As our latest children’s ballet Hansel & Gretel continues its UK tour, we caught up with co-choreographer George Liang to hear about his experience of making this magical fun-filled adventure for children.
You and your co-choreographer Harris Beattie have both choreographed works for Northern Ballet before, but tell us about how you approached creating a work for young audiences.
Harris and I had our first experience of choregraphing for Northern Ballet during Sketches in 2024. The audience for Hansel & Gretel is, of course, much younger, so this time we had to make sure that we were still able to tell a story through more simplistic movement, but without losing our signature style. I think you can clearly see our ‘Harris and George’ choreography throughout the story of Hansel and Gretel, and the messages we’re portraying.
This is a very different version of Hansel & Gretel. How did you approach the story?
We had many drafts of many re-imaged versions of Hansel & Gretel and wanted to continue the Northern Ballet tradition of adding a twist to the storyline. We aimed to keep the foundations of the fairy tale, but also wanted to add an environmental spin, which is an important and relevant message today. We sat down with Federico Bonelli, Northern Ballet’s Artistic Director and other members of the Northern Ballet team to gather their ideas and see what they would like to see for this re-imagination. In that sense, it’s a real team effort. We started with the idea of Hansel & Gretel being scouts. This idea was then moulded into what we see today!
What was it like collaborating as choreographers? How did you each develop your ideas?
Collaborating as choreographers has been very easy. We’ve known each other for a long time and are friends outside of work, so we both knew what each other could bring to the table in that respect. The project was completely collaborative; we worked together on everything and gave time and thought to both of our ideas. The process of creating together began whilst we were performing on tour for A Christmas Carol and, whilst there were significant time restrictions, we managed to work efficiently together to create this ballet.
Hansel & Gretel has a brand-new score choreographed by Northern Ballet’s Company Pianist, Colin Scott. Can you tell us a bit more about how you worked with Colin?
Collin had approached us about being a part of the composing world at Northern Ballet long before this project had begun. Once the idea for Hansel & Gretel had been commissioned, we were given a list of potential musical collaborators, but we had already decided that we would like to work with Colin. Colin then came to us with excerpts and ideas and, working over the summer break, transformed these ideas into a beautiful score!
The production is really brought to life by the staging, lighting and costumes (need to include a figure for how much was recycled). How did you work with Ali Allen (Designer) and Abbi Fearnley (Lighting Designer) to create Hansel and Gretel’s world?
Ali Allen has been a part of this project since the very beginning and it was great to work with her throughout. Ali worked closely with our Workshop Team who build our staging and it was amazing for us to watch our ideas come to life. One of the first things we saw from Ali was the model set for the staging. She incorporated a very modern design with the practicalities of spacing for dance. For example, what begins as a sofa becomes a bed and later on a cottage. Ali really creates theatre magic!
It was also wonderful working alongside Abbi Fearnley. Abbi is Northern Ballet’s Deputy Head of Lighting, so we have worked with her many times on tour as dancers, but this was our first time working with Abbi as choreographers. She continued to surprise us with her expertise throughout this process and our work was completely collaborative. We were able to communicate our ideas and Abbi would bring them to life. The stage design is very dark, so we worked closely with Abbi for a full day to use colour in the lighting to paint the space to aid the storytelling. Our lighting cues for Hansel & Gretel actually exceed those of Jane Eyre!
Hansel & Gretel continues to tour nationwide until 7 June.
Image by Emily Nuttall and Colleen Mair.
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