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A show wreathed in smiles
10 and ¾ Freefall Dance Company The Patrick Centre, Birmingham Hippodrome ***** ANY performance
worth its salt has to have a purpose, it has to have something to say, a
story to tell and in its 10th
anniversary celebration Freefall managed all of that and more without
even breaking stride. The purpose was simple; give the performers a
stage to express themselves and their ideas and then give them stories
to tell through music and dance - and the 19 strong cast did just that
with an entertaining performance full of charm and humour. Freefall was set up in 2002 as a partnership
between Fox Hollies School and Performing Arts College, a Birmingham
special school - in more ways than one - in Moseley, and Birmingham
Royal Ballet. The idea was simple; to provide an outlet for
gifted dancers with learning difficulties with the help and encourgement
of former dancers from BRB. Ten years on and some of those founder
members are still dancing with the company as adults along with new
recruits and the first graduates from Junior Freefall which was launched
in 2006 as out of school-hours dance training for younger dancers with
learning difficulties. And it was Junior Freefall who, for the first
time, opened a Freefall performance with Big Day Out inspired by
their senior partners' 2005 tribute to the silent movies. It was a dance which gave us everything from
trains and a tiger hunt to a troop of chimpanzees and a herd of
elephants all to a huge video backdrop. The Patrick Centre might be a small theatre but it is a big space and these young dancers, Charlie, Emma, Hannah, Jade, Joseph, Katy, Reece, Sean, Tracey Fleetwood and Faye Peach used it well filling the stage with movement and an infectious enthusiasm. The programme also included the film Freefall
commissioned by Mencap which was created as part of the 2012
Cultural Olympiad project – We Dance and where it was seen by an
estimated 1.5 million people and is now being shown at festivals round
the world.
The second dance piece was a Freefall premiere with Chairs which used chairs as props – the clue is in the name - to explore various dance style including a sort of Sharks and Jets homage to cool, a Parisian café scene which took you immediately to the banks of the Seine The finale of Seaside Rendezvous, a tribute to Freddie Mercury, from an earlier performance by Freefall. Picture Lee Fisher. There was a tango from the sultry heat of a
Buenos Aires bar, a touch of Zorba from Greece, a German hint of
military two step and that English party favourite – musical chairs as a
finale. It was a dance which demanded precision and some
complex movement creating scene after scene with just chairs but the
cast of Sarah Jobson, Nikitta Malins, Julia Nicholls, musical chairs
winner Barry Kirby, Chris Treadwell, Nicky Hodges, Paul Pedley, Chris
Brookes, Tara Bishop and Josef Reed pulled it off with some style. The second act saw a restaging of the company's
2011 production of Seaside Rendezvous which is inspired by the
late Freddie Mercury and the music of Queen – 14 tracks are used – along
with memories from the golden age of seaside holidays and Donald
McGill's saucy postcards, with ice creams, flasks of stewed tea and
picnics putting the sand back in sandwiches . . . those were the days .
. . It was not all fun though. There was a dramatic
pas de deux for The Prophet's Song and a sadness with My
Melancholy Blues and Love of my Life. We even had a pitched
battle on Brighton seafront between mods and rockers – those were the
days again . . . . All to an ever changing video backdrop of 50s and
60s seaside postcard style graphics.
Like the junior section the seasoned performers
of Freefall command every inch of space to tell their story and they
tell it with appealing style and grace, an endearing honesty - and bags
of fun. These are performers clearly enjoying themselves and it is
catching. It might have all started in a school but this is
no school concert though, this is mainstream theatre with a performance
which embraces a very professional standard of production values.
Something appreciated by an audience which included Sir Peter Wright,
the first artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet who led its move
from London in 1990, along with David Bintley, the current
artistic director, and a former principal and guest principal with BRB
and the Royal Ballet, star Japanese dancer Miyako Yoshida. Also there, helping to turn a celebration into a
gala evening, were BRB Chair of the Board Professor
Michael Clarke and Angela Clarke, BRB's Ballet Mistress and assistant
director Marion Tait, Gus Garside, the National Arts Development Manager
for Mencap, Ken Bartlett, Creative Director of the Foundation for
Community Dance along with Desmond Kelly former Assistant Director of
BRB. Bintley, told the audience that Freefall had seen
an extraordinary ten years and said that no matter what sort of
day he had had, no matter what difficulties or problems he had faced
“every time I come to a Freefall show I end up wreathed in smiles.” And you don't get a better recommendation that
that. A full house, cheers and a standing ovation –
not every show that appears at the Hippodrome can boast that on its CV! Roger Clarke
Lee Fisher,
Birmingham Royal Ballet's Head of Creative Learning, is also Artistic
Director of Freefall, a project he became involved in 15 years ago along
with Keith Youngson when Fox Hollies was then in Acocks Green. They were exploring dance in education and he said: "We found a group of dancers with learning difficulties who were gifted and we decided to form a community dance company”. It was formalised as a dance company five years
later when Freefall was born and has grown from strength to strength. Lee, a former soloist with BRB, is not just satisfied by giving people with learning difficulties a chance to dance though - he wants to give them the means and the opportunity to perform. “We want to create a professional product and put
on an entertaining evening.” With ten years under his Freefall belt Lee still has plans for the future and dreams to support. “We want to create more opportunities and help
other groups to grow. I would like to see more Freefalls. Extending it
to all BRB's touring theatres with Freefalls in places such as
Sunderland or Salford. It is massive to me. It is an extended family and I learn from the dancers. I am involved in making good theatre and it is just a pleasure.”
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