Dance up close and personal: Jamiel Devernay-Laurence talks about Ballet Nights

David Mead talks to Jamiel Devernay-Laurence, director-producer of Ballet Nights, a new season of dance at the Lanterns Studio Theatre in London’s Canary Wharf.

The end of September welcomes something new in London’s ballet calendar: a season of dance featuring world-class dancers alongside emerging artists, legacy works and modern masterpieces alongside new creations; and live music.

Directed and produced by Jamiel Devernay-Laurence, Ballet Nights initially features three different mixed programmes, each for two nights on the final weekends of September, October and November. Carefully curated, each promises to be interesting, entertaining, and with maybe a few surprises.

Programme 1 is certainly just that, featuring The Royal Ballet’s Steven McRae in a self-choreographed tap Czárdás; Melissa Hamilton in The Dying Swan and with Ryoichi Hirano in the Second Movement pas de deux from Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto; Constance Devernay-Laurence in the Gamzatti variation from La Bayadère; New English Ballet Theatre in Peter Leung’s All in Passing; a new work choreographed and danced by Jordan James Bridge of Company Wayne McGregor; George Liang and Julie Nunes of Northern Ballet in You Will Get Your Wants by Gavin McCaig, part of the company’s Sketches series; and excerpts of Kenneth MacMillan’s Isadora by Edd Mitten and Amy Thake of Yorke Dance Project.

Programmes 2 and 3 have a similar mix with highlights including a new work created and performed by Musa Motha, more new work from Steven McRae and Jordan James Bridge, the latter a contemporary piece for Constance Devernay-Laurence, and the UK premiere of David Dawson’s Metamorphosis One.

The season is a follow up on Jamiel Devernay-Laurence’s 2021 one-night concept show. Like that evening, Ballet Nights is his vision of what a dance show could be, should be. That involves using an approach, what he calls a dance ‘technology,’ that he feels has been somewhat left behind: the variety show. “So, actually, a very old technology dressed up as new.”

He brims with energy as talks enthusiastically about the season. Putting a series of short pieces or ‘acts’ back to back makes for a very entertaining evening, he reckons. And, just like theatre variety shows of old, Ballet Nights will be compared.

A desire to appeal to and attract new audiences is at the heart of what Devernay-Laurence is doing. He explains, “I think it can be quite a scary experience to enter a big opera house or theatre, maybe without access to a comprehensive programme. It’s very important that people who have never seen dance before are on the same footing as those who are dance fans. There is a very simple technology to fix that, which is to give somebody a mic. By having me tell everyone what they are seeing, why they are seeing it, no-one feels alienated or left out of the conversation. I also like to provide little anecdotes. It would be a great loss if someone goes to ballet but decides never to return because they didn’t connect or didn’t understand what was going on.”

He continues, “The real crux of Ballet Nights is that we are sort of creating the jazz club scenario but for ballet. Guy with a mic, best dance in the world. If you think about the biggest comedians in the world, they still do their stand-up to 200, 300 people. Those experiences build audiences in a different way to the 2,000-seater auditorium, which we are definitely not competing with. This is a complementary experience.

The Ballet Nights format is one that he considers allows people to see a cross section of what dance today is. “You see the headliner, and the headliner is something to be celebrated, the same as at a big music concert, but you also see the emerging artist, and what these new voices, new talents have. But similarly and very importantly, we want legacy work. We need to remember those names who got us where we are.”

Following up on the music analogy, Devernay-Laurence is not afraid to cast around and look at how other entertainment forms, arts and sport, present and promote themselves, and borrow ideas that might work. Indeed, he believes it’s important that freelancers and others like himself to do so.

“I know that a show like this is valuable to society, is valuable culturally, but we do need to re-evaluate the way shows are financed and presented to the public. And I think it’s incumbent on the next generation of young dance entrepreneurs to start building alternatives if they want to see a healthy dance ecology that they can participate in, and that they can benefit from.”

From the music concert playbook comes the idea of a Backstage Pass Event. A limited number of stage-side seating tickets for each show include access to an after-show party where pass holders can meet, mingle and celebrate with the performers. “It’s a very common practice in music gigs, there’s always a backstage ‘meet the artists’ after the show, but isn’t something that I feel is being explored in dance to its full potential.”

Devernay-Laurence points to what Drive to Survive on Netflix did for Formula1 (he confesses to being a fan). “That was about increasing access and there are many ways to do that, providing immersion through a continuous stream of content being one.”

To that end, Ballet Nights is putting a huge amount online. “All of our video content is free on YouTube . We have behind-the-scenes films, shot very dramatically by Arctic Zoo Productions. Dan Erman finds new and exciting ways to capture true aspects of each artist when they are rehearsing. We have long form content in the podcasts, although you don’t always hear much about dance on them. You hear about Constance’s cat or Jordan’s schooldays and his dream dinner with David Attenborough that he wants to have. On top of all that are our social media channels, which we’re gearing towards the exploration of each artist’s back stories.”

For many, a surprise star of Ballet Nights may well be the venue itself. Although known as a superb rehearsal space (dance users include New Adventures and Akram Khan, and Hofesh Shechter created Grand Finale there), it has seen relatively few performances.

Devernay-Laurence explains, “We have 17m x 17m of sprung stage space, but we only have 300 audience stretched wide. It’s dance in theatrical widescreen. And if you’re in the stage-side seats, your toes are on the stage. You will not get close to the biggest principal dancers and stars in the world than you will at Ballet Nights. And up close, there is no compromise. It certainly creates a different atmosphere to that where’s there a divide between you, the audience, the pit, the apron and then the main stage. It’s a different experience but just as powerful.”

Constance Devernay-Laurence adds, “You have the space that you would get from an opera house to perform on, but because the audience is so close you can create the intimacy that you would get from a much smaller theatre or a rehearsal studio.”

Ballet Nights will continue beyond November. “There absolutely will be a Spring season,” Jamiel Devernay-Laurence assures. “Ballet Nights is not just going to arrive and overnight become the biggest name in dance. I’m under no illusions that might be case. But it’s a fantastic way for the artists to be seen, maybe in a new light.”

But more than anything, it’s about building a new audience while not alienating the existing one, he says. What he hopes, is new audience members might leave feeling they must now go and see something they’ve just watched at Lanterns on a bigger stage. “That’s the outcome I would be happiest with. More audience, experiencing more dance, and feeling more confident and comfortable about it.”

Ballet Nights is at the Lanterns Studio Theatre, Canary Wharf, London on September 29 & 30, October 27 & 28 and November 24 & 25.

For full programme details and ticketing visit www.balletnights.com.