© Peter Teigen 'Secret Garden' reviews recent London Children's reviews more Graham Watts reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

The reason for this continuing success has much to do with the innate professionalism that runs throughout every aspect of the company. How many companies in London will this year perform a new full-length ballet, with a bespoke score commissioned from one of today’s rising young composers, having sold all 8,000 tickets in its season several weeks before the opening night?

The composer, 32 year-old Artem Vassiliev, is featured as a ‘Great Artist of Tomorrow’ in this month’s BBC Music magazine, describing him as ‘one of the most exciting and innovative composers around’. His score for ‘The Secret Garden’ is richly imaginative and expressive, flowing seamlessly from the early scenes in India (which themselves range from joyous party to cholera epidemic), to the windblown Yorkshire moors and into the tranquility of the walled garden. It’s a significant work in its own right, making it even more remarkable that it’s left to a children’s dance company to regularly enrich the classical repertoire of ballet music.

The unsung Patron of the Arts is the company’s founder and artistic director, Lucille Briance, who has the unerring knack inherent to the best impresarios of finding the right story year-after-year and putting together a tremendous collaborative team to make it all work.
 

Publicty image for The Secret Garden - 'Dickon and Mary'
© Peter Teigen

Christine Sundt’s choreography is a mature and very British representation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s enigmatic story, with strong shades of Ashton in her emphasis on flexible upper bodies and crisp, neat footwork. Whilst by no means simply derivative, the Ashton influence is significant, extending for example, into comedic dances for a family of robins at Misselthwaite Manor with more than a hint of the chickens in ‘La Fille mal gardèe’. Sundt’s range of movement is necessarily governed by the capabilities of her cast’s untrained bodies but she has totally refused to compromise on quality and classicism. The result is a joy to see, particularly since it shows that there is at least one young choreographer who is proud to continue in a British tradition that has roots back to Ashton and de Valois.

Looking at the ecstatic faces of parents and relatives leaving the Peacock Theatre, it would be churlish not to say that all of these youngsters are stars but, in terms of longevity and a future in dance, those that caught my eye were 14 year-olds Luke Divall and Abigail Bebbington, who shared their first-ever pas de deux with a surprising maturity; Kirby Sztanko (11) as the lead robin; and the charismatic Daisy West (11) as the ballet’s heroine, Mary Lennox. If the desire is there, I’m sure that all of these can find their way into full-time training.

I strongly recommend that balletomanes might want to extend their future talent-spotting to take in these pre-vocational students next year. Their only problem will be remembering to book a ticket months in advance!