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Voices of British Ballet

Voices of British Ballet
Voices of British Ballet
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  • Barbara Fewster
    Here Barbara Fewster tells us about working at The Royal Ballet School. Her voice has a mixture of authority and kindness which will be remembered by literally thousands of students over the 40-odd years she both taught and directed there. However, there is also has a tinge of something students rarely noticed, something more searching and pensive, of sadness even. Many dancers, both in The Royal Ballet and in many other companies, owe their careers to her, and remember what she did for them with genuine gratitude. Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet, feels she owes her own career to Fewster, saying, “She scooped me up from a moment of student gloom when I was about 18 and gave me an opportunity that led to a chance to join The Royal Ballet’. In this interview Barbara Fewster talks to Patricia Linton who also introduces the episode in conversation with Natalie Steed.Barbara Fewster was born in 1928. She studied dancing at the Wessex School in Bournemouth before joining the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School in 1942. By 1943, at the height of World War Two, she was performing and touring the country with the Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet. In 1946 she became a founder member of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet, a company that became a hot bed of talent for the future of British ballet and a springboard for many and varied careers. There were extensive tours, both at home and abroad, where Fewster was at first a dancer, and then assistant ballet mistress from 1947. When Peggy Van Praagh left the company in 1951, Fewster became the ballet mistress.Against all the odds of a depressed post-war Britain, ballet was vibrant. The emergence of a swathe of talented choreographers, together with a remarkably varied existing repertoire, helped to build a bright future. On leaving the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet in 1954, Fewster toured the United States of America as ballet mistress with the Old Vic Company’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, before joining the staff of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School, which was now based with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet at Barons Court in West London. She became deputy principal to Ursula Moreton in 1967 and succeeding her as principal in 1968. Fewster joined the Grand Council of both the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) and the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD). She was made an Honorary Fellow of the Cecchetti Society by its founder, Cyril Beaumont, in the late 1960s.Barbara Fewster was an indefatigable traveller and was always inspired by her experiences of teaching and adjudicating worldwide. She was at the heart of an historic cultural exchange with China in the early 1980s, involving an exchange of students and teachers. Fewster was also the driving force of a video for the Cecchetti Society in 1988, to promote and improve good practice in the teaching and understanding of pointework. She has frequently mounted ballets for professional companies, notably Coppélia for the Turkish Ballet in 1993 and a revival of La Fête étrange by Andrée Howard, a ballet close to her heart, for The Royal Ballet in 2003. There is a scholarship in Fewster’s name as part of the Cecchetti Class Ballet Vocational Awards.image: Barbara Fewster, Ballet Principal of Royal Ballet School (1968-1988) helping a student prepare for a school performance, circa 1960's; Credit: Royal Ballet School / ArenaPAL Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Anita Landa
    From a start in Flamenco, Greek dancing and a bit of ballet, Anita Landa describes here not only how her dancing life took off, but how Festival Ballet started. The Cone Ripman School, Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin, a healthy injection of glamorous Diaghilev stars and repertoire all get proper credit. However, the lion’s share of the company’s success, she says, was down to the indefatigable impresario Julian Braunsweg. ‘Without him there would be no English National Ballet!’ In this interview Anita Landa talks to Patricia Linton, and it is introduced by the dance writer and critic Deborah Weiss who is a former senior soloist with London Festival Ballet.Anita Landa must have been vivacious from birth! Her dancing life has been refreshingly varied. Born in Las Arenas in Spain in 1929, she moved to the UK just before World War Two, but the Spanish part of her character and her early life was to prove an important catalyst and influence on her future. After four years studying a variety of dance styles at the Ginner-Mawer School, Landa spent some time at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School whilst simultaneously continuing her Spanish dancing studies with Elsa Brunelleschi. Her next and fortuitous move was to the Cone-Ripman School. From here she succeeded in an audition for the newly formed Markova-Dolin Ballet in 1949. The company soon took root and became known in 1950 as Festival Ballet.The company’s very distinct international outlook suited Landa. She revelled in the life, absorbing much from the galaxy of star dancers and the extensive repertoire. She became a principal and danced until 1960 when, married to fellow dancer, Michael Hogan and expecting their first of three children, she retired. However, after eight years she returned to the ballet world. Her broad dance background and natural intelligence and sparkle made her an ideal choice for the intricate role of ballet mistress. After working with Northern Ballet Theatre and on various Nureyev Festivals, she joined the staff of the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet in 1979. She remained with the company as ballet mistress and character dancer until 1995, including the company’s move to Birmingham in 1990, when Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet became Birmingham Royal Ballet. A wealth of work and activity and acclaim was achieved over these 16 years, until Anita handed the baton over to Marion Tait. She continued to be involved in ballet related activities, including being a member of the National Council for Dance Education and Training for several years. Hugely knowledgeable and exuberant, she is a bonus at any gathering. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Pineapple Poll
    Gerald Dowler hosts a special episode about the comic ballet Pineapple Poll created for the Festival of Britain in 1951 and its creators John Cranko and Charles Mackerras.Pineapple Poll, was the first major success on the London stage for both its choreographer, John Cranko and its arranger and music director Charles Mackerras. Mackerras suggested to Cranko the story from W.S. Gilberts Bab Ballad, The Bumboat Woman's Story. Set for six couples and lead characters of Poll, Jasper, the pot-boy who loves her Belleye, Captain of the HMS Hot Cross Bun Blanche and her aunt, Mrs. Dimple, it represented the largest forces used by the choreographer to date. The original cast featured Elaine Fyfield Poll, David Blair as Captain Belleye and David Poole as Jasper. Sets and costumes were by Obsert Lancaster.It enjoyed huge success throughout the 1960s and 70s, but is now rarely performed. It still exists in name, at least in the repertoire of the Birmingham Royal Ballet.Joining Gerald Dowler around the table are the conductor, Barry Wordsworth, who has long been associated with the Royal Opera House Orchestra, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia as well as many orchestras worldwide; Nigel Simeone, a writer and musicologist; Reid Anderson who trained at the Royal Ballet School before joining Stuttgart Ballet in 1969, where he became a principal dancer and then later Ballet Master, and returned, after a stint directing the National Ballet of Canada, in 1996 as Company Director, where he remained for over 20 years; and Brenda Last who joined the Royal Ballet in 1963 from Western Theatre Ballet. She became a principal in 1965 and danced an enormous range of roles including the role of Poll in Pineapple Poll.This episode was recorded in 2019. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Julia Farron
    Julia Farron was born in London in 1922 and was part of the vanguard of extraordinary talent that helped shape ballet in 20th Century Britain. In 1931 she was the first scholarship pupil to join the Vic-Wells Ballet School and two years later she joined the Vic-Wells Ballet, as its youngest member. Vibrant and consummately theatrical, her conversation, like her dancing, is always a mix of wit and wisdom. In conversation with Bruce Sansom, she throws light on the early years of Sadler’s Wells Ballet, with all its attendant conventions and eccentricities. She later became a superb character artist as well as teacher.The episode is introduced by Alastar Macauley in conversation with Natalie Steed.Born in London in 1922, Julia Farron first studied dancing at the Cone School and in 1931 was the first scholarship pupil to join the Vic-Wells Ballet School. Her stage debut was in pantomime at Drury Lane in 1934 and two years later she joined the Vic-Wells Ballet, as its youngest member.Over the next 30 years her fine talent, intelligence and theatrical power helped lay the foundations for the sort of company Ninette de Valois was attempting to forge. From ‘the classics’ as staged by Nicholas Sergeyev, at the start of her career, which she was on the spot to absorb, through to her final role in 1965, as Lady Capulet in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Julia Farron danced and created roles for many of the great choreographers of the 20th Century. From the works of de Valois herself, to Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, John Cranko, Léonide Massine and Georges Balanchine, her range was legendary, and thankfully for the generations of students to follow, so were her powers of recall, both practical and theatrical.Her Lady Capulet - a masterpiece of theatrical expertise - was a wonderful culmination to Farron’s career and a fitting tribute from MacMillan to a pioneer of British ballet. Her stage career was followed by a teaching position at The Royal Ballet School from 1964 until 1982, when she was appointed Assistant Director of the Royal Academy of Dance. In 1983 she became Director and retired in 1989 as an Honorary Fellow. In 1994 the Royal Academy of Dance awarded her the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award.In her later years Julia Farron was a keen supporter of The Royal Ballet School’s White Lodge Museum and Resource Centre. In 2012 she was appointed OBE for services to dance.Episode photograph: A Mirror for Witches; Julia Farron as Hannah. World Premiere; March 4, 1952 ; Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, London ; Music: Dennis ApIvor ; Choreography: Andrée Howard ; Designer : Norman Adams Credit: Roger Wood / Royal Opera House / ArenaPAL.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Rowena Fayre
    Born in 1921 Rowena Fayre combined a career in ballet with a very different sort of life. After boarding school in Hertfordshire, and daily lessons at Sadler’s Wells SchoolSadler’s Wells School with Ninette de Valois, she joined the Vic-Wells Ballet Company. In this interview she talks to Patricia Linton about how she had to accommodate her dancing with the life of a debutante: being presented at court and taking part in the London Social Season. In this conversation with Patricia Linton she remembers performing in the 1938 Old Vic production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Vivien Leigh as Titania and dancing in Ninette de Valois's ballet, Checkmate.Rowena Fayre was born in 1921. While attending Highfield School in Hertfordshire, she won a scholarship to Sadler’s Wells School. While there she won the student of the year prize in 1939, and studied in Paris with Olga Preobrajenska (whom she found ferocious) and also with Marie Rambert. She danced various roles with Vic- Wells Ballet, notably in Checkmate in 1937, in an Old Vic production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1938 and in the Sleeping Princess in 1939. She also worked briefly with Mona Inglesby at Eton College (to mark the uncovering of some old frescoes in the chapel). With the advent of war, she joined the WRENS, and left dancing altogether.The episode is introduced by Patricia Linton. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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About Voices of British Ballet

Voices of British Ballet tells the story of dance in Britain through conversations with the people that built its history. Choreographers, dancers, designers, producers and composers describe their part in the development of the artform from the beginning of the twentieth century. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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