Review: The Royal Ballet School’s Summer Performance – ‘the school should be immensely proud’

[This review is illustrated with studio photos.
Photos of the performance will be presented in a gallery tomorrow.]

Now, as firm a date in the summer social calendar as Ascot or Wimbledon, The Royal Ballet School‘s (RBS) annual matinée at Covent Garden is an opportunity to talent spot, as well as take stock of the strengths of Britain’s leading vocational ballet school. The 2024 performance took place at 11.30am on 6 July and marked the beginning of a period of transition for the RBS, with the departure of current artistic director, Christopher Powney, and the appointment of a new artistic director, Iain Mackay, and new chief executive officer, Patrick Harrison, who take up their positions later this year. Before the performance commenced, however, tribute was paid to the late Barbara Fewster, the formidable former ballet principal and associate director of the RBS, who sadly died on 4 July at the age of 97.

The programme consisted of extracts from the classical repertoire, as well as new pieces created on the students, the inevitable “contemporary dance” offerings, and items from The Royal Ballet’s “heritage works”, which this year included Frederick Ashton‘s La Valse and Jerome Robbins‘ The Concert. It was, on the whole, a good selection that helped to demonstrate the versatility of the young dancers, but it couldn’t disguise the fact that it was the young men, rather than the young women, who were the outstanding performers.

The matinée began with the children’s Polonaise and Mazurka and the Grand Pas from Marius Petipa‘s Paquita, a Spanish-flavoured bravura divertissement that, here in the UK, is now more often seen performed by the drag ballet company The Trocks than by traditional ensembles. The children were neat and careful, as were the female corps de ballet and soloists, although, with the exception of Rebecca Stewart, they were a little lacking in flair. Dancing the second female variation with panache and total confidence, Stewart bounded across the stage with some space-devouring, high-flying jétés that instantly made you sit up and take notice. It was the same with the two male soloists, Emile Gooding and Alejandro Muñoz, who performed their difficult variations with such easy confidence that they made you chuckle with pleasure. It’s good to know that these three dancers, as well as the charismatic Ravi Cannonier-Watson, who appeared as the strong and assured cavalier in the pas de deux, will be joining The Royal Ballet’s Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme next season, along with Francesca Lloyd and Katie Robertson.

Paquita was followed by extracts from Didy Veldman’s winsome TooT, a white-faced clown ballet that did little to display the talents of the students, and then Assemblage, a new work by Gemma Bond to music by Leó Weiner for an ensemble of young men from the Upper School. Led by Sigurd Blystad, Tom Cape, Jackson Smith-Leishman and Javier Wong, the choreography included lyrical, flowing movements, as well as the inevitable jumps and pirouettes, and hinted at Hungarian folk dance. The entire cast were superb.

The final section of the first half was given over to the students of the Lower School in Royal Remix, a series of Balkan-inspired folk dances choreographed by Iva Lešić. Some of the national dances performed by the RBS in the past have been far too balletic to be truly authentic, but not this time, with the youngsters excelling in energetic numbers full of complex footwork and patterns that kept accelerating in speed. I was charmed both by the children’s youthful, natural innocence and their deft dexterity.

Ashton’s La Valse, with its divine music by Maurice Ravel, and which opened the second half, is difficult even for professional dancers to master, but I thought the students gave a good account of the work. Staged by Samara Downs and Ricardo Cervera, you could see how much these youngsters were trying the capture the essence of the “Ashton style”, although it doesn’t really come very naturally to them yet – this is something the RBS needs to address in the future, especially in light of recently announced plans for the Ashton Celebrated seasons.

Ashley Page provided the second new creation of the afternoon with Fieldwork, a restless, fast-paced piece to music by Dmitri Shostakovich that sees the students of the Lower School move in sequences of ever-changing directions. It was followed by Joshua Junker’s contemporary Remembrance for the 2^nd Year students of the Upper School, and in both works I was impressed by the discipline and accuracy of the dancers.

Good as it was to see the “Mistake Waltz” from Jerome Robbins’ gloriously funny The Concert, it would look even better in the context of the complete ballet. Nevertheless, Charlotte Cohen, Liberty Fergus, Tianie-Finn Grainger, Lucy Hind, Francesca Lloyd, Andrea Riolo, Katie Robertson and Jana Faye Teruel offered the audience a terrific account, as well as a reminder of how superb a choreographer Robbins was.

The last item on the programme, just before the traditional Grand Défilé that brings the entire school on to the stage of the Royal Opera House, and the audience to its feet, was Helgi Tómasson’s Concerto Grosso, a series of dances and solos for five men. It seemed the summation of the entire afternoon, and, although Tómasson’s work isn’t particularly original, the choreography, with its clever contrasts between allegro virtuosity and adagio lyricism, highlighted the exceptional abilities of the performers, Joseph Birtles Clarke, Ravi Cannonier-Watson, Emile Gooding, Edoardo Savini and Taira Watanabe. The Royal Ballet School should be immensely proud of these talented young men.

Graduating Students, The Royal Ballet School 2024

Jonathan Gray Guest Author

Jonathan Gray was editor of Dancing Times from 2008 to 2022.

He studied at The Royal Ballet School, Leicester Polytechnic, and Wimbledon School of Art where he graduated with a BA Hons in Theatre Design. He was on the Curatorial Staff of the Theatre Museum, London, from 1989 to 2005, assisting on a number of dance-related exhibitions, and helping with the recreation of original designs for a number of The Royal Ballet’s productions including Danses concertantes, Daphnis and Chloë, and The Sleeping Beauty.

Jonathan Gray has also contributed to the Financial Times and The Guardian, written programme articles for The Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet, and is co-author of the book Unleashing Britain: Theatre gets real 1955-64, published in 2005. He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.