story behind some of the music that I’ve collected for ballet classes.
All the pieces are on Studio Series Vol. 4 published by RAD
One of the most enjoyable jobs I’ve ever had was working with Wayne Sleep on his Dash to the Coliseum which ran for a week at the Coliseum in August 1998. I’d just finished a 44-show tour with him (Wayne Sleep’s World of Classical Ballet, which one dancer quickly nicknamed ‘Wayne’s World’, of course); we got off the bus and threw on a 50th birthday gala at Her Majesty’s, and then it was straight into rehearsals for Dash.
The show included impressions of some of the early variety ballet numbers – the Wilson Kepple & Betty Sand Dance, a Lois Fuller solo, a comedy routine by Little Tich & Anna Pavlova’s “Dragonfly” solo, created – as in the original – to Fritz Kreisler’s waltz ‘Schön Rosmarin‘. It was one of those ideas of Wayne’s that make you think ‘You want to do what?!” until you see it – and then you don’t know how you lived without it.
I have never seen anyone – even Wayne – work so fast. We were in the old Urdang studios after lunch, with just 45 minutes to put the Pavlova number together. Gary Harris (‘Fido’), now AD of Royal New Zealand Ballet was standing in the corner, notating Wayne’s steps in Benesh faster than a PA does shorthand. After 44 minutes, Wayne said ‘Have you got that? OK, gotta go…’ and he was off to create another number upstairs, leaving Fido to then teach & rehearse the solo again from his instant Benesh. I’d never seen anything quite like it before, nor since. The combined talent, genius, comedy & speed was overwhelming.
Both Wayne & Fido are extremely musical, and so they wove the Kreisler-ish rubato of Schön Rosmarin into the solo in a way which made it possible to play the music with as much expressive timing as you wanted – a wonderful but sadly rather rare experience – probably down to the fact that people so often choreograph to recordings where tempo – even free tempo – is fixed.
I’ve since discovered that if you pick your exercise carefully, this waltz, with all it’s tempo give-and-take, makes a wonderful piece for some pirouettes for the corner. It’s warm & charming, and just dances itself off the page. It has an infectious rhythm & bounce, but you can entwine all the wayward quavers around the dancer in a way which is beautifully musical; it allows them time and freedom to breathe, but measures that freedom imperceptibly; the fact that the quavers never stop means that there is also always a forward momentum which impels them into the next movement. There are enough notes in the melody that you can fashion each phrase for dancers individually, making it a joy to accompany them. This is just one example of many where dance can look ‘unmusical’ until you find the right piece of music.
