The Royal Ballet School
Summer Performance
The Royal Opera House
Saturday, 16th July 2022
Every dancer from The Royal Ballet School on stage made their mark during this Summer Performance, reaping the rewards that come from doing the work.
There aren’t any half-chances in ballet; you can’t phone it in. The truth is a dry cracker to swallow, and ballet training, right from the start, is brutal. But here, on this stage, for this special performance marking the first time since the start of the pandemic when the entire school could perform together (over 200 students), the outlook is golden.
The audience was still with expectation.
So let’s start with a wedding. Act lll from Marius Petipa’s Raymonda was a bold opening, with its exposing classical choreography. Carlos Acosta has made a solid gold signing with Madison Penney heading to Birmingham Royal Ballet. Dancing the title role, and luxuriously talented, Penney radiates a langourous ease, telegraphing to the audience, ”it’s okay, I’ve got this.” Beautiful lines, expressive, flashing eyes & strong balances, Penney held the audience, superbly partnered by prodigiously talented Takumi Miyake.
Miyake is off to American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company, and they are lucky to have him. When not supporting Penney, he was mostly to be found soaring across the stage with graceful power.
Three glittering dancers – Liya Fan, Isabella Shaker & Jessica Templeton took the delicate, precise Pas de Trois to new levels. And we’re not finished there. The Pas de Quatre saw Aidan Buss, Jack Easton, Luc Foskett (whom I also noted in my 2019 review) and Mason King storm the building.
The six variations were each packed with dazzling flair, from Isabella Boyd, Frieda Kaden, Chaeyeon Kang and Scarlett Harvey, finishing on a sparkling high note with Takumi Miyake & Madison Penney.
With a supporting cast of glossy dust motes dancing in the beams of light cast by the stellar leads, this was a joyful, confident & immensely satisfying opening.
Joseph Toonga’s Moments, for Upper School 2nd year students, filled the stage with a bunch of slightly rascally spirits. Sharp, again; bold, fierce & phosphorus. It felt like the ominous throb of dark clouds.
The thunder never came and Mikaela Polley’s Jubilation saw White Lodge students showing the culmination of their year of doing the work.
Wayne McGregor’s Presentient allowed the pre-professional year dancers to be seen in a contemporary light. An instantly recognisable McGregor ballet, the twelve dancers worked their magic in its expressive shapes; crisp angles, neat partnering & a lot of walking.
The heat & buzz of contemporary choreography was balanced with some lovely dancing from the Upper School 1st years, in Frederick Ashton’s Pas de Douze from Swan Lake.
Yondering is the ballet that fits the dancers like a glove. No surprise, as it was made specifically for students by John Neumeier. And so fitting for the graduating students, with its naive, youthful, folksy frontier-feel. The dancers, some shy as a bird’s shadow, some feeling those first glorious shafts of love, all slid undone with a silken sigh.
Eccentric Pulses, for two 2nd Year students by fellow 2nd Year Guillem Cabrera Espinach, had the close, warm flavour of an Argentinian dance.
And so to the Grand Défilé. The azure blue background was the perfect backdrop for the hyphens of pink & blue, red, burgundy & black shot out from both sides of the stage until it was filled with vertical rows of filigree brilliance : every student in position as the perfect full stop to the most balanced curation of work I’ve seen the School dance (credit to Artistic Director Christopher Powney).
If you’d like to know where the graduating students are headed – heres’s the list.
