BalletBoyz are back with two brand new works, both set to
original scores by world-class composers.
BalletBoyz: Them & Us
Newcastle Northern Stage
Friday 22nd - Saturday 23 March
2019
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| Photo: Hugo Glendinning |
Hugo-GlendinningThis spring, the internationally lauded dance troupe
BalletBoyz will bring their new show to Newcastle. Them/Us is an innovative double bill and a brand new collaboration
from the company’s own critically acclaimed dancers and the Olivier
Award-winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon.
BalletBoyz are known worldwide for their ground-breaking
live performances, films and TV appearances. The new productions are both set
to original scores by world-class composers and asks where we see ourselves in
relation to the “other”.
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| Photo: Hugo Glendinning |
Marking a first for BalletBoyz, Them is the work of the
company’s very own in-house talent, and set to a score by emerging composer
Charlotte Harding. Us is inspired by the critically acclaimed Christopher
Wheeldon duet featured in the company’s last show, Fourteen Days. With an
extended score by cult singer/songwriter, Keaton Henson, Christopher Wheeldon
develops this new work which explores the possibilities of before, during and
after.
Christopher Wheeldon, choreographer for Us, said: “I’m
relishing the opportunity to work with BalletBoyz again to create a new work
that expands on my previous work with the company, Us. It’s a pleasure to be
working with Keaton Henson once again after his music for Us inspired me to
investigate a new style of movement.”
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| Photo: Hugo Glendinning |
Charlotte Harding recently composed for Craig Revel
Horwood’s The Indicator Line in BalletBoyz’ Fourteen Days. She graduated from
the Royal College of Music, London with a first-class honours degree and won
the prestigious Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother Rosebowl, presented by HRH
Prince Charles. Charlotte is passionate about the role music can play in both
health and education. She is also an accompanist with BalletBoyz, working for
the Parkinson’s CAN Dance classes. Charlotte has also been involved in leading
and assisting educational workshops for BBC Symphony Orchestra and Teenage
Cancer Trust.
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| Photo: Hugo Glendinning |
Keaton Henson is an English folk rock musician, visual
artist and poet from London. Henson has released six studio albums. His music
video for “Charon” was shortlisted for a UK MVA award in Best Budget Indie/Rock
Category. “Small Hands” won Best Music Video at the Rushes Soho Shorts Film
Festival in 2012. In November 2012, Henson designed a t-shirt for the Yellow
Bird Project to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Henson also composed
the score for the multiple Award-nominated film Young Men by BalletBoyz and BBC
2.
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| Photo: Hugo Glendinning |
Christopher Wheeldon is a British choreographer who trained
at The Royal Ballet School and danced with the Company between 1991 and 1993.
With the New York City Ballet he performed as a soloist and became the
company’s first-ever artist in residence and first resident choreographer.
Christopher has created productions for all the world’s major ballet companies,
and in 2007 he founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and became the first
British choreographer to create a new work for the Bolshoi Ballet. His awards
include the Tony Award for Best Choreography for An American in Paris, and he
was made an OBE in 2016. Christopher has worked with BalletBoyz on numerous
occasions in the past, including Mesmerics.
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| Photo: George Piper |
Sarah Crompton, Writer & Broadcaster, met up with the choregrapher
to discuss this production. “I have never found it hard to turn a corner and
walk down a new pathway without a map,” says Christopher Wheeldon, with a
grin. “I know most people like to know
where they are going, but I struggle with that notion. It’s not who I am at all. Maybe I will turn the corner and there will
be a precipitous drop that I’ll step off, but the risk-taking and the potential
for disaster in the end is actually quite good fuel for creativity. And maybe too that’s why I enjoy working with
the BalletBoyz because they’re that way too.”
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| Photo: George Piper |
He laughs. When you first
meet him, Wheeldon is the man least likely to be branded a risk taker. He is calm, polite and – despite years living
in New York – still has the demeanour of the nice boy from Somerset that he
is. But in more than 20 years as a
choreographer and a director, he has changed directions numerous times. This means he has built a body of work that
is essentially uncategorisable from the Broadway musical An American in Paris,
to pure classical ballet works for the Royal Ballet and New York City Ballet
among other companies, to more contemporary pieces such as Us for the
BalletBoyz.
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| Photo: George Piper |
It all started in 1993, when, at the age of 19, he defied his
destiny. Having trained at the Royal Ballet school and seeming to be on track
to spend his entire career with the company, he used the airline flight he won
in a competition to go to New York and talk his way into NYCB. Four years later, he became their first
resident choreographer.
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| Photo: George Piper |
Since then he has been constantly busy, but his career has taken
many twists and turns. He has founded his
own dance company and watched it fold due to lack of funds; he has won a Tony
for best choreography, for his award-winning rethinking of An American in
Paris, which he also directed and which has enjoyed worldwide success. He is an Artistic Associate of the Royal
Ballet, where he made the hugely popular The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland,
a three-act ballet, as well as numerous smaller works.
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| Photo: George Piper |
“I love doing such
different things and being all over the place.
I have to use my brain in different ways, and I think that’s what’s
stimulating about being able to jump between different forms of dance and
theatre. I think that is probably what
allows me to work as much and as consistently as I do without getting
exhausted. I have quite a lot of belief
in my ability to achieve things.”
Wheeldon is also capable of working at incredibly high
speeds. For his new piece for the
BalletBoyz, Us, he is expanding a duet to the music of Keaton Henson, that took
him 14 days to create. Its expansion has
taken 10 days. “I have to say that there
is a kind of excitement contained within that breathlessness. There’s no time
to mess around. You just have to get on
with it.”
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| Photo: George Piper |
He has known the company’s founders, Michael Nunn and William
Trevitt, since they were all at the Royal Ballet School together. “They were both seniors when I was a
junior. And I love being able to say
that now,” the 45 year old says with another laugh.
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| Photo: George Piper |
They bonded when Nunn and Trevitt accompanied him to Moscow in
2006, where Wheeldon was choreographing his first piece for the world-famous
Bolshoi Ballet. The commission turned
into a saga of disaster, only retrieved at the last minute and the story was
recorded in Strictly Bolshoi, an engrossing tale of triumph snatched from the
jaws of defeat. Since then Wheeldon has
been a regular contributor to the Boyz’s endeavours.
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| Photo: George Piper |
His latest piece will be presented in a double bill, alongside a
piece called Them choreographed by the all-male company themselves. “I love the way that they are always thinking
a lot about how to make their programmes entertaining. How can we make challenging, complex dance
more accessible to a broader audience,” Wheeldon says. “They are very creative
in the room and really hands on in a way that I think contemporary dancers tend
to be more than ballet dancers anyway.
Ballet dancers wait to be told what to do, and there’s an etiquette and
a politeness about rehearsals that doesn’t exist so much in the contemporary
dance world and certainly doesn’t exist with the Boyz. Which is not to say they
are impolite. I think they are about the
most polite group of gentlemen that I have ever worked with, but they’re hands
on and they like to roll their sleeves up and be part of it.”
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| Photo: George Piper |
The current BalletBoyz Company includes: Sean Flanagan,
Benjamin Knapper, Harry Price, Liam Riddick, Matthew Sandiford and Bradley
Waller.
On The
Web:
Twitter: @BalletBoyz
Facebook:
/BalletBoyz
Instagram:
/BalletBoyz
Tickets:
Tickets are from £10 and can be booked from the theatre on
0191 230 5151 or online: https://www.northernstage.co.uk/Event/balletboyz-them-us
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