichore  and  as mentioned Terry  Etheridge  (-  following the class and audition he  had   given for Powerhouse  ballet in the afternoon  ), @sophie_rebecca   and  finally met  @Jan McNultyIRL  ... 

in running order 

The Kingdom of Back  - danced  beautifully and comically  on key   but i think it lost  it's way  in the middle and  several minutes could have been cut with no lost  and  perhaps even a gain overall

Mamela  -   a creditable first  piece for Mlindi ,   danced  well -   but  then again  this is Northern   a company with great  dancers who  seem to enjoy a good  team spirit  ,  the costuming combined with the  fact  most of the male  NB  company members were sporting ponytails or man buns  due to the   big  hair   that will be required  for  Three Musketeers  added an interesting, and possibly unintentional,  androgyny  to the  ensemble .   

Shape  of Sound  -  Wow  - Kenny TIndall proves  once again what a fab  choreographer  he is ,  and  the work  he and the lighting desginer  put in  to the  lighting / set  ( there's  little in the way of set for this piece  just a  few legs / flats  the  rest is all  lighting .  Danced  fabulously 

[Jan McNulty]

I love seeing Northern Ballet perform in their home theatre at Quarry Hill in Leeds (such an intimate performance space for an audience somewhere around 200) and I love mixed programmes so it was not entirely surprising that I booked for all 5 performances of the Company's latest mixed programme.

 

The Company presented 3 newly commissioned works so Wednesday evening saw 3 world premieres.  Although the works were very different there was a cohesion through the evening probably caused by the fact that the costumes and lighting for all 3 pieces were done by the same people  Kimie Nakano & Alastair West respectively.

 

Morgann Runacre-Temple participated in Northern Ballet's second choreographic laboratory in (I think) 2016, presumably leading to this commission.   Her new piece, The Kingdom of Back opened the evening.  Of the three ballets on show this one came the nearest to having a "story" being loosely based round the Mozart family of Leopold (the father), Nannerl and her brother Wolfgang.  The score started with an excerpt from one of Nannerl's letters to Wolfgang and also featured excerpts from letters written by Leopold and Wolfgang.  The music was a mixture of WA Mozart, L Mozart, JS Bach, Frank Moon & David Bowie.  The "story" was the relationship between Nannerl and her brother and father.  You saw her wanting to do her own thing, her having to do what her father wants, her playful relationship with Wolfgang and ultimately the fact that she was surpassed by him.  The three Mozarts were supported by a corps of 4 couples who sometimes provided a backdrop that might have been a party and sometimes seemed to be more iterations of Nannerl and Wolfgang.  It was funny - hilarious in places - and had some interesting choreography but there was a darker hue that came out as the piece progressed.  It was a tour de force for Antoinette Brooks-Daw, Mlindi Kulashe and Javier Torres.  I enjoyed The Kingdom of Back at its premiere and enjoyed it more with each successive viewing. (The curtain call was terrific too!)  I do hope that Morgann Runacre-Temple has more opportunities to work with Northern Ballet.

 

After the interval we had our first viewing of Mlindi Kulashe's Mamela - his first commission as a choreographer following on from NB's internal choreographic workshops.  Mamela is Xhosa for listen.  The piece used music by Jack Edmonds that was lovely.  My take on this abstract work was that it was about the pressures of modern day living with people being isolated, not talking or listening to others and always watching the clock and rushing about.  The costumes gave the piece a very androgynous feel.  There was a rather lovely duet and some emotional solos as well as the corps work.  I found it a very intense and emotional work that grew in stature as the week went on.

 

The final work of the evening was Kenneth Tindall's The Shape of Sound to Max Richter's recomposed Four Seasons.  There was something of a set in that there were side panels that were used very effectively in places and the lighting effects can only be considered spectacular.  There was such an integration of the lighting and the dancers it almost felt that there was an extra dancer on stage!  The piece was made for 14 dancers but there were some differences in the choreography for the second cast we saw on Saturday afternoon in that there was more solo work and less synchronised movement in the Summer season.  I asked Kenny about that between shows and he said that he was working on some slight modifications for the different theatres that are being used.  The use of the large group of dancers in silhouette was very effective and there were solos, duets, trios galore too.  There was some very energetic and spectacular leaps for the men and some unusual lifts too as well as some of Kenny's signature moves (eg some slides across the floor).  I think the whole piece was a visual and aural spectacle that gave us fantastic performances from all the dancers and I never wanted it to end!

 

This mixed programme has shown that Northern Ballet is very much a cohesive group of dancers who are totally committed to the team.  It was a very rewarding programme to watch and I need to see it again.  I do hope that all 3 works are kept in the rep for a long time to come.

 

 

[Jan McNulty]

Northern Ballet has published a feature about Mlindi Kulashe:

 

https://northernballet.com/mlindi-kulashe-a-journey