Ann Maguire Gala, Sadler’s Wells - dance review

Rivalries and egos were set aside in a moving display of unity in memory of Ann Maguire, the teacher tragically stabbed to death in her classroom last year
“Sensual”: Edward Watson and Olivia Cowley in Wayne McGregor’s Qualia (Picture: Alastair Muir)
Liz Hoggard23 March 2015

When Ann Maguire was fatally stabbed in her Leeds classroom in 2014 it sent shockwaves around the world (the Pope and David Cameron paid tribute to her life). The dance world also mourned because Maguire’s daughter Emma is a soloist at the Royal Ballet.

An Arts Education Foundation was founded in Ann’s name to provide grants for young people. And last night’s gala fundraiser — organised by Emma, and hosted by Darcey Bussell and Jonathan Cope — represented a coming together of the contemporary and classical worlds. Any rivalries, tensions and egos were set aside in a display of unity.

Alina Cojocaru who famously jumped ship from the Royal Ballet to English National Ballet, performed a melting pas de deux from Liam Scarlett’s No Man’s Land, with her real-life partner, Johan Kobborg. Royal Ballet principal Steven McRae’s tap solo, Czardas, drew cheers. While Jonathan Watkins’s dazzling Musance, accompanied by the Hackney Colliery Band, married contemporary choreography with Big Band oomph.

Tonally the evening moved from dark to light; starting with Sir Frederick Ashton’s quasi-spiritual Monotones II, leading into a modern solo from Cuban dancer Miguel Altunaga, and then Edward Watson and Olivia Cowley’s wickedly sensual rendering of Wayne McGregor’s Qualia.

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Many pieces had personal connections to Ann (we learned she had known Watkins as a boy in Yorkshire and also taught members of a Leeds brass band). Emma herself performed in two pieces — Kobborg’s witty, Chaplinesque Les Lutins, and a pas de deux from Scarlett’s Asphodel Meadows.

Later she took the stage, visibly shaking, to explain Sadler’s Wells had been a favourite venue of the Maguire family (she and her sister had danced in galas there as teens), and that although that early “innocence” was lost, she believed in the redemptive power of dance.

The evening concluded with a short film where Royal Ballet dancers spoke honestly about the importance of arts education, especially in working-class families where trips to live performances are rare. Out of tragedy, the Maguire family hope to inspire future generations of artists.

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