BRANDON Lawrence and Samara Downs are forever thankful for their days at the Yorkshire Ballet Seminars, held each summer in York by Royal Ballet prima ballerina Marguerite Porter.
As they prepare for Birmingham Royal Ballet’s first visit to the Grand Opera House on May 19 and 20 on the company’s northern tour, their memories lead them back to their summers in York. Summers that ended in appearances in A Summer Gala Evening Of Dance And Songs, and one non-appearance in Brandon’s case, at that theatre.
Look through the archives of The Press, and a July 2007 review records how “Samara Downs was as delicate as silk in Betrayed”, while our reviewer showed foresight in 2009 when he wrote: “The new name on everyone’s lips was Brandon Lawrence, from Bradford, so lithe and feline when dancing to Alexander Hanson’s crooning version of Van Morrison’s Moondance. He will be the next Yorkshire star of dance, fact.”
Two summers later, Brandon experienced the down side of a dancer’s life, as The Press reported: “Injury, however, prevented Brandon Lawrence from dancing When The Times Come, but thankfully a film of his rehearsal before he fractured his foot revealed why his time is soon to come with the Birmingham Royal Ballet.”
“We both had stints at the Yorkshire Summer Ballet School and loved working with Marguerite,” says Brandon. “And we both danced for Marguerite at Sadler’s Wells, where we did a pas de deux together.”
Samara, originally from Kent, attended the Royal Ballet School from 11 to 19, as well as her Yorkshire seminars, before joining Birmingham Royal Ballet at 19. “A lot of it is not luck but circumstance, but Birmingham Royal Ballet was always the company I wanted to work with, as it has a really diverse repertoire,” she says.
“It was my top choice too,” says Brandon, who first trained at a dance school in Bradford and then at the Royal Ballet School from the age of 14. “BRB has such a broad repertoire for a smaller company, and with David Bintley being a working artistic director as well as a choreographer, it was a company that made sense for me to join.”
Their travels in 2015 have taken them to Japan this spring before a speedy turnaround to start the northern British tour. It is ever so for the dancers, presenting challenges not apparent when you watch them. “I’ve done tours where I’ve been jet-lagged for the whole week of a tour, so it’s mind over matter,” says Samara.
Brandon always had his mind set on dance, and nothing distracted him. Unlike Lee Hall’s Billy Elliot, he was never subjected to mockery when dancing in his schooldays. “It wasn’t so much stick, as I did everything at school. I just got on with it,” he says. “Before I knew it, I couldn’t remember what I did before going to the Royal Ballet School.”
• Birmingham Royal Ballet, on tour at Grand Opera House, York, May 19 at 7.30pm; May 20, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york
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