Terpsichore

We entertained our first guest, Gavin McCaig of Northern Ballet. Despite a few technical glitches including one serious one that caused me to lose most of the recording I think it went OK. Of course, it is not for me to say. Janet McNulty was in the audience and if it was a complete nonsense I am sure she would have told me. Up to now, the feedback has been quite favourable. I had originally intended to edit the recording and post it to YouTube but that is no longer possible. As I had not taken any notes I wrote an account from memory which I posted to my blog. Gavin made one correction. The state in which he danced as a guest artist earlier this year was Montana and not Colorado. Otherwise, he was quite happy with it. Anyone who wants to read it will find it under the title Gavin McCaig in Conversation with his Friends. I am about to advertise my next talk which is with Maria Chugai of the Dutch National Ballet. She is really lovely. Not only is she a brilliant dancer - the best Myrtha I have seen in over half a century of theatre going and I as I see about 50 shows a year I have seen a lot of Giselles - she is also very kind. She gave Powerhouse Ballet a memorable online class on 21 April which I shall mention in the "Doing Dance" section of this website. She trained at the Vaganova and danced the lead role in The Nutcracker (a version which combined Clara - known as "Marie" or "Masha" with Sugar Plum) in the Mariinsky Theatre at age 17, one year before she graduated. It was the subject of a special TV programme on the English language service of a Russian TV channel. This will be a very interesting conversation and I invite all users of this website to watch it. In fact I may stream it to the "Stage Door" Facebook page. One of the objects of the exercise is to raise a bit of money for ballet companies and ballet education. I found a donate button for Northern Ballet Academy on Facebook and started the ball rolling.

Thanks for moving this topic to the "Dance News and Information" forum of the website. The topic should be more visible here. I hope to record the talk and post it to YouTube for viewers who have unforeseen distractions as and when I get more experience. I am told it is easy to live stream to Facebook and YouTube and when I have a bit more time I will work out how to do that.

"Stage Door" is a new service to keep ballet goers in touch with their favourite artists and artists in touch with their fans during these miserable times. Every Sunday after lunch during this lockdown (and possibly beyond if theatres remain dark for a while) I shall interview a dancer, choreographer, composer, designer, critic or some other interesting individual over Zoom. I shall talk for 15 to 20 minutes and then throw the meeting over to the audience who can put questions to the guest through the chat facility. To begin we shall start with small audiences but as we get a bit more experience we may move to live streaming over YouTube or Facebook. That's if the lockdown goes on for that long. We are starting with Gavin McCaig of Northern Ballet this Sunday. I interviewed him in 2014 shortly after he joined the company and he has come a long way since then. He has performed impressively in some important roles and has tried his hand successfully at choreography and teaching. Above all he is a very nice chap indeed. Next Sunday I have lined up Maria Chugai of the Dutch National Ballet who is the best Myrtha I have seen in many years of ballet going. The week after that I have the world famous accompanist David Plumpton. Now as I am still on a learning curve with this Zoom malarkey, I don't have the brass neck to charge anybody anything. But as the arts and arts education need some help right now I am inviting donations of £5 or more to a good cause of the guest's choice. Gavin has nominated the Academy of Northern Ballet of which I am a mature (if not to say over ripe) student. I couldn't be more pleased with his choice. I can't give you a link to an online donation page but I am sure someone will take a payment over the dog and bone if you call 0113 220 8000, or email academy@northernballet.com. Now I know there is a rule against linking to other websites but I won't make a habit of it and I have already had a word with one of the moderators. If you want to attend any of these talks you have to sign on through Eventbrite because Zoom being Zoom we want to know who is coming. This the link to the signup page for Gavin's talk. Every user of the BalletcoForum website who attends any of the talks will be most welcome.

Good morning everybody and happy world intellectual property day! "World intellectual property what?" I hear you say. "What's that got to do with ballet?" Well the answer is: "quite a lot". Ever wondered why your ballet teacher seeks your permission to record your rehearsal on her mobile phone or why the ushers are all over you like a rash if you try to film a bit of a ballet? Well, the answer is that every performer - even the two left footed kind like yours truly - is a "performer" and every performer has the right under Part II of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to object to the filming, taping or broadcasting of his or her performance. Intellectual property protects investment in creativity and innovation and that includes choreography, musical scores, set designs, the principal ballerina's tutu as well as her performance on stage. It can also include quite technical things too. You'd be surprised at the number of patent applications for pointe shoes. Happily there have not been too many cases involving dancers over the years. Probably the most famous is Massine v De Basil [1936-45] MCC 233, (1938) over title to the copyrights in a ballet. A case which I cited more than once over the commissioning of computer software. If you are wondering why the 26 April was chosen, it commemorates the day when the WIPO Treaty came into force on 26 April 1974. WIPO (if you are interested) is the UN specialist agency for intellectual property. If for nothing else, IP is worth celebrating for funding my ballet going, my classes at KNT Danceworks in Manchester and Northern Ballet in Leeds, my ballet blog, Powerhouse Ballet, and "Stage Door" a new service which one of the moderators has permitted me to mention to you shortly. So raise a glass to IP when you tuck into your roast beef and Yorkshire today.

Thanks Alison. Your suggestions are worth a try. I have used Chromebooks successfully for several years. This would have been my third. I need it now more than ever. That is why I am so exasperated.

I have just spent a lot of money on a new Chromebook. While setting it up in accordance with the instructions and before I could connect it to my phone the screen froze. I received an email from @google "Smart; lock is turned on" you can use your phone. The problem is that my phone is not yet connected to my Chromebook. I am not sure that my phone can ever be connected to the Chromebook at it is a 5-year-old Huawei but my Chromebook can't be connected to any kind of phone until its screen is unfrozen and the lock removed. I have spent most of the night scouring the internet looking for articles on how to unlock a smart lock without a phone. There are plenty of infuriating articles about "how great" this feature is supposed to be but very few on how to unlock a "smart lock" without a phone connection. The most helpful suggestion so far is to attempt a Powerwash. I have tried to do that but I am scuppered by the absence of a cursor so I can't press the blue "continue" button on the "Are you sure you really want a Powerwash?" screen. Is there any viable alternative to returning my Chromebook to the retailer, exchanging it for a Windows machine or an Apple computer and phone and never touching Chromebooks, Android or Google ever again?

I watch a lot of ballet, I attend adult ballet classes in Manchester and Leeds every week. I even run a small amateur ballet company. I had been looking forward to Kenneth Tindall's Geisha (which by all accounts is a triumph) and the revival of David Dawson's Swan Lake (my favourite production) for months as well as lots of other shows. I am desolate that I may miss those shows and inconsolable that in view of my age I may never grab a barre again.. Nevertheless. If that is part of the price that I and other members of the public have to pay for the greater good then so be it. If it flattens demand for NHS services, saves lives or otherwise contributes to overcoming the disease then it is a price well worth paying Plagues don't last forever. Rather than lament what we are about to lose it is important is to look after our artists, companies and theatres and plan for the time when the emergency is over.

When the pandemic passes we will need the arts more than ever to help us recover from the worries, restrictions on movements, business failures, loss of jobs, illnesses and in many cases bereavements that are likely to occur over the next few weeks or months. It will in many ways be worse than the recovery from the second world war because ballet companies and other performers regularly toured barracks, naval bases, airfields and factories. Those who attended Sadlers Wells' first performance of The Sleeping Beauty in 1946 tell us that it was very special. Many drew analogies with Aurora's awakening after years of misery. It will be like that but perhaps more so when we can return to theatres in droves. If we want the arts to raise our spirits it is therefore incumbent on us to make sure that they survive. That won't be easy because companies will have been relying on ticket sales. There may be some extra money through the national Arts Councils but I really would not bank on that. The whole of British industry will need help particularly the airline, hospitality and tourist industries. And there will be a depleted tax base from which to raise the revenues to help them. So I think we the theatre going public have to be a bit generous. We should renew our subs or join groups like the Friends of Covent Garden and the like. We should buy their merchandise. Wherever possible make donations or remember them in our wills. We must not focus entirely on the big national and regional companies. It is just as important to keep our local ballet schools and teachers afloat for they train the next generation of artists.

I have been looking forward to Danza Acosta and Northern Ballet's Geisha for months but I am wondering whether it is responsible to see them right now. As of 09:00 this morning there were 1,140 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the UK. That does not seem a lot given the size of our population. However the statistic is more worrying when it is considered that only 37.746 tests have been carried out, the daily rate of increase in the number of confirmed cases is accelerating and the virus can be passed before symptoms come to light. The Chief Scientific Adviser estimated on Thursday that there could be between 5,000 and 10.000 undiagnosed cases each of whom can spread the infection. Also, that estimate was given on Thursday and it was only an estimate. The fact is that there is no way of quantifying the risk. It may be trivial or it may not. The fact that one of our health ministers, the wife of the Canadian PM, prominent sportsmen and film actors have contracted it suggest to me that the risk is more than negligible. Another factor to consider is that that most patients who have contracted the disease have made a full and rapid recovery but that's looking across the population as a whole. Persons in my age group who catch the bug carry a much bigger risk of complications and indeed death. Even if one is not concerned for ones own safety one has to consider the risk of spreading the infection to third parties some of whom will be vulnerable. Yesterday I had to weigh up similar considerations when deciding whether to postpone sine die a long planned and much anticipated workshop on the Snowflakes scene from Act I of The Nutcracker which was to take place today. I decided to postpone as a result of which I took a £600 hit as I had to pay the instructor, studio and other incidental expenses. The consideration that was decisive for me is that many of our members of our company have young families and the possibly remote prospect of motherless children was unbearable. The considerations would be different if it were only my health and welfare to consider but of course it is not.

Ir occurred to me that Diaghilev's Ballets Russes lived through the Spanish flu epidemic so I googled "Diaghilev's Ballets russes and the Spanish flu pandemic" to see what if anything might show up. To my great surprise Google referred me to this gobbet in Sjeng Scheijen's "DiaghilevL A Life" at page 336: "Spain was in a flu epidemic (the first wave of what would become known as the Spanish fly) which felled some of the dancers and kept audiences at home." On a different but related subject, I am sorry to see that the Dutch National Ballet announced a closure until the end of the month today. I hope we can keep our theatres, companies and artists afloat as well as safe during this difficult time. PS There is a slightly longer reference in Judith Mackrell's "Bloomsbury Ballerina". The company visited Spain in 1918 performing to reduced audiences at the Liceo in Barcelona and finding Madrid a ghost town with half the city sick and the other half in the countryside. Several dancers fell ill but while none of them died they felt under siege,

Thank you very much, Capybara.

As some of you may know, I run a small, amateur ballet company in the North of England. A friend in a leading company who holds a Russian passport but lives elsewhere has very kindly offered us a masterclass in Manchester. She will only be here for a day or two. If any subscriber to this website has ever done anything like this before could he or she advise: What paperwork needs to be done, How expensive will it be to process the dancer's application; and How long will it take?

Thanks very much. Darlex. Marge's performance was a shortcut to a very special part of my youth. I took my first ballet lessons when I was an undergraduate and I developed a love and appreciation of dance that has never diminished. It was while I was at St Andrews that I read with pride in Dance and Dancers about a new company called Northern Dance Theatre which had performed three short ballets at the university theatre in my birthplace. on 26 Nov 1969. One of those dancers was Terence Etheridge who created the first ballet for Powerhouse Ballet, an amateur company that I founded in the North of England just under 2 years ago.

While I enjoyed the whole show, my personal highlights were Five Rückert Songs danced by Marge Hendrick and A Simple Man with Jeremy Kerridge as the painter and his mother. The reason why the first of those works was a personal highlight is that Western Theatre Ballet moved to Glasgow in my second year at St Andrews. John Steer who later chaired the company was our Professor of Fine Arts. He had got to know them at Bristol and he may well have been instrumental in their move to Glasgow. He introduced me and other members of the St Andrews Dance Society to their director Peter Darrell and the dancers. They toured Scotland quite a lot in those days and we watched them whenever they came anywhere near St Andrews. On the day the 15 Feb 1971 the day the UK adopted decimal currency they actually performed in our Buchanan Theatre. To see Marge Hendrick dance a work that Darrell had created for Elaine McDonald who was one of my favourite ballerinas many decades later brought tears to my eyes. Scottish Theatre Ballet was the first company that I got to know and love and Scottish Ballet still has a special place in my affection. Northern Ballet, like Scottish Ballet, traced its roots to Bristol and Christopher Hampson who followed David Nixon at the start of the show reminded the audience of the two companies' shared heritage. The reason why A Simple Man is special is that it was the first work by Northern Ballet that I ever saw. Christopher Gable and Moira Shearer were in the leading roles and it was the last time I ever saw them. I saw the show shortly after I had accepted a tenancy at a good set of Chancery chambers in Manchester. I was born in Manchester though I had attended school in London, university in Scotland and graduate school in Los Angeles and was happy to come home but my late spouse was a Londoner and had serious misgivings about living in the North. We were both keen regular ballet goers and feared that remoteness from the House and the Wells would be unbearable. There was of course the Halle and Nick Hytner's Royal Exchange but that hardly made up for it. Watching Lynne's brilliant choreography performed by two of our favourite artists reassured us that there was a dance company in Manchester that was every bit as good in ballet as the Halle was in music and the Royal Exchange in plays. I have followed and supported all three institutions ever since.

Just a couple of thoughts about Coppelia. It is said that drill lyrics encourage street crime. Well in this ballet the local toughs (what we might have called Teddy boys in my youth) rough up an old geezer on his way to the pub. Franz climbs a ladder to break into his workshop. Swanilda and the ladettes enter the workshop using Dr Coppelius's key. When they are discovered they set off the robots and Swanilda tears out pages from one of his text books to me. At the very least it is elder abuse if not assault and battery or even ABH, burglary, criminal damage .............. What's the difference between that and drill? Also, whenever I watch Franz flirting with Coppelia I think of the Turing test and human robotic intervention. This is really a ballet for our times in more senses than one don't you think..

I should be surprised if I was the only one to have caught the English National Ballet while it was in Liverpool at the end of November but, as I can't find any other reviews or mentions on this website, I thought I would just say a few words before The Nutcracker opens in London later this week. I attended the evening performance at the Empire on 30 Nov 2019. This was Wayne Eagling's version of "The Nutcracker" that I had seen before in :London. I enjoyed it a lot though not perhaps as much as Peter Wright's for the Birmingham Royal Ballet or Peter Darrell's for Scottish Ballet but I prefer it to Wright's for the London Royal Ballet and David Nixon's for Northern. I like Farmer's designs which seem a little different from Toer van Schayk's for HNB. In this version Clara becomes the Sugar Plum Fairy. She was danced appealingly by Shiori Kase. Brooklyn Mack was her prince, Junor Souza the Nutcracker, Fabian Reimair and James Streeter was the Mouse King. All the divertissements were performed well but if I had to single out any particular artist for commendation it would be Precious Adams who led the snowflakes and flowers with grace, This was not the first time I had attended a show at the Liverpool Empire. As on previous occasions the audience were demonstrative in their appreciation. For that reason alone it was good yo watch that ballet in their company.

We had a lot of Balanchine on Tuesday but no Ballet Imperial, However, I believe it is part of the "Best of Balanchine" programme for which I am thinking of returning.(see https://www.operaballet.nl/en/ballet/2019-2020/show/best-balanchine-iii)

Subscribers can get some idea of the event from this YouTube clip

As in previous years I attended the opening night gala of the Dutch National Ballet on Tuesday night at the Music Theatre in Amsterdam. The gala is not just a ballet performance. It is also a party. Unlimited wine, beer, soft drinks and nibbles are included in the ticket price. They are on offer from the moment the theatre opens until well after midnight It is a very grand occasion with the gentlemen in dinner jackets and in at least one case shoes that resembled Delft china and the ladies in the most gorgeous evening attire. The gala which takes place during the first few days of September follows a pattern. The evening opens with a Grand Défilé, a march of the whole company to the polonaise from the Sleeping Beauty starting with the youngest students at the National Ballet Academy and finishing with the principals. The women sre in dazzling white classical tutus and the men in dashing tunics. Next, Ted Brandsen, the director, makes a speech which in previous years has been delivered partly in English. There then follows extracts from the current repertoire or works staged specially for the occasion. There is always a work by Hans van Manen, usually works by Rudi van Dantzig and Toer van Schayk and often ballets by the company's resident choreographers such as David Dawson, Jianjo Arques or Ernst Meisner. Also at the gala, the Alexandra Radius prize is presented by the great ballerina herself to the dancer of the year, This year's gala seemed to be shorter than previous years' with only 6 pieces all but one of which had some connection with George Balanchine. Guest artists Xander Parish and Maria Khoreva danced the Diamonds pas de deux from Balanchine's Jewels which was my favourite of the evening. Other works included a pas de deux for Conrad and Medora from which had been created by Balanchine's teacher for his students , van Manen's Trois Gnossiennes, and Balanchine's Symphony in Three Movements and Who Cares? Edo Wijnen won this year's Radius prize. A video of his work over the year shows that he was a very worthy winner. The party was excellent, especially after the dancers joined the audience in the celebrations. The company's press officer, Richard Heideman, has sent me some lovely photos of the evening which he has licensed me to post to my blog. Unfortunately he has not licensed me to upload them anywhere else. Over the next week or so I plan to exhibit them all. I start today with a glorious photo of Xander Parish and Maria Khoreva.

Just a quick update! We danced in our first public performance at the Dancehouse Theatre in Manchester on 4 May as guests of KNT at its 10th anniversary gala. Our ballet "Aria" was choreographed by the well known choreographer and teacher, Terry Etheridge. We celebrated our first anniversary on 26 May 26 May with a great company class at Yorkshire Dance in Leeds with Jane Tucker of Northern Ballet and David Plumpton on the piano. David played for us again at the Dancehouse studios with Karen Sant as our guest ballet mistress on 29 June which turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year. It was also one of our happiest classes ever. Tomorrow, Annemarie Donoghue of Northern Ballet will put us through our paces at the Dance Studio Leeds between 13:30 and 15:00. Alena Panasenka, one of the top pianists at Northern Ballet, will play for us. We are now rehearsing our second piece which has been created to "Morning Mood" from Grieg's Peer Gynt by the Dutch choreographer and teacher, Yvonne Charlton. Our ballet mistress for this work is Fiona Noonan and her next rehearsal will take place at Huddersfield Leisure Centre on Saturday 3 Aug 2019 between 11:30 and 13:30. Yvonne will return to the UK on 21 and 22 Sept to give us another intensive workshop on this piece at the Dancehouse and we have engaged David to play for her again. We plan to dance "Morning" in Leeds on 12 Oct. We welcome anybody who wants to work with us of any age, ability, body shape or experience. We hold talks , workshops and visits as well as classes and performances. If anyone wan ts to take part in tomorrow's company class, contact us through our website at www.powerhouseballet.co.uk .

Well Done Ireland! Although I have to support the land of my birth and heritage I am delighted that Ireland has been admitted to the top table of test playing nations and that it appeared to have command of the match several times. I am sure cricket will grow from strength to strength in the Emerald Isle and I shall cheer for Ireland against anyone but Englnd. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jul/26/england-beat-ireland-lords-test-match-cricket

I was also in the audience on Sunday and enjoyed it. This is the third of ENB's ballets in the round and I think this is the best. Indeed, it is one of the best performances from that company that I have seen in almost 60 years of fairly regular ballet going. Having seen the Dutch National Ballet's performances at the Coliseum in 2015 and in the Stopera just before Christmas I am quite familiar with the choreography. libretto, designs and special effects. I think it scaled up very well. I enjoyed some of the projections - the horns, blushes and scowls of the portraits on the palace for example. I quite like being in the stalls. I was just a few seats from the gangway so it gave me a chance to admire the costumes, hair and makeup of the artists. I agree that Takahashi was excellent. Caley danced well though I preferred Goulding when I saw him in the prince#s role in London in 2015 and Wortmeyer when I saw him in Amsterdam last year. There was a lot of clowning by Kundi as the step mum when she got a little bit tight in the second act and even more when she appeared at the breakfast table with one almighty hangover. I like Kundi and have followed her ever since she was at Leeds. It is always a treat to see her. I have of course written a fuller review for my blog as I always do if anyone is interested..

Thanks, Janet. Liverpool is a lot easier to reach from Huddersfield as there is a direct service which takes just over the hour. It's hard to take time off during office hours. Otherwise, I would have gone to Birmingham too. I like both the Royal Ballet and Birmingham's productions. I know the Royal Ballet's better than Birmingham's and did not notice very much difference between them until last October. I saw a great performance by BRB in Nottingham nearly 5 years ago. I don't remember a third act, though, and I think I would have done. I wasn't the only one who was surprised by two acts. My companion, Gita, mentioned it to our ballet teacher who also expressed surprise and suggested it might be a bit too long. Our teacher trained at Northern Ballet School in Manchester danced with Northern Ballet and teaches at the Northern Ballet Academy in Leeds. The Krasnoyarsk opera house production was far from bad and I look forward to seeing that company in "Swan Lake" or some other ballet that I know well.

I saw the "Russian State Ballet of Siberia" for the first time at the Liverpool Empire on Friday. I have to say that I was attracted more by the ballet than the company. I was curious to see a version of La Fille mal gardée that had not been created by Ashton with a score that had not been written by Lanchbery and sets and costumes that had not been designed by Lancaster. The version that I saw on Friday had been created by Alexander Gorsky to music by Peter Hertel. In that respect, it was very much older version than the Ashton-Lanchbery-Lancaster version but maybe further removed in spirit from the show that was premiered at the Grand Theatre of Bordeaux a few days before the storming of the Bastille. For instance, Gorsky's version ends with a full-blown classical pas de deux with an introduction, man's solo, woman's solo and coda and Lise in a pretty classical tutu with flower motifs. That placed it slap bang in the last quarter of the 19th century, On the other hand, the story was very much the same. The big difference is that Colas inveigled his way into Simone's home dressed as a notaire rather than smuggled inside a bundle of wheat sheaves. There was a ribbon dance though it did not end in a love knot and even a clog dance of sorts though not the one we know. I missed the human scale poultry and Lancaster's designs though the Russians used some computer generated animations on a backdrop that reminded me faintly of Constable country. On the whole, I prefer the Ashton version though I was somewhat underwhelmed by BRB's the last time I saw it which was at the Lowry last October. It had somehow expanded into three acts and had begun to drag. The Russian version was the right length and it was still fresh and jolly even with Hertel's more ponderous score. There seem to be a lot of companies with the adjective "Russian" in their names that tour the market towns of this country with full-length works so I had never taken much notice of that company before. I think I have deprived myself of a pleasure because they turned out to be not too bad at all. In fact, they were rather good especially Elena Svinko who danced Lise in a coquettish feisty way and Marcello Pelizzoni who danced Colas. Because they were a lot better than I had expected I looked them up and found that they are based on the resident company of an opera house that opened in 1978 in a place called Krasnoyarsk. Krasnoyarsk is a city just slightly smaller than the combined populations of Bradford and Leeds on approximately the same latitude as Dundee east of the Ural mountains. According to Google Maps, its opera house is some 4,560 miles from the studios of Northern Ballet. Despite its remoteness and by world standards population Krasnoyarsk has produced some fine dancers including the Dutch National Ballet's principal ballerina Anna Ol and the Mariinsky's Viktoria Tereskina. Some of those folks had started their training at the city's ballet school and Ol seems to have toured with the Siberians so they have to be taken seriously. They are coming to Sheffield and Halifax before the end of their tour and I have tied an electronic knot in my digital hankie to see what they make of Swan Lake. If anyone is interested I have posted a review to Terpsichore this morning. Wishing all subscribers to this website a great weekend. If you are an amateur dancer in the North and fancy a great workshop in Leeds next Sunday check out Powerhouse Ballet's website and sign up for it now. My practice is sponsoring the event so it won't cost you a bean.

Powerhouse Ballet has received a lot of help from a lot of teachers, schools and companies all around the country and beyond but nobody has done more for us than Yvonne Charlton of the Jos Dolstra Dance Institute in the Netherlands. Yvonne trained at what is now the National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam and works very closely with the Dutch National Ballet. Twice a year her adult ballet students get to learn a bit of the company's repertoire with some of its best dancers. I am a Friend of the Dutch National Ballet and I visit Amsterdam frequently. It was through my association with the company that I got to meet Yvonne. Last September I invited Yvonne to give us a repertoire class in Liverpool. Our ballet mistress, who is not known for lavishing praise, described that class as our best ever. Everyone who took that class agreed. Before I had even left the studio I was mobbed with requests to bring her back as soon as possible. As we don't yet know whether we will be able to hire teachers from EU countries after brexit, I had to hire her before 29 March. Yvonne is coming back on Sunday 24 Feb to give us a special repertoire class in two of her works: her own version of one of the dances from Don Quixote which we started to learn in Liverpool, and Morning Mood to the music of Edward Grieg from Peer Gynt. The workshop will take place at Dance Studio Leeds in Mabgate Mills between 09:00 and 14:00. I apologize for the early start but Yvonne has to catch a plane to Amsterdam at 18:00 and this is the way we can make the best use of her time. To give attendees the optimum experience we have hired Northern Ballet's accompaniest, Alena Panasenka, to play for Yvonne and Fiona Noonan to learn the pieces and coach us so that we can eventually include them in our own company's repertoire. Ladies who are trained and experienced in pointe work are encouraged to bring their pointe shoes to the workshop. We want to use this visit as an opportunity to welcome more dancers into our company and support networks. The whole workshop will be sponsored by my law practice so it will cost our guests nothing. We do hope to meet a lot of new people. If you want to attend the workshop you can register here. If you can't get to Leeds on Sunday you may like to come to our company class at the Dancehouse in Manchester which Yvonne will also give between 13:30 and 15:00 on Saturday 23 Feb. If you want to attend that you are welcome to register here. If you want to attend both events, feel free. We want to get to know and make friends with as many dancers as possible.