Mulryan Centre for Dance, London
May 19, 2022
English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer event is one of the dance calendar’s most joyous occasions. It’s when a company celebrates its own talent with a distinctly partisan audience cheering its chosen dancers on. Finally, after the Covid hiatus, the dancers had a small invited audience as well as the live stream and host Jordan Lee had little trouble enthusing the home crowd.
The coveted Emerging Dancer 2022 award went to Eric Snyder. The USA born dancer gave an outstanding performance, delivered with the presence of a true danseur noble. When accepting his prize, he mentioned the family party viewing back home in Arizona and he won hearts with his emotional ‘Hi, Mom’ wave.
Photo Laurent Liotardo
The classical pas de deux were contrasted and well suited to the performers. Ashley Coupal and Noam Durand danced the wedding pas deux from Ronald Hynd’s Coppélia. It has all the sweetness and charm of youthful love but is not without its share of fiendish virtuosity, especially in the male variation. The young couple looked surprisingly relaxed on such a high stakes evening with Coupal maintaining a rock-solid balance as she enjoyed holding every position as long as Gavin Sutherland, conducting from the adjoining studio, could allow. Durand launched the coda with jetes of amazing height and Coupal complemented with a high speed manège setting the bar for the evening at maximum high.
Chloe Keneally and Snyder, tall, elegant and exquisitely costumed were the perfect couple for the Grand Pas from The Sleeping Beauty. It was a superb showcase for these dancers, blessed with fine proportions and textbook classical lines which they displayed in a near perfect duet. Snyder delivered a crisply cool variation, each tour and jeté beautifully defined but for me it was his cabriole en arrière in the coda where he hovered in the air in a perfect position that won him the award. It was breathtaking! Keneally, matched up in her solo, shaping her exquisitely neat pointes to the notes while allowing her arms to play with the melody.
Photo Laurent Liotardo
Angela Wood and Matthew Astley gave an authoritative performance of the Grand Pas from Paquita. Without the corps to dress the stage it tends to be rather severe and soulless. However, it was given a strong performance, the dancers rising to the technical demands. Wood’s challenging solo, clean-cut and intense, would have benefitted from a little more ease of delivery. However, she triumphed with an excellent series of fouettés in the coda while Astley pulled out all the stops in a virtuoso finish.
The contemporary solos are the trickier ones to judge as unlike the classical variations they seldom offer all the necessary challenges. Nefes, choreographed by Ceyda Tanc, to an intriguing score composed by Fabian Reimar, offered fluid, off balance moves and demanding floor work in a sinuous duet performed by Coupal and Durand. Hamish Longley choreographed Interlude on the Jubilee Line, a cute and colourful jazzy duet to ragtime tunes. It gave Wood and Astley the opportunity to relax and smile but not a lot more. It was Rentaro Nakaaki who best covered all bases with Cha Nataki and Tiara which demanded skill in contemporary dance, drama and comedy and Keneally and Snyder excelled.
The high tension over, it was left to last year’s winner of Emerging Dancer 2021, Ivana Bueno and People’s Choice winner, Victor Prigent to entertain with an outstanding performance of Le Corsaire. They delighted, charmed and amazed in equal quantities thoroughly enjoying the wild applause that their virtuosity provoked.
Finally came the moment we were all waiting for, the announcement of the winners. The judging panel Dana Fouras, Céline Gittens, Kamara Gray, Tamara Rojo CBE, Sir Alistair Spalding CBE and Joseph Toonga gave Eric Snyder the top award to massive audience response. Emilia Cadorin received the Corps de Ballet Award, obviously a popular choice and very well deserved and Precious Adams gained the People’s Choice Award.