British Gas Ballet Central (BGBC) is the name of the company that tours extensively each year with final year students from the Central School of Ballet. This year's tour has taken in 25 theatres from Kirkcaldy to Chipping Norton and we saw them in Crawley, prior to their last shows in London (on the 7 & 10 July at the Cochrane Theatre - 0171 242 7040).
Ballet Central was founded by Christopher Gable, the Northern Ballet Theatre Artistic Director who sadly died last year. While there are associations with NBT, Ballet Central is very much about training all-round dancers and you won't find a particularly heavy emphasis on narrative or balletic works in the repertoire. Margaret Barbieri and London Studio Centre's Images of Dance also takes out a group of young dancers being prepared to join companies and both schools/companies represent great ways to see dance at a great price and locally as well. What's more you also get to see some pieces of choreography that you would not ordinarily.
The man responsible for running the BGBC show is Greg Horsman the former ENB Principal who 'retired' from dancing last year to take up his post. He has no regrets and enjoys teaching and bringing out the most in students, the only problem seems to be that it's more tiring than dancing!
Eight diverse pieces were performed, and it all cantered along rather smartly. Here are some thumbnail views:
Celebration
by Gable and to live piano and recorded cello (composed by Philip Fenney). An exciting opening piece with lots of things going on as young dancers come together this way and that (it's not much of a plot, but then it's a fun piece!). In ballet garb the only thing that jarred a little was some of the non-ballet physiques of the boys. In less classical pieces, with more normal costumes and styles, everything looked fine of course. If one ever needed reminding, classical style is ruthless of technique and body type.
Les Eumenydes
Inspired by the Greek legend of the three furies guarding hell and choreographed by Bernard Courtot de Bouteiller. Originally created for an ENB workshop, it's very sad that this has not had a wider showing by ENB. It is ballet, but inspired by an oriental and rather angular look. Each of the girls got a dramatic solo and we particularly liked Gemma Payne. But the standard overall was terrific and this piece made the biggest impression on the night. And the music was great as well, featuring some haunting chants.
The Waiting Seed
A dramatic piece involving a boy in jail and the visit of his mum and sister. Some notes on the story might have been helpful I think - in a short piece like this, you can't dawdle - characters have to be clearly established.
Fallen Angel
A pdd by Michael Pink (he of NBT Assistant AD fame)- Christopher Smith looked good in this and also in the pdd he did in the first piece (Celebration).
The Beano
By Sara Matthews (ex Rambert). A happy story piece about and named after the factory visits to the seaside earlier in the century. I found it similar in feel to Kol Simcha by Didy Veldman. Simple and effective.
Kiss Kiss
The interplay between 2 couples to an electronic score. I liked it at the time, but all memory has now deserted me on this. Not sure if this is good or bad...
La Favorita
a pdd by Greg Horsman based on the great 19th Century classics... real tutu etc and the sort of piece that people hope to see when they come to nights like this. Alex Newton and Christopher James brought it all together, but only just at times - if classical style was easy everybody would be doing it of course.
Blast Off !!
A final piece for the complete company. Pretty slick stuff to House music and featuring some great bell bottom costumes - the overall feel was post modern Pan's People (but with blokes as well of course). Yet again I noticed some excellent lighting - a feature of the whole evening. It really helped create a different atmosphere each time and was used boldly and with style.
Everybody seemed to enjoy the night - not a long face to be seen. I'm not sure if all BGBC programmes pack quite so much in, but I found it an interesting change and it underlined the varied dance nature of what the school teaches. It would be interesting to see how they would get on with a more sustained longer-length work of say 40 or more minutes. But perhaps that is for another year and certainly for another bunch of dancers - this year's lot are all off being auditioned here, there and everywhere it seems. I wish them all well and thank one and all for a good night.
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