Voices of British Ballet

This interview is a reminder of how lucky we in Britain have been with our great choreographers – in this case Christopher Bruce. Talking to Deborah Weiss, dance writer, editor and former first soloist with London Festival Ballet, Kevin Richmond also reminds us about taking chances, fun and friendship. The interview was recorded in 2018 and is introduced by Deborah Weiss.

Born in Nottingham in 1958, Kevin Richmond was the eldest of three boys. His interest in theatre began at primary school where he was encouraged to participate in drama classes. At the age of ten he was recruited as a child actor to appear in a number of productions, including Waiting for Godot with Peter O’Toole and in the 1972 Harold Becker film The Ragman’s Daughter. Initially, Richmond wasn’t keen to learn to dance but was convinced by his teachers that it may help his acting career.

Richmond’s first professional dance job was with an education project called Dance for Everyone when Richmond was just 17. He joined London Festival Ballet in 1977 under the directorship of Beryl Grey and remained with the company, now English National Ballet, for 22 years. He worked with five directors during this time and among his most memorable experiences was working with the choreographer Christopher Bruce on Swansong. Bruce created the ballet on Richmond, Matz Skoog and Koen Onzia in 1987 and this work and its cast were celebrated worldwide. Other important roles included the title role in Christopher Hampson’s Scrooge, Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and Dr Coppélius in Coppélia.

After retiring from the stage, Richmond completed the Professional Dancer’s Teaching Diploma at the Royal Academy of Dance and taught at London Studio Centre, Basler Ballett, Cathy Sharp Dance Ensemble and latterly, at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künst in Zürich where he taught the BA in Contemporary Dance course. He also taught as a guest teacher with many companies including Rambert. He became ill with cancer in 2018 and died the following year.

The photograph shows Kevin Richmond in The Nutcracker; Kevin Richmond; Peter Schaufuss production; Designs by David Walker; English National Ballet; 1986; at the London Coliseum; London, UK; Photo by Bill Cooper licensed by Areanpal
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The second in our series of special episodes to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of Ninette de Valois’ Academy for Choregraphic Art in March 1926, and to mark 25 years since de Valois' death. Patricia Linton talks to Dr Anna Meadmore, archivist at The Royal Ballet School about de Valois ballet, Checkmate.

Checkmate is one of the only two ballets by Ninette de Valois to survive in the repertoire. It makes allegorical use of a chess game to represent a battle between love and death. Arthur Bliss, the composer, and Edward McKnight Kauffer, the designer, worked with de Valois’ ideas in a way that made perfect sense of the ensuing battle, and testified to her commitment to Serge Diaghilev’s ideas on the importance of music and design in ballet. The action of the chess pieces is foreshadowed in a prologue in which the skeletal hand of death plays chess with the figure of love and suggests that what we are about to see is in some way pre-determined. The chess pieces from pawn and knight to King and Queen make their moves as if guided by the hand of fate. The Black Queen powers her way across the board, dominating all around her. After the thunderous chaos and brutal murder of her would-be lover the Red Knight, the climatic finale sees the Red King goaded out of his inertia. His feeble resistance prompts the Queen to administer the coup de grace: ‘checkmate indeed’. The ballet was first performed at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Paris in 1937, with June Brae as the Black Queen, Harold Turner as the Red Knight, and Robert Helpmann and Pamela May as the Red King and Queen.

The photograph shows Sadler’s Wells Ballet in Checkmate at the Royal Opera House, 1947. Love (Jean Bedells) and Death (Franklin White) deliberate over a game of chess in the Prologue to Ninette de Valois’ ballet Credit: Frank Sharman/Royal Opera House/ArenaPAL
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Jill Tookey, the founder of National Youth Ballet of Great Britain (NYB), in conversation here with Frank Freeman, explains how she set about it, and what her vision was. She gives a breathtaking insight into how all the different and necessary strands of activity plait together to create something worthwhile. She speaks engagingly about some of the ballets created for NYB, and about working on them with esteemed members of the ballet world, such as John Lanchbery and Wayne Sleep. The interview was recorded in 2010 and is introduced by Anna Meadmore.

Born in Kent in 1937, Jill Tookey arrived at what was to be her dancing destiny by an unusual route. She had enjoyed ballet as a child but was swallowed up by the fashion industry of the 1960s, becoming fashion editor for both Woman and Beauty and Honey magazines. By the 1980s, and as mother of four children, she had begun writing childrens’ books. Pedro the Parrot, published by Thames and Hudson, was to be the springboard for an extraordinary adventure. To set Pedro dancing, music was found and also a choreographer. From there Tookey never looked back. She was alert to the huge interest in dancing and performance in the young and how, with the right build up, they could channel their excitement into something truly worthwhile.
By 1988 Tookey had founded the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain (NYB) and she remained its artistic director until she died in 2016. She was always able to see the bigger picture as well as the details, with many ballets specially created for NYB and many young choreographers and dancers encouraged. As a result of her inspired and energetic leadership, literally thousands of children have had opportunities to enjoy the magical world of the theatre, with a number going on to dance professionally. Jill Tookey was appointed a CBE in 2016, but died that same year, and, sadly, was unable to collect her award. She was represented at the investiture by her ten-year-old granddaughter, who had danced with NYB for four years.
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Here, Patricia Thorburn throws a little light on finding jobs with Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet. The interview, which was recorded in 2003, is introduced by dance historian Jane Pritchard.

Patricia Thorburn was born in Peebles, Scotland, and was a student of Mrs Bell Hardy in Edinburgh. In 1937, she auditioned and then studied at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School and made her debut with the Carl Rosa Opera in 1938. In 1939 and 1940 she served with the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) but joined the Anglo Polish Ballet in 1940 and remained with the company until 1942. Following this, she appeared in a number of London shows, and married John Arnold in 1945 before joining the Sadler’s Wells Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1946 to boost the numbers in their extraordinary production of The Sleeping Beauty.

Thorburn then danced as a member of the Agnes de Mille Ballet in the stage musical London Town. She retired from the company in 1947. Using her ballet training as a basis, she went to study with Sigurd Leeder at his School of Dance at Dartington Hall, Devon, to expand her horizons. She pioneered a Pure Movement course to help actors move more naturally on stage and screen and, working under her married name of Patricia Arnold, started to teach movement and historical dance at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in 1955, where she became head of Movement from 1963 until 1972. She also taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Thorburn taught well beyond the age of 75, and even after retirement was often asked back to teach masterclasses.

The photograph shows Patricia Thorburn with fellow classmates from Sadler's Wells Ballet School with Nicholas Segeyev in the centre in 1937 / 1938. Photo courtesy of Patricia Thorburn.
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What agony to hear this gorgeous, beguiling woman lament the lack of interest she feels was shown to her generation in passing on their knowledge and experience to the next. Irina Baronova’s no nonsense approach is mysteriously interwoven with intuitive artistry – we could expect no less from one of the original “Baby Ballerinas” of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In this interview, recorded in 2006, Irina Baronova is interviewed by Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet. The interview is introduced by Jane Pritchard of the V&A.

Irina Baronova was a Russian-born ballerina and actress, known as one of the “Baby ballerinas” of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She was born in Petrograd in 1919. Her father, Mikhail Baronov, was a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy, and in 1920 he and his family had to flee the country following the Russian Revolution. They crossed the border into Romania disguised as peasants and eventually settled in Bucharest. They had no money in a foreign country where they did not know or speak the language. Baronov eventually found a job at a factory, and the family spent the following years living in the city slums.
At the age of seven, Baronova began taking her first ballet classes when her mother (who was a ballet enthusiast) found her a teacher, Madame Majaiska, a former corps de ballet member of the Imperial Russian Ballet. She was also a refugee from Russia and so conducted Baronova’s classes in the kitchen of her one-bedroom house, using the kitchen table as a barre. To provide Irina with professional training, the family moved to Paris when she was ten years old, where she was taught by Olga Preobrajenska and Mathilde Kschessinska. In 1930, at the age of 11, Baronova made her debut at the Paris Opéra. The catalyst for her career came in 1932, just before her 13th birthday, when George Balanchine engaged her for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, along with the equally youthful Tamara Toumanova and Tatiana Riabouchinska. The English critic Arnold Haskell dubbed this illustrious trio the “Baby Ballerinas”.

Baronova was 14 when she was given her first principal role, as Odette in Act II of Swan Lake, in which she was partnered by Anton Dolin. At the age of 17, she eloped with an older Russian man, German (Jerry) Sevastianov, in order to get married. Their marriage came two years later, in 1938, with a ceremony in Sydney, Australia. Baronova then joined Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre) in the United States of America, subsequently divorcing Sevastianov. In 1946, in the United Kingdon, she met the theatrical agent Cecil Tennant who asked her to marry him, which she did, retiring from her career in ballet at the age of 27.

Between 1940 and 1951, Baronova appeared in several films, including Ealing Studio’s Train of Events (1949). Much later she worked as ballet mistress on the 1980 Hollywood film Nijinsky. During her marriage to Tennant, she gave birth to three children: Victoria, Irina and Robert. In 1967, Tennant was killed in a car accident, and Baronova subsequently moved to Switzerland. She then resumed her marriage with her first husband, Sevastianov, who died in 1974. Baronova then began teaching master classes in the UK and the USA. In 1986 she staged Mikhail Fokine’s Les Sylphides for The Australian Ballet, and in 1992 returned to Russia to help the Maryinsky Theatre with an archival project. In 1996 she received a Vaslav Nijinsky Medal in Poland and an honorary doctorate from the North Carolina School of the Arts. In 2000, she went to live in Australia with her daughter, Irina. In 2005 she appeared in a documentary on the Ballet Russe, and published her autobiography Irina: Ballet, Life and Love. She died in her sleep in Byron Bay, Australia, on June 28, 2008, at the age of 89.
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