{"id":1143,"date":"2020-03-05T12:19:43","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T12:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2020-03-05T12:19:45","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T12:19:45","slug":"swan-lake-at-the-lowry-until-7th-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/03\/05\/swan-lake-at-the-lowry-until-7th-march\/","title":{"rendered":"SWAN LAKE AT THE LOWRY UNTIL 7TH MARCH"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SWAN LAKE AT THE LOWRY <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

UNTIL 7TH<\/sup> MARCH<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was working with SpiralDance a few years ago, as creative\nwriting facilitator on a project with disaffected and disengaged children in\nwhat was then a deprived area of Rochdale MBC. It had been a funded project and\nsomehow we had some money left over at the completion of what had been quite a\nsuccessful course, and the funder kindly allowed is to \u00b4use it wisely\u00b4 for the\nchildren rather than return it. It was decided between the SpiralDance leader,\nCatherine Wiles, and the Borough\u00b4s fantastic arts officer, the late Beate\nMeilemeir, that we should take the group to a production of Matthew Bourne\u00b4s\nSwan Lake at The Lowry Theatre In Salford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pessimist in me feared the kids would be bored to death and\nthat, being ten, eleven and twelve years old they would be up and down for ice\ncreams all night like Del Boy at the opera. I even feared they might be\nsomewhat disruptive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lowry, though, treated the children like VIP guests, taking\nthem on to a darkened stage before performance time, and then turning on the\nlights and showing them the theatre in all its glory. An hour or so later, we\nwere all in our seats, and the music struck up and the curtains drew back, and\nthe ballet artists danced on to the stage. The little lad in front of me, who I\nhad grown to like immensely despite him always stretching my patience to the\nlimit and then snapping it by always insisitign on the last word, audibly\ngasped in amazement, and was so struck by the spectacle that he started to sob.\nHe continued to do so throughout the performance, helplessly and unashamedly,and\nI am as sure as I can be that the evening changed his life forever in a\npositive manner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Swan Lake<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Now, I see that The Birmingham Royal Ballet production of Swan\nLake is reprising a production that was originally staged almost forty years\nago by Peter Wright and Galina Samsova – though of course the tale itself is\nmuch older.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Manchester Evening News (MEN) review\nI stumblerd into when I pressed the wrong button reminded me that Tschaikovsky’s\n19th century ballet follows Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil\nsorcerer’s curse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This version doesn’t disappoint as the\nMEN tells us that  it’s the perfect\nmarriage of Tschaikovsky’s score and powerful dance performances, from dancers\nwho are both graceful and athletic and utterly mesmerising. (it was that word\nthat reminded me of the sotory I have re-told above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The set gives a sense, says the MEN, of\nthe dark story to come, beneath a canopy of trees and dark marble columns by a\ngloomy lakeside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stage is so vast that dancers with less presence and aura\naround them could have easily been overwhelmed by, but MEN\u00b4s writer describes Momoko\nHirata is a faultless Odette\/Odile, playing the role with humour and the\ninevitable grace and strength that it demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is entrancing, the reviewer notes, from the off, switching\nbetween a sorrow-stricken woman and a swan, with delicate swan-like movements\nof her arm and head dips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flock are wonderful – the cygnets’\nintricate dance and swan maidens Yu Kurihara and Yuki Sugiura intriguing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s applause for Hirata in the\ndramatic Act Three, when she becomes the black swan Odile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She performs 32 fouette turns, revolving\non one leg repeatedly without letting the raised leg ever touch the ground. She\nspins and spins with the equally accomplished Prince Siegfried, danced by Cesar\nMorales, supporting her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a synchronicity revealed, too,\nin the Manchester Evening News in that the reporter hears someone nearby gasps:\n“Wow” and even a reviewer who will have seen it all, agrees that it’s\na ‘wow’ moment, in the same way as that performance I saw was to the young\nmiscreant in our group<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Evening News review tells us that the\npair of ballet dancers looked delighted with the spontaneous mid-performance\napplause and whoops from the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The music, too, conducted by Philip\nEllis, and played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia was matched perfectly to the\nintricate choreography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s important not to forget Benno,\ndanced by Tzu-Chao Chou, who is an outstanding dancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He’s a tiny powerhouse with a commanding\npresence across the stage with his jumps, as light and impressive as the puffy\nsleeves in his costume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swan Lake is completely sublime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be at the Lowry until Saturday\nMarch 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have \u00b4pinched\u00b4 more\nof the MEN that I would usually do but I hope writer Helen Carter will forgive\nme, not because I wrote arts-reviews for them the paper for many years but\nbecause they will realise that I only want to make sure as many people as possible\nknow of the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SWAN LAKE AT THE LOWRY UNTIL 7TH MARCH I was working with SpiralDance a few years ago, as creative writing facilitator on a project with disaffected and disengaged children in what was then a deprived area of Rochdale MBC. It had been a funded project and somehow we had some money left over at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}