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If the shoe fits . . . thank Michael
Heart and sole: Michael Clifford with just a fraction of the ballet shoes under his charge as the Birmingham Royal Ballet's Shoe Master
WHEN it comes to putting your best foot forward Michael Clifford
has plenty of choice as to what to wear - with something like 2,500
pairs of shoes tucked away in his wardrobe at any one time.
Not quite Imelda Marcos - she managed more than 3,000 pairs - but
its enough to be getting on with. Not that any of them are his, mind
you.
Michael is the Shoe Master of the Birmingham Royal Ballet, one of
those vital jobs never seen nor really thought about by audiences but which are
essential to the success of every performance.
Like the ballet he will be celebrating 20 years in Birmingham
having moved up from London as an assistant in the costume department
with what up to then had been the Saddler's Wells Royal Ballet.
Michael, now 46, was not a Londoner though. He is . . .
well, as he says, “I am an Army brat. I was born in Malaysia, lived in
Europe for most of my schooling and my family were from the Wirral so my
father decided to return there when he retired from the Army.
College was theatre school where he trained in technical stage
management which covered theatre, opera, musicals and . . . no
ballet.
“Ballet wasn't part of it at all. I had been working in the West
End and I got an interview for the the wardrobe department for the opera
at the Opera House and when I got there they were interviewing for the
Royal Ballet as well and asked if I wanted to be interviewed for that as
well. I said fine but I didn't think I would get it because I had no
knowledge of ballet at all. I ended up being offered the job in wardrobe
for Saddler's Wells so I kind of fell into it.
*I was with the company about four years before we moved up here
and I had already had my fill of London so it was an opportunity to move
out with a job. A year after moving up here I was asked to apply for the
shoe job and it just went on from there.”
Michael, who has spent more than half his life working with the
Birmingham Royal Ballet, already knew Birmingham as the
ballet came two or three times a year to its No 1 touring venue and at
the time of the move the city was a vast building site with all the city
centre developments, the ICC, Symphony Hall, Victoria Square and so on
under way. “A lot
of people said I was mad but it has worked out fine.”
From the technical side of the ballet's point of view the move has
not turned out too badly either. “Space is the biggest change. In the
building where we were, the old Saddler's Wells, the technical
department was just squidged in to this tiny building. Everyone else was
based at the Opera House, we didn't see them. Here the whole ground
floor is technical and lighting, wardrobe and wigs take a huge section.”
In London, where storage space is expensive, he said that
costumes were spread far and wide and a trip to bring costumes back
meant a whole day out of the office. Now, with all the costumes in
Dudley it is just a short trip up and down the road. “You can do what
you want to do and soon be back in the office.”
Even the dancers are on call. “We have the studios on the top
floor so the dancers are nearby if we need them for anything.”
And when it comes to the dancers Michael's knowledge is essential
from knowing who wears out shoes quickly, which dancers are light as a
feather in pointe work so can keep shoes wearable longer, who is . . .
awkward, or wants regular adjustments - in short knowing all the dancers
and as far as possible keeping them both happy and well stocked with
shoes.
“With the girls, at any one time, I have about 60 pairs each. It
fluctuates a little, it depends on how quickly they wear out their shoes and
if I can get their shoes fairly quickly. If it is a bespoke shoe then I
do like to have a certain amount in.
“The girls can use about 10 pairs a month. If their maker gets
injured, particularly with Freed of London where it is an individual
person making their shoes - and we have had people go off with broken
arms, broken legs or something like that - it means they can't make
shoes.
“So by the time the maker comes back the dancers can be down to their
last ten pairs so that is my safety margin. “We have 35 girls. With the boys I can have lower stocks because they tend to be stock sizes and we can buy off the shelf. I don't think there is a company in England now that we use for the boys, they are now mostly from Thailand, North Africa via France, Brazil and China nut there are warehouses in Europe carrying large stocks.
“Traditionally they are not so difficult. The boys, we have 27,
tend to have twenty pairs each, ten black and ten white.
“They are canvas so they don't wear out as much - and the men are
lazy and don't like sewing them.”
When it comes to price a girl's shoe comes in at about £32 while a
boy's shoe is a snip at about £7 (remember, though, bulk buying would be
a tad of an understatement) although in the BRB's Edward II when
the men all wore thigh length leather boots - three yards of leather
each - they were coming in at £500 - that's £250 a leg!!! PREPARED
Michael's job is not just a question of keeping shoes in stock,
like a glorified branch of Clarks though. When new girls join Michael
draws and measures their feet and keeps one copy for his records and
sends the other to their chosen maker which could be in London, Germany,
Russia, Australia . . . anywhere. Shoes also need to be prepared for performance as you can see with Michael painting pairs right.
For the Rites of
Spring more than 200 pairs had to be painted by hand in red and
yellow patterns and shoes are routinely sprayed to go with costumes. On top of that Michael has to check the status of orders which have been placed with makers all over the world. He also has to check his stocks of shoes to see what has been used and what needs to be ordered and then, because the Birmingham Royal Ballet also has to run as a business, once a month there is a full stock take so the finance department can be told how many shoes have been used “so they can keep tabs on it”.
“There are always orders going through and then there are the girls, it
is almost always the girls that you deal with, who are always fine
tuning their shoes so it is contacting the factory and saying can we
change this measurement or try that measurement.
“I usually order in units of 20 so it might be a case of can you
hold off on 15 and just do five with this alteration and see if that
works.
“Then we are always working towards shows, looking at the
castings, costumes, fitting people, if shoes don't fit ordering remakes
from theatrical shoe companies. It is always fluid. Even last week we
had an amended Sleeping Beauty casting and they are on stage this
afternoon. We are constantly updating and changing things. No pun
intended but you are kept on your toes.
“We are not just working on Sleeping Beauty, we are working on
other shows as well and in the midst of this we are also beginning to
pack to go off on our tour to America. That stuff goes off in April just
after we come back from our Spring tour.
“I will be sending ten pairs for each girl. It is Swan Lake so
there is lots of pointe work and they will need shoes for rehearsals
and, if the weather gets hot then it has an effect on the shoes. In
Norfolk last year it was very warm and in hot weather the shoes
break down quicker.” The BRB American tour takes them to Norfolk, Virginia again with performances from May 7-9 and provides another opportunity for travel which has also taken the Shoe Master to China with the ballet as well as tours of Britain. STRIVING FOR PERFECTION
Amid all of this Michael also has to deal with dancers who are
striving for perfection - and that includes their shoes.
“The funniest line you hear is a dancer who comes in and says I
haven't any shoes and you look around and they have 40 pairs. What they
mean is they haven't got shoes that they want to wear.
“You can be dealing with some difficult personalities but then you
have to understand that they have to go on stage and perform because I
would not be able to do what they have to do.”
With bespoke pointe shoes Michael works closely with
Michelle Attfield of Freed who will tell him which maker is available, unless it
is a Principal where the hierarchy of theatre comes into play and a
specific maker is requested. “With Corps de Ballet you try to steer them
to makers who are perhaps not quite so busy.
“If you are a company abroad, in the USA for example, there is
sometimes a six month waiting time from when the order is placed to when
the shoe is made and you get them after seven months. We can get them in
six weeks which is one of the privileges of being an English company.
“I don't know what some of the girls would be like if they had to
wait seven months - they think six weeks is too long. They can be
very impatient.
“If the shoes are right I won't see them again if they are wrong .
. . I will see them three times a day every day until the get what they
want.
Roger Clarke
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