Daniel Jones Diary

Superheroes

Is it unusual for a man to say as he leaves his workplace, “See you later, I’m off to ballet.”? That’s what these men were saying, and to me they seemed quite happy.

‘Men in Tights’ was without a doubt, a wonderful experience and now that a couple of months have passed since it was first aired on ITV1 on October 21st 2003, it’s hard to believe it really happened. It was while I was on tour with English National Ballet in Bristol, just over a year ago that I was first asked if I’d ever had an idea for a television programme. I never imagined that the words that I jotted down on a scrap piece of paper would be the start of an incredible ballet adventure.
Obviously I couldn’t have done anything without the wonderful support of everyone involved. So firstly, a giant thankyou to Jackie Hill-Murphy, the executive producer-Helen Royle, the fitness expert-Dominic Hickie, the cool cameraman-Simon Niblett, Maria Morley and Jessica Auty at Granada Bristol, English National Ballet, Swan Hunter, the costume designer Jamie Attle, the pianist-Jonathan Still, the Producer and Director, Southan Morris, and many others, who all helped to make ‘Men in Tights’ a very positive journey. This would of course been nothing without the volunteers who became heroes from Newcastle upon Tyne - Bill Blayney, Mark Cuggy, Steven Driver, Jason Lowery, Karl McGraw, Brian Mills, Neil Newton, and William Wilson.

A Swan Crane at Swan Hunter ship yard Photo © Daniel Jones

I have to say, when I was told I had just four weeks to train eight men to be ballet dancers I knew that I had to be careful with what I could expect from them. This was of course assuming there would be men that would want to do it. I made a personal note to myself from the very beginning that I wanted to give the men a fulfilling experience and I wasn’t going to tell them what they couldn’t do, but focus on telling them what they could do.
Of course there is a certain expectancy when one goes to the ballet as to what male ballet dancers should look like, but at the audition I couldn’t just go for a look, as for four weeks what I would need from the volunteers was commitment, trust and the knowledge that whoever was taking part was actually going to get something out of it themselves. My main goal was to get to the end of the project with all involved feeling like they had experienced something they never thought was possible. Whether it was personal achievement or doing ballet itself it didn’t really matter, as long as they made it.

Making it happen was obviously the challenge that was on my shoulders and so I approached Dominic Hickie, a former dancer with English National Ballet, who is qualified in various methods of sports therapy, to help me to decide how far I could safely push them and what training methods would be best to use so that I could get the most out of them in such a short period.
Immediately after the audition I worked with the men everyday, mostly between six and nine o’clock in the evening. We had to start this late as for the first couple of weeks all the men went to work at Swan Hunter shipyard from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon. Bill Blaney was the only exception as he had a weeks holiday from the shipyard during the second week, so Bill would come earlier than the rest which made it possible to start choreographing the ballet on him before the others arrived. This was of course when he wasn’t committed to his two other passions, kickboxing and motorbike racing. Surprisingly, this caused tension between the men as some thought that I was showing favouritism towards Bill by spending more time with him but it was only for practical reasons and if I could I would have been working with them all for longer hours. I was shocked by how competitive the men were with my time and attention, and I used a lot of my own energy trying to be fair with my attention as to keep the whole group as balanced as possible.
During their training I would break up the time working on various methods of general fitness, and more specific ballet training. With pen and paper in hand they would also write down the names of steps and anything that would help them to remember a certain sequence. When I say anything, I mean anything. As long as they knew what they meant that was all that mattered. This lead to some moments that I will cherish for ever and one moment that was very special was when I was showing them a certain step which I wanted to be more of a slide than a jump when I was interrupted by one of the men, Neil Newton who questioned me by asking,
“Don’t you mean you want more of a chassé than a jeté?”
This was followed by the rest of the room chanting
“Who’s just booked their ticket to London?”

Without going into too much detail of the ballet training I will say that a lot of time was spent in front of the mirror analysing positions. This may sound very obvious but I was very aware that the volunteers had never spent so much times staring at themselves and I tried to make them feel as comfortable about it as possible. It was in front of the mirror that they acquired the feeling of how a dancer holds their posture and presents their arms. I would also get them to imagine how they could dominate a room just by using their posture. This would make them stand tall, with their shoulders down, and each of them would begin to look somewhat graceful. I can’t pretend I didn’t notice how much they were starting to enjoy seeing themselves improve on a daily basis. What was even more impressive was how quickly they began correcting each other, in their Geordie accent, which would be followed by a look of reassurance towards me, to check if they were saying the right thing.

So what were eight male shipyard workers doing in a ballet studio correcting each others technique? I think to start with it was the challenge that attracted them. I know myself that it was partly the challenge of ballet that persuaded me to give it a go many years ago and see if I could do it.
At no stage were the men under any obligation to get to the end of the performance. What they said or did was completely their choice and they could have walked away at any moment and saved themselves the risk of humiliation in front of their workmates, friends and family. What happened was they didn’t walk away, and after the performance at the shipyard they didn’t stop thanking everyone for the incredible experience they had just had. “When are we doing it again?” they would ask. “I can’t believe it’s over” they would say. Their workmates, friends and family were clearly emotionally touched by their achievement and the complements didn’t stop flowing. Maybe it was an experience that will be talked about down the pub for years to come. But isn’t everything that matters discussed in the pub?

Although there were ups and downs along the way, the volunteers clearly enjoyed dancing. I do believe that ballet, or any other form of physically expressive movement to music can give a lot of pleasure to those doing it, and if it was their first time experiencing male dancing then they were probably surprised to be enjoying it so much. Will they continue their ballet studies? I don’t know, but when the show was over, the following day I travelled back to London without the lads. I headed back to the studios of English National Ballet where I went straight into rehearsals for Michael Corder’s Cinderella. I knew that the lads were going back to work in the shipyard and I wondered what it was going to be like for them now that it was all over and their workmates had seen them dance.
The next morning my phone rang at eight o’clock in the morning, it was Brian Mills, one my Geordie students,
“Dan we are heroes!” he exclaimed.
“I know that” I replied
“Dan, the lads on the yard say the show was brilliant and they’re calling us heroes”
“You are heroes… Superheroes”

Neil Newton, Steven Driver, Jason Lowery,Fernanda Oliveira, Karl McGraw and Bill Blayney with friends and family in Liverpool where they saw English National Ballet perform Christopher Hampson's Nutcracker at the Empire theatre Photo © Daniel Jones