Cathy Marston, Busy Creating
	Photograph by Clare Park Anybody who saw the Royal Ballet Dance Bites tours (reviews link) will probably remember Cathy Marston's work - its invention and freshness particularly. While other choreographers perhaps waxed and waned Cathy always seemed to deliver a goodie for Dance Bites. Having danced and choreographed in Europe for much of the 1990's she returned home this summer (2000) and, charming woman that she is, agreed to write a diary for us with hardly any arm twisting whatsoever! Link to the First diary.     Link to later column Marston diary index 27 December - Swiss Christmas I'm sitting in a friend's apartment in Switzerland writing this month's diary; it's the day after Boxing Day and I'm rather drowsy; partly a result of the mounds of food I've been consuming in the last few days and partly a result of the fresh air; we just took a walk around the 'Murten Lake' and I realised that after only six months in London the countryside has already become a shock to the system! I've spent six days over here for the Christmas; although I'm very happy to have moved back to England, there are, of course, certain aspects of Switzerland I miss, and as Christmas was the only time I could see a break in my schedule I decided to visit my friends then. It's a great place to relax here because absolutely everything is closed for Christmas; you have no choice! I've been catching up on much needed sleep; this last month has been one without any free days and it looks like January will be the same so I'm stocking up sleep hours now! Henri Oguike & Piazolla Throughout most of November and the beginning of December I was working in my 'dancer' capacity with Henri Oguike. We were working on a new creation to music by Astor Piazolla for our spring tour. I think the evening should be fun; lots of intricate rhythms, together with Henri's expansive movement, to really good music - the Piazolla and another piece to Shostakovich will often be played live. Actually I was not sure about the thought of being involved in another Piazolla piece having danced one in Bern countless times last year, as well as having choreographed two pieces to his music fairly recently. Still, I went to see Paul Taylor's company just before we started work and was bouncing in my seat during their Piazolla ballet, which I thought was great, so I guess it's music that will always get me going! ROH Clore premiere - Cohabitants While working with Henri I was still trying to keep moving on my next choreography for Cohabitants - the evening I'm sharing in the Clore Studio of the Opera House with Tom Sapsford (6/8/9/12 February). I won't go on about the details of the evening here as there's already a page devoted to it at ballet.co.uk/cohabitants. But I will say though that if you haven't already booked your tickets - please do! Cathy and Tom busy preparing Cohabitants... Photograph by Clare Park It's quite a special type of evening because all the work is being done in the artists' spare time - and unpaid at that. We're doing it because we want to be creative and work together on something new - even if it does mean working from 6.30-8.30 in the evenings after a hard day's work, on Saturday afternoons or, as has happened recently, during mixed bills between ballets! I'm very grateful to the dancers for all of their time and enthusiasm and can say that the piece is coming along rather well. I've got a cast of nine, which is quite a lot, but there are lots of duets/trios/solos that fit into a grand scheme concocted in my head. Of course, this is somewhat risky as I won't be able to see everything together until a few days before the premiere and it might not work at all... but well, I really don't have much choice! Better work like that than not at all, and if the worst comes to the worst, I think the movement material is interesting anyway. Putting on a show is so easy... The Artist Initiative Development that is run by Deborah Bull is presenting the evening - for details of what this is about exactly see the Cohabitants page. This is really a great opportunity for Tom and me, because it's a sort of halfway house between presenting a performance independently and, as we are used to, choreographing within a company's infrastructure. Basically, the ADI and ROH provide the studio space, theatre / lighting facilities and help with publicity and ticket sales. In this case, the dancers are also from the Royal Ballet, although we have asked them privately to participate. It's up to us to find sponsorship and organise the flyers, lighting designer, music, costume designer and maker. Luckily, Philip Mosley (aka the 'real' Billy Elliot) has volunteered to help us with some of these matters, which, I have to say, are much more complicated than I'd anticipated. For instance, just getting the flyer made was a huge stress.... the Cohabitants postcard flyer Photograph by Clare Park, Design Claire Noble We had a deadline to make in order to be included in the Juice Magazine January mail-out, and having had the photos taken, developed, graphics designed and on disk, taken to printers and finally printed - all in two weeks - it was up to me one Friday night to run in a full-on thunderstorm from my rehearsal in Bethnal Green to the Opera House, pick up the cards and get them to the Place in an hour! Anyway, they're made and being distributed, and I'll admit I'm rather pleased with them! The Ballet Shoes and making children cry On top of the Cohabitants and HODC agendas, I've had a month of auditions - every Sunday! The good thing was that for the first time in my life I was on the right side of the table! The auditions were for the London Children's Ballet production of The Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield, which I start choreographing very soon. I have to say I was flabbergasted by the turnout. On the first day, we had four hundred children to see; you've no idea how difficult this is; firstly, because you really want to get the right cast for your ballet but also because it's so awful to say no to so many people who really want to be involved! That sounds terribly patronising but it's true - you do feel bad. The funny thing was that if you'd walked into the studio not knowing what the audition was for you could have been forgiven for taking a guess at 'Annie.' For those of you who were not brought up on Noel Streatfield, I should explain that Ballet Shoes is the story of three adopted girls who grow up to become a film star, a mechanic and a ballerina. Of course, there's a lot more to it than that but the point is that the youngest, who is about eight in the story, is supposed to be an amazing dancer and have bright red hair. Now, I'd been very sceptic al about the likelihood of finding an amazing mini-redhead; I was wrong! It was the hardest part to cast simply because there were so many possibilities. Linbury premiere The Sunday I did have spare was taken up rehearsing a piece I made for the National Youth Dance Company last August but is yet to be premiered. It'll go on at the Linbury Studio Theatre on the 15/16 Feb in a programme including work by Ashley Page, Wayne McGreggor, Mavin Khoo and others. They're a nice group of dancers and I would (obviously!) recommend it as a show to go and see. Anyway, that's enough for now I think. Have a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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