SCOTTISH Ballet have launched their brand new programme for 2016/2017.
The national dance company has promised a mixture of brand new choreography, brand new ballet and the return of an old favourite.
Although it’s 60 years since the company technically started – back then it was Western Theatre Ballet in Bristol – it was only in 1969, after a move to Glasgow, that the Scottish Theatre Ballet company was born.
WHAT'S ON?
PERHAPS the biggest show of the year will be the brand new production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. It’s the first time the company have put Swan Lake on since 1995.
For this they’ve commissioned brand new choreography from David Dawson, one of the most exciting dance talents in the world. Dawson’s moves, the company say, “stay true to his visceral and inventive style,” and this Swan Lake “strips away the artifice, focusing on the core themes of ideal love, femininity and betrayal”.
Swan Lake will tour to Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Liverpool in April, May and June.
As well as Swan Lake, there’s a double-bill of brand new work by Crystal Pite and Sophie Laplane. It will be the first production of Pite’s work in the UK. The Associate Artist at Sadler’s Wells will present Emergence, which has already been performed in Canada and the US, winning a slew of awards.
Paris-born Laplane has been a dancer with Scottish Ballet since 2004, but over the last few years has started making a name for herself as a choreographer. Her work Maze opened the company’s autumn season last year.
These shows will head out to Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness in September and October.
Next winter sees the return of Hansel and Gretel, the company’s Christmas show. Put together by the company’s artistic director and CEO, Christopher Hampson, this work, set to the music of Engelbert Humperdinck, will, the company say, be “a carousel of delicious treats from start to finish”.
Like other national performing companies, Scottish Ballet receive direct funding from the Scottish Government and have a commitment to public engagement and working with groups who might otherwise not get the chance to see or take part in dance.
Also announced in the launch was a collaboration with Edinburgh’s Dance Base and Dr Donald Grosset, from the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, on a dance project for people with Parkinson’s disease.
There’s also The Close, where the company work with 70 pupils from the Kibble Education and Care Centre in Paisley and Gorgie Mills School in Edinburgh.
The 11 to 18-year-olds have all been excluded from mainstream education. It is, according to the company, “an innovative way of inspiring marginalised and at-risk young people, positively affecting their lives by building confidence and directly contributing t o their ability to co-operate with each other through the arts”.
WHAT ARE THEY SAYING?
CHRISTOPHER Hampson explained: “Our upcoming year is replete with creative voices.
“David Dawson will push the boundaries of classical ballet in our new production of Swan Lake, providing us with a bold addition to the repertoire.”
Mary Brennan, the dance critic for The Herald, said of Cinderella, which is still touring: “Hampson is constantly looking beyond his established principals to the promising talent that’s emerging – on opening night Bethany Kingsley-Garner was Cinderella to Christopher Harrison’s Prince.
“Mid-week, Sophie Martin – who along with fellow principal Eve Mutso had initially galumphed with gusto as the Step-Sisters – was a touchingly wistful dreamer who found tender security in the arms of Andrew Peasgood’s Prince.
“There’s an open, easy grace to Peasgood that glosses over the technical challenges of the role: you see interpretation, not effort.
“Madeline Squire and Aisling Brangan were hilariously gawky as those meanie Step-Sisters, while Eve Mutso’s Fairy Godmother, like a breath of perfumed elegance, was the mystical spirit of the rose that is Hampson’s central motif.
“Mutso leaves the company after this tour, her exquisite performance here is one to cherish.”
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