Wednesday 7 August 2019

KNT Danceworks 10th Anniversary Gala


Standard YouTube Licence


I am very proud to have danced in KNT Pre-Intermediate Class's contribution to KNT's Tenth Anniversary Gala which took place at the Dancehouose Theatre on 4 May 2019.  I can't say that my performance greatly enhanced the show.  I am horrified to find that I was stooped, bearlike and at least half a second behind the others but then I am over 70. At least I did not trip up and I was more or less in the right place at the right time.

It was a wonderful evening.  I have been training at KNT for nearly 5 years and have met some lovely people.  Several of them have helped me set up Powerhouse Ballet.  My KNT classmates, Katie and Bo, took part in the company's debut performance of Terence Etheridge's beautiful ballet Aria together with other good friends from Yorkshire and North Wales.  Powerhouse Ballet were KNT's only guest artists.  I watched their show with Karen Sant, principal of KNT, from the top of the auditorium. They were brilliant.  I was delighted with them all.  I think Karen was too.

Every August, Karen organizes something special for her students,  This year it is a Day of Dance with guest teachers in ballet and other styles of dance.  I attended it last year as well as similar events at Christmas and Easter.  I can't recommend the event too highly.   It takes place between 10:00 and 16:00 on the 10 Aug 2019.  Places fill very quickly but Karen may still be able to squeeze you into a class if you contact her through Facebook.

In other years Karen has organized choreography intensives through which I met such brilliant teachers as Jane Tucker of Northern Ballet and Martin Dutton of the Hammond.  Over the last 50 years, I have seen Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, Coppelia and La Bayadere by the world's leading companies with  Fonteyn, Nureyev, Sibley, Dowell, Makhateli, Camargo, Mukhamedov, Parish and Tereshkina in the leading roles.  I learned far more about those ballets from attempting cygnets, the bronze idol or the snowflakes from Jane or Martin than I had in a lifetime of ballet going.

There are classes at the Dancehouse studios on Oxford Road in Manchester most days a week.   The timetable can be consulted here. 

Wednesday 18 July 2018

KNT's Day of Dance


Standard YouTube Licence

For the last 3 years KNT Danceworks has offered its adult dance students a chance to learn repertoire.  We have had intensive workshops for beginners and advanced students on Swan Lake, La Bayadère and Coppelia.  This year we can look forward to something different.  A day of dance on Saturday, 18 August 2018 when we can sample all sorts of styles that we do not always have the opportunity to experience.

There will still be a chance to learn repertoire at the day of dance but this year it will be special because we will be dancing for the first time a ballet that Karen Sant will choreograph specially for us to music composed by our good friend and classmate, David Hotchkiss (see Why Terpsichore Northwest 10 July 2018).  That class will take place between 15:30 and 17:00.

There will, of course, be classes on ballet technique for beginners and pre-intermediates and intermediates and advanced students between 14:00 and 15:30 as well as jazz and lyrical contemporary in the morning.  Karen has promised us special guest teachers  which will increase the cost to £15 per class. That will reduce to £26 for two which is not at all unreasonable for a whole afternoon's ballet.

The day of dance will take place in the Dancehouse Theatre studios at 10 Oxford Rd, Manchester M1 5QA between 10:00 and 17:00.  The theatre is a few hundred yards from Oxford Road Station and literally round the corner from the Chester Street NCP multistory car park which offers special rates on Saturdays.

Tuesday 10 July 2018

Why Terpsichore Northwest?

David Hotchkiss
© 2018 David James Hotchkiss: all rights reserved
Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holder

















The idea for this blog was inspired by a visit to Birmingham last Saturday.  As I trudged through the streets of Digbeth to New Street station I reflected on my good fortune in having been born in Manchester.  Even though I now live apud Brigantes  ("wi' Tykes" or "in Yorkshire") and notwithstanding the attractions of Birmingham and other great cities, I still glory in urbs mea suava et mercantilia.

Manchester is a city of dance.  Two great dance companies staged their first performances there:
  • English National Ballet at the Opera House on 5 Feb 1951; and
  • Northern Ballet at the University Theatre, Manchester  on 28 Nov 1969 
(see Manchester's Favourite Ballet Company. 25 Nov 2015 Terpsichore).  With the HallĂ©, BBC Philharmonic and Manchester Camerata, Manchester is also a city of music.  Such a fine city in such a great region deserves its own blog to track and comment on what is happening in dance and music in general and ballet in particular.

On 27 April 2018 I featured the young English composer David Hotchkiss in Daethon and Arundel - A New Four Act BalletDavid is now in Hungary but I made his acquaintance at KNT Daneworks when he was living in Manchester.   I understand that one of his works is to be choreographed by Karen Sant and taught to the repertoire class on a "Day of Dance" that KNT intends to present next month.   

It is to cover events such as this that I have decided to launch Terpsichore North West.