Keeeeep dancing……

It’s just over a week since the start of our 2025/6 season. Anyone who was there will know how special it was. It was our first opportunity to showcase Baroque Dance, performing alongside the Mercurius Company. In fact, it was probably the first time that Baroque dancers had performed publicly in Manchester in hundreds of years. Halle St Peters was a perfect venue for it - providing lots of space, great acoustics and really clear views for all the audience.

We’ve been getting rave reviews about the night - from the audience as well as the musicians and dancers! Seeing the enthusiasm of students from the Northern Ballet School and how inspired they’d been was brilliant - “we can really understand the roots of ballet, our art and tradition” and they left fizzing with ideas. Our youngest audience members were even having a go themselves at the interval.

Someone I talked to, who is not normally a dance enthusiast, said it was a wonderful experience, the costumes and make up were exquisite and the engagement between the dancers and the audience had a truly intimate feel.

One of the best compliments was that not only was this extremely rare to see in Manchester but that it was the type of performance you wouldn’t see in London very often either.

“Manchester Baroque is being really brave and pushing the boundaries.”

It was only possible with the support of our friends at the Continuo foundation, our generous donors and of course you our audience and concert goers.

We are next playing on 15th November, again at Halle St Peter’s. It will be one of our larger ensembles and features concerto soloists Michael Niesemann (oboe), Robert Vanryne (trumpet), Martyn Shaw (flute), Yasaman Mashhouri (recorder), and our Artistic Director and Leader Pauline Nobes (violin). You can see Yasaman in action here. The concert includes Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 2. Buy tickets early - This one is proving very popular already!

Hope to see you there!

Jessica