Inside Sketches: Past, Present and Future

Devised by Northern Ballet's Artistic Director, Federico Bonelli, Sketches offers a rare and intimate look into the creative process, stripping ballet down to its rawest form: no sets, no lighting — just movement, music, and pure artistry. We caught up with one of this year’s choreographers, Yosuke Mino, to hear about his piece Passing By.

Yosuke Mino trained in ballet at AK Ballet Studio in Kanazawa, Japan and Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. Following a season with Boston Ballet, Yosuke returned to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, where he performed until his retirement in 2022. As a choreographer, he has worked with Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, as well as for numerous international festivals.

Your piece is called Passing By, can you tell us a bit about the title and what it means?

My original idea for the piece was very abstract. I wanted to make something purely based on music and movement, so the original title was Sonata for Two. During our first full run-through of the piece, the dancers walked up to the stage separately to begin, and they danced so beautifully with so much joy and playfulness. At the end, they simply walked off stage, again in opposite directions, as if nothing happened. It was a really funny moment and made me think how ephemeral our life is, which is when we started calling this piece Passing By.

The music you use is the Allegro from J.S. Bach’s Sonata No. 1 for Solo Violin in G Minor. How did you go about choosing this piece?

Initially when I was digging through my own playlists and music I couldn't find anything that matched what I imagined for the piece in terms of colour or tone, before I had started thinking about the movement specifically. By chance, I had put on a random playlist while I was doing other things, and this music caught my ears – it just fit!

Are you influenced by any particular style of movement or dance techniques?

This piece was created with the style of neoclassical ballet with a hint of contemporary and classical ballet within.

Tell us a bit more about your choreographic process. Was it a collaborative process with the dancers or did you have all the steps mapped out already?

I knew which dancers I was working with in advance, so I tried to map out the steps as much as possible before we began rehearsals, imagining the dancers I was working with taking those steps. However, once we got into the studio, I often forgot what I had in my mind and seeing them move actually inspired me to go in a different direction. I also asked the dancers how they felt with certain moves or if they had other ideas and we worked together in that way. For me, part of the joy of creation is collaboration and communication, so I get to know people and always try to expand my knowledge and vocabulary.

Your piece is a pas de deux and was performed by two different couples (Saeka Shirai with Kevin Poeung and Sena Kitano with Noah Benzie-Drayton). Would you say there are differences between the two couples?

There are absolutely differences between the two couples and I loved that! Of course, the steps are the same, but the dancers all have different qualities and personalities, so seeing their individuality is always a joy. The way I would make corrections also varies because of their different ways of dancing, but what I wanted to achieve was to push them a little bit further than their respective comfort zones.

Was the end version of the piece different from what you set out to create?

I honestly cannot exactly remember what I set out to create in the beginning, because the end version is so vivid and colourful in my mind! My aim was for the audience to take away physicality and musicality and the way they relate to each other, and I am happy to have achieved this.

Header photo of Yosuke Mino, photo Ian McCausland. Performance photos by Emily Nuttall.