United Kingdom Ballet Nights: Autumn Season 2023: Jamiel Devernay-Laurence (producer and compère). Lanterns Studio Theatre, London, 29.9.2023 (JO’D)
Close to the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf sits the low-rise, tin-roofed construction that’s Lanterns Studio Theatre. An area for manufacturing rehearsals since 2011, between now and the top of November it can host the three various programmes of dance that make up Jamiel Devernay-Laurence’s Ballet Nights: Autumn Season 2023.
A former soloist with Scottish Ballet and Founder and Artistic Director of this new ‘platform’ for classical and neo-classical ballet and modern dance, Devernay-Laurence additionally takes on the function of compère for the night. The works he introduces on the opening night time are carried out by dancers from The Royal Ballet, Northern Ballet, Yorke Dance Project, Studio Wayne McGregor and New English Ballet Theatre.
The ambiance in between the dance is of ‘stand up’. There are many whoops and cheers. But there may be silence for the Chopin and Liszt, performed onstage by Viktor Erik Emanuel, that preface the 2 components of the night; silence for the dance as is it carried out gratifyingly near the viewers on an expanse of black ground.
Programme One begins with The Royal Ballet First Soloist Melissa Hamilton, her melancholy arms, in Michel Fokine’s The Dying Swan. It continues with two dancers from Northern Ballet, Joseph Taylor and Julie Nunes, quick and fluid in You Will Get Your Wants by Gavin McCraig. Amy Thake and Edd Mitton (Yorke Dance Project) reveal the dynamics of Kenneth MacMillan’s erotically-charged pas de deux, from the ballet Isadora, by which the ground acts as a 3rd accomplice. This half of the night closes with Czárdás, a show of faucet dancing and spins choreographed and carried out – in glittering trousers and at dazzling pace – by The Royal Ballet Principal Steven McRae, who shares the stage with the pianist and the Bulgarian violinist, Vasko Vassilev.
After the Liszt, passionately performed, at first of Part Two, Constance Devernay-Laurence, lately retired from Scottish Ballet, performs the jetées and arabesques of the Gamzatti Variation from La Bayadère. In a brand new fee, London Contemporary Dance School graduate, Jordan James Bridge, contrasts these with motion that appears to undergo a boneless physique in waves. Choreographer Peter Leung permits the dancers of New English Ballet Theatre to indicate their ability as an ensemble, and girls partnering one another, in All In Passing, though the piece itself goes on too lengthy.
The night ends on a powerful word with Melissa Hamilton (First Soloist of The Royal Ballet) and Ryoichi Hirano (Principal of The Royal Ballet and lately a Guest Principal with Scottish Ballet) in Kenneth MacMillan’s cool, contemplative, second-movement pas de deux from Concerto, to music by Shostakovich. The lady reveals no consciousness of her accomplice. She merely makes use of him as a barre or lets him carry her physique in its mounted positions.
The second programme of Ballet Nights: Autumn Season 2023 consists of work by Musa Motha, Bella Lewitzky, David Dawson and Pett/Clausen Knight. The third, a Grande Finale, lists choreographies from Joshua Junker, Robert Cohan, Yasser D’Oquendo and Marius Petipa. Dancers from English National Ballet and Rambert carry out. Like a Sergei Diaghilev de nos jours, Jamiel Devernay-Laurence places London E14 on the dance map.
John O’Dwyer
The Dying Swan
Choreography – Michel Fokine
Composer – Camille Saint-Saëns
Cello – Moira Hartley
Piano – Viktor Erik Emanuel
Dancer – Melissa Hamilton
You Get Your Wants
Choreographer – Gavin McCraig
Composer – Oliver Davis
Dancers – Joseph Taylor and Julie Nunes
Isadora (Excerpts)
Choreography – Kenneth MacMillan
Composer – Richard Rodney Bennett
Dancers – Amy Thake and Edd Mitton
Czárdás
Choreography – Steven McRae
Composer – Vittorio Monti
Violin – Vasko Vassilev
Piano – Viktor Erik Emanuel
Dancer – Steven McRae
Gamzatti Variation from La Bayadère
Choreography – Marius Petipa
Composer – Ludwig Minkus
Dancer – Constance Devernay-Laurence
New Commission
Choreographer – Jordan James Bridge
Music – Rival Console
Dancer – Jordan James Bridge
All In Passing
Choreography – Peter Leung
Music – Nicholas Thayer
Dancers – New English Ballet Theatre
Concerto: Second Movement Pas De Deux
Choreography – Kenneth MacMillan
Composer – Dimitri Shostakovich
Dancers – Melissa Hamilton and Ryoichi Hirano