Page and his new chapter

Dance critic

Thursday 13 September 2012

AS Christopher Hampson is installed as artistic director of Scottish Ballet, what of his predecessor, Ashley Page, who left after clashing with the board over contractual terms and conditions?

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The former Scottish Ballet artistic director talks to Mary Brennan about his new work – and his legacy

It seems he's already busier than ever. On Saturday, A Guide to Strange Places will have its European premiere at Sadler's Wells in London. It is a new Ashley Page choreography that he made earlier this year for San Francisco Ballet. The man himself will fly in from Warsaw for the occasion: he's currently located there, creating a new work for Polish National Ballet. Set to John Adams's Century Rolls, it will premiere in November. Another dash will bring him back to Glasgow, where he will – briefly – work with Scottish Ballet on a revival of The Nutcracker, the first full-length story ballet he made for the company in 2003. And on New Year's Day 2013, Page's choreography for the Vienna State Opera Ballet will dance across millions of TV screens when the New Year Concert by the Vienna Philharmonic will be broadcast to over 70 countries.

He can't reveal details yet, but as next year advances there are other projects in the pipeline: he'll reconnect with Rambert Dance, a company he had strong links with before he became Scottish Ballet's artistic director in 2002, and there could well be a hook-up with the realm of opera. "I'm probably going to be making the most new work in the space of a year that I've ever done," he says, with evident relish. He's just back from filming the Strauss waltz and polka vignettes in Vienna and is flying to Warsaw early the next day, but is nonetheless making time to chat about life after Scottish Ballet. "It is incredibly busy. And what's great about it is that it's all with different companies, it's all very different kinds of work and it's all over the place. Europe, the UK, America – I'm hardly going to be at home over the next 12 months. Which is hard on the family (he has two teenaged children) but they've been as supportive of me in this as when I uprooted them from a life in London and took up the post with Scottish."That post came to an end in August. Page's second five-year contract ran out and, for reasons that have never been detailed, he was made an offer of a one-year extension that he could only refuse. What went wrong? After spectacularly transforming Scottish Ballet into a world-class company – winning awards, taking London by storm and being repeatedly invited to take part in Edinburgh International Festivals after a long span of wilderness years – why did his directorship end so unexpectedly, and somewhat tersely? He chooses his words with care, but when he says "I'm still a bit bewildered by how it all seemed to go off the rails" his puzzlement seems genuine. No-one on the board or in the upper echelons of management ever took him to one side and said in plain terms "here's where you've gone wrong.". Instead, the party line was anchored in a fuzzy need for "change" and "alternative creative approaches and influences". It wasn't as if Page turned Scottish into a one-trick pony.After the early years of his tenure, when his own work filled repertoire gaps because budgets couldn't stretch to commissioning other choreographers, Scottish Ballet rapidly built up a roster of work that was distinctive in its mix, with present-day choreographers as diverse as Stephen Petronio, Trisha Brown, Richard Alston, Krzysztof Pastor, Jorma Elo and William Forsythe alongside such greats as Ashton and Balanchine. If the choreographer and his long-standing collaborator Antony McDonald created something of a witty and quirky "house style" in the three Christmas ballets – Nutcracker was joined by Cinderella (2005) and Sleeping Beauty (2007) – the company's identity beyond Scotland was shaped not by those works, but by the technical strengths and charismatic flexibility the dancers showed in such masterworks as Balanchine's Episodes and Forsythe's Workwithinwork and Artifact Suite, the latter specially extended by Forsythe in response to the strengths he identified in the company. In November 2010, after his departure had been announced, Page confined himself to issuing a statement that expressed his "great disappointment" that the board had offered him a single-year extension only, adding that he would "leave with great sadness and regret.". There was no massive strop and marching out of the new purpose-built Tramway base that reflected Scottish Ballet's rising importance as a national company. He now muses that, looking back, he "might do things a little differently" and admits to some surprise that nobody from the funders or from government questioned the board's decision."There was huge support in phone-calls, letters and e-mails, from all sorts of people including members of the public and prominent figures in the dance world. All were determined to save my job and that was amazing and wonderful, but the moment passed. Maybe, because I was still there, it felt that it wasn't going to happen. Until June this year, and they threw me this fabulous leaving party – then I think it really did hit the company that, after the holidays, I wouldn't be back. And after Nutcracker..." After Nutcracker there is no indication that his ballets will continue in Scottish Ballet's repertoire. So, it's on to pastures new. But when he starts to talk about his 10 years at Scottish, a roll-call of remembered highs comes thick and fast. If the manner of his going was brutal, his time with the company is an ongoing source of pride and pleasure. "It was a tremendous opportunity, to be entrusted with re-building the company. I'd never been a director before, and I learned such a lot from the experience that I value today. And I do take pride in what we achieved," he says. He adds: "That last year was very much true to my forward plans for the company, with so many new works coming into the repertoire. MacMillan's Song of the Earth, and the premiere of Jorma Elo's Kings2Ends at the Edinburgh Festival. The incredibly successful commission of a full-length Streetcar Named Desire by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Nancy Meckler, and Martin Lawrance's Run For It that premiered as part of DanceGB, but is in the forthcoming autumn tour. Staying on to see that through was worth it."Just as he did when in 2011 he received a Bank of Scotland Herald Archangel for his sustained contribution to the Edinburgh International Festival, he pays tribute to "the wonderful team who supported me in what I tried to do at Scottish. To the dancers, to the teaching and production staff... everyone who helped me to leave this company in a much, much better shape than when I arrived in 2002."He sounds, and is, upbeat about the future. There seems no shortage of fresh challenges. His time with Scottish? He shrugs and smiles. "Maybe I'll write about it all one day – when I don't have so many other creative things to do."Mary Brennan speaks with Page's successor Christopher Hampson in tomorrow's Herald.

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