Curtains - I 've looked at them from both sides now,

As many of you know, I was a ballroom dancer.  Not much use for curtains in my chosen art.  You need a spacious wooden, or even flagged floor (ie Matlock Bath) but no curtains open to show you to your audience.  They sit around you, often on all four sides, so you perform, aware that you can always be seen by someone.  Adjudicators in a ballroom dancing competition, stand along any one of those sides.  You cannot ever show a bad angle, a limp wrist, miss a pointed toe or an extended neck.  Someone will see you.  There is no place to hide.

Away from the ballroom, I loved to go to the ballet or the theatre.  Always thrilled by the wonderful curtains, with their promise of excitement.  The Nutcracker has always been my favourite ballet.  The combination of fun and Christmas and the wonderful music of Tchaikovsky, is an absolute joy.  I took my daughter to see it when she was little.  I hate ballets where beautiful characters die.

I love our local Grand Theatre and wish that my reduced income would allow more than a few visits a year but hey ho.  I have been very lucky. I sing with Musica Lirica Opera chorus and in 2014 performed on the Grand Theatre stage. Two years earlier, as one of a group of creative writers invited to commemorate the Centenary of some of Blackpool's magnificent heritage buildings, I was fortunate to have a backstage tour. 

The Grand is a national treasure: One of the few remaining Matcham designed theatres. The Gaiety in The Isle of Mann is another.  Matcham used a cantilever system in his theatres, eliminating the central pillars that obscured the view of the stage. I find it extraordinary to think that many years ago, the Grand Theatre in my home town was ear-marked for demolition, to be replaced by a Littlewoods store. Local people rallied round and formed a protest group.  They saved the theatre by a combination of sheer determination and donations. The Friends of The Grand are a credit to our town. But for their efforts, those beautiful turquoise velvet curtains may never have risen again.

My own performance at The Grand was a one-night stand, in a short tour of The Merry Widow that also included performances at Settle Theatre and Lancaster Grand.  It is so exciting to stand behind a stage curtain as the music begins and see all the people in the audience. I am never nervous. Performance runs through my veins like oxygen. It is exhilarating.  This year we have done it again.  Our 'Steam Punk' styled Die Fledermaus has shown at Settle, Thornton Little Theatre and Kendal Town Hall.  I aim to behind the curtain when it rises at The Charter Theatre, Preston on 13th January. Perhaps I will see your face when it does.

 

The poem was written for the Walls Have Voices project although not selected for the final publication.

A Grand Embarkation

With precious tickets tight in hand,

Come congregation to the fishbowl foyer,

They climb the gilded staircase, to the circle bar.

Glass clinks on glass, punctuating conversation

Until, summoned by a distant bell

They flow and filter into Matcham’s cantilever shelves.

Some shuffle, rise and fidget,

Slipping sleeves from shoulders,
Mumbling, couching, scrunching cellophane.
They sit: arranged like luscious chocolates,
In four layers of an ornate treasure chest.

Beyond the dulling safety curtain,

Black brick walls echo whispered cues and calls.
Steel taps syncopate on stone,
Sending shivers of anticipation down spinal stairways,
Rigging ropes pulled taut by muscled arms.
Drop the backdrop from the dusty rafters.
 
House lights go down in crystal chandeliers.
A hush goes up: A gasp in unison
As ghostly hand ascends from glowing pit,
The baton poised for down-stroke.  
Currents of warm melody flow like melting ice-cream.
 
Eyes fix on full moon light,
Centred on a turquoise velvet sea.
A cacophony of kettle drums Crescendo
as the overture concludes, audience and players 
embark on a thrilling voyage into imagination.

Thanks for reading.  Have a lovely Christmas.  See you in 2017.  Adele  

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Music was my first love …

I could start here and write forever about music.  Music was once the whole purpose of my life.  I was born in Blackpool.  My elder sister, by almost ten years … no scratch that, by just over nine years, (I have to be kind) danced beautifully and my Mum would take me to all the rehearsals for the Children’s pantomime and The Tower Ballet. The lines from the Abba song,  “… I was a dancer before I could walk, … I could sing long before I could talk,” fitted me perfectly.  Elsie Bradley, the ballet mistress told my parents that she wanted me as soon as I was five.  Unfortunately, my family moved away from Blackpool for seven years and the pathway to musical theatre and dance was lost to me. Even so, I sang at every opportunity and by the time I was ten,  I was ballroom dancing my way around Britain and Europe under the tutelage of a former World Champion. 

 

My paternal Grandfather trained as a bandmaster at Neller Hall and played sax with Jack Hylton until he settled down in Blackpool.  He played with all the resident Tower and Winter Gardens bands between the wars, even transposed music for Tommy Dorsey when he visited. My maternal Grandmother was an accomplished pianist, teaching dance, pianoforte and elocution to young ladies.  I guess music was in my soul. Some things are just part of who you are. I lived for music.

 

 A friend recently told me of a current theory that to be accomplished, a virtuoso, at the top of your profession takes 10,000 hours of dedication. I believe this is true. My father paid for two hours of private dance tuition every week. In return he insisted that I put in five hours practice for each one. It was a huge commitment from a nine year old but it paid off.  Most weeks, I practiced fifteen hours, either at Belle Vue Manchester or Reece’s Ballroom in Liverpool.  I knew all the big band tunes, learned all the words too. It became part of me. It shaped my style of dress, my attitude to life, my expectations of courtesy and respect from men.  You see ballroom dancing has a code of politeness that was going rapidly out of fashion in most other places but my world was untouched by change.  Boys who danced wore tails, white tie, dinner suits and cumber bunds.  They linked your arm, led you back to your seat at the end of a dance and more important than that, they could dance. Unlike most young men in the 1970’s and 80’s, they didn’t stand at the bar while the girls danced round their handbags.

I sing a little now.  Five years ago I joined Musica Lirica Opera chorus. I love singing, although I am never going to be a great operatic singer, I am enjoying learning a new craft.  Being part of a chorus is great fun.  We work hard but we also laugh and support each other.  This season we staged a production of Franz Lehar’s, The Merry Widow, that was a resounding success at The Grand Theatre, Blackpool, Bingley Festival and Lancaster Grand.   I fulfilled a lifetime wish, to sing on a real theatre stage but I also managed to dance a little again, helping my chorus colleagues to learn to Viennese Waltz.  It has always been my favourite dance. This is the latest edition to my Dance poetry series...oh and in the photo, my Grandfather, Fred Robinson is third from the left. 

A Viennese Affair

 

I’m lost, lost, in a Viennese Waltz,

I can’t find my rhythm or rhyme,

my writing is blocked

but my feathers are cocked

but I’m having a wonderful time.
  

My partner is dashing,

my cleavage is flashing,

while out in the wings sits his wife,
I know it will only last 32 bars,
but this little affair,
has put curls in my hair,
and I’m having the thrill of my life.
 

I’m lost, lost, in a Viennese Waltz,
I can’t pen a quatrain or two,
I'm not going to cry,
when my ink has run dry,
I’m enjoying my bit of a do.
   

When we are rehearsing,

he keeps on reversing,
and bumping his bustle to mine,
a brush will his tails,
sends me right off my rails,
his pivots are simply divine.
 
I’m lost, lost, in a Viennese Waltz,
I can’t script a stanza at all,
my prose is  appalling,
I’m rising and falling,
but I'm certainly having a ball.
 
We dance to impress,
with his beard on my chest,
I look like I’m covered with hair.
His hand on my back
concertina’s my corsets,
my skirt’s lifting up in the air.

I’m lost, lost, in a Viennese Waltz,
I’m missing a deadline or two,
The whirling and swirling,
has sent my toes curling,
I know that it’s wrong,
but it may not last long,
poetry can wait,
I’ve a short ‘use by ’date,
I’m having one more dance with Hugh,

If you had the chance, wouldn’t you?



So I challenge you all to get dancing and singing 

Thanks for reading ... Adele

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