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Tori Trotter- Thursday Morning Contemporary Ballet at Pineapple Dance Studios-

Off the Covent Garden Tube Stop (or subway station to United State-siders) if you turn one way you will be swept up by a carnival abounding with comedian sorcerers, magic clowns, moving bronze statues, flirting opera singers, juggling unicyclists, and countless shops and stalls eagerly offering you a cornucopia of ways to part with your hard earned cash. If you get caught in this swarm, you will gladly spend, it is all part of the seduction of Eliza Doolittle’s old stomping ground. However, if you head in the opposite direction, away from the melee, and walk up a narrow alley called Langley Street you can instead pay about 10 pounds -- approximately 20 dollars US-- to take a dance class at Pineapple Dance Studios (this includes class fee and a membership fee to use the facilities). Think of all the money you will save.

Almost as colorful as Covent Garden is the array of classes offered at Pineapple Studios. Not only are there the usual ballet, jazz, and yoga but there are also a dizzying selection of combinations: LA Jazz, Jazz Azian, Commercial Jazz, Street Jazz, Technical Commercial Jazz, (Technical Commercial Jazz?) American Street Lockin, Michael Jackson Style Dance, MiloTech, Hip Hop Funk, Hip Hop Blend, Hip Hop Raw, New Age Hip Hop, Street Hip Hop, Ahheehop, Poppin, Street Flava, Bollywood and Bhangra Grooves, Bollywood Street, Fuzion Funk, Zoo Nation, also Cheerleading, Rock and Roll Burlesque and even Pole Dancing (you have to be over sixteen to take that one-yippee I’m in) Despite all the variety, the mornings open rather simply with 10:30 am Advanced Classical and Contemporary Ballet classes, and 12 pm Beginner Intermediate Jazz .

One of the most popular day courses is Victoria (Tori) Trotter’s Contemporary Ballet Class. There you will find professional dancers from the English National Ballet plie ing at the barre with country-hopping, auditioning professionals, fully stage made-up hoofers warming up prior to their West End Show, former performers staying in shape, people who just gotta move, and a couple of shy prim ballet students fresh out of some academy or another.

Everyday Trotter is accompanied by a live pianist - except for Thursdays when she teaches to African and Brazilian Drum Percussion. This musical choice is quite a hit with the class. Even though the accompaniment isn’t live, the insistent beat commands a body to move with intensity and freedom - best of all its fun.

The decision to use drums arose for financial reasons: teachers pay the musicians out of the fee they charge for class and Trotter realized that not only did she need to save some money, but she also wanted to create a flexible situation where she could guest teach sans live music. Her experiment worked well. Students jammed in the narrow halls of Pineapple awaiting their lesson press themselves against the windows of Trotter’s studio and whisper, “Tomorrow morning I’m coming here.”

Before moving to London, Trotter performed with the Australian Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater. Having to dance across the stages of large opera houses taught this petite artist to move big. Working with the likes of Jiri Kylian, Nacho Duato, and Ohad Narin taught her that choreographers are not as interested in technical machines as they are in artists who bring their individual spirit to work.

From the very beginning of her class one immediately begins to devour space: the lesson starts with small weight transfers, spirals of the upper body, shifts from parallel to turned out positions, and then gets grander in its scope, urging dancers to give up control, let their body weight fall and recover, then dig into the floor as they move across it, using the opposition of pressing against the ground to create the lift and support for the movement of the upper torso.

Trotter’s lesson plan supports the development of resilient movers not afraid to take risks. She tries to create a comfortable atmosphere in order to draw out the individuality and zest of each participant. “The technique has to work for you,” she pronounces. “Here we go.”

Dancing begins.

Night and Day at Greenwich Dance Agency-

GDA offers daily professional contemporary class with live accompaniment at bargain rates-only 4 pounds (eight US dollars) a pop. Every week there is a different teacher instructing the group, so if you are in town for awhile and would like to get a sense of what choreographers in the UK are up to, come here.

Unlike Pineapple Dance Studios located in the commercial West End Theater district, Greenwich Dance Agency (GDA), a government subsidized community organization, is situated in the more affordable and low-key South of London where many artists live. From renting rehearsal space to taking advantage of performing opportunities, from taking professional classes to attending dance conversations and regular informal performances, everyone --professional dancers and non, young children, seniors, people with disabilities, mixed abilities etc.-- is welcome to gather under this one friendly slightly worn roof to explore terpsichorean possibilities.

GDA offers daily professional contemporary class with live accompaniment at bargain rates-only 4 pounds (eight US dollars) a pop. Every week there is a different teacher instructing the group, so if you are in town for awhile and would like to get a sense of what choreographers in the UK are up to, come here.

Ben Ash independent choreographer and member of a dance co-operative called The Dog Kennel Hill Project, was leading professional class when we attended. With an understated directness, Ash requires his students to hone their awareness of movement initiation and energy expenditure. When do you perform an action, when do you let it happen? Is the movement initiated from a turn of the head, or the jutting out of one side of the pelvis? How can you fall around an imagined tilted axis in space? Where can you find the opportunity to glide? Ash plays with specificity and subtlety and encourages his class to examine their endeavors. As the class concluded, Ash bid the dancers to attempt to radically change the way they had been approaching the day’s work.

“Approach (the movement) as if there is no in between, as if everything is part of a whole. Then change the approach. If you know the steps, try to concentrate on the use of space. If you aren’t confident with the steps think of simply dancing.” While the students fell and floated from the floor – the talented Christopher Benstead accompanied them, supporting their efforts with his mesmerizing original compositions of piano and voice.

Intensive workshops with eminent artists from around the world are also offered at GDA. When we visited, Ruth Zaporah, the American Master of Action Theater, a physical theater genre of her own creation, was completing a workshop. We had the opportunity to catch her in performance as a guest at a GDA Cabaret, an informal regularly held mixed media gathering that brings the London community together with artists of all schools.

On this night, Zaporah created a brilliant on the spot solo monologue weaving together surreal chanting, a love of flowers, and her feelings on the War in Iraq with a curious spellbinding logic. She was on the bill with another verbal dynamo, Wendy Houston. In Manifesto, a quietly angry satirical protest piece set to music by Iggy Pop, Houston shared her reflections on subjects to say yes and no to --not so spellbinding, as biting. Also on the program: two, on the longish side, experimental films by choreographer Guy Dartnell, a poet Master of Ceremonies, Elvis McGonagall, armed with a great brogue and much UK political humor that I didn’t get (but loved the delivery), a bluesy band, a human chicken being chased by a tiny Chinese chef presented by Requardt and Company, two young tappers --Annette Walker and Simeon Weedall-- spreading their performance wings, and oddly (as if the human chicken wasn’t odd enough) a self-titled International Man of Artistry and adult prodigy, Jon Hicks, whose talent was spinning a black velvet canvas while simultaneously throwing paint onto it to end up with a portrait of Elvis. Not a lot of dance, but one hell of a haphazard communal evening.

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Footnotes:

To find out more about Greenwich Dance Agency
Visit: www.greenwichdance.org.uk

For information on Christopher Benstead – Musician and Composer
Visit: www.musicfordance.net
Contact cb@musicfordance.net

For information on Ruth Zaporah
Visit: www.actiontheater.com

For more information about Choreographer Ben Ash
Visit: http://www.dogkennelhillproject.org/Welcome.html

For more info on Elvis McGonagall
Visit: www.elvismcgonagall.co.uk

The English National Ballet Does Gershwin-

One of the most touching dance performances in Strictly Gershwin was the simplest - Agnes Oaks and Thomas Edur, both ENB Principal artists, in Derek Deane's choreography to "The Man I Love". In this duet both the performers and choreographer meet the longing and passion of the music with forthrightness and expressivity.

After tromping from one dusty, sweat- filled dance studio to another it was a welcome pleasure to attend The English National Ballet's 'Working Rehearsal' of Strictly Gershwin at the Royal Albert Hall. In 1871, Queen Victoria dedicated this impressive circular brick structure, located steps away from the "posh" London neighborhoods of Knightsbridge and South Kensington, to her beloved husband Prince Albert. Prince Albert’s ornate statue sits to the north across the street in the verdant Kensington Gardens watching over the activities of artists and audiences on one side of the building, while at the south entrance another statue of Albert stands to greet visitors entering there. Besides being a testament of the love of a Queen for her Prince, The Royal Albert Hall provides a venue for lavish productions of all genres. Large-scale rock concerts, fashion shows and pop celebrities are as equally at home here as world-class symphonies, opera and ballet companies, and The Royal Family.

Strictly Gershwin choreographed and directed by Derek Deane featured the English National Ballet and guest artists in an elaborate nostalgic celebration of George and Ira Gershwin --saluting their creative genius and their immense contribution to Broadway and Hollywood. Throughout the two hour and thirty minute evening, images of the Gershwin brothers, with images of stage and screen stars such as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Cyd Charisse, Leslie Caron, Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracey, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis, Sydney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and so on (there even was an appearance by The American Flag) were projected above the orchestra to underscore the far reaching Gershwin Legacy and set the tone for the dancing and singing activity below.

The ENB Orchestra, in full view of the audience, swung ala big band replete with a boogying conductor /musical arranger, Gareth Valentine. Valentine's passion for Gershwin was infectiously revealed through his antic bubbly swivels and energized bops as he led the musicians. What fun to be in his company and to be transported by his appreciation of Gershwin.

Another real pleasure were the performances by the incomparable songstress Barbara Cook. When Cook divulges, as her voice pours out velvety from her breaking heart, "They're singing songs of love but not for me", the mammoth Albert Hall becomes a simple room inhabited only by the listener and Cook's voice.

There were fewer moments like Cook and Valentine’s with the dancing of the evening.

The English National Ballet featured guest stars Tamara Rojo, from the Royal Ballet, and Guillaume Cote, from the Ballet of Canada, who danced the starring roles in An American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue. Both did fine work, but their performances were uninspiring. Maybe it was the fact that Cote is a danseur noble without the gymnastic ruggedness or acting ability that worked so well for Gene Kelly in performance. In An American in Paris, Kelly convinced us he was regular American guy in love with a city and a spirited French girl. He was dashing because his dancing ability was so natural to his character. In the male role in An American in Paris we want to see that human being we remember (not necessarily a recreation of Gene Kelly) but a person, an ordinary guy who dances, not a suave pirouetting guest star. In Rhapsody in Blue, I appreciated Cote more, especially for his impressive jumping ability. Tamara Rojo, an attractive dancer and woman, also suffered from the comparison to her predecessor's interpretation. Leslie Caron, in the original piece, exemplified piquant innocence at the beginning of the ballet and later in the dreamy darker sequence, she radiated slinky sultriness. Caron was a dancing actress. The jazzy steam she created was not the product of a costume or lighting change -- it was the result inhabiting a character. Both the fun and sensuality were missing in Rojo's performance. Now why would an American Joe go all the way to Paris, France to fall in love with just another pretty face? That is the problem with nostalgia; it can really bite the present in the bum.

Another distraction was the magnificent scale of the project. There was scene after musical scene --from ballet class to ballroom to bustling bright Paris, from traditional ballet company formation to Busby Berkeley grouping. There was costume change after change-- in and out of Roberta Guidi di Bagno’s exquisitely rendered tutus, ball gowns, fantasy character concoctions, tuxes and tights. In between all that, there were strong fluid performances given by the corps de ballet but it was a dazzling lot to take in-- even after the first hour-- and tiresome to concentrate through the flurry. Did I mention that the performance also included an award winning tango team in the form of British Latin and Ballroom Champions Lilia Koyplova and Darren Bennett, and an effervescent tap duo, Douglas Mills and Paul Robinson?

The most vital aspects of life are often the most basic. The Gershwin brothers connect us to this fact. Through their music we are reminded how essential love is and how heartbreaking the loss of it can be, we are also reminded of the very natural pleasure of rhythm- "I got rhythm, I got music, I got my gal, who can ask for anything more." One of the most touching dance performances in Strictly Gershwin was the simplest - Agnes Oaks and Thomas Edur, both ENB Principal artists, in Derek Deane's choreography to "The Man I Love". In this duet both the performers and choreographer meet the longing and passion of the music with forthrightness and expressivity. The movement vocabulary consisted of beautiful reaches, swirling spiraling lifts, extended legs and arms, and bourres around the space- in essence- nothing grandiose. Yet as Oaks stretches her arms outward to her sides and lifts of her heart towards the air above, her longing for the special partner of her dreams is palpable. "Someday he'll come along the man I love." The irony is that as she reaches for the intangible, he is actually right behind her supporting her and adoring her all the time. This brief uncomplicated duet spoke volumes.

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Footnotes:

To learn more about the English National Ballet-
http://www.ballet.org.uk

To find out what is playing at Royal Albert Hall-
http://www.royalalberthall.com/index2.aspx