Daniel Jones Diary

Ballet in Barcelona 2006

Terminal

Another international tour means another flight, and so I headed to the appropriate terminal.

Terminal. Wouldn’t it have been better to call them something slightly more encouraging? Actually, I nearly didn’t even make it to Barcelona at all, due to the ongoing security dramas at Heathrow airport. Despite preparing the right size hand luggage, and checking my suitcase in over an hour before take off, the queue to get through security was hardly moving and there were hundreds of passengers desperate to get on their flight. In the end there was an announcement that the flight to Barcelona was about to depart, and so I was rushed through security ahead of many angry faces, and managed get to the departure gate just in time.

Three Men and a Mechanic

Before I could venture anywhere in the land of Barcelona I had to solve a couple of problems.

Problem 1 - when I exited the aircraft in Barcelona, I followed the signs to what I thought would take me to collect my baggage. Wrong. I had gone to the wrong baggage reclaim hall and had passed a door that was exit only, so I couldn’t go back.
To find my suitcase I had to queue up, go back through security, explain to the Spanish police why I was trying to get back in the airport when I had only just disembarked, and then try and find baggage hall B. Fortunately, by the time I found baggage hall B, my lonely suitcase was still spinning around in another room and I was free to leave the airport.

Problem 2 – I arrived at the Hotel Royal Barcelona (which sounds grander than it actually was), unpacked my suitcase and went to start exploring Barcelona, except leaving the room wasn’t possible.
For some reason, my hotel room door wouldn’t shut. So I tried every possible door shutting combination. I twisted the handle with the key in, without the key in, without twisting, violently, gently. Then I watched as two Spanish receptionists tried everything I had just tried. Eventually the receptionists called a mechanic, who swiftly arrived and solved the problem that three men couldn’t fix. He screwed in the loose screw, enabling me to be free to venture into the land of Barcelona.

Sitting on the top of Montserrat. Photo © Daniel Jones

Fish Cravings

This tour was actually my second tour with English National Ballet to Barcelona, (In 2004 we performed Christopher Hampson’s Double Concerto, Derek Deane’s Swan Lake Act 2, and Michael Corder’s Melody on the Move) so this time, when I wasn’t doing ballet, I wanted to venture further a field than the city itself.
Sitges is a beautiful holiday resort, just forty minutes outside of Barcelona by train. By the time I arrived in Sitges it was post-siesta time and the place was starting to liven up. I meandered around the pretty boutiques, and had a very English paddle in the sea (I almost got my shins wet), and then searched for a seafood restaurant that could satisfy my sudden fish craving. I wish I could have spent more time there but I was in Spain to dance. And so after enjoying some tender tuna, I headed back to the city that was very much alive and buzzing.

Daniel Jones the Photographer in Sitges. Photo © Kei Akahoshi

Giselle

The Gran Teatre del Liceu was where I was to perform in eight shows of Mary Skeaping’s production of Giselle. The production is apparently faithful to the original that was performed in 1841 and although I wasn’t around in 1841, and there is no DVD available on Amazon that I’m aware of, Mary Skeaping’s version does look and feel very authentic. It’s amazing how easy it will be in the future to replicate everything that we are doing now, I just hope hologram dancers aren’t created for at least another few years as I’m quite enjoying dancing.

The view from the stage at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Photo © Daniel Jones

During the following ten days I was cast to perform the Duke of Courland and Hilarion at various performances, and due to injuries I made a guest appearance as The Man in Black. (The man in black creates the special effect of a flying Giselle in Act 2 but I don’t want to give too many secrets away as it may spoil the illusion)

Ex English National Ballet dancers Tamara Rojo and Jose Manuel Carreño were guesting with us during the week and so there was rather a nostalgic feeling about the tour. I hadn’t seen Jose for 14 years and he looked exactly the same as he did all that time ago – amazing what ballet does for you.

Although I really enjoy playing the part of Hilarion, I feel very sorry for him. He is the most honest man in the ballet, and yet he has such an anti-climatic death compared to Albrecht who is a liar, a cheat, a user and filthy rich. Quite a few reasons there not to like Albrecht, but somehow he never gets booed when he comes on stage to take a bow. I have seen interpretations where Hilarion comes across as the bad guy, but I think this is slightly unfair. Hilarion is in love, and has a naïve belief that Giselle will love him for revealing that the man she thinks she loves is a liar. Unfortunately his actions backfire but that wasn’t his intention. Hilarion’s just fallen for the wrong woman, at the wrong time, and he forgot that people love a rebel, not the honest, sensitive, loser – he's boring.

The nearly finished Sagrada Familia. Photo © Daniel Jones

The Making Of

I couldn’t visit Barcelona again without returning to Gaudi’s masterpiece Sagrada Familia. Like the rest of the world, I just wondered if it had been finished yet. No. Nowhere near actually; in fact I’ll be lucky if it’s finished in my lifetime at all. That’s a building that had it first stone laid on 19th of March 1882. Ok, so it’s 2006, and builders charge a lot more now, but come on, if this was in London I really do think that people would be suspicious that the unfinished business was becoming part of the attraction. I mean, that’s twice now that I have paid to visit the world’s most famous building site and although it’s impressive I just want to see it finished. I wonder if those working on Wembley stadium are thinking, hey, wait a minute, maybe we could drag this out a little longer, maybe another 120 years or so, and then sell tickets to tourists and tell them that it will be finished but not in their life time, imagine the cash! In fact why do we ever finish anything? "The making of…" is always my favourite bit on a DVD. Just make "The making of..." without actually making it. That’s what they’re doing in Eixample Barcelona, and it’s working.

The Grim Reaper Entertaining on Las Ramblas. Photo © Daniel Jones

The Grim Reaper

What I see on my journey from the hotel to the theatre is often what I remember most about a city.
As I spend most of my time in the theatre it’s sometimes all I get to see of the outside world. In Barcelona the hotel was on the same street as the theatre so to get to work was just a ten-minute walk along the most famous street in Spain, Las Ramblas. Every morning I walked down Las Ramblas and I would see two men on bicycles attached to skeletons dressed in worn-out silver. Then I would pass a skinny man dressed as a green goblin smiling violently. Then I would see a man and a woman dressed in bright white 70’s outfits, with sunglasses and a disco ball hanging above their heads. There was a man painted white, reading a book, sitting on a bright white toilet with his trousers around his ankles and sometimes I would even see a man dressed as the grim reaper. Had I been entertained by the mime artists? I’m not sure but it certainly made for a unique journey in a unique city – Barcelona.