Lord of the dance By Kelly Apter for The Scotsman
Clearing up inherited mess is an integral part of any takeover, whether you’re in government, business or even rented accommodation. What counts is how quickly you turn things around.
When Ashley Page took over the reins at Scottish Ballet in September 2002, things - as the Blair campaign professed ad nauseam - could only get better. A year later, the company is almost unrecognisable, and Page may well go down in the annals of dance history as the man who saved Scottish Ballet.
As jobs go, it had limited appeal: artistic director of a company in the midst of a controversial change of direction, chronically under-funded and populated by dancers who - not to put too fine a point on it - weren’t very good. Not only that, the previous director, Robert North, had been unceremoniously shown the door after three years for failing to cut the mustard.
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A New Laird of the dance makes his point By Miranda Fettes for The Evening News
IT is a bitter, wintry day as I go to meet Ashley Page, the new artistic director of Scottish Ballet, at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre. One moment, the volatility of the elements plunges the sky into darkness, punctuated by dense clouds and relentless rain. The next, it is clear, dry and bright, as though some omni-potent director is engineering scene changes to mimic one of Page’s characteristically spiky, asymmetrical choreographies.
"It never ceases to amaze me that one second it can be dark and wet and the next it can be bright and clear," says the 47-year-old, revealing his initial impressions of Scotland. "I quite like the fact that it can change just like that - it’s very dramatic."
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