'Concert Fantasy' reviews 'Le Voyage' reviews Hirata in reviews recent Royal Ballet School reviews more Lynette Halewood reviews

There were two different programmes on offer in the performances in the Linbury: the version I saw had more performances from Upper School pupils. The traditional folk dances featured more fully on the other programme. The Linbury is quite an intimate space, and perhaps an unforgiving one. Any slips or hesitancy are difficult to conceal when the audience was so close. I felt cheered by the experience though: in general the boys looked rather stronger and more confident than I recalled from previous years and some of the senior girls looked very polished.

The opening item, Columbine mixed pupils from various years of the Lower School. This work was made by Jennifer Jackson in 1996 for an earlier School performance and is set to Bach, here played on piano.. There is a role for a lead ballerina, and a pas de trois, with plenty to do for all the variously sized corps. My eye was caught be Chantelle Gotobed in the pas de trios who had a really lively stage presence.

This was followed by a stage full of boys of different ages performing the traditional hornpipe. I’ve got a soft spot for this. I can’t help it. It’s not clever or sophisticated, but I always admire the self possession and seriousness of purpose of the youngest in this. Next up was a more contemporary tango piece for eight second year pupils of he Upper School. This was performed to recorded music rather than piano, with choreography by Leanne King. It showed off a rather different side of the dancers, and included some quite tricky partnering for one couple.

The following item was a pas de deux, Concert Fantasy to Tchaikovsky, played with some feeling by the pianist. The chorography was by Petal Miller-Ashmole, one of the teaching staff at the school. Whereas most of the items on the programme seemed to have been carefully chosen to present dancers in a group, this was a chance for two individuals, Momoko Hirata and Zachary Faruque, to shine. (They had a further opportunity to do so in another pdd in the closing work as well). I recall both these dancers from earlier school performances (Hirata appeared previously in the Bournonville pas de deux I think). It was a very confident performance from both, with Hirata looking especially polished and elegant. Faruque showed a care in partnering that is unusual at this stage in dancers careers. He was perhaps slightly less polished, but undeniably forceful – there can’t be many dancers who have included two one handed overhead lifts of their partner in a schools performance. He is joining the RB next season and she is going to BRB.

Wheeldon’s Le Voyage concluded the first half of the programme. This was originally made for the School of American Ballet for a workshop, and is quite an early Wheeldon piece. There are some points about it which do seem quite typical of his style – the angular use of the hands for instance, something that was used to an extent in Tryst. It is set to Poulenc – a recorded version. A live orchestra would bring it to life more. It was performed by pupils from year three of the Upper School, who are graduating now. Many of these have contracts already: seven students go to the Royal, four to BRB, one to ENB and ten to companies outside the UK. This was performed with verve and confidence, and was very popular with the audience. The two lead couples were impressive.

The second half of the programme included four more short pieces. Enchanted Garden, from the opera Ruslan and Ludmilla is described in the cast list as choreography by Fokine staged by Anatoli Grigoriev (from the School) and on the programme as by Grigoriev. Take your pick. This was a number designed to display the female corps (from years 10 and 11 of the lower school) in swatches of lilac chiffon. Pretty enough although not substantial and a bit sugary sweet for my taste.

Cathy Marston made a new work for these performances on the second year upper school pupils. Summer Twinings is set to Prokofiev. I was curious to see how Marston would adapt her style and characteristically demanding partnering for students. Not much: but the tone of the piece is much lighter hearted than some of her recent works. The work deals with the flirations among a group of teenagers, all in dressed in fifties outfits including some lovely dresses for the girls (costume: Johannes Stepanek). Two couples have a lightheated flirtation, one a more intense interaction, and the shy guy in short trousers finally gets his girl too. The girls generally have the upper hand, but the boys get some fairly exuberant moves which make the most of their liveliness and enthusiasm.

Cathy Marston stuck to a small number of dancers and, typically, showed us the relationships between them: Alistair Marriott, in the work commissioned from him for the schools performance, struck out new directions. Previously his works had been quite intimate, atomospheric and small scale. Here he worked with quite a large cast (18 dancers) from the first year of the Upper School. It might be preferable to see this on the larger scale of the main stage and to live orchestral accompaniment – it seemed to have a real feel for the music (Britten, Prelude and Fugue). The dancers were all in white and at times looked quite crowded together on the Linbury stage.

The final piece was Mendelsson Concerto, choreographed by Mark Annear. This featured a mix of dancers from the second and hird years of the Upper School. It showed the students off nicely, with a pas de deux well taken by Hirata and Faruque, and a pleasant pas de trois. However, this was the section of the programme where I thought it would have been good to see the students taking on an established, more testing work instead of something which showed them nicely to advantage. All very brightly performed and popular with the audience though. Overall a pleasant evening, and there’s clearly lots of talent developing there.