#bbc young dancer

[bournefan]

BBC Young Dancer is back!

This friday, BBC4. Ballet, Contemporary, Street and South Asian.

And remember, one of the previous finalists went on to join New Adventures, so it’s not just great dance, it’s a way to spot the up and comers.

[choreographique]

Conner Scott's Contemporary Duet during the grand final of BBC Young Dancer 2015.

[wonderfulworldofdance]

(via 20 yr old dancer enters dance competition and wins place with dance company)

[funky-lil-lesbian]

I’m not really a dance person but this is so beautiful 

[franglemand]

I’m starting to feel as though I might be the only person who watched BBC Young Dancer 2015. There’s virtually nothing on Tumblr and I can’t even find all the dance clips on Youtube. I can’t remember the last time I watched a TV show or film and found absolutely nothing in the way of online discussion. So far as I can see, there isn’t even a thread on DigitalSpy. 

I think I found a new entry for the Gothic meme. 

[franglemand]

I’ve watched the final of BBC Young Dancer now and did really enjoy it. It’s just so lovely seeing all those dance styles on tv! A few things:

- First things first, I have huge admiration for all the young dancers involved. It takes a particular combination of talent, ambition, hard work and determination to pursue dance as a career and all those dancers have it, whatever their style of choice.

- Also I love that the BBC approaches this type of thing with the aim of educating its audience so you get professionals introducing each dance style and giving ideas of what you’re going to see. I’m fascinated by Kathak and  Bharatanatyam right now and I didn’t know the name of either until today.

- I’m still bothered by the lack of female representation and kudos to Vidya Patel for raising, however briefly, that she was not just the only one there for her style but also the only girl left on the show. Even if I accept that it’s a competition and it just worked out that way, out of 6 judges there was only 1 woman for the final. And all 3 ballet judges had been male. Sometimes you just have to admit that somewhere along the line an imbalance has absolutely crept in. (In the interests of fairness, I was also unimpressed by how many of the final 6 judges had a ballet background. I hope the non-ballet and contemporary contestants weren’t disadvantaged by that fact.)

- Congratulations to Connor Scott, who I thought was much more impressive in the final than he had been in the first round even if he wasn’t my favourite. That’s the trouble with dance; some of it is so subjective that certain dancers just appeal more than others for no apparent reason. He was good and I enjoyed his dancing but I freely admit I wasn’t expecting him to win.

- I thought it was going to be Jacob O’Connell, who won the contemporary round (which must be really strange for him now because essentially he was beaten in the final by the one contestant he’d already beaten in the previous round.) Thoroughly enjoyed both his solos and his duet was one of my favourites of the night.

- My heart however was with Vidya Patel, who not only danced beautifully but also invited her former competitor Jaine Modasia to dance with her for the duet round. The two of them go to the same teacher and referred to each other as “dance friends” in the South Asian category final and I just thought it really lovely that after picking a musician as her duet partner in the category final, Vidya chose to dance with someone else who could so easily have ended up in that final herself but hadn’t quite made it. The two of them do Kathak dancing, which I know nothing about so I can’t tell how good Vidya is technically but I found her routines really engaging and it’s clearly not an easy art form. It reminded me a bit of ballet - I get the impression there’s that same sense of “Here’s all the technique and all the movement, oh and you need to do it all either at speed with incredibly precision (or ever so slowly with even more attention to detail) but make sure it looks completely effortless and tell a story please!” I really loved her energy when she was dancing. It was so calm and welcoming but also so expressive and good grief but she could move quickly!

- I felt a bit sorry for Archie Sullivan and also a fair bit of admiration for him because there were a few distinctly wobbly moments in his duet. I’ve no idea whose fault it was but his partner was not as balanced as she should have been a few times and I spend the second half on tenterhooks just hoping they’d get through it. They managed it though and with absolute professional poise! Really enjoyed his original solo as well, more than I’ve enjoyed anything else he danced throughout the show. I did like his modern ballet solo in the ballet round as well, though not as much, and I wish he’d danced that again instead of the Don Quixote variation. (It’s possible that I just don’t really like the Don Quixote solo he was doing. I’m not overly fond of that type of ballet solo that’s essentially “I’m going to jump really high now! I’ll pause for you to clap me. Now here come the pirouettes! Here’s the bit where you appreciate me again. And onto the leaps!” Part of what I love about ballet is the sheer effortlessness of the performer, when I know just how hard they’ve worked (and are most likely still working) to perform to that standard. I adored Jenny Hackwell and  Sayaka Ishibashi in the ballet round for largely that reason. The thing they do (and Sayaka did it really well) where it looks like gravity is optional and they’re not too fussed about it one way or the other? I love that! I don’t think any of the boys in the ballet round entirely captured it but in fairness to them, they’re almost certainly not fully grown (or fully trained yet) and for the men in ballet especially, that takes a huge amount of strength as well as technique. I don’t so much love the part where the man stands there going “My turn now and you’re going to appreciate my manly strength.” Yes, dear. Well done, dear. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it but I find it a lot more impressive when you’re blending it in seamlessly with the storytelling.)

- I also really enjoyed Kieran Lai, who I’d half expected to win the hip hop round so it was nice to see him get the wildcard. As with Archie, I rather wished he’d picked his second solo to repeat (the Frankenstein one) but I did like the Tin Man solo better in the final than I had in the category final. I also found his final solo really compelling and thought he was absolutely adorable in his interview afterwards when he was clearly completely overwhelmed.

- Harry Barnes was a lot of fun and from what I could tell he had good technique. Another dancer that didn’t appeal to me as much as a few others in his category but I can see that he’s very, very good. That’s the great thing about this show; all the dancers are really good for their age and they’re all brilliant to watch so sometimes it just comes down to what appeals to you as an audience.

- One thing that occurred to me though is that as much as they’ve tried to make this just like BBC Young Musician of the Year, it doesn’t entirely work? No matter what your chosen instrument is if you’re going into classical music the path is pretty much the same. That’s not really true for the dance styles compared here. It’s impossible to tell if the standards are comparable because the styles are so different not just in performance but in terms of how you train and at what point you turn professional. There was a definite suggestion from the judges in the South Asian round that not all the dancers had particularly strong technique but I’ve no way of knowing how close to ‘professional standard’ the dancers were (or, frankly, how many opportunities there are to dance classical Indian dance professionally in the UK). The hip hop dancers were a mix of dancers with training from teachers, dancers with access to a studio and one dancer who I think just learnt from being around other dancers on the Southbank and in Charing Cross tube station. The ballet dancers were all in training, of course, because you can’t really dance classical variations with any kind of skill without professional training but also none of them were finished yet so I suspect they weren’t as close to ‘able to dance professionally’ as some of the mostly self taught hip hop dancers. The contemporary dancers were also all in training of sorts, I think, and were probably closer to being able to dance in a company than most of the ballet students just because of the nature of the different styles. Most of the hip hop and South Asian dancers were also studying something other than dance; I think only one of the South Asian dancers said they definitely want to be a dancer whereas the ballet and contemporary dancers all planned to be dancers after they finished their full time training. The hip hop dancers mostly choreographed themselves and half the contemporary dancers did as well; none of the ballet or South Asian dancers did. The hip hop battle at the end of all the duets came off strangely to me because they were being judged on something entirely different to everyone else for that round. They’ve all got such different skill sets and despite being of similar ages, they aren’t really at the same points in their careers. Some of them don’t even know if they want careers in dance. 

- Also where were the jazz dancers? The tappers? The Irish dancers? Classical Indian dance was represented but what about classical Chinese dance? I don’t understand the categories to be honest. BBC Young Musician can cater for almost any instrument because it’s bound to be covered by thing you blow, thing with strings, thing you hit, thing with a keyboard etc. BBC Young Dancer clearly excluded a lot of categories and I’m not really sure how they decided what to include. 

Overall, I really enjoyed it because I learnt something and all the dancing was lovely but the format probably needs a bit more thought!

[franglemand]

I’ve been watching BBC Young Dancer 2015 today and it’s been amazing but before I carry on I have to get this out of my system so that I can actually enjoy the final.

There is only one girl out of six competitors in the absolute final. And that one came out of a round that only had girls competing by the time of the category final.

To think I watched the hip hop round with a sense of “See, So You Think You Can Dance? It is possible to find female hip hop dancers. Two out of five no less!” Only the South Asian round (which was completely female) had more girls than boys competing in the category final. A boy won every round where that was a possibility. A white boy has been put through from every round where that was a possibility, either as the winner or as the wildcard. The only girl in that final is the one who had no opportunity to be passed over in favour of a boy. Oh, and all the judges for the ballet round were men. I’m actually quite annoyed. Hip hop I know nothing about so I can’t really comment there (especially seeing as the actual winner was probably my least favourite so I clearly haven’t a clue what’s good or bad!) but ballet and contemporary both definitely had credible female competitors who were praised by the judges following their solos just as much as the boys were. I really wanted one of the ballet girls in that final especially, and one of the contemporary girls I wasn’t entirely sold on as a winner (I liked the actual winner of the contemporary round a lot) but thought she’d make a great wildcard. 

I will say that the final’s not bad in terms of racial diversity but for gender it’s pretty terrible. 

[itspr0v0cative]

Such incredible talent and beautiful choreography.