Choreographer Morgann Runacre-Temple will restage her modern work Swingle Stepping for 12 months 11 college students at The Royal Ballet College throughout summer season performances at Opera Holland Park from 2-5 July. Six years have handed since she initially created the piece for Royal Ballet College college students in 2019.
The Choreographer’s Journey
Runacre-Temple works as a contract choreographer and motion director based mostly in London, with an in depth portfolio spanning dance, theatre, movie and opera (). She has created works for famend ballet corporations throughout the UK and Europe, together with Northern Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Scottish Ballet, English Nationwide Ballet, Graz Opera, Alberta Ballet, and Ballet Central.
Her profession started after graduating from Central College of Ballet in 2004, the place she met her frequent collaborator Jessica Wright. Collectively, often called “Jess and Morgs,” they’ve created award-winning dance movies, together with The Strive Out for Channel 4’s RANDOM ACTS, The Final Resort for English Nationwide Ballet & TATE Liverpool, and Curing Albrecht for English Nationwide Ballet & Manchester Worldwide Competition, which received Greatest Movie 2018 at NRDFF and Greatest Director at Portland Dance Movie Competition.
From 2009 to 2015, Runacre-Temple served as choreographer-in-residence at Ballet Eire, creating 5 full-length ballets together with Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, Scheherazade, and Carmen. Her latest work contains Coppélia for Scottish Ballet, which premiered on the Edinburgh Worldwide Competition to vital acclaim, and Averno, a recent retelling of the story of Persephone and Hades for Stuttgart Ballet.
The Evolution of Swingle Stepping
Swingle Stepping combines rhythmic parts with playful motion vocabulary, drawing inspiration from a singular musical fusion. “The principle supply of inspiration is the playfulness in music – a mix of Swingle Singers and The Blues Brothers,” Runacre-Temple defined. The music options The Swingle Singers’ acapella model of The Blues Brothers, creating what she describes as “humanity and ease in unaccompanied voice [that] provides a freshness that meets dance properly.”
This marks its third remounting on the College, following the unique 2019 creation and a 2020 post-COVID staging. “Every new forged provides richness and one other layer of character,” Runacre-Temple famous about working with completely different pupil cohorts. “I can see within the choreography the traces of dancers who’ve beforehand danced the work.”
The choreographic course of emphasizes collaboration between choreographer and college students. “I labored very collaboratively within the studios with the dancers, and their particular person methods of transferring impressed the piece,” she defined. “Some sections are actually to do with the actual dancer’s individuality, while different sections are concerning the group transferring as one, being delicate and tuned into each other.”
Opera Holland Park: A Distinctive Venue
Opera Holland Park’s out of doors amphitheatre will host the summer season performances, presenting distinctive staging challenges that differ from conventional theatre areas. Based in 1996, Opera Holland Park has deep roots in civic heritage and operates from a canopied open-air auditorium surrounded by the attractive formal gardens and wilded woodlands of Holland Park.
The venue welcomes over 30,000 audiences every summer season to what has turn out to be London’s largest summer season opera pageant. In 2020, the auditorium was utterly redesigned with worldwide efficiency designer takis, reflecting the pure fantastic thing about the theatre’s setting. The 1,000-seat auditorium options improved consolation, acoustics and technical services beneath a excessive tensile material cover designed by Architen Landrell.
The Royal Ballet College has maintained a relationship with Opera Holland Park since 2016, when college students first returned for his or her end-of-year summer season performances. The 2025 programme, curated by new Creative Director Iain Mackay in his first season, presents college students aged 11 to 19 demonstrating abilities and artistry in classical and modern dance.
Pupil suggestions from earlier Opera Holland Park performances highlights the venue’s particular ambiance. “Opera Holland Park is particular as a result of it brings the entire Royal Ballet College collectively in a small house,” famous 12 months 11 pupil Ruben in 2024. “Working intently with college students from White Lodge and Higher College is exhilarating.”
Up to date Coaching at The Royal Ballet College
Up to date choreographic voices like Runacre-Temple’s complement the College’s classical curriculum, reflecting the evolution {of professional} ballet coaching. The Royal Ballet College recognises that “all skilled classical dancers should even have a powerful data and understanding of up to date motion,” providing courses designed to assist college students “acquire a powerful basis in modern method.”
This strategy displays broader modifications in ballet schooling. Up to date ballet emerged within the Eighties as choreographers blended classical ballet methods with modern dance, together with trendy dance parts reminiscent of floorwork, barefoot efficiency, and expanded higher physique actions. The fashion honours classical ballet historical past while discovering methods to innovate and make the artwork type related to modern audiences.
College students working with modern choreographers like Runacre-Temple acquire publicity to completely different inventive methodologies and motion kinds. “The power, verve and pleasure to be a part of a inventive course of,” she noticed about working with younger dancers. “They develop a lot throughout the interval that I work with them as they’re at such a vital level of their coaching, and that’s very inspiring to see.”
Skilled Preparation By means of Numerous Repertoire
Opera Holland Park performances present 12 months 11 college students with professional-level expertise earlier than advancing to Higher College. The out of doors venue mirrors challenges they might encounter of their future careers, from adapting to completely different acoustic circumstances to performing in non-traditional areas.
12 months 11 college students should grasp each technical precision and interpretive flexibility to carry out modern works successfully. Every collaboration permits choreographers to look at how completely different teams strategy the identical materials, while college students be taught to adapt their classical method to various choreographic calls for.
The 2025 programme balances classical works just like the ‘Aurora’s Marriage ceremony’ suite from The Sleeping Magnificence, re-staged by Anthony Dowell in 2018, and Frederick Ashton’s Les Patineurs, with modern items together with new works by Ruth Brill, Hannah Joseph, Jessica Lang, and Arielle Smith.
The Collaborative Inventive Course of
Runacre-Temple’s strategy emphasises particular person creativity inside collaborative frameworks. The costume design for Swingle Stepping displays this philosophy: “The costumes are quite simple, however shiny. We determined that yellow mirrored the sensation of ‘pleasure’ within the piece that we needed to seek out, while nonetheless being visually clear as a way to see the element and gesture.”
She hopes college students acquire greater than technical abilities from the expertise: “I hope they really feel the enjoyment of dancing collectively as a bunch, as a group – to really feel linked to at least one one other and in a position to share a second in time collectively, creating recollections from that have.”
Profession Growth and Business Connections
Collaborations between the College {and professional} choreographers preserve connections to present developments in modern dance. College students interact with evolving choreographic practices while preserving their classical basis, getting ready them for careers in corporations that more and more program each classical and modern works.
Runacre-Temple’s profession demonstrates the probabilities for modern choreographers working throughout a number of disciplines. Her movie work, together with collaborations on theatre productions like Lazarus in Amsterdam and Hamlet at London’s Nationwide Theatre, reveals how dance coaching can result in various inventive alternatives.
Working with modern motion vocabulary challenges college students to adapt their classical method to completely different choreographic calls for. Swingle Stepping requires performers to develop qualities that reach past conventional ballet coaching, incorporating parts that mirror present approaches to bounce creation and efficiency.
Summer time Efficiency Significance
The Summer time Efficiency season represents a end result of the educational yr’s coaching, bringing collectively college students from each White Lodge and Higher College. 5 performances from 2-5 July showcase the vary of labor college students undertake, from Petipa’s classical precision to modern explorations of motion and musicality.
For audiences, Runacre-Temple hopes they expertise “enjoyable, tenderness and a way of connectivity between the group.” The out of doors setting of Opera Holland Park provides one other dimension to those performances, creating what college students describe as a singular ambiance the place the pure fantastic thing about the park enhances the creative expertise.
Summer time performances function each classical and modern works, reflecting programming decisions college students will encounter in skilled corporations that current diversified repertoires. This publicity prepares graduates for careers in an trade the place versatility and flexibility are important qualities for fulfillment.
The return of Swingle Stepping for its third staging demonstrates the lasting worth of up to date work inside classical coaching establishments, exhibiting how collaboration between established choreographers and rising artists continues to counterpoint the tutorial expertise while getting ready college students for evolving skilled calls for.
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