BRB2 - Carlos Acosta's Classical Selection - Linbury

[capybara]

(Ava May Llewelyn, who was until recently in her second year as an RB Aud Jebsen Young Dancer, was also performing last night.)

 

I like the concept BRB has of running BRB2 with dancers who are also embedded in the main company’s rep. Even this early on it’s clear to see that they will be getting more and more varied performing experience than seems feasible under the RB’s Aud Jebsen scheme.

What’s not to like?

I saw the DNB’s Junior Company quite a few times in its early days and IIRC there was not a ‘star’ in sight - except that ……… it was obvious that that was what some of those on stage would become.

[Jan McNulty]

It should be noted that Bread and Butter Pudding is the PR company used by BRB these days.

[LinMM]

A final say on Tuesdays performance! 

Even though this was Carlos choice I wasn’t particularly enamoured of the Two dying Swans piece. Partly …as another poster pointed out it was badly lit…but initially there was no music so thought it would be in silence and a completely different take on the Piece …then suddenly the familiar music started up and there seemed to be too independent dancers doing their utmost to die in different ways so like two individual performances but on stage at the same time! There was nothing wrong with the dancing per se …the delightful Regan Hutsell in the more traditional version and Jack Easton in a more modern version ( surely a future star?) Then suddenly there was a moment when I thought it might be supposed to be funny…all this dying etc.  but in the end I didn’t really get it at least not to that music! 

I remember Lucy Waine from RBS final performance and she was very good in a modern piece back then so it’s nice to see her progressing with BRB 

She danced in the Ben Stevenson piece very soulfully ( I think with Kempsey Fagg) but I didn’t get that they were the last two dancers(people) on Earth…but enjoyed their dancing nevertheless….perhaps a little more tension required for the Angst of this scenario? 
Lucy was delightful in the whooped skirt piece ( forgot the Latin name) a strange little piece really but she brought her light to it. 
I expect others were  already in the  know but this evening starts and finishes with dancers arriving ( and at the end leaving) as if for a class and then partially change into (and then out of) costume to do their pieces. 
It sort of works quite well to show the emergence of students of dance into danseurs as it were ….and they all truly did emerge…. some new names to look out for! 

And ….much as I enjoyed Ito and Hirata in their pas de deux ….this evening of Dance would stand up just as well without these established stars…they just happened to be the cherry on a very nice iced cake!!! 

 

This apparently now has only one more showing in Wolverhampton so anyone within striking distance of there should try and make it as you will have a lovely evening of mixed Ballet pieces and music to enjoy. 

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by LinMM

[art_enthusiast]

On 14/06/2023 at 18:45, alison said:

Must say, I don't think the whole Festival has had that much publicity: I was annoyed earlier to discover I'd missed the McNicol Ballet Collective 😞

 

I missed them as well as I couldn't make any of their performances, unfortunately.

 

I caught the Finnish National Ballet Youth company though, they were brilliant. In particular the three male dancers, not too sure of their names.

[alison]

3 hours ago, LinMM said:

I expect others were  already in the  know but this evening starts and finishes with dancers arriving ( and at the end leaving) as if for a class and then partially change into (and then out of) costume to do their pieces. 

 

Fairly predictably, it has to be said, to those who have seen various of Acosta's "solo" shows.

[Dawnstar]

5 hours ago, LinMM said:

She danced in the Ben Stevenson piece very soulfully ( I think with Kempsey Fagg) but I didn’t get that they were the last two dancers(people) on Earth…but enjoyed their dancing nevertheless….perhaps a little more tension required for the Angst of this scenario?

 

Oh is that what the piece is supposed to be about. I had no clue what it was supposed to be when I saw it!

[Blossom]

I think pretty much everything has been said about the performance as I am a bit late to the game, but I do think this is a brilliant concept. It’s no doubt low cost and easily transportable - plus cheap for the audience, so a much more attractive proposition for new audience. This got me thinking a lot about how this sort of tour could do so much to reinvigorate public opinion in terms of enjoying ballet. As the performance showed, it can be thoroughly engaging and surprising. A brilliant move for BRB but also ballet at large and hope to see this sort of collection repeated annually (at least!).

 

[Jan McNulty]

9 minutes ago, Blossom said:

 This got me thinking a lot about how this sort of tour could do so much to reinvigorate public opinion in terms of enjoying ballet. As the performance showed, it can be thoroughly engaging and surprising. A brilliant move for BRB but also ballet at large and hope to see this sort of collection repeated annually (at least!).

 

 

BRB had a number of years of splitting the company in 2 and touring to smaller theatres in the North East and South West (the company's ACE designated areas).  ENB also did something similar some years before and Northern Ballet for a couple of years more recently and, of course, the Royal Ballet did Dance Bites.  

 

I think it's a brilliant idea.

[AnnabelCharles]

I completely agree with this, Blossom - and imagine in time the selection and presentation of pieces will be developed and refined.

[Emeralds]

On 15/06/2023 at 14:14, Dawnstar said:

 

Hirata isn't on the cast sheets for Northampton, Nottingham or Peterborough so presumaby she was brought in just for London, which does give a bit of a provinces-not-worthy-compared-to-London vibe. I wonder if Hirata was brought in partly to impress any critics in reviewing? I assume she & Ito would have been better technically than the much more junior pairing I saw do that pdd in Peterborough & who I see did the second London performance.

I am guessing Momoko Hirata was asked to cover Beatrice Parma due to illness/injury/some emergency as Parma had danced the role in Peterborough with Itu (I don’t know who else danced it) but wasn’t dancing anything else in London according to the cast sheets- if she was “pushed out” to make way for a principal then she would presumably still be dancing something else, I would have thought. They could have got Lucy Waine and Haoliang Feng to dance it on the 13th as well, but as Waine has another piece to dance and Itu would be deprived of a chance to perform, finding another soloist or principal who was available was probably the next best thing. Most of the critics would already know who Hirata is, of course, and would know she isn’t a BRB2 member. 

[Scheherezade]

On 19/06/2023 at 13:12, Emeralds said:

Most of the critics would already know who Hirata is, of course, and would know she isn’t a BRB2 member. 

On the evidence of The Upcoming’s review of ENB’s Takahashi/Frola Cinderella, not necessarily. 😄

[Emeralds]

3 hours ago, Scheherezade said:

On the evidence of The Upcoming’s review of ENB’s Takahashi/Frola Cinderella, not necessarily. 😄

Lol! I did wonder if The Upcoming’s reviewer made it to the Linbury! 😄 (I did  include him and similar scribblers, hence the “most” 😂)

 

That said, having found the website, I read his review and he was very very complimentary about the production and the performance, and his other details were generally correct. If one of the veteran critics at The Times or The Guardian had described them as understudies, we’d probably have thought they were being ironic and actually I did recheck his review to see if he might have meant it that way!

 

Interestingly, the rest of the website did have a wide mix of articles on a variety of topics from restaurants to movies to clubbing, like a miniature Time Out magazine, so if by being there it has attracted the interest of some readers (the layout enables the review to be clicked and found easily) who didn’t know anything about ENB or ballet, but decided to try it out on the basis of his positive review, then he’s done some good for ENB and the art form. 👍It looks like the writers don’t get paid for their reviews, but it gives them practice and exposure for their writing.

[Ondine]

I admit to a certain ambivalence re these 'second companies'.

 

If the main reason for them is to develop and give employment to, exposure and experience for young dancers, then that's commendable. If it means existing lovers of ballet enjoy an extra performance at a theatre in their region, all good.  If smaller venues have increased box office revenues, further good.

 

However, if 'new audience' building' is an expressed reason for their formation, does anyone have any links to research which suggest a rate of success for this? Any way in which this operates?

 

Many 'second companies' have come and gone, possibly funding issues.

 

Also, while not in any way suggesting BRB2 is exploiting dancers, I'm sure not and they are gaining wonderful experience being coached by Carlos Acosta and others, there's a worrying discussion on the 'Doing Dance' forum which suggest some companies NOT in the UK are promising much and not delivering.

 

Slightly off topic, I know, thanks to @Peanut68 and @Topaz et al.  Recommend the entire thread.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2023 by Ondine

[capybara]

Does anyone have information about the destinations of young dancers who, having had their year or two in ‘second’ companies or similar schemes, are not then employed in the main one?