Saturday March 8th 2014
This was held in the Linbury Studio of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on Saturday. There were 16 finalists including nine boys and seven girls drawn from the RBS Upper and Lower Schools. In fact the earlier stages of the competition had drawn entries from a range of Ballet Schools and Academies across the UK. This competition has huge prestige amongst students of classical ballet. There was a highly prestigious panel of eight judges including Mavis Staines, Tamara Rojo and other Artistic Directors of Ballet Companies. Maria Nunez and Thiago Soares coached the Finalists.
Each finalist danced two variations chosen from the canon of classical ballet. A mention must be made of the two pianists who played for each of the thirty- two variations which followed each other in rapid succession. They were very professional indeed.
Scott McKenzie was one of the Finalists. Scott‘s first variations was Siegfried’s variation, Swan Lake Act 1. He wore the classical costume with a beautifully embroidered black bodice. In this piece Siegfried is deep in thought with the music played in slow tempo. Scott danced with a fine facial concentration and lovely controlled movements. This piece was a great success and recognised as such by the audience’s lengthy applause. The second variation was a male variation, Flower Festival at Genzano. This was in total contrast to the previous piece, with the character smiling throughout. The music was faster and it gave Scott an opportunity to show the range of his dancing and acting. Maybe this piece was possibly a little brief for the competition? Both variations were well received by the most highly critical members in the audience ie the other RBS students. It was a great achievement to receive sixth place in the whole competition and a progression from last year when he had a commendation.
The winner was Erik Woolhouse a second year student at the RBS Upper School. He danced Albrecht’s variation, Giselle Act 2 and Male Pas de Deux variation, Le Corsaire. Both involved bravura displays of high tempo dancing. For the latter Erik wore the classical pirate costume, with bare chest, loose fitting pirate pants and a small feather in his headband. This was an ambitious piece to have chosen as it is so closely associated with Nureyev amongst other great male dancers. In fact two dancers from English National Ballet danced the Pas de Deux from Le Corsaire in the Interlude. He danced with attack, achieved elevation in his leaps and finished each movement with panache. In fact his finishing was immaculate.
For me he was the clear winner although the Chairman of Judges did say how close the marks had been. The boys in the final had chosen variations that allowed them to project virility and style whereas the girls were more conservative in their choices. Their variations were more focussed on traditional techniques of the classical ballerina. The judges awarded six places and a commendation at the end of the competition. All seven awards were made to male dancers! This was not the case in 2013.
It was so exciting to see such a high standard of dance in ybdy this year. Particularly exciting were the winning boys all of whom will surely go on to dance with Companies in England and abroad. Some will still be young enough to compete in the competition next year. Ballet is now for boys as well as for girls in the UK. I am sure that the story of Billy Elliot has much to do with this.