Gentleman Jack
An exploration of the life of powerful Yorkshire woman Anne Lister, whose secret diaries revealed a truly exceptional life. Described by some as the "first modern lesbian", Anne lived, dressed and loved as she desired, not as 19th century society expected her to. With her words dancing across the page, she vividly chronicled her adventures, heartbreaks and triumphs.
Reviews:
Peter Salem’s score is extraordinary, and I often found myself as lost in the music as I was in the dance. Composed for the Northern Ballet Sinfonia under conductor Daniel Parkinson, it pulls from Yorkshire and Scottish folk sounds and layers them over ambient, electronic textures. In a cinematic gesture, it enters like an opening title sequence where mood and attitude set the tone and then opens up into space and scope that never feels hemmed in by overworn phrases. In the scenes with the miners, a sharp percussive tone evokes a pickaxe striking rock, and the miners themselves, in boots with a clog-like heel-strike, add their own rhythm to the stage floor. When the rejection scene comes and Saeka Shirai’s Mariana is held at the edges of a ballroom, a haunting violin rises above the dampened sounds of the rest of the room, closing in the emotional space in one deft move. I have never heard a live orchestra make a room feel that particular shade of lonely.
Peter Salem’s driving cinematic score, a range of styles for the changing scenes, is as eloquent as the choreography and staging.