Ann's return to early days of dance

Company dancer Eleesha Drennan, whose Phantom Of Us will be performed.

IF you're watching a modern dance piece and you don't understand it, Welsh dance guru Ann Slolem has a simple diagnosis.

"It doesn't mean you're stupid," she said. "It means the dance isn't good enough."

Artistic director of the National Dance Company Of Wales, Ann's set to show some examples of what can be great about contemporary dance when her hand-picked group of 12 "exciting, athletic and charismatic dancers" perform at Eden Court on Friday and Saturday.

But for Ann, the return to Inverness is a chance to recall her earliest days in dance when she was a member of Scottish Ballet and used to visit the city back in the early 80s.

"I'm excited about coming back," Ann said.

"It was good times at the Scottish Ballet – the company was really changing.

"Peter Darrell made his new Swan Lake, we had our first season in Paris and Rudolf Nureyev and Lynne Seymour danced with us.

"I was a swan, a cygnet in the corps de ballet," recalled Ann.

"And I remember we had Christmas in Inverness and Aberdeen doing The Nutcracker – the company was coming up with really interesting work."

Ann and her partner Roy Campbell-Moore met while they were both at Scottish Ballet.

This week, as Ann talked about those early days in her career, she was watching a class open to school pupils to enjoy and understand a bit more about what happens behind the scenes in a dance company.

"When we were at Scottish Ballet, things were so different as a dancer.

"You went in and did your thing onstage and then left by the stage door and didn't have any contact with the audience at all," Ann recalled.

"It was one of the things when Roy and I started this company we wanted to change."

Now that the dance world has opened up to bringing audiences closer to the onstage and backstage world, Ann's company is a pioneer of school and community involvement.

And while the company is in Inverness, it's even offering the chance for photographers and artists to go along to a class for dancers to capture what they see with paint or lens.

Ann revealed that getting schoolchildren backstage to see dancers train and perform and getting the youngsters up onto the stage themselves where their friends can see them, has had at least one direct effect on the company.

"One of our dancers was inspired by seeing one of our performances to think of dance as a career and he went on to train as a dancer."

Ann and Roy moved on from Scottish Ballet to Cardiff where they set up their own dance company – then called Diversions – back in 1983. In 1999, the company was awarded national status and adopted its current name.

But next year the Scottish Ballet link will be forged again for Ann and Roy.

National Dance Company Wales is working on a project for the Olympics with both English National Ballet and Scottish Ballet.

"We'll perform as Dance GB making a show that'll be seen in Glasgow, Greenwich and Cardiff," Ann explained.

* Welsh National Dance Company is at Eden Court on Friday and Saturday.