Ballet Central is the touring company of The Central School Of Ballet in London, and so this evening's performance was not just an excellent opportunity for us, as audience, to see some wonderfully talented students-in-training - our future stars-in-the-making - but also for the dancers themselves to experience different stages, different audiences, and understand the rigours of a tourng life in the profession. It is the first time Ballet Central have visited Manchester, and I certainly hope it won't be the last.
The 2019 company comprises some 35 dancers from 5 different continents, and indeed the tour will conclude at the end of July with a performance in Tokyo, Japan.
5 pieces were presented this evening, each showcasing different soloists and styles from the very traditional ballet right up to very modern and contemporary dance pieces. All were excellently realised and made a lovely pot-pourri of genre, mood, ensemble, and staging. Not only this but two of this evening's pieces were recreations of the choreography of past masters and masters passed. The first was Kenneth MscMillan, with the second act opening with choreography by Frederick Ashton. Pitted alongside contemporary choroegraphers this was an utter delight.
The first offering was Kenneth MacMillan's third ballet and second collaboration with Nicholas Giorgiadis. It's a full length ballet [music by Frederic Mompou and arranged by John Lanchberry] but this evening we saw only excerpts. When it was first produced in 1955 it was highly avant-garde and was panned and regaled by critics in equal measure. This evening's choreographic (and costume) replication was an interesting time-capsule and was superbly realised. The movements still feeling strange and odd, quite surreal, even by today's standards.
The story tells, in a nutshell, of young lovers separated as an evil bird-woman snatches the girl, turning her into one her bird-slaves. However against all the odds, the young man finds her and rescues her. Alice Guillot and Timothy Leckie were this evening's lovers, with Tessa Raby the Bird-woman. However it was the jagged and adroit choreography of the Enchanted Boys which really stood out in this piece.
Following this was a young soloist, Calvin Richardson, performing Callum McGregor's contemporary choreography of the Dying Swan to Saint-Saens famous and beautifully plaintive melody from 'The Carnival Of The Animals'. Richardson's isolation techniques were quite astounding, and fascinating to watch.
The final piece before the interval was called (In Between). A very modern and striking piece of imaginative choreography by Jasmin Vardimon. This was by far the most visually exciting and even perhaps nightmarish. A highly original work which saw the dancers tested to their limits. A bizarre, non-linear piece which pitched the power or forces of the unknown against the power or will of the individual, and then set the individual upon others to control at her whim. [or at least that is what I THINK it represented!] The opening picture, the floor work and ensemble timing - not to mention the use of vocalistion of breaths etc, in the piece were absolutely outstanding. This was undoubtedly my favourite piece of the evening, and one of the best and most interesting pieces of modern choreography I have seen in a very long time.
After the interval, and we are back to Classical ballet, but with a very contemporary, for its time, [Frederick Ashton first choroegraphed this in 1947] feel. We were treated to exceprts from Ashton's take on 'Valses Nobles Et Sentimentales' by Ravel. Using see-through panels in a ballroom setting with the men in red tails and the women in shades of pink it was very close to the original design too. Ravel's lush and sometimes discordant scoring brings about an edgy quality to the beautiful movements of the dancers, making the whole seem rather like a drug-induced fairy-tale dream. The two principal dancers this evening were Holly Taylor and Timothy Leckie.
A short pause while the stage was reconfigured for the final piece this evening involving the whole company. Using the overture and ballet from Richard Rogers' melody-full music to his collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II's Musical 'Carousel', we were transported into a Big Top and a latter-day circus peopled with figures from strong-man, to trapeze-artistes, with an excellently pictured carousel too halfway though! A young girl enters the tent as the artistes are warming up, and she sets eyes on one of the performers, and they fall immediately in love. There is a falling out between rivals, a beautiful pas-de-deux, and a Musical Theatre style picture ending to finish! Choreographed by Ballet Central's Artistic Director Christopher Marney, the whole evening finished on a wonderful high.
I was verily impressed with this performance. The standard was extremely high across the board, and the evening hugley enjoyable. Thank you for coming to Sale (Manchester), and I look forward to your next visit.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 11/5/19
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