London City Ballet
★★★★★
THE Theatre Royal Bath is in very illustrious company being the first venue on London City Ballet’s Resurgence tour as they re-emerge after 30 years in the wilderness. For 20 years following their foundation by Harold King in 1978, they were amongst the forefront of young forceful Ballet companies, enjoying tremendous success with a mixture of classic ballet and developing and showcasing modern dance work. For 13 of those years they enjoyed the patronage of Princess Diana, Princess of Wales, and it was a sad day when the battle to keep such an artistic success afloat, without massive public funding, proved to be too great a burden.
Now like a phoenix from the ashes under the drive of artistic director Christopher Marney, London City Ballet are setting out on a tour which takes them to Cambridge, Cheltenham, Windsor and York, six venues in China including Shanghai, and New York. Judging from the quality of dance that they presented to Bath audiences those cities have a great deal to look forward to.
Just 11 dancers, a beautifully recorded orchestral backing, simple skilfully lit backgrounds, and deceptively simple costumes that fit the very varied programme ideally, were all that was required to leave an indelible mark on the minds of the appreciative audience. Larina Waltz from Eugene Onegin served as an ideal introduction to the entire company and proof, if anyone required it, that all these dancers could articulate classical ballet.
Just four dancers required – Ayça Anil, Alejandro Virelles, Álvaro Madrigal and Joseph Taylor – to interpret the Kenneth MacMillan chorography for Ballade, before the mood changed violently again for the whole company to re-emerge as soloists and in small groups to bring alive the vivid images in choreographer Arielle Smith’s interpretation of Five Dances taken from John’s Book of Alleged Dances.
And waiting in the wings to retell the story of Adam, Eve and the serpent to composer Jennie Muskett’s throbbing musical sounds was the talents of virtually every member of London City Ballet. Eve highlighted every skill of those off stage, who by invisible hands, gave the dancers a canvas on which to show ability through mime and movement to make this age-old tale a fascinating dramatic event, which had the audience holding its breath waiting for the next twist in the story.
In large letters on the first page of the programme are the word Welcome Back, and these were echoed by the Bath audiences, and the hope that this tour does indeed mark a new era for this company and there will not be a break of so many years before they make a return visit to the Theatre Royal.
London City Ballet’s Resurgence tour also visits Cheltenham at the start of August as part of the UK tour prior to international dates.