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Christopher Hampson,
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Christopher Hampson, formerly a dancer and choreographer with ENB, has been keeping a diary for us since November 97. Initially he covered the creation of his new ballet ‘Country Garden’ but since then there have been lots of other ballets, and he is now a freelance choreographer and ballet master for City Ballet of London...
Here is a link to the previous column in the series.
31st January 2000 Happy New Year!!!
I have just returned from Switzerland. The pace in Lausanne is slow. The people talk slowly; the escalators move slowly, the lowly low slowly. However, at the Palais de Beaulieu, the Prix de Lausanne was anything but... the competition started on Monday and by the time I arrived on Friday the jury had been quick to reduce the number of competitors from 160 to 35. I arrived at the theatre to be greeted by a sea of candidates aged between 15 and 17 all hugging teachers, parents, other competitors, and most of them in tears. For a moment I thought the jury had decided to go home early and just eliminate everybody, but soon realized that there were tears of joy for getting into the semi-finals and 135 candidates (realizing they'd have to pay their own hotel bill) crying tears of disappointment. Not a very nice first impression. Just to rub balletic salt into the wound I was whisked off by Jean-Pascal to watch the first of three "reject classes". These were held daily and they are the only classes that the teachers, directors, and public have access to. The classes for the "rejects" are, I think, one of the most important parts of the Prix. It enables directors of schools to go shopping for students. Everybody was there with their balletic special-offers; scholarships, one-year courses, apprenticeships. It made for interesting viewing. Got to the finals and I felt that there were some "rejects" that should have gone through without question, but it's easy being an armchair judge, I didn't envy the jury's job. Interesting... no English in the last round. On the 16th February at the Kenneth More Theatre in Illford Ballet Gas Central (3rd year of Central School of Ballet) will give their first performance of my ballet Dinaresade. It is a ballet I created last year for Wayne Sleep's company, and Central School are doing remarkably well with it. I started teaching it to them in October and yesterday I went to have a check on it. Their improvement was quite outstanding. This 3rd year course at Central gives the students the experience to work with choreographers and there are, I think, a total of four works that have been created on them. Speaking of new works... I was asked just before Christmas if I would set the practical paper for the A/S and A level syllabus for the National Curriculum. It involves choreographing a classical and a contemporary solo to be performed by the candidates as part of their coursework. As the pieces have to be performed by people of varying standards I went and did some research at the Laban Centre. It's a scary place in New Cross. 13 studios, an extensive library and one of the biggest headquarters in the dance scene. With all of this facility I was surprised at the non-existent connection with the professional world. I felt like an alien in this sterile, educational environment. The students looked unconfident and nervous in my presence and I got the feeling that they were not used to being watched in class. I was told this was the case... Well what the hell are they doing there? The answer is I don't quite know, but I do know that the Laban Centre has just been given £XX Million for new premises. Interesting... there were no English students in the finals of the Prix...
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