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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.
His next big piece is ‘A Christmas Carol’ for The Royal Festival Hall in December 2000.
Here is a link to the previous column in the series.
I didn't have to wait long for Dame Alicia Markova and her sister Doris Barry to get to the front door of their apartment, but getting from the door to the taxi was quite a different matter. It wasn't that Dame Alicia was showing any signs of being 90 years old, far from it. We met three or four of her neighbours in the entrance hall. Dame Alicia kindly introduced me to each of them and told them that I was escorting her to the Britten Theatre where she was to see the ballet that I had created on the English National Ballet School, as a tribute to her in her 90th year. I was pleased that she took the time to do this, however, in the back of mind I was selfishly wanting to get to the theatre so I could give the last of my notes to the students before the half hour call. Once we arrived at the theatre I had no problem making sure that she was taken care of. As we walked down the staircase into the foyer a queue was already forming of friends, directors and students waiting to talk to her…Doris and I headed for the bar. As the five-minute bell rang I escorted both of them up to their seats, where they sat with Derek Deane and Diana Donavon. I was now able to run back stage and dish out my notes. After a splendid performance by ENB school I escorted both Dame Alicia and Ms. Barry to a waiting car and we parted company. They said that they'd both enjoyed the performance and Dame Alicia informed me that my ballet had been every bit as musical as she had been as a dancer.
I was due to speak at the Benesh Conference at the beginning of August about the choreographer/notator relationship, but was called away to the Czech Republic to teach and create (see previous diary). This left a gap in their proceedings and it was filled in a way that made me quite redundant. There were many solutions floated, but the man that came to the rescue (and its not the first time) was Jonathan. We decided to make a video that could be shown, but this proved too difficult for one reason and another and I left for Prague not knowing how things would turn out for them on the day. The answer lay in a PowerPoint presentation that Jonathan created from the video footage and this way he was able to cut out all my "errs, buts, y'know's and *****!" it was simply fantastic. It was concise, informative and above all, a great success. I think that it will be on a web page near you soon and I urge you to seek it out. Not for the blah, blah that I've got to say, but if you're in any doubt just what is expected of a notator then this will clear everything up.
The auditions for A Christmas Carol were held in mid- August, and after receiving more than 130 applications we invited 40 dancers to attend the audition day at Pineapple Dance Studios. I was looking forward to seeing all the dancers, and also it would be the first time we had the whole artistic team in one room. The audition for the dancers lasted just over two hours and we were able to offer nearly all the contracts on that day.
Auditions for A Christmas Carol Photographer Daria Klimentova
The last hour of the auditions was devoted to stilt-walkers, di-abolo artists and acrobats…I came away from this day knowing what it's like not to be able to give every talented person in the room a job. Knowing that I had a cast that I'm looking forward to working with and also knowing what a "human anvil" does at a circus (if you want to know, email me).
Auditions for A Christmas Carol Photographer Daria Klimentova
There is a Gala at the Sadlers Wells on October 22nd for HRH Princess Margaret. I've been asked to be the assistant director to Wayne Sleep. The first meeting I had at the Royal Opera House was long, involved too many people and didn't even get through half the agenda. Not that it wasn't productive, it was and very necessary too. I mention it only because meetings are new to me. In my previous life as a dancer the closest I got to a meeting was an annual Equity meeting within the Company. This involved smoking a lot, saying exactly what we thought of the management and leaving the room to go to the loo whenever we felt like it (knowing you wouldn't have missed much). Now I can't smoke during the meetings, I am the management, and I have to remember to "go" before…though I still say exactly what I think. The Gala is coming together nicely and the names involved are staggering. One of the biggest problems is keeping to two hours. Once everybody involved has decided that they'd all like to do the whole of the Act Two Pas de Deux, the running time creeps up to about three weeks. Diplomacy is everything.
Wayne Sleep is creating a ballet for the National Youth Ballet's latest spectacle. It is the story of Wind in the Willows and is aptly named "Toad". I am assisting him on the production and along with Jonathan Still at the piano we spent a very intense week creating the majority of the ballet. There are 47 plus in this ballet and just to complicate matters there is also a TV presenter to be rehearsed. Blue Peter are making a half-hour program about the creation of this children's ballet and their presenter, Matt, is to play the role of a Weasel at the Sadler's Wells Theatre. The B.P. crew is great fun and Matt's previous training as a gymnast has made him a very easy novice to work with. The program goes out some time in November. I do some very embarrassing asides to the camera in a sort of nightmare sequence they wanted to create. The asides themselves aren't the problem, I had to say them to camera and it wasn't until I saw the playback I realised they had put a lens on the bloody thing that made me look like I was being viewed from the bottom end of a pint glass. The score for this epic is luscious, funny, witty, romantic, melodic and simply absolutely right for the ballet. It has been specially written by a man that is all of the above, John Lanchberry. He is wonderful to work with. In fact it's not even work, it's a romp. He adored Jonathan's playing (join the club) and thought that the ballet was lots of fun. It's hard for it not to be as it's all in the score…He is a dear, dear man.
That was the dress code on the invites to a ball at a privately owned stately home somewhere in the countryside, near Sheffield. I was invited to escort Caroline and nothing prepared me for the lavish, beautiful setting of this event. The house is set on an estate about the size of my local borough. The rooms were tall and gracious and the grounds, even in the drizzly weather (well you can't have everything) looked well kept. We thought we wouldn't know anybody there except the people that owned this place. Not so. We were seated at a table crammed with arty types and had no problem making new friends. I even got a dance with the hostess…Thank You for a wonderful evening Alison and Will.
In this age of technology one would think it would be easy to communicate with anybody at anytime. It's not. I am going to create a new ballet for the Royal New Zealand Ballet the day after A Christmas Carol finishes at the Festival Hall and although it seems a long way off, it isn't. While working on all of the above, I have been negotiating with the RNZB and sorting out music rights, designs and press releases, but I didn't bargain on the huge time difference. Even with email, faxes and especially phone-calls it still requires one of the negotiators to be awake. I either disturb Matz Skoog, the director, at 6:00am or he gets me at Midnight. We tend to play a game of answer phone tennis, then email, then resort to phoning each others mobiles…not a cost effective thing to do between these countries. However, the music is decided (13th Century trad.) and the title is Saltarello. Fido, my trusty designer and fellow friend of Stella, has already produced sketches of costumes that are going to look stunning. I don't know if New Zealand is ready for rubber but it's better than going for wool.
Go and see Car Man | ||||||||
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