As he guests in Cape Town, Maggie Foyer speaks to Brandon Lawrence as he weighs up the pros and cons of making career defining choices.
Being a dancer is a high-risk, short career but the international currency of dance does allow dancers to move easily across the world. Brandon Lawrence is a highflyer, having just won the prestigious British National Dance Award for Best Male Classical Dancer, he is now a principal dancer with Ballett Zürich where he is already enjoying critical success and building a new fan base.
His career has solid foundations. He relates, “I started at a local school in Yorkshire, but things really kicked off when I joined the Royal Ballet School, two years at White Lodge and three years at the Upper School. I graduated in 2011 and joined Birmingham Royal Ballet, directed by David Bintley. He gave me many opportunities and I worked my way up from artist to principal, learning from my partners, teachers and coaches.”
There were changes afoot when Carlos Acosta took over as director at BRB in January 2020 unfortunately timed with the devastating Covid pandemic.
“Carlos had danced with many companies and was aware of the benefits of travel. I had been in contact with Debbie Turner, then CEO of Cape Town City Ballet. Her plans for a Swan Lake were shelved because of the pandemic but Maina Gielgud’s Giselle was suggested for 2021. I got permission from Carlos, who let me go to Cape Town for six weeks, with the proviso, ‘Just don’t get injured!’”
I love travelling, long plane journeys don’t scare me and I had a good rehearsal period. I was also working with Maina, who is a legend in the field especially when it comes to Giselle. Cape Town was stunning, still very warm in March and I had time to get to know the company and the city. I remember thinking that this feels right, Carlos is behind me and I’m doing it.”
Lawrence has made two further visits to the tip of Africa. He was invited back to dance Romeo in August 2022. “The dates fell in BRB’s summer holiday, so while I needed to ask Carlos for permission, I didn’t need time off.”
The clincher was the triple bill, which included Frederick Ashton’s Les Patineurs where he would be dancing the White Couple. “I’ve always wanted to dance the ballet, it’s a heritage piece. I’ve known it since school and it’s in BRB rep, but we’ve never danced it.”
There was a further incentive. “A very dear friend and teacher of mine, Diane van Schoor was teaching for the company. She was my ballet principal at White Lodge, and I had done the Cecchetti Legacy Project with her. So, I felt like there were a lot of reasons to go and to be part of this.”
Brandon Lawrence joined Ballett Zürich as principal dancer in the 23/24 season. “It kind of came out of nowhere. I’d always been a fan of Cathy’s work, and we just got talking. I’d enjoyed The Cellist which I’d been able to see in the cinema. Having close friends, Sean Bates and Mlindi Kulashe in Northern Ballet, I’d seen Victoria and Jane Eyre as well as online stuff. A conversation came about and I thought what this opportunity could mean.
“Joining Ballett Zürich meant working with a new director, a choreographer who’s very much working today and will continue to create for the company. Also doing works from a vast number of other choreographers. This I wouldn’t really get in the UK. I would be moving forward. I thought about where I wanted to go artistically, and it kept coming back to: Why wouldn’t I do this? What have I got to lose? I’ve got so much more to gain.
“I had many conversations with Carlos, also with his assistant Dominic Antonucci and the chairman of the boards David Normington. I wanted them to know my thought process because I didn’t want them to think I was leaving because I was unhappy. That was never the case. I spent twelve wonderful years in Birmingham and the company, the environment, the ballets, the touring, all that stuff will always be there with me.”
Lawrence’s final performance in London in the summer of 2023, was an exciting moment. Acosta invited him to dance Valery Panov’s solo Liebestod. In Acosta’s words, “Brandon has amazing physique and presence. It’s a piece that is rarely performed and it seemed tailor-made for him.” The occasion was Carlos at 50, a birthday celebration and acknowledgement of a great artist and his contribution to dance. “Yeah, it made a really good closure, a week at the Royal Opera House with all that nostalgia and wow, what a way to go out.”
September 2024, and Lawrence is back in Cape Town to dance Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto with the newly formed Cape Ballet Africa directed by Debbie Turner. The seeds had been sown at least a year before. Launching a new company, and getting this iconic work on stage for the inaugural season involved that mix of courage and serendipity that fuels theatre.
“Debbie has been so incredible with me and to me. She’s in love with the art, and you can see that in the work that she does. She came to Zurich to see Walkways, my first season. She mentioned, not a company, but doing ‘something’ in South Africa. I told her she had my support and knew how to contact me. She came back for Timekeepers in January 2024 and said that the idea now ‘had legs!’ Then she asked if I had danced Concerto and mentioned that she had Camille Bracher on board. I knew Camille as a dancer with the Royal Ballet.
“My journey with Concerto started at the Royal Ballet School, where we were taught it by Christopher Carr. We had it in the rep at BRB and I’d done the second movement, but of course I needed to rehearse it properly. That was when we called on Lynn Wallis.”
Bracher was in Cape Town and now a member of the new company, Lawrence was in Zürich and Wallis in London but luck was on their side. There was one week in July when Lawrence was back in Birmingham and Bracher was in London. “Camille and Lynn were able to come to Birmingham for one day and we worked for about five hours. That was Monday, then Tuesday and Wednesday I went back and forth from Birmingham to London. Both the Royal Ballet in London and BRB gave us studio space and Kevin O’Hare, (director of the RB) popped in to say hello. It was lovely. Over those three days, we had about five or six hours each day. And that’s all we had until I arrived here on the Thursday before opening on the Saturday.”
The inaugural Cape Ballet Africa season was titled SALT, and comprised three new South African choreographies by Kirsten Isenberg, Mthuthuzeli November and Michelle Reid; and Concerto, the one heritage work. An odd combination, but the timeless, abstract quality of the pas de deux and the simplicity of the costumes made it a surprisingly successful one. Lawrence added, “I think it has the purity to complement the other pieces. It was also important to present Camille, a South African who has danced with the Royal Ballet and Company Wayne McGregor, to celebrate her and feature her a little bit more in this program.
“On a personal note, it might seem odd, just coming in and doing the duet but building on my six weeks on my first visit, then coming back for R&J and Les Patineurs, it’s almost like a company I’m really a part of. I know the dancers and when I first arrived and I saw them do Reverie, I felt a bit choked up, seeing what they are doing and what they put into it. I felt so proud.
“It’s an ambitious programme. ‘I really enjoy the production. I’m gonna call it with Kirsten’s Reverie. I adore that music, Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2. I’ve seen it played a few times in Birmingham, it’s beautiful, so luscious and warm. And then, Mthuthuzeli’s Chapter 2, I just worked with him earlier this year, so it was great to see more of his work up close. I love the different energy levels and how the dancers commit to it. And then Michelle’s Smoke. I mean it’s breaking everything down and it’s almost allowing them to just breathe, cool down and have fun with it. There are only twelve dancers, but it looks like a lot more.”
Brandon Lawrence is now well into his second season in Zürich. He has created new roles in Mthuthuzeli November’s Rhapsody and most recently a powerful performance as Robbie in Cathy Marston’s Atonement and he is in rehearsal for Marston’s Clara which opened on October 11. Definitely a dancer on the move!
To read more about the new Cape Ballet Africa, visit capeballetafrica.com.