A company reborn: London City Ballet rises again

Ahead of its opening performance in Portugal and extensive UK and overseas tour, David Mead talks to London City Ballet artistic director Christopher Marney about the company’s relaunch.

It seems an obvious question but, “Excited?” I wonder. “Oh my goodness, yes. I think you can tell,” says Christopher Marney, breaking into a broad grin. “I’m buzzing around the building. Now we’ve got people in the space, a studio full of dancers…”

Christopher Marney
Photo Sarah London

The original London City Ballet closed in 1996 after finally succumbing to financial problems. A resident company of Sadler’s Wells, and with Diana, Princess of Wales as Royal Patron, it was popular around the world as well as in the UK. With its regional touring of mixed programmes and classic ballets, it was quite a daring model, Marney suggests.

‘Daring’ might be a good description of what Marney is doing now. Maybe there’s never an ideal time to launch a new ballet company, but it seems particularly brave at the moment, a time when so many seem to be struggling with finances. So, why relaunch the company, and why now?

When it comes to the former, two things, says Marney: the type of work and the legacy that it left. He explains that he thought it sad that there wasn’t a touring company of the London City Ballet model anymore. “I could see how difficult it was becoming for bigger companies to tour because of the expense, the number of dancers needed, the big sets. But, I thought, there seems to be an audience and a demand for ballet in mid-scale regional venues, and perhaps London City Ballet could be remodelled for a new generation.”

Keeping the name was important because of its association with the past, he says, describing how the company informed his own career and how seeing them as a young child at Hornchurch in Essex gave him his first experience of live dance. “The effect it had on me personally, and the company’s history, made it feel right. And it is a company that people still actually remember very fondly.”

London City Ballet dancer Alvaro Madrigal
in class at the company’s Islington studio
Photo ASH

Not wanting to disturb anyone’s good memories of what the company had previously been, Marney contacted and sound-boarded the idea with as many people as he could who were connected with it in the past. “It was an overwhelming response. They all said how wonderful that I would want to do this.”

A pile of old London City Ballet yearbooks and programmes on a coffee table in the company office, many bought on eBay, is just a small indication evidence of the research Marney undertook into the company’s former iteration. “The archives are at the National Resource Centre for Dance at the University of Surrey. I spent days looking through all the catalogues. They have a scrapbook for every year. It’s only newspaper clippings but it gave me a real journey; a map from ‘78 right through to ’96.”

But that still left a massive 86 boxes of uncategorised material including contracts and correspondence between founder-director Harold King, the Arts Council and Beryl Grey, who was a big supporter of the company, that he couldn’t have access to, the NRCD citing data protection issues.

Ayça Anil and Mischa Goodman
in Ashley Page’s Larina Waltz,
part of London City Ballet’s Resurgence programme
Photo ASH

Luckily, former company administrator Heather Knight had a lot of information in her loft. “She was wonderful. She was happy for me to go up there, then sit in her lounge for a week and just piece through it. That was so valuable.”

Support has come from all over. At Sadler’s Wells, an enthusiastic Alistair Spalding liked how the project was a new take on something that had a history with the theatre and immediately offered to find the company a slot in the schedules for its comeback performances.

While new work was an element of what he had in mind, just as important was bringing back ballets that have slipped out of the repertoire, and to revive those that are perhaps on the brink of being forgotten about.

At The Royal Ballet, Kevin O’Hare gave time and space, the company spending a week in the Macmillan Studio, quite aptly, at the Opera House, when they were working with the notation on one such, Kenneth Macmillan’s Ballade, which features in the Resurgence programme.

“We had Deborah McMillan there as well. We just really had a look at what this work was and how it might stand up today because it’s 50 years old, it’s only been done once and there’s no video you can watch. No photographs either.”

Marney recalls her asking, ‘Why this one?’ “I said, because of all those personal reasons to you. It’s a ballet you’ve never seen that has you and Kenneth as characters within it. And I knew that it was about the blossoming of their relationship.”

He continues, “A brief synopsis online just caught my attention. It said it started in a cinema, then moved to a table. So, it had a narrative feel to it already. It’s then almost like a sort of chess game where the woman chooses between three men. It’s a series of pas de deux and group dances until finally she chooses one of them. And that was Kenneth. It’s just this lovely little 15 to 20 minute piece with a beginning middle and an end, and four very distinct characters. And a ballet that I don’t think anyone can vouch to have seen because it was only performed it once, in Portugal in 1972.”

l-r: Ayça Anil, Junor Souza, Juan Gil, and Joseph Taylor
in Kenneth MacMillan’s Ballade
Photo ASH

Although Lady MacMillan was with her husband in Portugal, Marney reveals she never saw the ballet on stage, even though it’s about her. “There’s a funny story there. I’m sure she won’t mind me saying this but she said the night before the performance they all went to a seafood restaurant. Guess what happened? She got food poisoning. She had to go to hospital and everything. It was very dramatic and she missed the only performance of Ballade, a ballet that Kenneth created for her and about their relationship.”

That the ballet only received one outing was simply down to circumstance, Marney says. “Kenneth had recently taken over as artistic director at The Royal Ballet and Deborah told me that his priorities just shifted from small chamber pieces for the company’s New Group, to having to programme for the main stage. Also, the New Group didn’t last for a very long, so many of these chamber ballets just didn’t have a vehicle to be able to be shown, but they are ideal for what we’re planning to do.”

So, does Marney have a little list in his head of similarly disappeared ballets he’d like to present? “Yes, I do,” he says, smiling broadly. “A really long list! It’s important though, to try as much as possible to get to know those works and not take them sort of unseen. And that they fit within a programme rather than appearing as if they’ve just sort of been plucked out of the air.”

Arthur Wille and Jimin Kim rehearsing Ashley Page’s Larina Waltz
Photo ASH

Coming back to London City Ballet’s Resurgence programme, Marney explains that he wanted it to be a look back on the work that the company did previously did, at least in part. To that end, it will open with a film montage of how we got to this point and what had previously been, he lets slip.

Another work not seen for a long time is Ashley Page’s Larina Waltz. “I knew he wanted to revisit it and it is a perfect opener.” From the black and white of that ballet, we go into Ballade, which is set in a very austere white room. Then, as we go further into the evening, we add colour and it becomes more about looking forwards to a brighter future.”

Jimin Kim and Nicholas Mihlar rehearse Arielle Smith’s new ballet, Five Dances
Photo ASH

Also on the programme is MacMillan’s Concerto pas de deux. Then, coming right up to date, there’s Five Dances, a new work by Arielle Smith which, having seen it in creation in the studio, I can vouch looks to be another cracker from the in-demand choreographer. Very impressive was the positive energy, and how she encouraged the dancers to contribute to the process. Rounding off the programme is Eve, a work Marney created in 2022.

About half the company were directly invited to join, Marney explains, generally those who he has had the pleasure of working with in other companies, as director or choreographer. These include vastly experienced dancers such as Alejandro Virelles and and Cira Robinson, formerly with English National Ballet and Ballet Black respectively, but now pursuing freelance careers; and Joseph Taylor, taking a sabbatical from Northern Ballet

Ellie Young and Joseph Taylor rehearse Arielle Smith’s Five Dances
Photo ASH

The rest came via open auditions. “We had over 900 applications! All ages and experiences. We watched every video.” From those, 200 were seen live, from which the final selection was made. “It needed to be a mix of graduates, mid-career artists, freelancers with ten or fifteen years under their belt. I’m so proud of who we’ve got. I think it really does represent a company of diversity and of age range and experience.”

And there is Alina Cojocaru. “How could you not ask Alina,” he says. “When I thought about the Macmillan work, she was the ballerina that came to my mind immediately. She’s such an interesting artist. I spoke to her about Ballade when we were reconstructing it. I asked her to come in and have a little chat and a watch of rehearsal, and we took it from there really.”

Kanika Skye-Carr and Alvaro Madrigal
in Christopher Marney’s Eve
Photo ASH

Marney explains that, while the dancers are employed for six months of the year, from the start of rehearsals in May, through touring, to a period of research and development in October in readiness for the next season, a small administrative team will be working year round.

And it is quite a tour. After a first performance at the Palácio de Seteais in Sintra, Portugal, there are seven UK dates through the summer, interrupted by a three-week, eight-city visit to China, which came about after Marney got a phone call out of the blue from a promoter in Shanghai who had brought London City Ballet to the country in the mid-90s. Finally, the company will be opening the fall season at New York’s Joyce Theater in mid-September.

In the UK, Marney explains that he wanted initially to try to go just to venues that London City Ballet had gone to previously. “There was something I really liked about that. A sort of legacy tour in a way.”

And while Marney accepts that attracting regional audiences to mixed programmes is often thought difficult, he considers that, “Presenting them is really important and it is what the company used to do. It is important for people outside of London to have access to different types of work. I think it would be a shame to just tour well-known classical titles because I don’t feel like we’re really then providing anything new. And I feel we have packaged it well. I’d like to think that there’s almost something for everyone in Resurgence.

When it comes to finances, having spent time at the Joffrey Ballet, Marney admits to being inspired by the American model, the philanthropy and the passion that he sees board members pour into the companies they are part of. He confirms that London City Ballet receives no public funding. “I haven’t applied for any either,” he says, although adds, “Whether that will change, I’m staying completely open to.”

Harry Alexander in Five Dances by Arielle Smith
Photo ASH

He explains how he really wanted to spend the first couple of years figuring out exactly what the company should be; it’s vision. “I understand completely that, when you take someone else’s money, there are sometimes stipulations. I thought, if I can raise the money that I need for this six-month model for the next three years, then it gives me some freedom to be able to really see artistically where this can go.”

He found three generous supporters, each of whom promised a set amount of money each year for the first three years. He confirms that one of them is from Japan. So, can we expect a tour there at some point? “I hope so! I love Japan. I’ve been there 16 times dancing or choreographing. I absolutely adore touring there, but whether a tour comes, who knows?”

But for now, more than anything, Marney and London City Ballet need a winning first season at home. Success can never be assured, but if Marney’s enthusiasm counts for anything, it will surely come.

London City Ballet tour Resurgence from July 6 to September 22, 2024.