Les Patineurs. The Royal Ballet

via the ROH streaming platform

Frederick Ashton’s 1937 creation, Les Patineurs (The Skaters), was first seen in Australia (as far as I am aware) in 1958 during the Royal Ballet’s tour to Australia and New Zealand. It entered the repertoire of the Australian Ballet in 1970 when it was first seen in Adelaide and then in various Australian venues. Below are two images from the 1958 Royal Ballet production in Australia, taken by Walter Stringer and now part of the collection in the National Library of Australia (NLA), and two from the 1970 Australian Ballet production, again by Walter Stringer in the NLA collection.* LInks to the NLA catalogue are also below.

Above left: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-146861023/view; above right: https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/2213080, Below left: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-146891471/view; below right: https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/2472972

I first saw Les Patineurs in Australia in 1970, a long time ago now, but can’t really remember if I saw it again somewhere. So I was pleased to be able to go to the ROH site to remind myself, not so much of the ‘story’ (which is quite slight and not really the main focus of the work), but of the choreography.

The production on the streaming platform is a filmed version of a Royal Ballet production from 2010 and I was thrilled, to tell the truth, to see who was dancing in that production. The Blue Boy, who takes on some of the most challenging of Ashton’s choreographic input, was Steven McRae, seen in the featured image to this post. I have admired McRae’s dancing for a number of years now. I really didn’t see much of him until around 2016 and onwards so it was interesting to see him in an earlier stage of his career. After a bit of research I discovered he was promoted to principal with the Royal in 2009 and his exceptional technique was well and truly visible in 2010.

His solo as the Blue Boy had some unusual moments. In particular there was a section or two where he performed a series of entrechats when his legs, rather than opening to the side to execute the crossing of the limbs, opened to the front/back. It was surprising to see this variation on the much-performed entrechat.

His technical strength was again exceptionally obvious in the closing moments of the production when he executed a long series of fouettés and grands pirouettes à la seconde, which he was required to continue until the curtain had fallen at the end of the performance.

But not only was McRae technically strong, his characterisation was thoroughly engaging as well.

While perhaps it was McRae who stole the show for me, it was a treat to see other Royal Ballet dancers in relatively early stages of their career development. Sarah Lamb for example was beautiful to watch in the pas de deux with Rupert Pennefather as was Akane Takada, whose work I have also enjoyed over several years. Takada performed as one of the Blue Girls. Then of course there was Liam Scarlett, whose career in Australia and New Zealand gave so many of us so much pleasure. Scarlett danced as one of the ensemble of skaters.

Samantha Raine and Akane Takada as the Blue Girls in Frederick Ashton’s *Les Patineurs*. The Royal Ballet 2010. Photo: The Royal Ballet streaming platform.

While Les Patineurs may not be one of Ashton’s most deeply affecting narrative works, choreographically it shows Ashton’s uncompromising approach to movement and his sense of attack, choreographic attack that is. This 2010 production was a huge pleasure to watch and opened up for me various avenues of research. The streaming also offers three extra short examinations of aspects of the work, including an interview with McRae and one with Lamb and Pennefather on various aspects of Ashton’s approach. Well worth watching.

Les Patineurs, 2010.

Michelle Potter, 28 September 2025

Featured image: Steven McRae as the Blue Boy in Frederick Ashton’s Les Patineurs. The Royal Ballet 2010. Photo: The Royal Ballet streaming platform.

*Only head and shoulder shots from 1970 by Walter Stringer are currently available (or suitable) for reproduction.

Postscript: Putting it mildly, I was surprised to read the following ‘AI overview’ after I entered ‘Liam Scarlett Les Patineurs’ into a search engine:

‘Liam Scarlett choreographed the ballet Les Patineurs for The Royal Ballet, which premiered in 2010. He was a British choreographer who had a successful career, but died by suicide in April 2021 following allegations of sexual misconduct.’

Everything in the first sentence is incorrect and, just to comment further on the wording above, it is a direct copy and paste from what emerged from my online query. AI is a worry that’s for sure!

Kenneth MacMillan: Steps back in time. Viviana Durante Company

20 April 2018. The Pit, Barbican Centre, London

Viviana Durante has just directed a short program of early works by Kenneth MacMillan, namely excerpts from House of Birds and Danses concertantes and the full Laiderette. Her dancers on this occasion came from several companies including the Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Ballet Black. I wanted more than anything to see Laiderette. Apart from anything else, the title had been a source of fascination for ages. What did it mean? Eventually I discovered that it is a contraction of ‘laideronette’, and means ‘little ugly one’.

But it was its Australian connections that interested me in particular. Originally performed at a Sadler’s Wells choreographic workshop in 1954, it was designed by Australian artist Kenneth Rowell. It was his first commission from MacMillan (he later designed MacMillan’s Le baiser de la fée), and one of his earliest works after arriving in England on a British Council scholarship. In the Durante revival the printed program did not acknowledge Rowell (although he is acknowledged elsewhere) but gave the names of two costume designers covering the evening’s works: Rossella D’Agostino and Tjasha Stroud. How closely (if at all) they had investigated Rowell’s original designs is, unfortunately, not at all clear.

Laiderette was acquired by Marie Rambert for her company in 1955 and was in the Rambert repertoire until the late 1960s. The other interesting Australian connection, resulting from the Rambert acquisition, is that well-known Melbourne-based ballet teacher, academic, and former dancer with a range of companies in England and Australia, Maggie Lorraine, danced the leading role of Laiderette when the work was filmed in 1966.

As the story goes, the leading lady, Laiderette, is a member of an itinerant group of circus performers and is left by her colleagues outside a house where a masked ball is taking place. While she is sleeping a mask-seller puts a mask on her face. She is eventually discovered by guests at the ball. The Host is called and dances with her until, when masks are removed, her wig comes off at the same time. She is discovered to be bald and is rejected by all at the masked ball, notably the Host who has shown particular interest in her.

In the performance I saw the role of Laiderette was danced by Francesca Hayward and the host by Thiago Soares, both principals with the Royal Ballet. I could not have hoped for a better pair of dancers to bring MacMillan’s story to life, and in particular to advance the somewhat dark subtext of alienation, exclusion and rejection. It was a fascinating early insight into MacMillan’s interest in examining through dance certain psychological states of mind.

Of the other two works shown, the excerpt from Danses concertantes, a duet, was over almost before it had started, so short was it, and the costumes were breathtakingly awful, especially the black, tight-fitting wigs/skull caps each surmounted by a golden ornament of dubious meaning. Choreographically it seemed quite stilted, even somewhat awkward to me, although I took this to mean that MacMillan was making an effort to reflect the sharpness of Stravinsky’s music to which it was danced, and/or it was an indication of MacMillan’s counter intuitive approach to making dance. At the performance I saw, Australian dancer Benjamin Ella, now a soloist with the Royal Ballet, partnered Akane Takada, although the shortness of the excerpt gave little opportunity to make any sensible comment on their performance.

House of Birds opened the program and perhaps the best performance in the cast I saw came from the Bird Woman, danced by Sayaka Ichikawa from Ballet Black, whose pecking head was mesmerising. Based on a tale by the Brothers Grimm, also dark in its subtext, it follows the consequences that emerge when a Boy (Thiago Soares) and a Girl (Meaghan Grace Hinkis) are captured by a Bird Woman.

Bouquets to Durante for having the courage to restage these three works, thus providing an opportunity to consider how MacMillan’s later work developed from them. A video of the program in its entirety is available (with in some places a different cast from the one that I saw) at this link.

UPDATE July 2020: This video is now ‘private’ and only available with permission.

Michelle Potter, 22 April 2018

Featured image: Scene from Laiderette, Viviana Durante Company, 2018

Ballo della regina, Live fire exercise, DGV. The Royal Ballet

10 May 2011, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Every time I visit London and am lucky enough to see a performance by the Royal Ballet I am bowled over. The recent mixed bill of Balanchine’s Ballo della regina, Wayne McGregor’s brand-new Live fire exercise and Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV (Danse à grande vitesse) simply reinforced my view that the Royal is at a high point in its career—so many dancers of star quality or star potential, a coaching team that appears to work on developing a clear understanding of what lies behind each work and great programming.

Balanchine’s Ballo della regina opened this program. On the night I went, leading roles were danced by Lauren Cuthbertson and Sergei Polunin. It was especially rewarding to see Cuthbertson take command of a role so closely associated with that great American ballerina Merrill Ashley, who created the leading female role in 1978. On stage Ashley always looked as American as apple pie, you might say, with her glowingly healthy face, her forthright (and fabulous) technique, and a kind of no holds barred, no nonsense approach. Cuthbertson, however, had a different approach. Ashley showed the steps, and how she showed them. Cuthbertson, with a lighter frame than Ashley, seemed to emphasis not so much individual moments but an overall fluidity. This is not to say that her dancing lacked highlights. Her ability to alter direction suddenly and to move with unexpected changes of speed was a real delight. And there was not a moment when she faltered. It was a great performance.

As for Polunin he had nothing to live up to as Robert Weiss, who partnered Ashley in 1978, never in my opinion really made the role his own. Polunin knocked me for six with his ability to cover space—the extension of the front leg in movements like grands jetés en avant was like an arrow speeding forward on a perfect course. And then there was the clarity of his beats and the perfection of his turns.

Four soloists—Melissa Hamilton stood out in particular—and a beautifully rehearsed corps de ballet made this Ballo a special treat.

Wayne McGregor’s Live fire exercise, made in collaboration with artist John Gerrard, on the surface could hardly have been more different. The starting point was a US army exercise in the Djibouti desert, a detonation designed to prepare troops for the physical effects of the mortar rounds or road side bombings they may encounter. A screen occupied a large part of the upstage area. On it was a projection of a desert scene and over time we saw the arrival of trucks and other machinery, a blast and the subsequent plume of fire and its smoky aftermath. In front of this video installation three men and three women performed McGregor’s demanding, highly physical choreography. In the background Michael Tippet’s Fantasia concertante on a theme of Corelli provided, almost as a juxtaposition, a kind of pastoral accompaniment.

McGregor’s choreography in Live fire exercise, showed his signature extensions with the dancers’ legs pushed high into positions that destroy the usual line of classical ballet, along with his approach to partnering with its emphasis on curved, twisted and folded bodies, and with his use of extreme falls. At one point Sarah Lamb performed a promenade in attitude on a bent supporting leg. She was supported in this by Eric Underwood who, once the circle of the promenade had been completed, swiftly lifted her and with a swirl threw her through the air. She travelled through the air, looking light as a feather with a perfectly held body, into the arms of another dancer. For me this moment put McGregor in a new light and his ability to use the classical vocabulary, and then to manipulate it became clear.

Overall, and almost unbelievably, the choreography seemed quite calm and considered. Throughout the piece single dancers occasionally stood quietly beside the video installation. They were lit so as to appear shadowy, isolated human beings figures against the plume of fire or smoke. They drew our attention from the choreography back to the footage and also served to remind us of the content of this footage and its underlying political message. Live fire exercise is the most personal of the works of McGregor that I have seen to date

In addition to Lamb and Underwood the cast comprised Cuthbertson, Polunin, Akane Takada, Federico Bonelli and Ricardo Cervera.

Closing the evening, Wheeldon’s DGV was something of a letdown. DGV is set to a score by Michael Nyman, MGV (Musique à grande vitesse), and draws inspiration from the idea of a journey with the French very fast train (TGV) the source of both Nyman’s and Wheeldon’s title. The work is essentially a series of four pas de deux with a corps to ballet of another eighteen dancers who often also work in pairs. It shows Wheeldon’s exceptional ability to create mesmerisng duets and his capacity to move large groups of people around the stage to create strong visual imagery. It was beautifully danced, especially by the corps and without a perfect corps the patterns falls apart, which they certainly didn’t on this occasion.

But I found the work a little repetitive and somewhat soporific. Maybe it was simply that it came after the McGregor with its underlying message of the politics of war? McGregor pushes his audience, Wheeldon doesn’t, or didn’t with DGV. Nevertheless DGV completed a wonderfully diverse and fabulously performed evening of dance.

Michelle Potter, 27 May 2011