ON PAR PRODUCTIONS

“Critics Circle Award” winning company Independent Ballet Wales present a new and breathtaking version of the most famous Welsh folk tale of them all, the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach, the fairy bride lured from her underwater home to become a farmer’s wife on the Brecon Beacons.

Independent Ballet Wales’ take their inspiration from Hilda Vaughen’s adaptation of this heartbreaking tale, “Iron and Gold”, fleshing out the bones of the Welsh myth and bringing to vivid life this tale of love and loss.

Featuring stunning costumes, breathtaking choreography and heartbreaking passion.

Artistic Director and Creative Wales Award winner Darius James creates a world of myth and magic with some of the best creative artists and dancers around.

by Richard Llewellyn

Music: Thomas Hewitt Jones

Choreography: Darius James

Set and Costume Design: Daniel Anderson

For the Royal Welsh College of music & Drama

Design Supervisor: Steve Denton

Costume Makers: Hazel Jewkes and Angharad Spencer

Head of Staging: Will Goad

How Green Was My Valley is set in Wales in the reign of Queen Victoria. It tells the story of the Morgans, a poor but respectable mining family of the South Wales valleys.

The Morgans are miners and the story follows the family trying to survive the highs and lows of working in a coalmine at that time, including the discontent that sowed the seeds that were to become the union movement.

Ivor, the eldest son marries a young girl from the neighboring valley called Bronwen.

Angharad Morgan falls in love with the new preacher, Mr Gruffydd but he rejects her because he feels he is too old and poor and cannot offer her a future.

Angharad instead marries a wealthy coal-owner whom she does not love, and the marriage is an unhappy one.

Ianto Morgan, the firebrand son, marries introverted Marged who, left alone for long days on end while Ianto fights for the union, loses her sanity.

Angharad, returning home alone meets Mr Gruffydd in friendship but gossip at their relationship forces the preacher to leave the valley forever.

“How green was my valley then, and the valley of them that have gone”

“Critics Circle Award” winning company Independent Ballet Wales present a breathtaking version of one of the most famous ballets of all time.

Featuring the original stunning score by Adolphe Adam, atmospheric costumes and sets, and the remarkable dancers of the company. 

The peasant girl Giselle is driven to kill herself when she discovers that her youthful lover ‘Loys’ is in reality Count Albrecht, and not free to marry her. She rises from the dead to prey on the man who has betrayed her. But as Albrecht, repenting, visits her moonlit grave, Giselle protects him from the deathly touch of her phantom sisters until the dawn sees him safe once more.

This passionate and dramatic tale is based on the reworking of Giselle by Marius Petipa with choreographic additions by Artistic Director and Creative Wales Award winner Darius James.   

Original Choreography. Expressive Costumes. Stunning Sets

by Dylan Thomas

with the permission of David Higham Associates

Music: Thomas Hewitt Jones

Choreography: Darius James

Costume Design: Yvonne Greenleaf

First Voice: Gwyn Vaughan Jones

Paintings for projections: Jeremy Thomas

Video projections: Darius James

Music: Thomas Hewitt Jones

Orchestrated and produced for Independent Ballet Wales

by Thomas Hewitt Jones at Court Lane Music, London UK

Musicians:

Violin: Kevin Weaver, Simon Hewitt Jones, David Worswick, Gill Allison

Viola: John Hewitt Jones, Peter Foggitt

Cello: Oliver lallemant, Peter Gregson, James Sherlock, Daniel Francis

Piano/Keyboards: Peter Foggitt, Thomas Hewitt Jones

Vocalist: Susanna Gray

Thanks to:

Paul Baxter, Delphian Records

Mark Wherry of Remote Control Productions, Santa Monica

Under Milk Wood is Dylan Thomas’ most famous and enduring work now translated into over 50 languages. A favourite since its first broadcast with Richard Burton in January 1954, it brilliantly conjures the intimate dreams and innermost desires of the inhabitants of Llareggub – a small fictional sea-town somewhere in Wales.

Subtitled “A Play for Voices”, Dylan Thomas’ magnum opus carries the double legacy of the author’s extensive work for radio – a medium for which he had an almost intuitive grasp – and his skill and ability as a poet.

A polyphonic evocation of a day in the life of an imaginary small Welsh seaside town, Thomas’ play – “a green leaved sermon on the innocence of men” – visits in turn the inhabitants of Llareggub (read it backwards!) while they sleep, when they wake and go about their daily activities, as the night falls. Balancing a rhythmic, densely poetic language with a nuanced ear for the musical cadences of speech, the play’s gentle, affectionate charm and humour resonate to create a deeply textured portrait of a community responding almost mythically to the awakening of spring.

Under Milk Wood is a sensitive, often comic, examination of Welsh life in which the people are viewed as being particularly blessed. They are the “chosen people of His kind fire in Llareggub’s land” and the town retains its own magic and holy significance despite its faults.

This production also toured in 2004 and 2008.

Based on the play by William Shakespeare

Music: Hector Berlioz

Choreography: DariusJames

Costume Design: Yvonne Greenleaf

The Story

Act One

A long-standing feud between the Montague and Capulet families continues to disrupt the peace of Verona. A brawl between the feuding households prompts the Prince to threaten both sides to keep the peace on pain of death.

Benvolio advises his lovesick friend Romeo, to abandon his unrequited love for Rosaline and seek another.

That night, Lord Capulet holds a masked ball to encourage a courtship between his daughter, Juliet, and Paris, a relative of the Prince.

Concealing their identities behind masks, Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio go to the ball, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love at first sight, but at the end of the evening they discover their identities as members of the opposed families. On his way home from the feast, Romeo climbs into Capulet’s orchard to glimpse Juliet again. Juliet appears at her balcony, and the couple exchange vows of love, agreeing to marry the next day.

Romeo asks Friar Laurence to perform the marriage ceremony. Though initially reluctant, he finally agrees, hoping it will reconcile the families, and marries Romeo and Juliet that afternoon.

Meanwhile, Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, sends Romeo a challenge to a duel. Romeo refuses to fight when Tybalt confronts him because they are now related. However, Mercutio, Romeo’s quick-tempered friend, intervenes and accepts the challenge. Romeo tries to part the two as they fight, but Mercutio is fatally wounded under Romeo’s arm. To avenge Mercutio’s death, Romeo kills Tybalt and then flees.

Act Two

he Prince announces Romeo’s banishment for Tybalt’s murder. Romeo, hiding at the Friar’s cell, becomes hysterical at the news of his sentence and tries to kill himself, but the Friar promises to make Romeo’s marriage to Juliet public and gain the Prince’s pardon. Romeo and Juliet celebrate their wedding night before he leaves at dawn for Mantua.

That morning, Juliet discovers that her father has arranged for her to marry Paris. The Capulets, unaware that Juliet is grieving for Romeo’s exile rather than Tybalt’s death, believe the wedding will distract her from mourning. Distressed at the prospect of a false marriage and isolated from her family, Juliet seeks advice from Friar Laurence, who offers her a sleeping potion to make her appear dead for 42 hours. During this time, the Friar will send a message to Romeo in Mantua so that Romeo can return to Verona in time for Juliet to awake.

Juliet returns home and agrees to marry Paris. In a moment of euphoria, Lord Capulet brings the wedding forward, thereby forcing Juliet to take the potion that night and reducing the time for the message to reach Romeo.

Juliet’s seemingly lifeless body is discovered and she is placed in the family tomb. Because an outbreak of the plague prevents the Friar’s messenger from leaving Verona, Romeo now receives news of Juliet’s death instead. Desperate, Romeo buys poison from an apothecary and returns to Verona.

Late that night, Romeo enters the Capulet tomb, but is confronted by Paris, whom he fights and kills.

Still unaware that Juliet is in fact alive, Romeo takes the poison and dies. Juliet awakes, and finding Romeo dead she stabs herself with Romeo’s dagger.

This production toured in 1997,1998, 2001, 2005 and 2009.

Based on the play by William Shakespeare

Music: Felix Mendelssohn, Georg Philipp Telemann

Choreography: Darius James

Costume Design and execution: Yvonne Greenleaf

The Story

Celebrations are planned to mark the marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Egeus comes before Theseus with his rebellious daughter Hermia, who is in love with Lysander although her father insists that she should marry Demetrius. The Duke orders Hermia to obey her father or, according to Athenian law, she must face death or enter a convent.

Instead, Hermia and Lysander decide to elope that night. They confide their plan to their friend Helena and she, in love with Demetrius and hoping to win his affection, tells him of the plan. All four lovers steal into the forest that night.

Bottom the weaver and a group of Athenian tradesmen are planning to perform a play, ‘The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe’, in celebration of the Duke’s wedding. They decide to rehearse in the same forest.

Oberon and Titania, fairy rulers of the forest, have quarrelled over Titania’s refusal to give up her boy page to Oberon. He orders Puck to seek out a magic plant whose juice, squeezed on the eyes of someone asleep, will cause them to fall in love with the first creature they see upon waking.

Oberon uses the juice on Titania, and she falls rapturously in love with Bottom, who has been bewitched by Puck. He also tells Puck to use the juice on Demetrius, so that he might fall in love with Helena but Puck, mistaking the two Athenian youths, uses it on Lysander instead, who promptly falls in love with Helena…

Eventually, however, all the enchantments are lifted, the human lovers are happily paired and Titania and Oberon reconciled. The three couples are married, and Bottom’s troupe perform their play at the nuptial celebrations.

The Queen of the Fairies Titania, and Puck the mischievous messenger, inhabit the supernatural fairy kingdom. Bottom and his boot wearing “Rude Mechanicals” present their famous play Pyramus and Thisbe. And finnally the lovers, caught in a thrilling web of mistaken identity and confusion finally find their way through the Athenian forest to an unforgettable and joyous reconciliation.