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August 31, 2017August 31, 2017

BREVIEW: Time in Motion @ Crescent Theatre 25.08.17

Words by Lucy Mounfield / Pic by Tim Cross

On the 25^th of August, the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain (NYB) celebrated their 30^th anniversary by performing Time in Motion at the Crescent Theatre in Birmingham – a collection of seven short ballets based around the theme of time. A captivating programme of choreography and performances, Time in Motion is delivered by some of the UK’s most eminent professionals and rising dynamic protégées – not least from Elmhurst School of Dance in Edgbaston.

Time in Motion is an apt title in many ways. Firstly, it represents and celebrates the ethos behind the National Youth Ballet – that of an educative and talent fostering institution who have been bolstering young ballet protégées for 30 years. Secondly, the title and programme reference the ever changing world and dynamics of ballet.

Ballet is itself a physical movement, and over the last few years the way ballet is formed and shaped has changed dramatically; the classical syntax of gesticulation, partner work and extreme en-pointe footwork has been remoulded by a new wave of dramatists, choreographers and dancers.

Opening with Christopher Hampson’s abstract ballet Carnival, the evening started on a fun note, although ultimately the choreography lacked the emotional connection to make the piece truly stand out. Although I enjoyed the can–can sequence, where the company danced round in a circle whilst lifting their tutus to reveal a colourful under layer. This created a wonderful image of a large flower blowing in the wind and did portray the sense of colour and excitement felt at a carnival. Next, Jonathan Payn’s IKEN and Samira Saidi’s Aspirations referenced the more classical style with the corps de ballet and excellent partner work, but at the same time managing to appear completely fresh and new.

For the junior company, Louise Bennett’s Frosty Fable epitomised the confluence of styles well as she choreographed her piece to the Coppélia score by Leo Delibes. Marius Petipa’s Coppélia is a classic of the ballet canon and a mainstay in the repertoires of both Birmingham Royal Ballet and The Royal Ballet. Bennett told the story of two quarrelling siblings who find themselves segregated and taunted by other young children on a cold winter’s day. This ultimately brought the two siblings together. The young cast were fantastic.

The choreography for Steamboat Summer – a short ballet from Birmingham Royal Ballet’s First Artist Ruth Brill, expressed a connection with George Balanchine, who during the twentieth century took classicism and streamlined it with a heightened sense of musicality and muscular movement. Set aboard a transatlantic cruise liner, Steamboat Summer evokes the effervescent heady days of the roaring 20s with flapper dresses and art deco set; the sharp comedic choreography during the swimming and dancing sections reminded me of Kenneth Macmillan’s Elite Syncopations – bold taut lines with rhythmic comedic phrasing matching the jazz score.

Ruth Brill’s previous short ballet, Arcadia (her first main-stage commission premiered at Birmingham Hippodrome in June), told the story of Pan and his transition from God to ruler of Arcadia. Brill’s narrative driven choreography drew parallels with Frederick Ashton’s The Dream but was unable to fully express the emotional psychological transition of Pan and instead harked back to the tradition of Ashton’s romantic gesturing. Unlike Arcadia, Steamboat Summer’s loose narrative enabled Brill to set the scene and explore the comedic/romantic ideas of travelling aboard a cruise liner.

Etta Murfitt’s Oklahoma Dream – inspired by the ‘Dream Ballet’ from the musical Oklahoma! – collides ballet with a musical theatre troupe, in an all-dancing and no singing production number that reflects the themes of time and motion. Here the lines between ballet and musical theatre blur; dreams have no sense of time or reality and Murfitt’s ballet represents this disconnect, with the frenzied scene changes alluding to the dream like quality of the piece. Set in 1950s America, the dancers wore 50s style tea dresses and cowboy attire, resembling an American hoedown with female dancers being twirled like a merry-go-round.

Amidst the crowd are two young dancers who fall in love and decide to marry, only for one jealous cowboy to steal one of them away to a drinking den. This latter sequence became darker and more sinister, with two strutting ballerinas clad in black leather, marching round her drinking and cavorting with the other male dancers. This scene was evocative of the dream sequence in Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse’s 1950s film The Band Wagon, where Astaire enters a seedy jazz den looking for Charisse who entices him with her raunchy dancing. In the end, as in The Band Wagon, a fight ensues and the dream is resolved with the girl getting her true love in the end.

By far the most abstract of all the ballets from Time in Motion, and my personal favourite, was Rambert graduate Arielle Smith’s T-Symmetry – a performance that looked boldly into the future with a human Vs robot theme. The black background and projections of oscillating shapes created a dark dystopian tone to the piece, whilst the fast-paced score made up of electronic clicks, squeaks and buzzes heightened the intensity of the theme.

The main protagonist jutted and jerked across the stage, with the corps de ballet fixed on the opposite side suggesting the principal was the odd one out. The robot versus the humans. The choreography was very athletic; working close to the floor dancers used every part of their body to produce interesting and bold images of the struggle of the human evolution.

All in all, the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain’s Time in Motion proved that time itself is fluid thing. With these contemporary ballets comes an understanding of the themes of the past; Time in Motion is therefore an apt survey of the influences upon contemporary ballet, as well as the changes ballet has incurred over the years.

For more on the National Youth Ballet, visit www.nationalyouthballet.org

For more from Crescent Theatre, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.crescent-theatre.co.uk

August 30, 2017August 30, 2017

BPREVIEW: Mother’s Ruin: A Cabaret about Gin @ The Old Joint Stock 31.08-03.09.17

Words by Lucy Mounfield / Pics by Patrick Boland

Running from Thursday 31^st August to Sunday 3^rd September, Mother’s Ruin: A Cabaret about Gin will tipsily explore the history of gin through a unique brand of story-telling, song and drinking the good stuff itself (with tonic) at The Old Joint Stock’s intimate theatre. The Old Joint Stock seems the perfect choice for Mother’s Ruin with the theatre above the pub.

Created and performed by Maeve Marsden and Libby Wood, Mother’s Ruin is coming straight from the Edinburgh Festival and London’s Underbelly Festival – pausing their run in Birmingham, before heading back on the festival tour circuit with Cabaret in the Glen on October 19^th. Nominated for Best Cabaret (Fringe World Festival ) and Best Writing (Green Room Awards), Mother’s Ruin is a 60min cabaret, loosely blending a historical narrative with the hysterical happenings of two women who love drinking all things gin.

Beginning the story with 18^th Century vaudeville London, Mother’s Ruin sings and drinks through the next 200 years of prohibition, New York speakeasies, the Australian bush, the jungles of Peru and a trip to India. Gin has had a rocky history – closely tied to colonization and women’s rights – which makes the renaissance of gin in recent years all the more interesting.

Throughout these stories Marsden and Wood weave in gin recipes, recount the origins to some of the world’s most famous cocktails, and give away tips on how to drink the spirit. With a gin researcher as part of the production team (Elly Baxter aka The Gintress), Mother’s Ruin takes the story of gin drinking quite seriously, mixing feminism and history to re-tell the story of this dubious tipple.

When I think of a cabaret nightclub, I picture a dark cavernous room with jazz music being played by a pianist at the stage; I think of people sitting elegantly, tapping their fingers rhythmically on the small round table they occupy, drinking gin with ice, a twist of orange, and a splash of tonic water. Gin, cabaret and music go hand in hand, so it’s no surprise that Mother’s Ruin combines all three.

And if all this gin musing makes you thirsty, don’t fret as each ticket holder to Mother’s Ruin will be given a free glass of gin and tonic. During the UK tour of the show, the gin of choice has been Four Pillars Gin – an Australian boutique spirit, made with oranges and botanicals native to Australia and served with Fever Tree Tonic.

And if, like me, you couldn’t tell a boutique booze from supermarket schnapps don’t worry because Meave Marsden and Libby Wood do – facts I’m sure they will reveal to us whilst singing and drinking the night away.

‘I’ve Drunk Every Gin’ – from Mother’s Ruin: A Cabaret about Gin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGFfzjBb8hI

For more on Mother’s Ruin: A Cabaret about Gin, visit www.mothersruincabaret.com

For more from The Old Joint Stock, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.oldjointstock.co.uk

August 26, 2017

BPREVIEW: Parquet Courts @ O2 Institute 31.08.17

Words by Helen Knott

On Thursday 31^st August, Parquet Courts play the O2 Institute in Digbeth. Doors open at 7pm, with tickets priced at £17 plus booking fee – as presented by Goldenvoice and This Is Tmrw. For direct gig information, including full venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

Parquet Courts’ show at the O2 Institute continues their tour in support of last year’s Human Performance – the Brooklyn band’s third studio album and the first to be released on Rough Trade Records. This is one of five UK dates in the run-up to a performance at End of the Road Festival in September.

Human Performance received a warm critical reaction on its release, causing Rolling Stone magazine to describe them as “the most exciting young rock band in America”, heir apparent to groups like Television, Pavement and the Velvet Underground.

This article marked a culmination of the steady momentum the band has been building since they formed in 2010. Birthed in the grassroots of the New York DIY scene – even now Parquet Courts avoid running a Twitter feed or Facebook page – the band has an ethos of rejecting digital marketing in favour of old fashioned physical releases, homemade print and frequent touring.

Front man Andrew Savage is an important aspect of this DIY mentality, designing the artwork for their records and flyers, and taking the unusual step of advertising the release of Human Performance through a wall mural in Brooklyn. But don’t think that Parquet Courts are all style and no substance; Savage’s songs have led Pitchfork to describe him as ‘one of the best rock lyricists of his generation’. And whilst that might sound like hyperbole he is arguably one of the more captivating indie lyricists around, pedaling words often sardonic, occasionally touching, but always compelling.

Andrew Savage is ably supported by the band’s other songwriter and guitarist, Austin Brown, bassist Sean Yeaton, and his brother Max on drums. When it works the resulting tumbling guitar lines and duel vocals are twitchy art-punk at its best.

Parquet Courts‘ live shows can be a potent mix of abrupt one-minute tracks and extended jam rock-outs; if they reach anything like the heights of this wonderful version of ‘Stoned and Starving’ from 2013 record Light Up Gold the O2 Institute crowd are in for a raw, and rather exciting, evening.

‘Stoned and Starving’ – Parquet Courts

‘Human Performance’ – Parquet Courts

Parquet Courts play at the O2 Institute on Thursday 31^st August – as presented by Goldenvoice and This Is Tmrw for Direct gig info, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

For more on Parquet Courts, visit www.parquetcourts.wordpress.com

For more from O2 Institute, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.academymusicgroup.com/o2institutebirmingham

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For more from Goldenvoice, visit www.goldenvoice.com

For more from This Is Tmrw, visit www.thisistmrw.co.uk

August 26, 2017August 25, 2017

BREVIEW: West Side Story @ New Alexandra Theatre 23-26.08.17

Words by Paul Gallear / Pics courtesy of the New Alexandra Theatre

It wasn’t new when Shakespeare wrote his version around 1591, and it wasn’t new when Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim debuted West Side Story on Broadway in 1957. It probably wasn’t even new when Masuccio Salernitano published Mariotto and Gianozza in 1476. But what is new tonight is the cast.

The New Alexandra Theatre (itself over 100 years old) runs an annual programme called Stage Experience, where fresh faced 9-24 year olds get to perform a full musical to a paying audience, taking advantage of all of the theatre’s facilities including their 19 piece orchestra.

Now in its 14^th year, the Stage Experience for 2017 is West Side Story, with our young hopefuls taking on the acting and singing roles as well as the technical roles such as lighting and set design. And they only have two weeks to run lines, rehearse dances, and learn what it takes to tread the boards at a professional theatre company. No pressure then.

The auditorium tonight is largely full and the stage is crowded; these days I am more used to seeing a comparatively sparse set where a lot of the context is left to the audience’s imagination. But this time the crew has striven to capture the iconography of 1950’s down town New York: Coca-Cola advertising, metal fire escapes, graffiti and barbed wire-topped chain-link fences.

Indeed, the barbed wire is separating the audience and the stage from the moment we enter, sending us a clear message about the social status of the characters and their delineation from society. The set is manipulated cleverly throughout, creating a range of scenes and scenarios, though I am sometimes distracted by the noisy and visually obvious way in which the set is moved around. Perhaps, with more time, this could have been better planned.

The set (despite being visually busy and sometimes noisy) is used creatively and energetically by the cast – climbing walls and fences, ducking down side streets and alleys. The dancing, especially during the fight scenes, has an almost balletic quality, and the actors interact with each other well even when the stage is crowded.

At times it is joyous and exuberant, such as during the famous song ‘America’ or during the scene at the dance. But the stage feels too crowded at times, as though everyone who applied to Stage Experience (103, so we are told at the end) has been given at least a walk-on part at some point. During lively numbers, such as ‘Tonight’, the large cast does help to build the atmosphere but it isn’t always needed.

The professional orchestra, with whom the cast have the pleasure of working, are just that: professional. They do justice to the energetic score and to provide an ample framework around which the singing and the dancing can be hung.

The singing is well-performed throughout, though at times the annunciation is a little lost on my ears and some of the lines are hard to hear. It is also worth mentioning that there are occasional glitches from the radio mics worn by the cast – sometimes the audio is not picked up and, on one occasion, we hear audio from an off-stage cast member.

The audience is, I suspect, largely made up of the families and friends of the large cast. But I don’t think the enthusiasm they show for the performance is unjustified, especially given the mere two weeks of preparation that has gone into this production. The New Alexandra Theatre’s Stage Experience is meant to be a chance for young performers to hone their skills and demonstrate that they are faces to be looked out for in the future, and I think some of the actors tonight have certainly managed that.

Two in particular stood out for me: Leah Vassell with her strong and sassy portrayal of Anita, who was especially moving during ‘A Boy Like That’, and Elliot Gooch as the erstwhile Jets gang member, Tony. Gooch was the standout performer for me from this production; singing and acting with aplomb, especially when he had the stage to himself during numbers such as ‘Maria’.

I did feel that more could have been done to contemporise this production and move it away from being a straight facsimile of the original stage show or film. It would have been interesting to find out how the young cast would have coped with a West Side Story adapted in a different way and to have tested their abilities.

Whilst there is nothing particularly new about such a well versed narrative, or stage production, there is again something new tonight – the actors. Many of whom may well be gracing the stage again, and perhaps the screen, very soon.

West Side Story runs at the New Alexandra Theatre until 26^th August. For direct information, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

For more from the New Alexandra Theatre, including full event listings and online sales, visit www.atgtickets.com/venues/new-alexandra-theatre-birmingham

August 25, 2017

BPREVIEW: Bank Holiday Weekender @ Hawker Yard 25- 27.08.17

Hawker Yard is bringing a Bank Holiday Weekend live music special to Birmingham, 25-27^th August. Beginning with Blak Twang + Mr Thing and culminating with Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, the al-fresco eatery is celebrating the long weekend with a combination of dirty beats and delicious food.

Birmingham’s first purpose built street food centre, Hawker Yard opened in 2016. Founded by Brum Yum Yum’s Duncan Stanley, the shipping container and scaffolding structure (somewhat dubiously described as ‘cargotecture’) aimed to bring some ramshackle permanence to Brum’s emerging street food scene.

Styled with lanterns and lights, the formerly derelict yard now houses a variety of bar areas, lounging and eating options. The Pershore Road site was, however, put up for sale earlier this year as Stanley was seeking to relocate and recreate his East London vibe in, er, London.

Now promoters Feel the Vibe and Hawker Yard LIVE have combined to devise a Bank Holiday Weekender to tempt the ears as well as the taste buds: renowned turntablist DJ Mr. Thing and British rapper Blak Twang kick off the weekender with a ‘till late party promising street dance performances and scratching aplenty.

Saturday will see Sneaker Hawks launch the city’s newest ‘vintage, kicks and urban clothes’ event, with some of the £3 entry price supporting Birmingham Children’s Hospital. Non-shoppers wishing to indulge in some weekend philanthropy should appreciate the graffiti art, break dancing and fresh food, if not the ‘fresh garms’.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, the seven sons of jazz trumpeter Phil Cohran, will round off the weekend. The group has real pedigree, having recorded and performed with the likes of MosDef, Wu Tang Clan, Prince, Childish Gambino, Maxwell, Erykah Badu, Gorillaz, and, of course, their father. No doubt their big eclectic sound, encompassing hip hop, jazz, funk and calypso will boom around Hawker Yard: the promoters promise a ‘bloc party vibe’ and the South Chicago band is likely to deliver with their delectable ‘hypnotic’ style.

Birmingham Review last saw Hypnotic Brass Ensemble at The Glee Club back in June 2015, click here to read the BREVIEW from Helen Knott with pics from Ella Carman.

For more on BLAK TWANG & DJ MR THING at Hawker Yard (Fri 25^th), click here.

For more on the Sneaker Hawks launch party at Hawker Yard (Sat 26^th), click here.

For more on the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble at Hawker Yard (Sun 27^th), click here.

For more from Hawker Yard, visit www.hawkeryardbirmingham.co.uk