As Senior Marketing Editor at Southbank Centre, one of the world’s largest arts centres, I wore a lot of hats. One of my favourite parts of the job was the now-defunct For Members magazine. Below, I include two short articles I wrote for this publication.
Ballet for the People Gala
This July, Michael Nunn and William Trevitt of George Piper Dances, popularly known as TV’s Ballet Boyz, curate an evening of the best in British ballet to celebrate the relaunch of Southbank Centre and the reopening of Royal Festival Hall.
Dance has always been a part of Southbank Centre’s history, from tea dances alongside the river at the Festival of Britain in 1951, to legendary performances by Natalia Makarova and the Festival Ballet, to career-defining performances for Wayne McGregor, Russell Maliphant and Akram Khan.
Michael Nunn has always enjoyed performing here: ‘The audience at Southbank Centre is quite loyal. They seem to be loyal to the venue and the acts that perform there. It’s quite unusual.
‘I think it’s because it’s quite an accessible place, and there’s always something going on. I think that’s one of its major benefits.’
The Ballet for the People gala involves an incredible number of performers from companies including the English National Ballet, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, Rambert Dance Company and the Royal Ballet. It won’t only be traditional ballet during the evening though, as three new works have been commissioned from Southbank Centre Artist in Residence Rafael Bonachela, Craig Revel Harwood and Will Tuckett. It’s all part of George Piper Dances’ drive to have more people experience dance, and contemporary dance in particular.
Their trademark style of presenting dance intermingled with video clips has been very successful in this respect: ‘[We use film in our shows] to demystify the whole process. The audience gets to know Billy and I as people, as well as dancers. It seems to make them enjoy the work a little more, they find out who we are, and we explain to them why we’re doing it. It seems to make them relax a little bit,’ explains Nunn.
The video aspect of their programme is given a new twist in Ballet for the People: ‘We’re hoping to do some live filming in the show, so during the costume and set changes you’ll see backstage with the dancers doing interviews.’
Nunn and Trevitt not only curate the evening, but also perform a piece written for them by Craig Revel Harwood, celebrated choreographer of many West End shows including Spend Spend Spend and Miss Saigon.
Songs of Wars I have seen
Heiner Goebbels is pacing in front of the musicians, nodding, and putting up his finger like he might interrupt but thinks better of it. When they stop playing he says, ‘Good! Should we do it pizzicato? I want it drier, you see.’
This is the second rehearsal of his new work for a group of musicians made up of members from the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Songs of Wars I Have Seen is a series of short movements based on excerpts from Gertrude Stein’s text about life in Paris during the Second World War. The mix of modern and period instruments is overlaid in some places by recorded samples of synthesisers and percussive sounds, and in others by the female musicians rhythmically speaking the text aloud, alone and in unison. The effect is an intense sound-world, recreating the stifled and exhausting atmosphere of constant fear in Stein’s text.
Goebbels strides back and forth between two tables laden with scores, and a covered piano in the corner is commandeered as a third. As they begin another movement, Elizabeth Kenny, with the improbably-shaped theorbo (a very large lute-like instrument) on her lap, grimaces in concentration as she reads through the part for the first time. She looks up at Goebbels and he smiles, and walks forward to her stand. ‘Take your time, take your time with it.’ She plays the section again flawlessly, and he smiles and nods.
Heiner Goebbels is known for his collaborative approach to composition, his openness with performers and his way of pressing musicians and dancers into service as actors in his work. The texts he has pulled out of Gertrude Stein’s memoirs describe the individual, personal experiences of war rather than overarching statements about good and evil. She describes sleeping through air raid sirens, how little there is to eat, how different countries begin their wartime radio broadcasts and how everything has changed.
With microphones set up in front of each of the women in the string and woodwind sections, they start to rehearse the movements with spoken parts. The violinists tuck their instruments under one arm and pluck their parts – Goebbels’ suggestion that they play and speak at the same time elicits laughter, but they gamely try it anyway. As the women gain confidence, the dialogue slots into place rhythmically and they take on Stein’s narrative as their own, immediately bringing the piece into focus as not only music, but as theatre as well.