Hello,
Thought I would report back on the month that has just finished as we haven't stopped!
We started the month by publishing a book, Scottish Ballet - Forty years. Ann Nugent (SB's Communications Manager) did some research on publishers and found the perfect candidate: somebody that would have the patience to deal with our inexperience of publishing, that would have the passion and drive to run with this project and (big bonus!) that was local - Sara Hunt.
There was no research needed to find the perfect writter, Mary Brennan (The Herald Dance Critic), who absolutely blew me away on our first visit to the archives, looking at pictures and telling me the name of the dancers, the pieces they were performing, the choreographer and the composer and a few amazing anecdotes. I thought she got lucky on the first couple of pictures but after the 15th I just had to bow at the perfection that is her memory.
We worried and worried about what to include, about gaps in pictures about putting too many new pictures because their reproducive quality was much better, but after months and months of hard work, it was so rewarding to receive the printers' pictures, and to launch it at the Edinburgh Book Festival, no less! Now we just need to sell it, but we have got an army of little dancers, which should do the trick.
Next was an exhibition (with the help of Homecoming Scotland) in one of the areas of Tramway that we were able to renovate at the same time as we were constructing our new home in the derelict part of this amazing International Arts Centre: Tramway 5. We comissioned Scottish artist Daniel Warren to create a film and gave our pictures to another Scottish artist, Colin Lindsay for him to choose for the exhibition, not on historical or ballet grounds at all, just purely from an image point of view.
I still keep on watching Daniel Warren's Mercury with immense fascination. Firstly because I love the way our Deputy Artistic Director Paul Tyers communicates with the dancers: a mixture of words, silence, movements... a special language to communicate the uncommunicable; and secondly because I still marvel at seeing our dancers in slow motion, their bodies developing into a position, every muscle in the right place, the face and shoulders relaxed and elegant while the rest of their body is doing the most amazing things. To paraphrase Mr Einstein, truly the "athletes of god"!
To start the 40th Anniversary and our move to Tramway celebrations, we wanted to share a cake with the people that had helped make Scottish Ballet what it is today and let them have a nosey of the new home. So everyone who had worked in Scottish ballet at any point in the past 40 years was invited for a reception on Sunday the 6th of September. It was wonderful to hear their tales of the start of Scottish Ballet, how they would go out for a drink with Scottish Ballet founder Peter Darrell after a long day and then decide to go back to the studio to do a little bit more, how they performed in places in the Highlands were the electricity had to be fed by means of a coin machine... It felt like they were bringing their soul to this new building, helping us to continue with the same belief and energy!
We then followed by an official opening of our new home on Thursday the 17th of September, with the help of Michael Russell (Minister for Culture), to thank all the donors that have made this move possible.
And then it was our first Open Doors Day at Tramway! The whole Company participated (except for the dancers who were in the middle of a very intense schedule of rehearsals for our Autumn Season) to show what we do behing those usually closed doors! More than 1800 people came: I was expecting some interest but that was pretty incredible!!
Wardrobe department
Peter Darrell studio, the biggest in Europe!
A demonstration from the Associates
Technical department showing their tricks
The craft corner for kids
And to finish on a high note... Clive from Malcom Fraser Architects and myself showing how it is done...
What a month! No rest for the wicked though, as we're now off to London for our opening of the 40th Anniversary Season in Sadler's Wells with the local Scottish crew coming to celebrate with us! Edith Bowman, Christopher Kane...
A bientot,
Charlotte x
Charlotte Gross, Head of Marketing and Communications