In a video diary recorded during the summer break, David explains the choreographic progress that was made at the start of 2010, before the Company embarked on a lengthy spring of touring activity.
Category: Videos
The role of the Prince in Cinderella is being created by Iain Mackay.
Born in Glasgow, Iain Mackay trained as a Junior Associate of Scottish Ballet, before joining the Dance School of Scotland. He spent two years at the Royal Ballet Upper School, and joined Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1999. He was promoted to Soloist in 2001 and Principal in 2003. Introducing Iain in the dancer’s official company biography, Director David Bintley praises Iain’s ability to ‘take on everything from classical princes to intense dramatic roles’, and that ‘he has become one of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s most valued and versatile artists.’
Iain has extensive experience in leading narrative roles, with his repertory including Prince Florimund (The Sleeping Beauty), The Prince (The Nutcracker), Romeo (Romeo and Juliet), Siegfried (Swan Lake) and the Beast (Beauty and the Beast). He has worked with David Bintley before, having created the role of Christian, the love rival to Cyrano.
Speaking more recently, David explained his choice of Iain as his leading man:
‘I chose Iain mainly because he’s just great to work with – on duets, especially. He’s a very good partner, and I know he works with Elisha very well. It’s no accident that I made Cyrano on them, and at that time the pair of them worked very effectively together and the duets came very easily.
‘Iain’s very open to new ideas; he doesn’t always fall into the same sort of patterns of movement. The Prince is not the most complicated character, psychologically, but I’m going to try to make it a little more interesting for him.’
You can see a video clip of Iain and Elisha rehearsing the roles that they created in Cyrano here:
In David Bintley’s latest video diary, he visits Birmingham Royal Ballet’s stores. Here he has a first look at the sets for Cinderella, which have just been brought up from London.
David recorded some short video diaries recently, explaining progress made on Cinderella so far. Here you can see him explaining last year’s model box presentation, complete with exclusive, previously unseen footage!
Footage recorded for Birmingham Royal Ballet’s 20th anniversary shows earlier this year featured Director David Bintley talking about his current ballet staff.
While discussing the Company’s Ballet Mistress Marion Tait, he revealed that Marion would be creating the role of the Stepmother in this winter’s brand new production of Cinderella!
David was already developing his ideas for Cinderella by the middle of last year (2009), discussing design idea with John F. Macfarlane and going over story outlines. By September, concluding a series of video diaries which had charted progress on 2009′s E=mc², David gave an early hint as to his intentions, signing off with:
‘That’s the end of my video diary for E=mc² and perhaps, if there’s a good response to this, I’ll see you again next time, which I think is about next December. Thank you for listening’.
You can see the video here:
Footage showing a model of Cinderella’s kitchen was included in a video introduction to the 2010-11 season, published earlier this year. In the 2-minute clip, a short shot from the original 1/25 scale model box presentation can been seen, showing the kitchen in which the heroine begins her story.
In the original presentation, in which John Macfarlane joined the Director to introduce their vision for the ballet to the Company, David said:
‘John has been quite brave in that he has deliberately designed Cinderella’s kitchen to be small. I’ve seen versions of Cinderella set in some of the largest kitchens I’ve ever seen in my life, with vast prosceniums and suchlike. But John said no, it must be credible, like a real kitchen.’
‘It was very important that there be this realism at the beginning,’ explained the designer, ‘in order to create the most effective contrast when she leaves it all behind and embarks on this magical journey.’
David has already said that the restricted space within the kitchen has informed his choreography. In a Question and Answer session conducted earlier this year, he revealed:
‘The size of the performance space then dictates what I do, and I like that kind of restraint sometimes.
‘So the ‘Seasons’ divertissements for instance are all solos. It’s hard to fill a stage with a solo, which is why in a classic ballet you have 100 people sitting around on chairs watching. In these divertissements you’ve only got one spectator – Cinderella herself. So to have the Seasons invading this small kitchen was not only an interesting idea dramatically – visually it looks beautiful – but for me it really focusses the audience’s eyes on that one single dancer.’
You can see the video clip here:
The model box presentation has proved repeatedly to be an invaluable reference point for David. While he is already creating the work in Birmingham Royal Ballet’s home studios, John’s model kitchen has allowed the Director to see just how much space he will actually have available to him when the piece finally makes it to the full stage this winter.
