Mort de Richard GLASSTONE

[Katharine Kanter]

Nous regrettons d'avoir à vous dire que le grand Cecchettiste Richard GLASSTONE est mort le 1er octobre.

En dépit d'une personnalité ombrageuse, il a tenu haut le flambeau du maître italien tout au long de sa vie.

Sans lui, on aurait peut-être pu craindre la disparition de Cecchetti en tant que système vivant.

Sud-africain, il est arrivé à Londres après la guerre et a longtemps enseigné à l'Ecole du Ballet royal.

Auteur de nombreux essais techniques, il a présenté à Paris en 2006 à l'Espace Marcel Marceau en collaboration avec "Vestris" et grâce à Anne-Marie Sandrini, alors Inspecteur de la danse de Paris,

le permier enseignement de Cecchetti depuis les années 1920 (!) devant un auditoire bondé.

Ses obsèques auront lieu dans le district d'Edgware la semaine prochaine.

[Alexis29]

Richard Glasstone n'était pas seulement un Cecchettiste mais également un fin connaisseur du travail de Merce Cunningham qu'il considérait en plus comme l'un de ses danseurs préférés.

[Katharine Kanter]

FORMATIVE INFLUENCES IN A LIFETIME OF DANCE:

RICHARD GLASSTONE FISTD MBE

written in 2012 by Julie Cronshaw (FISTD, Enrico Cecchetti Diploma)

http://www.thececchetticonnection.com/a-glimpse-into-the-spanish-world-cecchetti-bournonville-and-the-escuela-bolera/


Interview with Richard Glasstone during the master-classes and seminar at London« A Glimpse into the Spanish World » - Cecchetti, Bournonville and the Escuela Bolera. » Among the teachers and participants were Dame Marina de Grut, Flemming Ryberg of the Royal Theatre, Yvonne Cartier (ex-Royal Ballet) and Marie-Josée Redont (Opéra de Paris).

Originally from the Belgian Congo, Richard Glasstone trained under Dulcie Howes and Cecily Robinson at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT ) Dance Department (UCT) in South Africa.

After graduation he went to study further in London with Marie Rambert and Audrey de Vos.

His first professional engagement was with the Scapino Ballet, based in the Netherlands; not long afterwards he was invited back to join the UCT as a junior lecturer, continuing there as a dancer and choreographer.

From 1965-1969 he was resident choreographer and principal teacher to the Turkish State Ballet of Ankara, a company with strong Cecchetti connections, the Turkish State Conservatoire having been founded by Dame Ninette de Valois, in 1942.

Cecchetti teachers Molly Lake and Travis Kemp were training the students in the Turkish State conservatoire whilst Mr. Glasstone was there ; he mentions that he was understandably curious to see how the Cecchetti Method influenced the company’s dancers at that time.

De Valois invited Mr. Glasstone to teach at the Royal Ballet School, White Lodge in 1969, where he worked for 18 years, as f Senior ballet teacher for boys and director of the Dance Composition Course.

During that time Cecchetti Method classes formed part of the school curriculum and Mr. Glasstone worked alongside the greatly-respected Nora Roche.

Among his talented pupils emerged principal dancers and teachers of the Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet such as Viviana Durante, Darcey Bussell and Philip Broomhead, David Yow and Sara Gallie, as well as Royal Ballet Director, Kevin O’Hare, and independent modern dance choreographers Michael Clark and Matthew Hawkins.

Richard Glasstone went on to teach and lecture at Laine Theatre Arts and Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance as well as regular guest teaching at the Cecchetti Centre, which he helped to found and develop. He has taught internationally, including in China at the Beijing Dance School (now Beijing Dance Academy) upon invitation from the Cecchetti trained director Dai Ailian.

Mr. Glasstone has contributed innumerable articles on teaching to The Dancing Times and Dance Now magazines, to the International Encyclopaedia of Dance and published several books, including two memoirs: Congo to Covent Garden, A Life Linked by Languages in 2015 and more recently, My Lifetime of Dance in 2020. He has also published two biographies on Chinese dance pioneer Dai Ailian and the South African dancer David Poole.

Richard. Glasstone was awarded an MBE for services to dance in 2013. He is married to designer Heather Magoon and their son Ben is a composer.

"Three women were to exert significant influence on my professional development as a dancer, choreographer and teacher - in South Africa it had been Dulcie Howes and Cecily Robinson, and in Holland, my new Mentor was Hans Snoek, the founder and director of the Scapino Ballet Company.

"For much of my time as a student, Cecily Robinson was one of the university's most important ballet tutors. A truly inspirational teacher, she was also the custodian of some of the Fokine ballets in which - as Cecilée Zonova - she had danced in one of the Emigré Russian ballet companies. Although Dulcie Howes and Cecily Robinson had both been schooled originally in the teaching Method of the great Italian maestro, Enrico Cecchetti, Cecily's approach to teaching this work was fundamentally different to Dulcie's technically very precise but somewhat prosaic manner of imparting this material to us."

« Cecily could take the simplest combination of basic ballet steps and, with the unexpected tilt or turn of the head, the unconventional use of an arm, or the imaginative timing of a musical phrase, she was able to make everything she taught us seem special”.

Dulcie Howes was the founder of Cape Town's University Ballet company, School and Degree Course. Back then, in South Africa, the whole concept of what ballet could and should be was carefully nurtured by her.
“
One of most valuable elements of Cape Town University's Teacher Training Course was the amount of time allocated to the 'hands on' interaction between the student-teachers and those children of many different racial backgrounds attending classes at the University's Junior Ballet School.”

At Scapino Ballet Richard Glasstone danced professionally and developed his skills as a choreographer. He says about Hans Snoek:

“An imposing, handsome dark-haired figure, always energetically searching for new ideas and challenges, this remarkable, pioneering woman had played a major role in the gradual establishment of larger, better-educated audiences for ballet throughout The Netherlands. As early as 1945, Snoek had founded the nucleus of her Scapino Ballet Company in Amsterdam. My first two years with Scapino certainly gave me a realistic insight into some of the rigours of life in a touring company, as well as an understanding of the value of being able to try out my choreographic ideas on a wide variety of audiences”.  

Many years later, in Turkey, Dame Ninette de Valois now became a Mentor, honing still further the skills he had acquired earlier from Dulcie Howes and Hans Snoek. Eventually, she invited him to teach at the Royal Ballet School White Lodge for the academic year beginning 1969. During his eighteen years there, he formed lasting friendships with several colleagues. He recalls how the Academic Principal Helen Kastrati and Ballet Principal Barbara Fewster helped develop the vision that Dame Ninette de Valois had for the school, which was to provide talented young dancers with a rigorous ballet training allied to a sound general education. ’

***


Author Julie Cronshaw RBS Dip. TTC FISTD, is a former member of the current Cecchetti committee. She was accepted onto the Royal Ballet School’s Teacher’s Training Course under Valerie Adams from 1983-86. and studied Cecchetti Method first with Jocelyn Mather attending Richard Glasstone’s Saturday morning Cecchetti classes behind the rising stars of the school, Viviana Durante and Darcey Bussell, amongst many others. Over several decades, between a career as a professional ballet dancer in Germany and United States and founding her own ballet school in 1995, she continued to study Cecchetti Method with Richard Glasstone wherever possible, inviting him to teach master classes and courses at her own school in Highgate, London. One of the unique collaborations was a weekend of classes and lectures in April 2012 called ‘A Glimpse into the Spanish World’ bringing together Cecchetti, Bournonville and the Escuela Bolera together possibly for the first time in history and reuniting Mr. Glasstone with Dame Marina Grut (née Keet), a former fellow student from UCT.

[Katharine Kanter]

L'Ateneo Danza de Stefania Sansavini a lancé en août une bourse en honneur de Richard Glasstone.

12 ans après le séminaire Bournonville-Cecchetti à Londres avec Richard, Flemming Ryberg et Julie Cronshaw, l'Ateneo a tenu une grande école d'été sur ce thème avec Dinna Bjoern, Franco de Vita, Raymond Lukens et Diane van Schoor inter alia.

L'école d'été à laquelle ont participé notamment des danseurs du Ballet national d'Amsterdam, a été filmé, et la moitié des revenus du vidéo iront à ladite bourse.

Chacun peut se procurer le video, ici

https://form.jotform.com/242693344139360

La prochaine école (Cecchetti) à l'Ateneo
https://cecchettisummerschool.it/