A POTATO packing complex sounds like the last place you might expect to encounter a principal dancer from the Royal Ballet.
But the visit last week of Reece Clarke to Albert Bartlett’s premises reflects a link that goes beyond the fact that Jersey’s newly created ‘national’ ballet company, Ballet d’Jèrri, has been using the premises recently for rehearsals.
The Airdrie-born Scottish dancer is a brand ambassador for Albert Bartlett, sponsored since his schooldays by the company whose headquarters is in the Lanarkshire town. The connection gave the newly created Jersey ballet company the opportunity to enjoy a visit from a performer who was promoted to principal at the start of the current season.
Last March he appeared in a gala for the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Ukraine humanitarian appeal at the London Coliseum, performing Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky pas de deux with Marianela Núñez.
Two months later, he danced in Royal Ballet’s special performance of Swan Lake, also for the DEC, dancing as Prince Siegfried in the fourth act, opposite Russian-born ballerina Natalia Osipova.
A delighted Carolyn Rose Ramsay, artistic director of the Ballet d’Jèrri, said they were excited to receive a visit from the dancer, who had been impressed to see them in rehearsal during his brief appearance.
‘He certainly said that we had higher standards than you would expect from a start-up company in a small place, and he also commented on the energy and freshness of the dancers,’ she said.
The Jersey company, which was established last year, comprises nine dancers from a range of countries across the world – France, Israel, Poland, India, the USA, the UK and Jersey.
Currently they are in rehearsal for their inaugural triple-bill production that will take place over the third weekend in April and will also engage in a programme of work in the community to extend ballet to audiences who might not otherwise have the opportunity to enjoy it. Later in the year they will tour to Italy, Columbia and Malta.
‘In the longer term all of our work should premier in Jersey before touring and I guess the idea is to create the feeling you have for sports teams, where people feel that they are represented by us, so that it generates a feeling of national pride,’ Ms Ramsay explained.
