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The BalletBoyz At The Music Center: Meet Leon Poulton

Wiebke Schuster |
November 7, 2014 | 7:41 p.m. PST

Staff Writer

The BalletBoyz in Serpent (Panos)
The BalletBoyz in Serpent (Panos)
When Misty Copeland made her rounds in the media to tell her story of becoming a ballerina at the American Ballet Theatre, dancers often gasp at the fact that she got such a late start at the age of thirteen. How can she be this good? But late bloomers exists: take Rudolf Nureyev or modern dance legend José Limón for example, who came to dance well into their double-digit age.

Leon Poulton was already sixteen when he started dancing. Inspired by an outreach program administered through his academic school, he says he was hooked immediately. It just so happened that the two dancers leading that workshop at Poulton’s college were William Trevitt and Michael Nunn, the original BalletBoyz. He remembers the encounter as a moment of departure.

“I first met Billy (William) and Michael at that workshop in 2002. They taught me a section from a piece called 'Torsion' by Russell Maliphant.”

Since then, Poulton was accepted into the TRINITY/LABAN Conservatoire of Music and Dance where he was exposed to a versatile training curriculum: from classical ballet 101 to Cunningham to Graham technique to original repertoire by Kerry Nichols of Random Dance and others. Fresh out of university in 2009, his journey came full circle: He signed a contract with the BalleyBoyz. The first piece he was asked to perform was the Maliphant’s intricate “Torsion”, an exploration of how gestural movement is influenced by light and shadow - the very piece that had lured Poulton into pursuing dance professionally. In his spare time, he also looks at dance from a different lens with photography and videography, which has in return informed his creative practice.

“I don’t limit myself to only one perspective anymore.”

Poulton is creative. One thing he really enjoys about dancing with the BalletBoyz is the collaborative nature of the studio environment at home in the company’s headquarters in Kingston Upon Thames, a quaint London suburb. “We contribute a lot to the choreographic process of our repertoire, most choreographers now work within a task-based way.” Instead of the usual ‘and 5-6-7-8 – copy me!’ approach, dancers may be asked to create material that’s organic to their body, training method and movement aesthetic based on an image, a line or a piece of specific music. Together as an ensemble, these sequences will be developed or discarded, repeated or altered in some way and eventually be incorporated into the final structure of the piece.

SEE ALSO: Interview With Shaping Sound's Nick Lazzarini

“When Liam Scarlett from the Royal Ballet came in to work with us on ‘Serpent’, he was surprised to see that we still do pick up set material so quickly as well. He was a pleasure to be in the studio with.”

28-year old Scarlett retired from his life as a dancer at the Royal Ballet and has since become choreographer in residence at the prestigious Covent Garden Company. On the west coast, the San Francisco Ballet has recently presented a new commission by Scarlett called “Hummingbird”. The BalletBoyz are bringing “Serpent,” a piece from the contemporary realm, inspired by the predatory movement quality of the slithering, title-giving reptile to L.A.

“'Serpent' is a very technical piece, I think the L.A. audience is going to like that. It stands in contrast to the second piece, 'Fallen' by Russell Maliphant which his more grounded and earthy.”

On Saturday, Poulton and his colleague Adam Kirkham will be teaching a men’s workshop hosted by The Music Center in which participants will learn a duet from “Fallen”. “I think it’s great that the dancers get to be in the studio with us. They see that we’re just like them. Then when they go to see us perform the next day, they recognize what they see on stage is exactly what they learned.”

After all, that’s how Poulton himself got started and look where he is now.

The BalletBoyz will be at the Ahmanson Theatre (135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles) November 7-9. Tickets are $28-$110. For more information visit TheMusicCenter.org

Reach Contributor Wiebke Schuster here or follow her on Twitter here

Read more about dance by Wiebke on The Ballet Bag



 

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