Storytelling through dance at its very best

The Yorkshire Post gives 5 stars to Northern Ballet's take on Jane Eyre.

Northern Ballet’s revival of their acclaimed production of Jane Eyre, which was first staged in 2016, is a triumph from start to finish.

Adapted from Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel by internationally renowned award-winning choreographer Cathy Marston, it is a perfect example of what the company does so brilliantly. This is storytelling through dance at its very best, rooted in a thoughtful literary sensibility that is true to the source material, while creating a powerful visual language of its own.

The choreography is exquisite – every single movement, from the tiniest step to the most soaring leap, is significant and considered. There is so much beautiful attention to detail in every scene and each character note is appropriate and carefully thought through. This is particularly effective when we see idiosyncratic little physical signifiers and leitmotifs – a tightly clenched fist behind the back, hands enclosing the head – that are mirrored by the two dancers playing Jane as a child and as an adult.

Opening with Jane’s arrival at the Rivers’ household having fled from the church on her wedding day when Rochester’s first marriage is revealed, the narrative unfolds moving back and forth in time to tell the resilient heroine’s story.

We are transported from her turbulent time at the home of her cruel Aunt Reed to the misery and hardship of Lowood School to potential new beginnings at Thornfield Hall as governess to Rochester’s ward Adele.

These locations, as well as the wild moorland landscape, are beautifully evoked by Patrick Kinmouth’s simple, abstract design – like chalk and graphite marks on a grey gauze backdrop.

A corps de ballet of male dancers represents Jane’s inner demons and they appear at moments of crisis or consternation. As a device this works well in that it highlights the barriers (some of them from within herself) to Jane’s ambition and happiness, as well as her tenacity in facing them and ultimately overcoming them.

Sarah Chun as the adult Jane, intelligent, feisty yet vulnerable, and Jonathan Hanks as Rochester, gruff, troubled yet kind, portray their complex characters and the central love story with great sensitivity and passion; their closing pas de deux is incredibly affecting.

The performance from the whole company of dancers is outstanding. And the icing on the cake is the superb score by Philip Feeney, played live, conducted by Daniel Parkinson. (Yvette Huddleston)

Los Angeles Times reviews Swedish pop star Annika Norlin’s first novel Stacken, translated into English as The Colony.

Alice E. Olsson, in her English translation, locates a naive lyricism in the voice of this bright but unschooled boy, who learned the way of the world from the meager literature at hand: “Wuthering Heights,” “Flowers in the Attic,” old Jackie Collins novels. (Charles Arrowsmith)