Elmhurst Ballet School: Voices & Virtues

Elmhurst Ballet School, Birmingham
July 5, 2025

As usual, Elmhurst Ballet School’s 2025 summer performances are split into Lower School & Elmhurst Young Dancers, Upper School, and Whole School shows. Held in the school’s studio theatre, they are a more intimate affair than many, allowing family, friends, supporters, and ballet enthusiasts the opportunity to see the young dancers before they move upwards in the school or into professional dance employment.

Put together by artistic director Robert Parker, the Voices and Virtues programme for the Upper School showcased the talent, technique and artistry of the students across in classical ballet, contemporary and jazz. Other shows in the series of six performances included commercial dance too. Elmhurst students are nothing if not versatile!

While many of the eight short works including short solos, duets or small group sections, they were invariably momentary. Voices and Virtues was also very much a time for the ensemble.

Most interesting of the three classical ballet pieces was Unfading by Birmingham Royal Ballet principal dancer Lachlan Monaghan, a big ensemble piece for the dancers of Elmhurst Ballet Company.

Set to Chopin’s Ballade No.3 and dedicated to Ana Wheeler, a much-missed pianist at Elmhurst Ballet School who passed away in July 2024, Monaghan sets out to explore themes of resilience and strength. As with every other work, however, there was not even a short programme note to explain that. A disappointing omission.

The ballet is structurally and visually pleasing, Monaghan creating some impressive patterns with his dancers. The choreography itself is neoclassical in tone, the pictures painted reminding one a little of Balanchine’s Serenade. Costumed, lit and danced beautifully too, it was the highlight of the afternoon.

A second Monaghan piece, and another very pleasant watch, was From Which to Fall, performed by the Year 12 students supplemented by the Year 13 men. Danced to the closing fourth movement Rondo Schnell from Bruckner’s String Quartet in C Minor, the choreography taps neatly into the restlessness and virtuoso accents in the music.

Completing the classical contributions were excerpts from Act 2 of Sir Peter Wright and Galina Samsova’s Swan Lake. A real test of technique and keeping absolutely together as an ensemble, the Year 13 women came through it with flying colours.

The programme opened with a dash of jazz however in the shape of Amour Bohème by Cris Penfold, danced by Elmhurst Ballet Company to ‘Backstage Romance’ from Moulin Rouge: The Musical. Penfold’s choreography certainly evokes a sense of free-spirited, artistic expression that’s often associated with a bohemian lifestyle, the young dancers bursting into life in the ensemble sections in particular.

Shifting to contemporary, Miguel Altunaga followed up last year’s restaging of parts of City of A Thousand Trades with his new Ek.sta.sis for the year 13 students, again to music of the same title by Los Angeles-based Belgian composer Mathias Coppens.

The youngsters worked closely with Altunaga, who listened closely to their input during the creation of the work. Dressed in formal dark suits and white shirts, the dancers repeatedly swept and swooped around the stage, gathering, breaking and reforming like a murmuration of starlings, although the detailed movement appeared to be abstract. Whatever, it all matched Coppens’ musical landscape superbly, the choreography picking up splendidly on the textures of the score. Again, I felt it was a little too brightly lit, but it was all too short. Hopefully Altunaga will be able to extend the work at some point.

Elmhurst has a long association with Studio Wayne McGregor and the students also worked collaboratively with artist Jessica Wright on Paper Plane, performed to Mikael Karlsson’s score of the same title.

The choreographic process explored the interplay between individuality and collective identity in dialogue with AI, specifically McGregor’s AISOMA machine-learning choreographic tool, with which the dancers built movement material. The outcome is a superbly performed dance of bodies intertwining, bending and forming, and of sculptural shapes that form and reform.

Also on the programme was Far Apart, Closer by Indra Reinhold, danced by the Year 12 students, which came with a dark feel choreographically and musically, if not in its lighting; and A Line that We Crossed by Elmhurst Ballet Company members Spike Frobisher and Tom Wood, danced by the company members.

It was a fine hour and a half of interesting choreography, all danced with plenty of energy and a delightful enthusiasm. Whether moving on or moving up, I wish the dancers well.