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Pauline McLean | 21:06 UK time, Thursday, 17 September 2009

Lovely to see Scottish Ballet in their new purpose-built home in the south side of Glasgow.

The new building, seamlessly latched onto Tramway - at least inside the building, it's virtually impossible to tell where one starts and the other ends - is astonishingly, the first purpose-built headquarters in the company's 40 year history.

And a far cry from their old premises at 261 West Princes Street in Glasgow's west end.

There the dancing was restricted not just by the size of some of the studios but by the buckets and mats that had to be scattered around the catch the drips from the leaking roofs.

The wardrobe department fought a constant battle to protect the costumes from damp - famously losing all of their Conran designed "swans" from Swan Lake when the basement flooded.

The van drivers meanwhile had to master the tightest three point turns in history in order to back into a scenedock, never intended to be part of a Victorian tenement block.

And while some aspects were quaint and quirky - not least the mail bag on a rope which stopped admin staff on the top floor having to come up and down the stairs 40 times a day - the overall message seemed to be that this was a national company not worthy of proper investment.

It's only a decade since dancers had to take a campaign to Downing Street to try to persuade the government to prevent the company from closing altogether and while artistically, Scottish Ballet is back on its feet again - largely thanks to the arrival of Ashley Page - as the smallest and leanest of the national companies, it had some political ground to gain.

This should do it. A state of the art facility in an existing arts centre in a thriving community which has already taken the company to its heart.

The final million of the £11m bill for the building was raised through public appeal and they'll get the chance to see what their money paid for when the company throws its doors open on Saturday and Sunday as part of the Doors Open campaign.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    Yes, Pauline, it was refreshing to see ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News coverage of the new site yesterday.

    What no one mentioned however was whether it was primarily funded by public money, or private sponsorship and charitable giving.

    If it is principally funded by Government, then in the present climate any talk from the Artistic Director about being there for the next 40 years is purely fatuous.

  • Comment number 2.

    Who paid for that then... oh yes stupid me!

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