Video

Royal Ballet and Les Misérables performers unite to promote mental health awareness during the pandemic

The new piece, “Hush”, is available to watch now

Editorial Staff

| London |

15 October 2020

A group of performers came together to stage a special reflection on mental health during the pandemic.

Also highlighting the brilliance of the UK's performing arts, the piece, Hush, has been released on YouTube today.

Hush was written by musical theatre composer/lyricist Kath Haling with additional musical arrangement by Harry Haden-Brown, and vocals provided by West End performer Leo Miles (The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables). Choreographed by Erico Montes, former First Artist of the Royal Ballet, the film features dancers from the Royal Ballet including Benjamin Ella, Harry Churches and Giacomo Rovero, who perform together for the first time since lockdown began.

You can watch it here:

Rehearsal and performance space was provided by Cre8 Studios/Stour Space Hackney, who gave over the venue for free for a week.

Montes told WhatsOnStage: "Collaborating with artists from another discipline is always fascinating. It is so interesting comparing the different processes – all sides always leave inspired and with greater insight into the other discipline and their own too. At this time we were all craving the company of like minded people, of creative souls. What we very quickly found was that the message we wanted to send out into the world, through our different disciplines, was the same.

"The feelings we were all experiencing and needed to express were the same. In times like this all artists should come together, we are after all various parts of the same living organism. A choreographer needs music and dancers. Dancers need music to dance to and steps to dance. A songwriter needs a singer, a singer needs words to sing. We only truly exist together and sadly, the best way to realise this is being alone."