Our young ambassador, Andreea Lupu, gives us her impressions of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s new season.

The stage of Birmingham Hippodrome is now reanimated by Birmingham Royal Ballet’s new season including a mixed programme of short ballets last week and Aladdin this week.

Last week’s Penguin Café Mixed Programme started with Concerto presented in a minimalist setting meant to focus attention on the gracious yet precise movement of the body following the rhythm of Dmitri Shostakovich’s compositions. Both the group and duo performances indicated the complexity of the art form.

The second act, Still Life at the Penguin Café, depicted a world of fantasy where ballet becomes a playful and joyful manner through which animals (penguins, zebras, a mouse, an ant and a monkey) and humans communicate with each other and with the audience. A feast of colour and lively music entertaining the youngest and the oldest of us all.

Lastly, Elite Syncopations invited the audience to watch a gleeful display of dance talent. The quirky props, the disco lights, the funny characters and the cheerful orchestra created a visual and sound spectacle appreciated through laughs and long applause. Although the performances do not depict any particular storyline, the choreography and visual design of the costumes and lights manage to keep the audience’s eyes and ears fully engaged throughout the piece.

As both an Ambassador and a Visitor Assistant at the Hippodrome, I have noticed the public’s extremely positive reaction to Birmingham Royal Ballet’s productions this autumn regardless of terms of age, gender and interests. This pill of joy is a perfect remedy for the grey weather now returned.