Lumley digs for victory in battle of Garden Bridge
Criticism of the standard of British dancers must be put into a wider context if we want young people to succeed
HER fighting spirit helped to win rights for the Gurkhas. Now Joanna Lumley is turning her fire on a new target — critics of plans for a £175 million Garden Bridge across the Thames.
The ac tress said the projec t had become beset with inaccurate myths and “because we didn’t hit each myth with a mallet, some have taken root”.
Plans for the bridge between Temple and the South Bank were unveiled two years ago in a wave of enthusiasm. But since then critics have said it will cost too much, the public will have to pick up the bill, plants will die and the three million extra visitors expected will flood an area already full of tourists.
Speaking with the support of Bee Emmott, executive director of the Gar- den Bridge Trust, and chairman Lord Mervyn Davies, Lumley dismissed these and other criticisms.
She said the bridge, a long-held dream of her own being fulfilled by designer/ architect Thomas Heatherwick, would improve the capital’s health by encour- aging more people to walk from Waterloo to Temple and on into Covent Garden and Fleet Street.
The location is the longest stretch in central London without a bridge. She said: “It’s terribly important people understand we’re not building a tour- ist attraction. People to begin with will rush to see the bridge but eventually that will die down and it will become part of London that people use. It will be an extremely beautiful, unexpected loveliness in London.”
Far from damaging views of St Paul’s Cathedral, it would enable people to get a better look. “We will have the most unbelievable new views of St Paul’s which will be very lovely,” she said.
She added that plants suitable for the environment were being chosen so they would thrive. The bridge would be free, there would be no turnstiles, and the extra visitors would be spread across the 2,500 square metres of new garden. It is one of half a dozen new crossings being backed by Transport for London, which is providing £30 million of funding. But Lumley and Lord Davies said the Garden Bridge was progressing swiftly because 65 per cent of investment was from private donors.
Another £30 million has been pledged by Chancellor George Osborne but he would recoup around £28 million of the investment from VAT to be paid on the construction, they said.
Around 90 per cent of respondents backed the scheme during a consultation. But it is facing a High Court challenge from Michael Ball, the former head of the Waterloo Communit y Development Group, who believes L ambeth council wrongly granted planning consent.
THE other day, I was sitting in the cafeteria at the Laban building in south London, idly watching student dancers stroll up the path. Behind them, looking like just another young wannabe, came Sylvie Guillem, one of the greatest dancers of this or any generation, heading for a rehearsal in the theatre, putting in another of the punishing, lengthy days that have made her a star for some 30 years.
A question struck me with some force: what makes one dancer so outstanding, where others will never make their mark? How can young people, dreaming of the limelight, make sure that their talent is nurtured and noticed? Would any of the dancers trailing bags full of dance kit and clutching hydrating drinks have the ability and the appetite to launch and sustain careers in dance?
It’s a thought that has suddenly gained traction thanks to concerns raised by three leading choreographers about the standard of contemporary dance training in the UK. Akram Khan, Lloyd Newson of DV8 Physical Theatre, and Hofesh Shechter have argued that — in Shechter’s words — British dancers are “consistently outclassed by fitter, stronger and more versatile” dancers trained internationally.
They lay the blame at the door of the three main contemporary dance schools — the London School of Contemporary Dance, Trinity Laban and the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. As reported in yesterday’s Evening Standard, ahead of a debate on the subject at the UK Dance Conference this weekend, Newson says many dancers studying in the UK “lack rigour, technique and performance skills”. Khan adds: “I am concerned that somewhere, somehow, the training young dancers go through in the UK is not supporting them in the rigour, technique and discipline that I am looking for in a dancer.”
Rigour, technique and discipline. It’s those three words that are key — and they echo something that Tamara Rojo, director of English National Ballet, said earlier this week when she suggested that many of today’s children lacked the discipline to succeed. “Do we want to promote instant success and instant failure, or do we want to promote selfesteem and hard work?” she asked.
This sense that somehow we are failing children by asking too little of them gives this dance debate wide resonance. Dance is one of those rare areas — like classical music and sporting achievement — where you actually have to learn something and practise it to succeed. Simple talent is never enough. Guillem may have been blessed with extraordinary physical facility but she has worked every day since she was 11 years old to refine and burnish that innate gift.
Rojo admits that her success was based on persistence; she lacked flexibility and had to work harder than most to build her flawless technique. Khan told me that when he was a child his little sister was better at the Indian classical Kathak dance in which he first trained. “But she didn’t really put in that many hours because she knew she had the talent. Yet the talent doesn’t grow. What grows is your training and the amount of hours you put into it. And at a certain point, I surpassed her because I was so committed to being better than her.”
This is at the root of his concerns about the current state of training, which means employment rates for British graduates of the schools for dancers and choreographers are worryingly low. And perhaps what is true for dance is true elsewhere. Farooq Chaudhry, producer for the Akram Khan Company and himself a former dancer, says: “Across our whole education system there’s a drop in expectation. There’s an obsessive politically correct sense of democracy where everyone is treated equally and that means with the same light touch. There’s been a cultural shift in trying to be fairer and not hurting people’s feelings.”
This chimes with research Newson did among graduates from London Contemporary Dance School who complained that teachers “were too nice” and did not expect enough of them. Their anxiety to learn, to be pushed, speaks volumes. Chaudhry says having dancers who were better than him in his class inspired rather than depressed him. “Fear of undermining people emotionally is doing them a disservice.”
Part of the problem is dance itself has its own mythology of failure. Anyone who has seen Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes driven to suicide by the demands of her art, or watched Natalie Portman unravel and peel off her own skin in Black Swan has a heightened awareness of the dangers of a demanding and selfcritical profession. But the truth is toughness in training does not always equate to brutalit y or unkindness. “Dance training that doesn’t prepare dancers for the profession and employment is unkind,” says Newson, firmly.
Dance requires a unique combination of artistry, strength and stamina. Male ballet dancers can knock most sports stars out of the ballpark in terms of power and endurance. To be the best, they need to train as ferociously as any athlete. Yet whereas competitiveness and the pursuit of excellence is encouraged in sport, in dance there has been a tendency to value self-expression over physical ability and aptitude.
That is undoubtedly part of our cockeyed attitude to excellence. We want to be thrilled by Guillem, Rojo and Khan. But we aren’t prepared to look with clear enough eyes at the dedication and discipline that lies behind their brilliance. We want to see dancers as expressive as those in DV8 but don’t recognise the years that have honed their movement and acting skills.
To be blind to such truths is self-defeating. The schools have reacted defensively, but a better response is to recognise that the questions these leading cultural figures are asking have a relevance far beyond the world of contemporary dance. If we want our young people to thrive and grow to the best of their ability, we should suggest that very little in life is achieved without effort. If we want to cultivate the best in ourselves and others, we need to recognise that gardening is back-breaking work — but the results can be glorious.
We want to be thrilled by Guillem, Rojo and Khan. But we aren’t prepared to look with clear enough eyes at the dedication and discipline that lies behind their brilliance