China Diary

Arrival in China
First Performance in Hangzhou
A challenging day in Hangzhou
Two Days in Shanghai
Shanghai to Beijing
First Performance in Beijing
Final Two Days in Beijing

Wednesday 25 January

First Performance in Beijing

It was our first performance in Beijing this evening and as with all of our opening performances in the three cities, Yorkshire Forward was entertaining their guests.

Happily for the first time this tour, technical preparations went very well in the theatre and although not an easy task for the Lighting department was not as painful as in the other two cities.

As the dancers were extremely familiar with La Traviata by now!!, Daniel de Andrade (Ballet Master) decided that rather than having a full technical rehearsal, an hours placing call would be all that was necessary to be followed by a Lighting and Scene Change rehearsal for the crew.

This allowed class to be scheduled later and gave the dancers more free time for some of their favourite pursuits i.e. shopping and sightseeing and even sleeping for an hour or two. The company spent the morning variously visiting such sights as Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, TheTemple of Heaven, The Hutons (Old Peking) plus markets, markets and more markets.

The day continued well and the placing call and scene change rehearsals went according to plan. For the first opening night of the tour, we all felt calm and there was even time for a meal break.

The Yorkshire Forward Event went well and it was pleasing to hear from them that in various business meetings that they had attended, they had been told that their association with the quality of NBT's performances had given them additional credibility in their business negotiations - hopefully bodes well for future support from Yorkshire Forward.

There was just time for me to do a quick TV interview for the Culture Show before the film crew were sent away disappointed that we wouldn't allow them to also interview Desi 5 minutes before curtain up.

The performance was excellent once again with Jonathan Ollivier and Desire Samaai in the title roles. We received a great response from the audience who were far more vocal than they had been in the previous two cities - even extra curtain calls tonight.

Our promoter, Cui Yang (we call him Young) had arranged an opening night party for us in the hotel. Food was excellent and wine and beer was plentiful. (A point of information here - Chinese waiters seem to feel they should only put about half an inch of wine in your glass at a time. We have tried to educate them otherwise but they seem to be reluctant learners!) The event was also attended by Michael O'Sullivan, Cultural Counsellor from the British Council in Beijing with his assistants plus numerous other dignitaries and my own guest for the evening from the Hong Kong Festival. (It would be great if we could also add Hong Kong to our next China Tour!!)

.

Mark Skipper
Northern Ballet Theatre Chief Executive