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Cathy Marston
'Scotland and the North...' | |||||||
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She has been writing for Ballet.co since 2000 and still finds time to dance as well, currently with ARC.
Link to previous column.
Link to later column
It's a busy period so I'm not sure how much I'll get down today but let's see… I'm back in my flat for a week between Scotland and Leeds. I've been up in Edinburgh creating a work for The Ensemble Group - a 'pick-up' style company of twelve ballet trained, modern-moving dancers who are together for four months or so, working with myself, Christopher Hampson, Toni Mira and their director, Norman Douglas. They'll be performing in Scotland in May and June in theatres as large as the Edinburgh Festival Theatre and it was for this reason, coupled with the fact I had never met half of them, that I decided to work with a biggish group (that is allowing for covers) of eight, and to make a musically inspired ballet to Schumman's Dichterliebe - one of my favourites. It's turned out very well so far. I had three weeks to create the twenty-eight minute work so had to work fairly swiftly, and at the same time allow the dancers to get to know each other as some of them had only just met. At the end of my creation period, however, we had discovered some lovely things about each other, got over some teething problems and made a ballet that challenges but suits the group and which I'm sure they will develop over the next few month as they rehearse it whilst simultaneously creating the other repertoire. The difficulty for me with this music was firstly getting past the initial fear of such a romantic sound - something which I love but in these modern days is very foreign and easily misunderstood. The other problem is that obviously, with a cycle of sixteen songs, the piece could easily become a collection of 'numbers'. I think we've avoided this though, and the ballet flows around the cycle of love with the music whilst avoiding illustrating too exactly the extremely colourful words. Tomorrow I'm off to Leeds to make another musically based piece for Northern Ballet Theatre. Ironic really, that for a company renowned for their dramatic skills I am choosing to make my most abstract piece to date - yes - I'm even having them in leotards compared to my usual preference to dresses/trousers! Again, it was a situation where I'm not familiar with the individual dancers and only have three weeks to work. It didn't seem the right moment to launch into a big story but rather introduce them to my style of movement whilst becoming acquainted with their personalities and skills… if it works well you never know - there might be a next time? I think David is keen for the dancers to have the chance to be creative with someone other than him which I think is a sign of a good director - I know I appreciated guest choreographers when I was working under a choreographer/director - just for a change more than anything else. So, I will be working with Martinu's Double Concerto - scored for two strings orchestras, piano and timpani. It's huge, very exciting, rhythmic, heart-wrenching stuff. I was extremely cautious to choose it but having had some sessions with a young conductor a the Opera House, studying the score, I am now becoming obsessed with it's intricacies! I will use twelve dancers and the designs are by Jean-Mark Puissant. I have to say - I have a very good feeling about it….
I won't go into the next month as I'll save those stories but things coming up include the Royal Ballet, more of Scotland, a little of Wales and hopefully some holiday!
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