Telling Jane Eyre through movement and body language

Get West London seems happy to be welcoming Northern Ballet's take on Jane Eyre at the end of this month.

Literature's most iconic heroine will be given a dance make-over as Northern Ballet bring their world premiere tour of Jane Eyre to Richmond Theatre. [...]
Based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë and performed during the 200th anniversary of her birth, the dark love story will be at Richmond Theatre from Tuesday May 31 to Wednesday June 1 .
Cathy Marston, the show's choreographer, said: "Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was a novel far ahead of its time and when I think of Jane I feel inspired by images of her passionate but 'impossible' relationship with Mr Rochester, the fire and emotional destruction symbolised by Bertha Mason - the infamous 'woman in the attic', the contrasting icy moorland through which she seems to run from one chapter of her life to another, and of course her final reunion with Rochester.
"But these images only touch the surface of a character and a book that continue to provoke and move - generation after generation, re-read after re-read."
Hannah Bateman, who will be playing Jane, said: "So often in ballets you, as a female, play the 'damsel in distress', and then a man comes along and saves you, but there's a real female strength in this role.
"All of her choices are made by herself, she's not influenced by the people around her, she's very headstrong from the beginning... She's a very strong character.
"It's interesting how powerful ballet can be, when you think about the fact that it's based on a novel, it's chock-a-block with words, it's a really long novel, how interesting it is to take those words away and literally just tell the story through movement and body language, and the relationships that physically develop on stage between the characters.
"It feels very powerful when you're performing it and I hope that will come across to the audience." (Emily Chudy)

Writer Guillaume Musso tells how he came to read Wuthering Heights in Le dauphine (France)

J’étais un lecteur de BD et un téléphage. Et un jour, chez mon grand-père à Antibes, à l’âge de 11 ans, il y a eu une panne d’électricité, alors j’ai pris un livre, et c’était Les Hauts de Hurlevent d’Emily Brontë. Ça a été un point de départ : grâce à ma mère qui était bibliothécaire, j’ai autant lu les classiques que les romans populaires… Ensuite, j’ai commencé à penser à des sujets de roman. J’ai publié un premier livre qui n’a pas vraiment marché. Puis j’ai eu un grave accident de voiture, qui m’a donné le point de départ du suivant, et après, qui a vraiment fonctionné au-delà de mes espérances. (Thierry Meissirel) (Translation)

KSCJ has a podcast featuring Lyndsay Faye's Jane Steele and The Sacramento Bee recommends Cathering Loweel's The Madwoman Upstairs. Maria Brontë is discussed on AnneBrontë.org. Piqd (in German) briefly discusses Charlotte Brontë's bicentenary. Przy kawie z książka reviews a Polish edition of Charlotte Brontë's unfinished novels. Elodie Books (in French) posts about Jane Eyre.