Ballets Russes - Encounters

Exploring the influence of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes across art forms, Ballets Russes - Encounters encouraged students to take inspiration from the music and dance to create new work. In partnership with Sadler’s Wells for the dance element and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for the music strand of the project, the work created was performed at the Peacock Theatre on 29 March 2010. Delivered by English National Ballet dance artists and dance artists from Sadler’s Wells associate companies, Wayne McGregor|Random Dance and Russell Maliphant, the dance strand was an ambitious performance and choreography project. Working with young people aged 14 to 18 years from three schools and a youth dance company, as well as older people from the Company of Elders, each group worked with a professional choreographer to create an original piece of choreography and perform it at the Peacock Theatre on 29 March 2010. Participants had access to a programme of Ballets Russes events and resources to provide inspiration for their group choreographies. This included opportunities to see archive film footage, authentic reconstructions of works in rehearsal, backcloths and costumes at English National Ballet’s storage facility in Marden and performances of English National Ballet’s Ballets Russes and a mixed programme of Inspired by Diaghilev at Sadler’s Wells. Parallel to this dance work, English National Ballet worked in partnership with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to enable Gifted and Talented music students from four schools in the borough to work with composer and music arranger Sally Greaves to create new compositions. These compositions were orchestrated by English National Ballet’s Music Director Gavin Sutherland and were performed by members of the orchestra of English National Ballet as part of the performance at the Peacock Theatre on 29 March. Two schools’ performances were choreographed to the new music composed by the students. The programme for the Ballets Russes – Encounters at the Peacock Theatre is here.