Lucia Barbadillo in Kirill Burlov’s Woman and her Riding Hood.
© Foteini Christofilopoulou. (Click image for larger version)

Picture above is from
Foteini Christofilopoulou: Rambert – Evening of New Choreography – 20 pictures

Flyer for the event.
© Dance UK. (Click image for larger version)
or see the complete 3 page pdf version which includes the schedule for the day.

www.danceuk.org
www.danceuk.org/choreographers

In dance we’d be nowhere without choreographers and their visions – they push the art form forwards. But it’s a lonely calling and there is little support for what can often be an exposing and high-pressured career. Back in 2002, Dance UK started its Choreoforum as a way of drawing choreographers together to learn from each other, discuss best practice and network. 11 years on, and a change of name (to the National Choreographers’ Conference), but Dance UK is still encouraging choreographers to get together and share stories and ideas.

This year’s conference, held at Sadler’s Wells in London, was managed by Rambert dancer Angela Towler, who received a Dance UK bursary to develop business skills while recovering from surgery. I have also been working at Dance UK in organising the event and was keen to see how the 27 speakers, all working in diverse areas of choreography, would come together with more than 100 attendees to explore the many facets of creative collaboration. Topics ranged from working with designers and dramaturgs to choreographing on the general public, with some very interesting and illuminating discussions generated.
 

Open discusions at the National Choreographers’ Conference 2013.
© Chantal Guevara. (Click image for larger version)

The conference content was decided by a voluntary steering committee, including Lucie Pankhurst, who also gave a talk on the difficulties of collaborating online: “You think of collaboration and you think of people wearing hessian. Someone is doing a knee bend, someone is banging a drum and someone is painting a picture. But really it’s a lot of sending emails.”

Olympic Opening Ceremony choreographers Temujin Gill, Sunanda Biswas and Eilidh Ross and Closing Ceremony Director Kim Gavin began by discussing the challenges of choreographing for London 2012. For Biswas, it was the mathematics of working with such a large group that provided the greatest challenge.
 

Temujin Gill, Sunanda Biswas and Eilidh Ross.
© Chantal Guevara. (Click image for larger version)

She and Gill choreographed the NHS dance sequence which involved 800 non-dancers and 400 children. “I spent ages working out how many nurses and children should push each bed! The volunteers took it very seriously. We were like counsellors sometimes. People were very precious about their particular beds and when things had to change, they would say, ‘if I have to move from bed 27, I’m quitting!’”

Choreographer of the multi-award-winning film Les Miserables, Liam Steel, spoke about his experiences of working on screen. “I said to the director [Tom Hooper] that the film will fail if it looks choreographed. And in order to achieve it not looking choreographed, every moment needs to be choreographed.”

Steel was on set 95% of the six months spent filming. “My friends said, ‘what did you actually do?’, but it was about staging each movement with the score. Every turn of a head or putting down of a glass had to be in time with the music.”
 

Liam Steel.
© Chantal Guevara. (Click image for larger version)

Steel also described the frustrations of not being in charge of the film editorial process. The ‘Lovely Ladies’ section of the film was changed repeatedly during rehearsal due to factors outside Steel’s control. “The dancers had to perform the dance over and over and their feet were bleeding. And not a bit of it went into the film! The film was amazing but it’s hard to let go of those creative choices.”

StopGap Director Lucy Bennett described her integrative approach, working with both disabled and non-disabled dancers. She chose the approach for “selfish and artistic reasons” and not because she wanted necessarily to change perceptions of disabilities. “I wanted to do something different. In StopGap, diverse people meet and they blend beautifully – or clash horribly – and that’s interesting. We’re not denying disability or sweeping it under the carpet but reaping its rich choreographic rewards.”
 

Lucy Bennett and Laura Jones.
© Chantal Guevara. (Click image for larger version)

StopGap company dancer Laura Jones talked about her personal journey in dance, from loving classes at the age of four to suffering a spinal bleed and ending up paralysed from the waist down. “I thought I couldn’t dance. People always talk about dancers needing strength and flexibility – you have to be able to do the splits. What about stage presence? Or creativity?”

“I’m not going to be able to do the splits but I’ve got a whole range of other movements available to me. It’s not just about translating lower body movements to my upper body but about capturing the purpose, intention and feeling. It’s also not only translating movement ideas from non-disabled dancers to disabled dancers, but vice versa too. In one piece, my neck tension as I move my wheelchair became birdlike neck protrusions for other dancers.”

Charlotte Vincent, Director of Vincent Dance Theatre, discussed the lack of prominent female choreographers. “Why can’t we have two creative acts in tandem? Making babies and making work.”
 

Charlotte Vincent, Holly Noble and Jane Coulston.
© Chantal Guevara. (Click image for larger version)

She described the many ways in which women may be marginalised in the dance world, for example when last-minute schedule changes affect childcare arrangements or touring isn’t family-friendly. She also described society’s “limited view of what makes a body beautiful” and the resultant effect of anorexia, delayed pregnancy and few (if any) “middle-aged, fleshy bodies” on show.

Shobana Jeyasingh, who spoke shortly afterwards, then opened her presentation by saying: “I had never thought being female and being a mother was a victory as a choreographer, but I guess it is.” Jeyasingh also described her choice in school between dance and cricket and how she found in dance “the power without words to create very special meanings. Only the text of the moving body can deliver that.”
 

Flyer for the event.
© Dance UK. (Click image for larger version)
or see the complete 3 page pdf version which includes the schedule for the day.

The conference ended with two performances by student choreographers from Trinity Laban. The first, Ghosts!2013 by Sivan Rubinstein, involved audience members sitting onstage with dancers in claustrophobically close proximity. The piece was a mixture of twisting, intimate duets and curious, aimless walking around the performance space.

An entirely different work, So, we made all the food mild, was created by Nina Berclaz from the same (unstated) initial stimulus. To electronic music and voiceovers describing the Queen in various situations (including visiting a curry house and hence the chef’s words that became the work’s title), two dancers – Samuel Kennedy and Gordon Douglas Raeburn – performed highly original movements including walking atop upturned mugs and alternating between heart-shaped hand gestures and middle finger cursing.
 

Samuel Kennedy and Gordon Douglas Raeburn in So, we made all the food mild.
© Chantal Guevara. (Click image for larger version)

The conference continued well into the evening with networking drinks and lively chatter. Choreographer Rosie Whitney Fish described the day as “incredible. It left me buzzing with inspiration! Great speakers, discussion and debate.” Another participant stated: “It was not a valuable day: it was invaluable. Really inspiring and diverse speakers and a great opportunity to network and gather useful information.”

The idea behind the conference was not that every speaker would appeal to every attendee or that all the presentations would be of universal relevance. Dance UK wanted to highlight the many different ways of working within choreography and allow the speakers to share their fascinating and diverse stories in the hope that this would inspire attendees. I’m not a choreographer and I was exhausted after all the hard work involved during the day, but I did leave feeling thoroughly inspired.
 

Slava Samodurov, surrounded by his company after their Five Tangos premiere.
© Sergei Gutnik. (Click image for larger version)

Slava Samodurov: bringing Yekaterinburg Ballet in from the cold

Regular DanceTabs contributor, Graham Watts, braved 21 hours of flights, a missed connection and 10 hours stuck in Moscow’s packed Domodedovo airport just to spend a night at the Yekaterinburg Opera House followed by a meeting with its new(ish) Director of Ballet, Slava Samodurov, a former Principal at The Royal Ballet.

www.uralopera.ru

It was -26°centigrade when I stepped from an aeroplane in the early dawn of a Saturday morning onto the snow-covered tarmac of Yekaterinburg airport. 26 degrees below freezing was a new definition of cold for me and although my clothing just about managed to cope, the dry air stung my face and ears. More perilous was an ongoing struggle to stay upright on the ice rink that covered this Russian city sheltering to the east of the Ural Mountains, near to the Eurasian border (over one thousand miles from Moscow). It seems, however, that I was fortunate, since winter temperatures here can fall as low as -45°!

Yekaterinburg (often translated as Ekaterinburg) is a city that will forever be known for the murders of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, their five children and loyal staff in July 1918. The Ipatiev Mansion, where these assassinations took place, was demolished on the orders of Boris Yeltsin (then governor of the Ural Region) in 1977, and in its place stands an imposing, beautiful white cathedral, topped by golden domes (called the Church of the Blood), ironically commissioned by Yeltsin after becoming Russian President. Several kilometres outside the city, a tranquil monastery comprising seven simple wooden churches, one for each of the murdered Romanovs, stands in a forest of silver birch trees marking the site of ancient mining shafts where the Imperial family’s remains were found by archaeologists in two separate discoveries, sixteen years’ apart (1991/2007).
 

The Ural Opera House or Yekaterinburg State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.
© Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre.

Both the Church and the Monastery are now places of extraordinary devotion and – even with temperatures as low as they were – people queued to pay their respects, including many who were profoundly disabled, clearly seeking a miracle from the artefacts and icons that they were patiently waiting to kiss or touch. It would appear that, thanks to its notorious history, Yekaterinburg is now Russia’s equivalent to Lourdes.

And a miraculous transformation is being wrought upon the city’s ballet company. The Ural Opera House is an opalescent gem of late Imperial architecture, which celebrated its Centenary last year, meaning that it is itself a silent witness to the tragic events that occurred just six years after it was built. Formally known as the Yekaterinburg State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, it has long been a centre for elite opera, winning several awards and accolades down the years. It was apparently the first opera house outside Moscow or Leningrad to win the Stalin Prize (for its staging of Verdi’s Otello in 1946), a significant cultural achievement repeated in 1987 when it won the State Prize again (the Stalin title having been terminated) for The Prophet by local composer, Vladimir Kobyakin.
 

Larissa Lyushina and Andrey Sorokin in Cantus Articus.
© Sergei Gutnik. (Click image for larger version)

By coincidence, the night of my arrival in Yekaterinburg was marked by yet more prizes as the Theatre’s Director, Andrey Shiskin, received three awards from the newspaper Muzykalnoye Obozreniye (a leading Russian cultural journal), including Arts Personality of the Year for Shiskin himself to mark the theatre’s outstanding development under his management. Two other awards were for operas performed during the Centenary Season (Rossini’s Le Comte Ory directed by Igor Ushakov and Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov directed by Alexander Titel).

It was Mr Shiskin’s adroit vision that attracted former Royal Ballet Principal, Viacheslav (Slava) Samodurov, to come and direct the ballet company, succeeding Nadezda Malygina for the 2011/12 season. His first full-length ballet, Amore Buffo – a modern romantic comedy to Gaetano Donizetti’s music for the opera L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love) – has received considerable critical acclaim in Russia, evidenced by the signal honour of the Yekaterinburg Ballet being invited to open the dance section of the prestigious Golden Mask Festival at the Bolshoi Theatre in February.
 

Andrey Sorokin in Five Tangos.
© Sergei Gutnik. (Click image for larger version)

Amore Buffo was a contender for the Best Ballet production, won by Diana Vishneva’s Dialogs for the Mariinsky (Nacho Duato’s Multiplicity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness, recently seen in London during the Mikhailovsky Ballet’s tour, was another nominee). In fact, Amore Buffo was the only production to garner nominations in every ballet category: for best conductor (Pavel Klinichev), best choreographer (Samodurov), best female dancer (Elena Vorobyova) and best male dancer (Andrey Sorokin). Although it didn’t succeed in any of these categories at the awards ceremony in Moscow – held on 16 April – the Yekaterinburg Opera House did win two Golden Masks: one, again, for Le Comte Ory but the other significantly as a “breakthrough” award (equivalent to “Best Emerging Company of 2012”). There is no doubt that the significant achievements of Samodurov’s first season-and-a-half had some bearing on this welcome recognition.
 

Elena Vorobyova in Cantus Articus.
© Sergei Gutnik. (Click image for larger version)

I arrived in Yekaterinburg to catch the premiere of his first triple bill, always a huge challenge for any director in terms of balance and programming for audience appeal. But there was no playing safe for Slava since his selection was adventurously diverse. Under the enigmatic title of XIX – XX – XXI he pulled together three ballets made in separate centuries, demonstrating the development of the art of choreography in Northern Europe over a vista of some 200 years. “I concentrated on northern European styles because I wanted to create a journey through ballet epochs while remaining within a geographical boundary that would be understood by a Russian audience”, Samodurov told me over a cup coffee on the morning after the premiere.

From the nineteenth century he chose August Bournonville’s Le Conservatoire (or more accurately its first act), created by the Danish master in 1849 to represent a dance class as attended by Bournonville during his time studying with Auguste Vestris in the 1820s. While he cannot be absolutely certain, Samodurov has found no evidence of either the complete ballet or this one-act extract ever having been performed in Russia before and Dinna Bjørn, the consultant advising on this restaging, was also unaware of a precedent in living memory. Given her credentials as former artistic director of both the Norwegian and Finnish National Ballets and long-time dancer and artistic advisor on Bournonville’s choreography at the Royal Danish Ballet, she ought to know!
 

Yekaterinburg Ballet in Le Conservatoire.
© Sergei Gutnik. (Click image for larger version)

Samodurov’s choice of Five Tangos (made in 1977) to represent the twentieth century was equally pioneering since he is sure that no work by Hans van Manen had ever previously been performed by a Russian company. This struck me as surprising, perhaps because van Manen’s work was so beloved by one particular Russian émigré, namely Rudolf Nureyev. If anyone is aware of a van Manen piece ever previously being taken into the repertoire of a Russian company, “answers on a postcard, please”!
 

Ivan Mohnatkin, Yanna Guzeeva with Aleksander Sipatov, Larissa Lyushina in Five Tangos.
© Sergei Gutnik. (Click image for larger version)

And finally, the current century was represented by the world premiere of a new work by Samodurov himself, entitled Cantus Arcticus, made to a score by the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara and sub-titled Concerto for Birds and Orchestra, which was a work without narrative but one that seemed to be inspired – at least in part – by a quest for the Aurora Borealis (The “Northern Lights”). This particular emphasis on the north exemplified a programme of work from Danish, Dutch and Russian choreographers.

At first glance such a diverse programme seems as if it may be a fragmentation too far but Slava explained his motivation by saying, “I wanted to challenge my dancers and involve as many as possible in a programme that would stretch them by testing their strength and abilities”. He added, “It’s crucial for dancers to encounter new choreographies and styles; and the only way that they can progress. Without these big challenges, the dancer’s life is like running in circles. It brings little benefit to anyone”.
 

Five Tangos group picture: (l to r) Nadezhda Malygina (Managing Director of Yekaterinburg Ballet), Andrey Sorokin, Elena Kabanova, Slava Samodurov, Alexander Zhembrovsky, Mea Venema Dinna Bjorn, Jan Hofstra (lighting designer for Five Tangos).
© Sergei Gutnik. (Click image for larger version)

The other incentive was to boost the reputation of the company within Russia: “Becoming the first Russian ballet company to dance van Manen choreography puts us in a strong position”, Samodurov told me, adding: “Essentially, we are putting something new into the Russian ballet club”. This certainly seemed to be evidenced by the fact that several dance critics had taken the long flight from Moscow to review the show.

The risks of such a programme, however, are also significant. “Bournonville and van Manen demand immaculate precision and clarity”, Samodurov explains. “They require another type of stage presentation: it is less in your face, more subtle but this doesn’t mean it is any less energetic or powerful”, he asserts. “The key is that these are different ways of dancing for Russian ballet dancers and very new ways of expressing themselves on stage. They are both very difficult ballets to perform and I see them as important stepping stones in the further development of the company”.
 

Elena Soboleva in Le Conservatoire.
© Sergei Gutnik. (Click image for larger version)

In truth, the company struggled with the precision and filigree neatness of the Bournonville style, especially in the male soloist roles. Some men seemed too bulky in the thighs to deliver the fleet, lightness of jump required although one could detect the impact of working directly with Bjørn. She appeared pleased with their first effort at Bournonville, particularly in the close harmonies of the corps de ballet, the neat style of the lead ballerinas (two Elenas, Trubetskova and Soboleva) and the considerable stage presence of the leading dancers. The Yekaterinburg Ballet does not yet have a school of its own (although Samodurov has plans) and pupils of a local ballet “Lyceum” (named after Diaghilev) charmingly made up the younger members of the conservatoire class.

I had no reservations about an excellent performance of van Manen’s Five Tangos, which was coached by Mea Venema and Alexander Zhembrovsky, both of whom had come from the Dutch National Ballet for the purpose. This was the only work performed to a recorded soundtrack (Astor Piazzolla’s Argentine music) and – with recent performances by Scottish Ballet freshly in mind – I felt that the whole ensemble achieved a refreshing alacrity in handling both the competing tensions between spiky movement and cool twists and the punctuated “stop-start” choreography against the smooth musical flow. Several of the duets were especially impressive and particular mention goes to the excellent flourish and rhythmic precision of Elena Kabanova, Andrey Sorokin and Larissa Lyushina.
 

Elena Kabanova in Five Tangos.
© Sergei Gutnik. (Click image for larger version)

Samodurov’s own new work continued the impressive rich vein of neoclassical abstraction that hallmarks his choreography. Cantus Arcticus was conceptually dominated by two elements. Firstly, the remarkable naturalism of Rautavaara’s three-part score, probably his best-known piece, composed in 1972; and then the effective transparent wall, conceived by Samodurov’s regular set designer, Anthony MacIlwaine. This structural centrepiece comprised curtained layers of Perspex, through which dancers passed, their ephemeral reflections, adding a mystical quality to Samodurov’s choreography. Amongst the ensemble of dancers, I was once again impressed by the pairing of Sorokin and Lyushina (both of whom made such an impact in the TV Kultura Bolshoi Ballet Contest, held late last year) and they were joined by yet another talented Elena (Vorobyova – the other Golden Mask nominee alongside Sorokin). These three very talented and charismatic lead principals could take their place in the upper echelons of any company world-wide.
 

Having very successfully negotiated the two critical hurdles of a first full-length ballet and triple bill, Samodurov is now planning a further triple bill under the title En Pointe for late June, which will include a world premiere (Eventual Progress) by Jonathan Watkins to a new orchestration of Water Dances by Michael Nyman. Watkins was in Yekaterinburg to begin the creative process and select his dancers while I was there. Before this comes to fruition, there is another season of XIX-XX-XXI plus performances of Don Quixote, Andrei Petrov’s 3-Act ballet Creation of the World, Swan Lake, Romeo & Juliet, and The Stone Flower (all to come in May) and then another run of Amore Buffo, Swan Lake, La Sylphide and Giselle earlier in June. It’s a busy company and as if running it is not enough Samodurov himself is already committed to making his own Romeo and Juliet for the Royal Ballet Flanders, due to premiere on 13 February 2014 at the Ghent Opera House. While it is too early to say what Slava’s vision of Prokofiev’s much-used music will be, I think we can count on a ballet replete with neoclassicism that will aim to be both traditional and imaginative.
 

Elena Soboleva and Maxim Klekovkin in Cantus Articus.
© Sergei Gutnik. (Click image for larger version)

As to Samodurov’s future plans, well bearing in mind the unique history of the city in which his ballet company is based – and with an important Centenary on the horizon – I would not be surprised to learn that Deborah MacMillan’s telephone rings with a request to set her late husband’s Anastasia on a new company. It seems like an event waiting to happen.
 

Ivan Vasiliev in the Le Corsaire pas de deux.
© Marty Sohl. (Click image for larger version)

American Ballet Theatre
Spring Gala: Onegin (Act III Excerpt), Cortège, Le Corsaire (Act II Pas de Deux and Coda), Symphony #9, Sylvia (Hunt Scene), Apothéose, The Sleeping Beauty (Act III Pas de Deux and Coda), Symphony in C
New York, Metropolitan Opera House
13 May 2013
www.abt.org

Gala Season, Part Two

The season of galas is upon us: New York City Ballet’s was held last week, American Ballet Theatre’s took place last night. As with most things, the two companies have contrasting approaches. NYCB tends to build its galas around a new ballet – this season, it was a pas de deux for Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild by Christopher Wheeldon. ABT uses the occasion to roll out a series of out-takes from the season. NYCB presents a handful of top dancers; ABT tries to cram in as many as possible. At the Koch last week there were no speeches (a very good thing). At the Metropolitan Opera House, the company brass intoned the usual lines about being “America’s National ballet company” – what does that even mean? – and a dutiful Sigourney Weaver read a prepared speech full of facts and figures about the company-affiliated school.

A certain dutifulness crept into the programming as well. This trotting out of set pieces inevitably flattens things out. In such circumstances only the tricks, big jumps and multiple fouetté turns, really pop. Even full ballets – like Ratmansky’s Symphony #9 and Balanchine’s Symphony in C – start to look a little bit like extended excerpts. That said, thank god for these two ballets, which lifted the general spirit of the evening. Symphony in C, a luminous outpouring of legs and arms, crisp geometries, bobbing rhythms, and articulate patter-like conversations for the feet, is a vivid reminder of why one goes to the ballet at all. Luminosity and classical logic, laced with wit and intelligence. It closed the proceedings. The company looked ravishing in its cream-colored costumes (modeled after Karinska’s), and danced with easy musicality, more relaxed and with more épaulement than one sees at New York City Ballet, where Bizet is taken at a faster clip. Veronika Part made a striking appearance in the second movement, more tragic than one is used to, but regal and imposing, swimming through the long series of swoops and falls, building tension with each unbroken phrase as she shifted the air around her with her powerful arms and shoulders. As with a great dramatic soprano, one can forgive occasional flaws – imperfect balance, or a slightly open position of the feet – because of the power of her musicality. In the third movement Isabella Boylston and Daniil Simkin also stood out, well-matched in their soaring jumps and exuding a kind of irrepressible joy.
 

Diana Vishneva and James Whiteside in Onegin.
© Marty Sohl. (Click image for larger version)

Back to the excerpts. The evening opened with a polonaise and pas de deux from the final act of John Cranko’s costume drama, Onegin. The Mariinsky-trained Diana Vishneva danced with James Whiteside, a recent import from the Boston Ballet. He seems to have found his place in the company quite quickly, in part because he is a skillful partner, present but self-effacing and utterly self-assured. (A talent more rare than one might think.) This is a rather tepid duet, laced with small images of loving partnership – foreheads touching, walking steps with linked arms – that make sense in the larger context of the ballet, but less so as a stand-alone piece. In any case, Vishneva was convincingly dignified and tender, dancing as if lost in her own thoughts. She looked ravishing in her crown and red dress.
 

Students of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in Cortège.
© Marty Sohl. (Click image for larger version)

This was followed by a charmingly formal demonstration of classroom technique (Cortège) by a group of students from the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School and members of the Studio Company set to the familiar “Procession of the Nobles” from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Mlada. Each dancer had a moment to shine. The students’ port de bras, soft and beautifully shaped, was a particular pleasure. It was funny to see the contrast between this formal demonstration and what followed: a display of just how un-classical today’s dancers can be. I wonder if the faculty shielded the young dancers’ eyes as Ivan Vasiliev tore across the stage like a panther and planted himself behind Xiomara Reyes, placing his hands on her waist with workmanlike focus. (Vasiliev and Reyes, a last-minute stand-in for an injured Natalia Osipova, performed the slave pas de deux from Le Corsaire. It’s not a gala without it.) Vasiliev is no paragon of elegance, that’s for sure, but his sheer exuberance, and the power of his jumps and lifts, makes him an undeniable presence onstage. No-one does an overhead lift like Vasiliev; he seems to want to propel his ballerina into the stratosphere. If he could dislocate his shoulder to get her even higher, he would. There’s something to be said for this kind of verve.
 

Julie Kent and Roberto Bolle in Marcelo Gomes’ Apothéose.
© Marty Sohl. (Click image for larger version)

After the break, three more excerpts: Gillian Murphy and her fellow nymphs bounded through the (invisible) forest in the Wagnerian opening of Sylvia, clutching their hunting bows like warrior princesses. The lithe Hee Seo, recently promoted to principal, took her first steps as Aurora in an abridged version of the wedding pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty. It was an auspicious début, filled with achingly beautiful shapes, high passés, deep lunges, lingering balances, everything just so. More than anything, one noticed the breadth in her arms and hands. She and her prince, David Hallberg, cut a very handsome figure indeed. The interpretation, and their partnership, can only grow from here. For Julie Kent and Roberto Bolle there was a pièce d’occasion by Marcelo Gomes in which the two appeared to wake from a nap and struggle toward a light – the piece was called Apothéose – accompanied by the march-like “allegretto” from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. At one point, the shirtless Bolle seemed to suddenly go blind, pawing at the air frenetically. In response, Kent ran to him and rolled over his back, to which he responded by holding her in an upside down lift. With the dying strains of the allegretto, Bolle collapsed to the ground. Kent caressed his head, as if he wre a beloved pet. They kissed. She fell toward him, and the two returned to their nap. Apothéose finie.
 

Polina Semionova and Marcelo Gomes in Alexei Ratmansky’s Symphony #9.
© Gene Schiavone. (Click image for larger version)

So much for the excerpts. Alexei Ratmansky’s Symphony #9, the opening section of an all-Shostakovich evening that will have its first performance on May 31^st, got slightly lost in the shuffle. It needs brighter lighting. Even so, the musicality and complexity of the choreography are immediately compelling. Like the symphony to which it is set, it has a mocking, off-kilter tone. One doesn’t know whether to take it quite seriously. The first movement is playful, punctuated with skips and staccato hops and boys propelling each other into the air. The two soloists, Craig Salstein and Simone Messmer, could be young pioneers on parade. The second, accompanied by a sinuous clarinet, is more ominous. Marcelo Gomes and Polina Semionova are a couple in peril, peering into the darkness for their foes. Their movements are stretched, and then clipped, furtive and tilted, with tango inflections. The couple creep off as a group of men erupts on the scene, scooping through the air with heavy movements. Then Herman Cornejo appears, a kind of guiding spirit, and leads the group away, perhaps to safety. It’s all very mysterious. More struggles lie ahead. At one point the main couple seem to die, falling to the floor in stages; this is later echoed by the corps. The ending is a wild accelerando, peppered with folk steps and pithy quotations from the other movements. Cornejo is the whirling dervish at its heart; as the curtain descends, he’s still spinning. It’s almost too much to take in all at once, a breathless cornucopia of steps and images: parades, war, death, communal celebrations, folk dances, fear, the presence of magical beings in our midst. Not really gala fare, but an intriguing taste of what’s to come.
 

Tobias Batley (Jay Gatsby) and Martha Leebolt (Daisy Buchanan) in The Great Gatsby.
© Bill Cooper. (Click image for larger version)

Northern Ballet
The Great Gatsby
London, Sadler’s Wells
14 May 2013
northernballet.com
www.sadlerswells.com

Why do choreographers adapt plays and novels? The commercial lure of familiar tales is appealing – but not infallible. This spring Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at Covent Garden was a predictable sell-out but Aladdin was not the cash cow Birmingham Royal Ballet hoped.

Northern Ballet’s The Great Gatsby, conceived by David Nixon and Patricia Doyle, has sold out Sadler’s Wells this week, suggesting the continuing appeal of a 90-year old title. Leonardo DiCaprio’s new film is a happy coincidence. The Robert Redford Gatsby has endured too. For a young Nixon, “It was always in my mind as a student. Mention the title and people always react – but possibly to the era rather than the story itself – which they tend not to have read.”
 

Northern Ballet in The Great Gatsby.
© Bill Cooper. (Click image for larger version)

Nor had I, despite being a student of Eng (and American) Lit, so I arrived at Sadler’s Wells – sadly not in Gatsby’s yellow car – but like Gok Wan, Craig Revel Horwood, Janet Street Porter, Beryl Grey and Sarah Hadland – happy to brave the red carpet and flashing cameras that for once gave the Wells a sense of occasion. Here was an audience eager to experience Nixon’s take on Scott Fitzgerald’s novel purely as a dance theatre.

The ballet’s synopsis is a worrying 1,200 words. There are no mothers-in-law in ballet Balanchine famously said. How then to convey that Daisy is Nick Carraway’s second cousin once removed, wife of Tom Buchanan – and former sweetheart of the enigmatic, allegedly great, Jay Gatsby?
 

Giuliano Contadini (Nick Carraway) and Hannah Bateman (Jordan Baker) in The Great Gatsby.
© Bill Cooper. (Click image for larger version)

Fortunately, the direction and elegantly spare designs by Jérôme Kaplan make situations and characters easy to read. If you don’t know the novel – however – you may well need the prompt of the synopsis. Nixon’s choreography visualises the narrative but does not individualise the characters.

Cleverly Nixon and Doyle’s incorporation of a young Gatsby and his infatuation with Daisy (rather a Little Bo-Peep saccharine ideal) provides some dramatic context of what motivates the elusive fraud that is Gatsby.

The Richard Rodney Bennett compilation that scores the ballet opens with his overture to Murder on the Orient Express – of an age with the Redford Gatsby. This immediately defines the era and puts the audience in good humour –  to which Nixon cleverly introduces the protagonists, and their back story.
 

Tobias Batley (Jay Gatsby) and Martha Leebolt (Daisy Buchanan) in The Great Gatsby.
© Bill Cooper. (Click image for larger version)

The score gives the first act thrilling propulsion. There is only one moment of introspection – the duet for Daisy and Gatsby that closes the act. Otherwise emotions are sacrificed to narrative need.

Perhaps deliberately Nixon’s Gatsby remains ambiguous, colourless in his choreography and Tobias Batley’s impersonation. So too with Daisy. There is no sense of character from Martha Leebolt’s vapid blonde. Is this Fitzgerald’s point – Daisy the empty vessel for men’s projections of womanhood?

The ballet succeeds most in its incidental scenes – though everything is presented fortissimo. Most clever is the way in which Nixon depicts Myrtle and George Wilson, the catalysts that ignite the fault lines of the other characters’ casual duplicity. When we first meet mechanic George in his garage, his variation with a car tyre reveals the circling repetition of his marriage to Myrtle. Their subsequent cat-and-mouse duet is equally revelatory – narrative visualised in dance. The performances of Benjamin Mitchell and Victoria Sibson were the strongest of the evening.
 

Northern Ballet dancers Benjamin Mitchell (George Wilson) and Victoria Sibson (Myrtle Wilson) in The Great Gatsby.
© Bill Cooper. (Click image for larger version)

Nixon is clever in his choreographic references. Amid the pastel-coloured tulle skirts and flicking tail coats of Gatsby’s sybarite partygoers there is more than a hint of Frederick Ashton’s La Valse. Nixon too steps through Thoroughly Modern Millie and a syncopating Kenneth MacMillan. Less happily Nixon replicates MacMillan’s prancing soldiers. The second act – other than the mirror duet for Daisy and Gatsby – becomes melodramatic, without the unsettling ambiguity of the novel.

So, why do choreographers adapt plays and novels? Dance expresses the emotions and fills the spaces between the mechanics of telling a story. Existing characters and dramatic situations are not necessarily easy shoo-ins for choreographers.

With The Great Gatsby Nixon does not succeed in making us care for a frankly unlikeable set of misfits and their casual duplicity – but at the same time he creates an authentic visualisation of Fitzgerald.

The Sadler’s Wells audience was unambiguous in its reaction to such an athletic, precise and cultivated ensemble. Mr Nixon – Sadler’s Wells says you and your company are swell.
 

Shonn Wiley and Irina Dvorovenko in “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue”, On Your Toes.
© Joan Marcus. (Click image for larger version)

City Center Encores!
On Your Toes
New York, City Center
9 May 2013
www.nycitycenter.org

For all its celebrated confluence of ballet, Broadway and Balanchine, its cheeky book and smashing dance numbers, On Your Toes, the 1936 bauble revived all-too-briefly as part of City Center’s Encores! series, speaks most eloquently with the cynical and sad voice of Lorenz Hart, his arch words set against the contagious tunes of his more-famous collaborator, Richard Rodgers. With barbed wisecracks, songs that seldom mean just what they say, and a denouement in the “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” ballet which merrily takes “the show must go on” to an absurd and near-fatal conclusion, Hart (and perhaps George Abbott, who also worked on the book) encourages you to enjoy the show’s glamor (did I mention there’s a ballerina?), humor and high spirits, but his rapier’s seldom sheathed, and can still prick you over the decades.

In the second act, the hero, Junior Dolan, the hoofer-turned-music-professor played by Shonn Wiley, asks advice on romance from Peggy Porterfield, the socialite d’un certain age who’s bankrolling the Russian Ballet about which the show’s comedy swirls, portrayed with effortless, upper-crust mastery by Christine Baranski. A target for the charms of both his fresh-faced but hardly naive student Frankie Frayne (Kelli Barrett) and the ballerina Vera Baronova (Irina Dvorovenko), Dolan asks if it’s possible for a “good man” to love two women at the same time. With a perfect heartbeat’s pause, Baranski turns her face to the audience, her eyes a double-barreled shotgun of sang-froid. “If he’s very good,” she drawls. BLAM! In serving his own masters, Hart was very, very good.
 

Irina Dvorovenko in “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue”, On Your Toes.
© Joan Marcus. (Click image for larger version)

On Your Toes’ plot, such that it is, concerns Phil “Junior” Dolan III, the tap-dancing heir to a renowned family of vaudeville hoofers. He gives up the stage for college, and becomes a professor shorthair teaching high-brow music to the youth of America at Knickerbocker University. Determined that an American composition should achieve recognition on the high-art stage, he uses Frayne’s social connection to Porterfield to encourage the Russian Ballet to produce “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” written by yet another of his talented charges and, as they say, hilarity ensues. Junior becomes the object of Baronova’s affections, mostly to inflame the jealousy of her partner and sometimes-love, Konstantine Morrossine (Joaquin de Luz), and gets shanghaied into filling in for an indisposed dancer in the “Princess Zenobia” ballet (Scheherezade’s poorer cousin). When Morrossine proves impervious to “Slaughter’s” jazzier rhythms, Junior, his dancing pedigree revealed, takes over the lead, with Baronova. Not surprisingly, Morrossine objects, and hires gangsters to arrange Junior’s onstage assassination during the “Slaughter” ballet, the imaginative foiling of which leads to On Your Toes’ happy, if improbable, conclusion.

Along the way, the show strings together some memorably ravishing songs and knock-out dance numbers while having fun contrasting the straightforward exuberance of Junior and his American college kids with the Russian Ballet’s suspect old-world and high-society sophistication. Soon after we’re introduced to Porterfield and the ballet’s director, Sergei Alexandrovitch (the broadly hammy Walter Robbie), they sing, in “Too Good for the Average Man,” of the perquisites of their stations in life, extolling the virtues of plastic surgery (“cutting off your face to spite your nose”), birth control and even, ahem, abortion (“the modus operandi” which is “quite too good for the average rabbit”), and Baronova and Morrossine are over-the-top caricatures of the louche and vain. In “The Heart is Quicker than the Eye,” Baranski’s Porterfield explains to Wiley’s Junior that, when it comes to love, “there’s no use asking why.”
 

Christine Baranski and Shonn Wiley in On Your Toes.
© Joan Marcus. (Click image for larger version)

Yet, despite the snappier tunes of the college crowd, there’s also snark that speaks more of the Algonquin Round Table than the soda fountain. In “It’s Got to be Love,” love is “that sinking feeling” that’s left after you’ve dismissed other conditions with depressing symptoms: tonsillitis, bronchitis, fallen arches, the morning after, death, etc. Later, stymied in her love for Junior by Baronova’s machinations, Frayne sings of how love makes her “Glad to be Unhappy.” Oh, these kids today. These are all marvelous songs, but they make one wonder just what Hart had against love. In the one straightforward love song, “There’s a Small Hotel,” (“with a wishing well”) Hart describes a honeymoon spot so cloyingly idyllic you can practically see him rolling his eyes as he penned the words. And while the title of the rousing “On Your Toes” number provides the double-entendre necessary to remind us that there is, indeed, ballet in this show, it’s also a paean to social climbing that’s almost Gatsbyesque: plucking the best fruit from the top of the tree (for which “you’ve got to be up on your toes”) is just like landing oneself in a more desirable neighborhood, like Chelsea or Sutton Place.

It’s a tribute to Rodger’s melodies and Hart’s wit and way with a rhyme that the show’s more outstanding for its comedy and verve than the cynicism that, like a shark, is never far below the surface. It’s really not surprising that, for the 1983 Broadway revival, George Abbott changed a line in “Questions and Answers (The Three B’s),” to assert, however anachronistically, “you will never get the old diploma here/if they catch you singing Oklahoma here,” a reminder, as if we needed one, that Rodgers and Hart were a far cry from Rodgers and Hammerstein. (The original line is about “whistling La Paloma here,” which may have meant something in 1936, but doesn’t even inspire me to hit Google today.) (I also miss a line from ’83 when a gangster, wandering backstage, says something to the effect of “Merde, merde, merde. What’s this merde everyone keeps talking about?”)
 

 
And think about the irony of “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue’s” climactic moments. After Junior’s Hoofer has his romantic duet with Baronova’s Strip Tease Girl in the ballet’s cheerily colorful speakeasy, she’s shot trying to protect him from the pimpish Big Boss (subtle, this story’s not). He shoots the boss, then, in grief, he’s about to do the same to himself, but then Junior’s warned that there’s a hit man in the audience waiting to shoot him for real when his character commits suicide. This leads Junior to forestall that final moment with encore after encore of his last exhausting steps until after the mobster’s safely apprehended. It’s great fun to see Junior’s increasing desperation with each repeat, but surely in such a situation it would make more sense to run into the wings (or for someone to drop the curtain). Of course a trouper like Junior wouldn’t consider for an instant anything that would stop the show, and, at this point, neither would we. Anything other than his cry of “One more time!” to the conductor would be anticlimax, and no way is this roller coaster going off the rails so close to the big finish.

With the excellent Encores! orchestra on a raised platform taking up much of the upstage half of City Center’s stage, Warren Carlyle, the director and choreographer, must stage his action along a narrowish front section. (Encores! productions are usually costumed, but, for economy, only use the sketchiest of sets and props.) For the most part, he handles this ably, with his pared-down staging of the big “On Your Toes” number making clever virtue of this necessity. However, characters are often called on to make lengthy entrances and exits in full view along a strip of catwalk at the front of the orchestra’s platform, which may have contributed to Dvorovenko’s almost cartoonishly broad portrayal of Baronova (or this may just be her familiar portrayal of every heroine as Kitri, transformed to this slightly different medium). Probably at Carlyle’s behest, she makes the most of these extended upstagings, often while her character’s in a snit, waving her arms dramatically about her head as she exits in a flounce of fabric wafting about her person, as if fending off an attack of the vapors, or perhaps becoming Isadora in search of a Bugatti. It’s a funny caricature, but wears thin with repetition, and I don’t remember Natalia Makarova carrying on so in Abbott’s production thirty years ago, but that had the benefit of a more traditional stage and staging.
 

The company in On Your Toes.
© Joan Marcus. (Click image for larger version)

I also don’t recall Makarova looking as if she could gut you with her shoulder; the thinspo glamor of Dvorovenko’s super-attenuated physique (she’s damn thin) is even more striking when sheathed in a wispy dress (from costume consultant Amy Clark) than a more constructed classical tutu (as she affects in “Princess Zenobia”). With the similarly expressed beauty of her features — sharply etched eyebrows and cheekbones, and a forehead of consequence — she presents herself as a Force to be Reckoned With, much as on the ballet stage. Indeed, the lively animation so well suited for projecting to the Met’s cheap seats and beyond makes short work of Baronova’s vanity and jealousy. She gives the diminutive De Luz’s Morrossine an eye-rolling once-over before, in a Russian accent so thick you could cut it with a sickle, pronouncing him a “two-inch liar” for his use of heel lifts, and then, dismissively turning her back, as such a liar “everywhere.”

For all of Dvorovenko’s effusive ballerina-ness, her comedic timing isn’t always perfect, and sometimes a line delivered too quickly and emphatically didn’t get all the laughs it might have. Similarly, her Strip Tease Girl was emphatic indeed, including the grindiest bump-and-grind I’ve seen in any production of “Slaughter,” although she may simply been using the wispy scarf/skirt she’d removed from her waist to demonstrate a post-shower toweling technique for getting one’s hips really, really dry.

As Morrossine, De Luz was an appropriate foil for Dvorovenko, managing his stage accent perfectly, and partnering her in Princess Zenobia with such aplomb you’d hardly notice she seems to loom a good head taller than him when she’s on pointe. He even had a few moments to demonstrate his considerable bravura.
 

Perhaps one day I’ll see a production of On Your Toes with a truly charismatic Junior, but it hasn’t happened yet. It’s a tricky role, for as a music teacher he must be the epitome of the nerdy band geeks we might remember from high school, yet with enough charisma so we understand why Frayne falls for him, and Baronova affects to. He must be hilariously and believably inept and chaotic as the unrehearsed, not-quite-dyed-in-the-wool slave in “Princess Zenobia,” while emerging from this sad chrysalis as the romantic lead and bravura, jazzy Hoofer in “Slaughter.” Lara Teeter didn’t quite manage it thirty years ago, and Wiley doesn’t quite now. He’s a stiff professor and unsure lover, even after his schooling by Baranski, although a good enough singer and tapper to carry his role. Unfortunately, in “Slaughter” he had little chemistry with Dvorovenko, holding her as if afraid one of them would break, and coming to life only in the frantic wildness of his life-preserving encores. In 1936, Ray Bolger was the original Junior, and perhaps only a performer of his charisma and brilliance could really pull it off. (Balanchine’s said to have once called Bolger the best male dancer he’d ever worked with — probably when within earshot of Villella or Baryshnikov.)

With this odd lack of weight at the show’s center, supporting characters can rush in. Kelli Barrett’s a fine, if slightly brassy, Frankie Frayne, although we never really see why she loves Junior (or he, her, for that matter). As Alexandrovitch, Walter Robbie’s properly old-worldly and avuncular, and beautifully introduces “Quiet Night,” perhaps the show’s only song that’s as sincere as it is lovely. In her brief appearance as Lil Dolan, Junior’s mother (with Dalton Harrod as the young Junior, and Randy Skinner as his father), the great and ebullient Karen Ziemba gave a seminar in scene stealing, an education continued by Baranski, the show’s true star. It’s not just her timing that makes her so, but the apparent ease with which she floats through the show, as if commanding our attention here was an amusing lark. That by the end of the show which she so effortlessly steals, she looks to have neither sweat or perspired a drop speaks as much of her character’s moneyed security as it does her seemingly artless perfection, at once magisterial and laid back.
 

Randy Skinner, Karen Ziemba and Dalton Harrod in On Your Toes.
© Joan Marcus. (Click image for larger version)

Despite my above reservations, when it came to the big numbers, the show, and Carlyle’s staging, delivered. The orchestra popped jauntily through “On Your Toes” and “Slaughter,” under guest conductor Rob Fischer. For “On Your Toes,” Carlyle deployed his dancers carefully through his limited space to make the effect of a huge production number, with dancers moving about and hopping on and off some ubiquitous benches to create ever-shifting perspectives, although I missed the knock-down competition between ballet and tap of Saddler’s 1983 choreography. Carlyle made it amply clear he had a lot of terrific dancers of both disciplines to work with, and I can’t say enough good things about the energy of this ensemble.

I’m a little puzzled by Amy Clark’s decision to present the Russian Ballet’s dancers here not in the smocks, dresses and tunics one might expect from the period, but the full Balanchine: super-tidy “practice clothes.” With their white tee shirts and gray tights, the men looked ] ready to launch into Square Dance, more ambassadors from the NYCB of the future than representatives of the Diaghilev era’s fading glory. Was it carelessness, or a sly tribute to Mr. B?

Speaking of whom, I liked Susan Pilarre’s carefully detailed staging of “Slaughter,” right down to the hand of the dead Big Boss seemingly clutching at Junior from beyond the grave. The choreography worked surprisingly well in the shallow stage area, and if Dvorovenko and Wiley didn’t exactly set the stage on fire, it hardly mattered by the glorious finale (although to this day I wonder why Morrossine didn’t follow his gangster pals to jail instead of rejoining Baronova). I hope I don’t have to wait another thirty years to see this show one more time.
 

Christian Squires and Erica Chipp (center) with Jane Rehm, Jonathan Dummar and Joshua Reynolds in Petal by Helen Pickett.
© Keith Sutter. (Click image for larger version)

Smuin Ballet
Spring Bouquet: Chants d’Auvergne, Petal, Jazzin’
San Francisco, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
10 May 2013
smuinballet.org
www.ybca.org

The Smuin Ballet’s current season, Spring Bouquet, has one remarkable flower at its center. The ballet’s title, Petal, hardly does it justice in this metaphor since the work is far beyond the sum of its botanical parts. Helen Pickett originally created it for the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet in 2008 and now this company is giving the West Coast premiere.
 

Erica Felsch above Jonathan Dummar and Joshua Reynolds in Petal by Helen Pickett.
© Keith Sutter. (Click image for larger version)

When the curtain rises, the stage is saturated with bright yellow light. Fabric panels on both sides and across the back define the visual limits of the space. The four women and four men dance like they are from an entirely different company as they are swept up by Pickett’s steps. Several aspects of her work set it apart from what I call generic contemporary ballet choreography, by which I mean – the watered down Forsythe/Kylián-influenced steps, the contorted partnering, and the frequent lack of meaning that are so prevalent in newly-minted work these days. Instead, even though her vocabulary isn’t particularly radical, Pickett is so concise in the way she shapes her movement phrases that the result is one where absolute clarity reigns. She also creates a true sense of community among the dancers as some of them, often sitting on the sidelines, watch the others dance. Moving groups on and off stage with magical stealth allows her to modulate the momentum, giving it a seamless ebb and flow. Pickett uses the canvas of the stage very astutely by avoiding too much symmetry; for example, balancing two dancers on one side against three upstage on the opposite side while others dance in the center.
 

Jane Rehm and Jonathan Dummar in Petal by Helen Pickett.
© Keith Sutter. (Click image for larger version)

The dancers are clearly thrilled to be riding these choreographic waves. John Speed Orr and Christian Squires are particularly noteworthy, while Jane Rehm reveals new facets of her talent as she partners with Jonathan Dummar. Both Erin Yarbrough and Dummar abandon themselves completely to the movement and carry the viewers along with them. The only element that is a bit off is the women’s costume design by Nete Joseph. The pale yellow sleeveless, backless, leotards with split-bodice detailing are unflattering. The fabric seems to be a trifle too loose and, with the bare legs, makes for an unsleek silhouette. The men, on the other hand, are handsomely turned out in shiny blue-green lycra tights.

The evening opens with Michael Smuin’s Chants d’Auvergne which debuted in 1999. Although well-danced by the entire cast, there isn’t much substance to this lightweight confection choreographed to Joseph Canteloube’s music based on French folk songs and sung in the Occitan language. Yarbrough, Dummar and Robin Semmelhack bring lovely poetic and playful interpretations to all their portions of the ballet.
 

Jane Rehm in JAZZIN’ by Darrell Grand Moultrie.
© Keith Sutter. (Click image for larger version)

Darrell Grand Moultrie choreographed the closing piece, Jazzin’. He made it for the Sacramento Ballet in 2012 and it was set here by Lynlee Towne. Accompanied by an assortment of jazz classics, this piece exudes a Broadway style that fits in well with much of the company’s repertoire. The dancers have fun despite the clichés and the audience is excited by all the exuberance. A better program order would be to open with this crowd-pleaser, followed by the more lyrical Chants d’Auvergne, and closing on the high note of Petal.
 

Terez Dean with Smuin Ballet in JAZZIN’ by Darrell Grand Moultrie.
© Keith Sutter. (Click image for larger version)

The Smuin Ballet continues to be on a roll in bringing exciting new work to San Francisco. Last fall they danced Adam Hougland’s Cold Virtues, now they are performing Pickett’s Petal, and in the fall season they will show Jiří Kylián’s Return to a Strange Land. Let’s hope they can keep up this new programming trend well into the future.
 

Smuin Ballet continues their spring season with five more performances: Thursday, May 16 thru Sunday, May 19.

Charlie Siem, Steven McRae, Alina Cojocaru and Marcelino Sambe in Johan Kobborg’s Les Lutins rehearsals.
© Dave Morgan. (Click image for larger version)

Picture above is from
Dave Morgan: Alina Cojocaru Gala – Preparations and Rehearsals – 30 pictures

These are pics of the preparations and practise runs in the afternoon before the show. Many thanks to Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg for allowing us access.

Ida Praetorius as Eleonore in Kermessen in Bruges, with Louise Ostergaard, Josee Bowman and Fernando Mora.
© Costin Radu. (Click image for larger version)
cr Kermessen

Royal Danish Ballet
La Ventana, Kermesse in Bruges
Copenhagen, Royal Theatre
3 and 4 May 2013
kglteater.dk
Gudrun Bojesen interview, including her work on La Ventana

Is this double bill, I wonder, the final chapter of Nikolaj Hübbe’s Bournonville makeover? These new productions of La Ventana  and The Kermesse in Bruges follow his own versions of the ‘big three’ – La Sylphide, Napoli and A Folk Tale – and, with the addition of the surely sacrosanct dancing-school scene from Le Conservatoire, they complete the set of  surviving ballets likely to hold their place in the repertoire outside the sheltered environment of another Bournonville festival.  His choice of producers – solodanser Gudrun Bojesen for La Ventana (interview), former solodanser Ib Andersen for Kermesse – is significant in that neither of them has set a Bournonville piece on this company before, and neither of them is associated with the ‘old guard’ Bournonville team which was responsible for most of the productions over the last decades: Le Conservatoire always excepted, all of the active Bournonville repertoire now bears Hübbe’s own stamp.
 

Diana Cuni (and Louise Ostergaard as her reflection) in the Mirror Dance in La Ventana.
© Costin Radu. (Click image for larger version)

Although she was working on the shorter of the two pieces, Bojesen in a way had the harder job. Bournonville made  La Ventana’s famous mirror dance first, as a speciality number for two of his favourite dancers, and developed the rest of the ballet afterwards to exploit its huge success. He added a thread of a story but it remains essentially a divertissement – a jewel, but one needing a setting to show it off properly. Bojesen rejected any thought of a modern-dress production and instead set out to create a more authentically and intensely Spanish atmosphere. That the outcome is not entirely successful is mostly due to a stage version of ‘first novel syndrome’ – she has a lot of ideas and has tried to include them all, and the result is somewhat over-busy. For instance, though I like her idea of a scene-setting prologue, by the time she’s introduced not only a bored waiter, a guitarist, a flamenco singer, and a passing tourist who may or may not be Hans Christian Andersen on his travels, first-time viewers are beginning to wonder if they’re ever going to get to the ballet itself. On a second viewing it actually makes a lot more sense, and with a bit of tweaking of exits and entrances it could be genuinely effective – but most people will only see it once.
 

Gregory Dean and Alba Nadal in the pas de trois in La Ventana.
© Costin Radu. (Click image for larger version)

The dancing, when we do get to it, is much more simply staged and it’s a  pleasure to see this lovely choreography again. Diana Cuni – one of the company’s finest Bournonville dancers – leads the first cast, with Alexander Stæger as her suitor; Amy Watson and Marcin Kupinski  are their alternates. Stæger is the stronger actor of the two men and in this version that’s important; he was also dancing with a lot more zip and apparent enjoyment than I’ve seen from him before. In the pas de trois I particularly enjoyed Lena-Maria Gruber’s calm authority and – in the other cast – Gregory Dean’s new-found confidence: maybe his recent success as Romeo has moved him up into a higher gear.

Ib Andersen’s new Kermesse is an instant success, a production to last for decades. First of all, it’s gorgeous to look at: Jérôme Kaplan sets it exactly where Bournonville wanted it – the middle of the 17^th century – and takes his inspiration from the great artists of the time: Vermeer, Rembrandt, Frans Hals and others, all politely thanked in his programme note for their ‘invaluable help’. The sets are simple, the costumes anything but: those for the principal dancing characters are traditional and appropriate, but for sumptuousness and sheer beauty they’re outdone by some of those for the corps de ballet and for the extras. Two men who are literally porters, only onstage for seconds, have elaborately detailed outfits, made – like all the rest – from beautiful fabrics, and the women of the corps de ballet owe both Kaplan and the theatre’s costume department a huge bouquet for dresses which both move beautifully and make their wearers look fabulous.
 

Alban Lendorf as Carelis in Kermessen in Bruges.
© Costin Radu. (Click image for larger version)

Andersen was a solodanser here for five years, till Balanchine lured him away to New York, and a brilliant exponent of Kermesse’s leading role in his time. His production follows the path of tradition, more or less. He’s changed some of the choreography for the corps in the first scene, in the belief that it isn’t genuine Bournonville: assuming he’s right – and I’m in no position to argue with him -  my only regret is that he’s got rid of the traditional clogs. That may be a great relief for the dancers, who are often quoted as hating them, but I really miss the noise they made – the music sounds only half-there without them. Otherwise all is familiar, through to the sweetly decorous ending as the leading players join hands in a row across the front of the stage and bow as the curtain falls. (I do wish, though, that Andersen hadn’t decided to return to the tradition – dropped in the last production – of having the rich, pushy lady in the third scene made up as black.)
 

Ida Praetorius as Eleonore in Kermessen in Bruges, with Louise Ostergaard, Josee Bowman and Fernando Mora.
© Costin Radu. (Click image for larger version)
cr Kermessen

Structurally and dramatically, Kermesse is an odd piece. Briefly, it’s about three brothers who rescue an alchemist, Mirewelt, from a street attack and are rewarded with a magic gift each: a ring  for Gert, making him irresistible to women, a sword for Adrian which makes him invincible in combat and for Carelis, the youngest, a viol which makes everyone who hears it start to dance. (The last one always seems out of line with the others but I guess it means Carelis can literally make everyone dance to his tune – it’s the gift of power, perhaps.) Originally there was an element of satire in the ballet, but that’s long gone and it’s now a mixture of comedy and romance, with a moral just visible under the surface as each brother in turn realises he doesn’t need the prop of magic in order to find happiness.
 

Gitte Lindstrom as Fru van Everdingen and Jon Axel Fransson as Gert in Kermessen in Bruges.
© Costin Radu. (Click image for larger version)

To start with it seems as if we’re going to be spending the evening watching the development of the love affair between Carelis and the alchemist’s daughter, Eleonore, but in fact they are more or less sorted by the end of the second scene and the spotlight switches to the other brothers.  The one with the ring, Gert, is a bumbling but endearing fool who can steal the show in the hands of a good comic, Adrian has a strong solo, Eleonore’s two friends and their mother have a lot to do and of course there are some nice character roles for the older dancers – so it’s very much a company piece. There are 19 named roles, most of them double cast: from the less important characters I’d pick out James Clark and Charles Andersen as two gentlemen -  the villains of the piece in so far as there are any – Gitte Lindstrom having a wonderful time as the widow besotted by Gert, Dean again in the divertissement, Stæger again leading the spirited Slovanka, and Astrid Elbo, a young dancer with a strong stage presence, as the tightrope dancer. Eleonore’s friends were all well played, with Alexandra lo Sardo outstanding as Gert’s spitfire girlfriend and Cédric Lambrette was an increasingly camp, frantic and funny butler.
 

Astrid Elbo as the Tightrope Dancer in Kermessen in Bruges.
© Costin Radu. (Click image for larger version)

Benjamin Buza, who is making quite a name for himself this season, danced Adrian in both performances, substituting for Jonathan Chmelensky in the first cast as well as appearing as scheduled in the second one: he’s technically secure and dramatically convincing, a real asset in the making. Gert was shared between the experienced Nicolai Hansen, making his debut the night I saw him, and the much younger Jon Axel Fransson, both of them appealingly funny. Buza and Fransson belong to what is beginning to look like a whole new generation of promising young dancers still in their first two or three of years as full corps de ballet members, and joined this season by even younger talents – three of the four romantic leads were still apprentices this time last year. Ida Prætorius has attracted the most notice so far, especially for her Juliet a few weeks ago: she’s a real ingenue type, blonde, very pretty and sweet, whilst the second cast Eleonore, Stephanie Chen Gundorph, is a quite different dancer, dark, quieter and at present perhaps a rather more complex character. Both were enchanting. Gundorph’s Karelis, Andreas Kaas, is their contemporary, dancing his first big role: he doesn’t have quite their stage presence yet but his Bournonville dancing is already stylish and assured. Prætorius, in the first cast, had Alban Lendorf as her partner: he was a rather serious Carelis, taking his responsibilities as both suitor and keeper of the magic viol to heart; his dancing was pure delight.
 

Andreas Kaas as Carelis and Stephanie Chen Gundorph as Eleonore in Kermessen in Bruges.
© Costin Radu. (Click image for larger version)

In fact delight was the keynote of the whole evening: complaints and quibbles notwithstanding, I was very happy to see the whole company reclaiming their ‘joy in dancing’, the Bournonville essence which is fundamentally what keeps these old ballets alive.
 

Jeffrey Cirio in Wayne McGregor’s Chroma.
© Gene Schiavone. (Click image for larger version)

Boston Ballet
Chroma, Serenade, Symphony in C
Boston, Opera House
2 May 2013
www.bostonballet.org
www.bostonoperahouse.com

Mikko Nissinen, artistic director of Boston Ballet, has once again shown his flair for programming in the production titled Chroma which opened May 2 at the Boston Opera House. In order of presentation, the three ballets on view were Balanchine’s Serenade, Wayne McGregor’s Chroma, and Balanchine’s Symphony in C. Something old, something new, little borrowed, nothing blue.

Serenade was the first ballet Balanchine choreographed in the US and its history is fascinating. Balanchine began working with the girls who happened to be in class on March 14, 1934. There were seventeen when another dancer arrived late, her tardy appearance was incorporated into the choreography. At the next rehearsal only nine girls appeared; at another, only four. Their groups too became part of the choreography. A girl tripped and fell in rehearsal, and her accident became the climatic end of the first movement. It’s thus easy to take the ballet as an improvisatory piece, the result of chance and a piece that doesn’t ask us to think overtime. Totally wrong.
 

George Balanchine’s Serenade, © The George Balanchine Trust.
© Gene Schiavone. (Click image for larger version)

For one thing, the ballet is an anthology of features that become signatures of Balanchine’s style: hands and arms and bodies that twine together and then unfold, male solos of an almost drunken legato, off-balance dancing that provides a sense of continual risk and thrill, the inclusion of skipping and running and other mundane activities that most other choreographers eschew, the use of classical positions to show the fundamental architecture of the piece, the creation of evocative images that lodge themselves permanently in the imagination, the use of dance not to accompany music but to embody it. (Here the embodiment is of Tchaikovsky’s swooningly beautiful Serenade in C Major for String Orchestra.)

I’ve seen it perhaps fifty times, but each time it’s as if I’m seeing it anew – partly because of its endless invention and partly because it’s so powerfully allusive. I was especially struck this time by the way images hint, suggest, evoke: a woman hovering over a man with arms outspread like a ministering angel, a farewell embrace that heralds the approach of death, the opening view of those seventeen woman gazing heavenward, right arms raised, like the annunciation of a miracle. Such dense texture of allusion creates a work multi-layered and immensely rich. When it ends, the world ends.
 

Ashley Ellis and Nelson Madrigal in George Balanchine’s Serenade, ©The George Balanchine Trust.
© Gene Schiavone. (Click image for larger version)

Chroma by Wayne McGregor is an altogether different creature. The title is the Greek word for color, the name of a fictional character in DC Comics, a series of color and design software for mobile devices, a Queer Studies literary journal in the UK, a quality of a pitch class in music theory, a novel by Frederick Barthelme, a book by Derek Jarman, a musical composition by Rebecca Saunders, and many other things besides. By contrast, the set by John Pawson which looks like a painting by Ellsworth Kelly is the essence of minimalism: a bare stage with a backdrop containing a large rectangular cutout, a stage within a stage where the dancers appear before making their entrances. Pastel color contrasts between large and small stage are never less than ravishing. The small rectangle is bathed in pale gold or violet while the larger stage shows cream or pearl gray.
 

Lia Cirio and Lasha Khozashvili in Wayne McGregor’s Chroma.
© Gene Schiavone. (Click image for larger version)

The score is an amalgam of seven pieces by Joby Talbot and Jack White and requires one of the largest groups of musicians ever to perform with Boston Ballet. The choreography is radically original and based on a strict geometry, fast-paced for the most part, and highly athletic, pushing the dancers to and almost beyond their limits. There’s the requisite amount of spastic mantis movement, in case you feared you weren’t seeing a 21^st century piece, but the overall mood is what might be called lyrical gymnastic. Much of the movement is “cool,” but the same can be said of Cirque du Soleil and a lot of pole-dancing.

On the other hand, it’s a difficult piece to absorb and it improved the more I saw it. Perhaps it’s meant as a kind of sherbet to clear the palate between the Balanchine pieces. Also, McGregor was working with Royal Ballet dancers he knew something of, and on YouTube with those RB dancers, Chroma looks better. (The only YouTube performance improved in Boston is that of Kathleen Breen Combes.) In short, I found the ballet dazzling but soulless.
 

 
Symphony in C set to Bizet could as easily be titled Ode to Joy. If I were to introduce a novice to ballet, I would probably choose this one for its unflagging invention, its sheer exuberance and its brilliant expression of the tension at the heart of ballet between discipline and vitality. Misa Kuranaga has never been more effervescent than in the First Movement on opening night (and it was her third ballet of the evening, a sign of how many dancers are injured). Though I’d found Lia Cirio and Lasha Khozashvili disappointing in The Sleeping Beauty only a few weeks before, they found new life as partners each time they appeared. Kathleen Breen Combes and Jeffrey Cirio gave delicious performances in the Third Movement of Symphony in C, and Whitney Jensen, Alejandro Virelles, Lawrence Rines, and Artjom Maksakov were welcome presences throughout. I was especially glad to see Seo Hye Han, the new corps member from Korea who won gold at last year’s Boston International Ballet Competition. She’s a dancer of impressive technique with a gracious presence and a lovely line.
 

Whitney Patrick Yocum, Bradley Schlagheck and Lawrence Rines in George Balanchine’s Symphony in C, © The George Balanchine Trust.
© Gene Schiavone. (Click image for larger version)

Now that Seo joins Kathleen Breen Combes, Misa Kuranaga and Whitney Jensen, Boston Ballet’s women are the envy of virtually any ballet company in the world. But the contrast between women and men becomes that much more telling. For a company that calls itself world-class, there are a lot of dull men on view. Several have bad bodies (one is knock-kneed), and there’s hardly an ounce of virility or charisma among them. For the most part they’re competent but dull. Last year, the best male principal, James Whiteside, left for ABT, and there’s now a rumor that half of the company’s few good men will be leaving at the end of this season. The new soloist from Armenia, Avetik Karapetyan, was dazzling as the lead Russian dancer in Nutcracker, but since then we’ve hardly seen him. If the other three major American companies (ABT, San Francisco, and New York City Ballet) can attract and retain first-rate men, why can’t Boston Ballet? Until it does, it will remain a lopsided and thus a disappointing company.
 

Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild in Christopher Wheeldon’s A Place for Us.
© Paul Kolnik. (Click image for larger version)

New York City Ballet
Spring Gala: Soirée Musicale, A Place for Us, Cool, Glass Pieces, The Man I Love, and Stars and Stripes
New York, David H. Koch Theater
8 May 2013
www.nycballet.com

A New Christopher Wheeldon Ballet Gala-Style

Another season, another gala. As these things go, New York City Ballet’s tend to be tasteful, efficiently-produced affairs. No speeches, no endless thank yous to donors and sponsors (all relegated to a bright red program pocket), and just one intermission. In accordance with the season’s American theme, all the music was American. A few tasty morsels were offered up to the be-gowned and tuxedoed set: First, a new ballet, by Christopher Wheeldon. Two starry musical guests: singer Queen Latifah and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. And, complementing the new ballet, costumes by the young fashion designer, Joseph Altuzarra, about which, more later.

Considering the many distinctive works Wheeldon has given this company over the years (After the Rain, The Nightingale and the Rose, Polyphonia, Estancia, to name just four), a Wheeldon première inevitably brings raised expectations. His newest piece, A Place for Us, turns out to be an extended pas de deux for two of the company’s most musical dancers, Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild. Both move with scintillating clarity mixed with a jazzy sense of all-American informality. Fairchild is a charmer, all heart, all energy and unending devotion to his ballerina. Peck is something greater: a dancer who exudes the kind of physical control that permits total freedom. Nothing is forced, nothing unfinished. In response to this quality, Wheeldon has created a dance that has the feel of an improvisation, as well as an homage to the artful spontaneity cultivated by Jerome Robbins in works like Other Dances and A Suite of Dances.
 

Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild in Christopher Wheeldon’s A Place for Us.
© Paul Kolnik. (Click image for larger version)

Another predecessor comes to mind: Balanchine’s Duo Concertant. Two dancers listen to the musicians playing onstage and then, as if inspired by the music, begin to move. The dance is a spontaneous meditation on the music, but also a reflection of their relation to each other. Wheeldon accomplishes this effect marvelously well. The music, which consists of passages from two sonatas for clarinet and piano, by André Previn and Leonard Bernstein (in that order), were played with great beauty of sound and rhythmic playfulness by the clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and pianist Nancy McDill. The Previn is quiet, introspective, constructed for the most part out of three notes. And these dancers really do respond to the sound – they listen, they react. The phrases tumble out of them, as in a private game, invented on the spot. The arms figure prominently, creating a sinuous counterpoint to the legs, painting calligraphy in the air. When the two dancers interact, the contact is initiated by Fairchild; he reaches here, there, as if trying out new ways of engaging his partner. He hooks her over his shoulder, with her chest facing back. The shape is ungainly, but they make it look like the most natural thing in the world. When the Bernstein sonata becomes more jazzy, they sway their hips, clap, and hold out their arms, a clear hat-tip to Jerome Robbins. It’s a charming, sophisticated little dance.

The performance was marred slightly by a failure in the costume design. One strap of the flattering pale blue sundress designed for Peck by Altuzarra gave way in the final moments, causing the front to droop dangerously low. Though one assumes she was wearing another layer underneath, such an accident seems surprising, considering that the company has been creating well-designed costumes for over half a century. Can you imagine one of Karinska’s witty patchwork dresses from Stars and Stripes coming apart at its first performance? So far, it must be said that the company’s courting of fashion designers – Valentino last season, Stella McCartney for Ocean’s Kingdom – has produced rather unsatisfactory results. On a larger note, is it peevish to mention that, for all the sophistication of A Place for Us, I had hoped for something more substantial? Wheeldon has just finished creating a new Cinderella for the San Francisco Ballet, a tiny snippet of which was performed at a gala in New York on Monday. Why not make something important here as well? A Place for Us is essentially a lovely, well made pièce d’occasion, with neither the underlying thematic interest of Duo Concertant nor the stylistic flourish of Other Dances. It is difficult to imagine it coming alive with a different pair of dancers, or lasting very long in the repertory. I may well be wrong. But A Place feels like a bauble, not quite a jewel.
 

Lauren Lovette and Chase Finlay in Christopher Wheeldon’s Soiree Musicale.
© Paul Kolnik. (Click image for larger version)

The other Wheeldon ballet on the program was a revival of Soirée Musicale, one of his very first works, made for the School of American Ballet in 1998 when he was still a dancer with the company. The music, by Samuel Barber, is a suite of dances – a waltz, a tango, a two-step, etc. – originally composed in 1953 for two pianos (Souvenirs). Subsequently orchestrated, it was used by Todd Bolender for a ballet in 1955. Each piece has its own character, and Wheeldon has responded in kind. Three couples waltz and flounce about in the opening number; two vapid, insistent women, reminiscent of Cinderella’s annoying sisters, vie unsuccessfully for attention in the “Schottische.” The cleverest episode is the tango, in which a single woman, Brittany Pollack, dances with a whole battalion of men, each of whom tries to sweep her off her feet like a pack of Valentinos in heat. It’s a tongue-in-cheek riff on those old Hollywood musical numbers in which a bombshell (Marilyn Monroe, say) is handled, lifted, and trailed after by a suite of handsome men in tails. Wheeldon has snuck in a little reference to Apollo near the end, when Pollack pulls three of her suitors across the stage, a reverse image of the young god with his three muses. Another ballet reference, to the wedding pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty, pops up in the swooning pas de deux. The lovely Lauren Lovette, who shows more assurance and spark with each performance, folds down to the floor and then is slowly pulled onto one pointe by her partner (the dashing Chase Finlay) in a great crescendo that ends with an image of radiance. The pas de deux, which opens with a series of plaintive lunges and backward-tipping arabesques, reveals another of Wheeldon’s nascent tendencies, that of peppering his partnering with complicated and innovative lifts, at times interrupting the flow. That said, Soirée is proof that Wheeldon’s playfulness, intelligent use of classical line, and love of balletic form, was there from the very beginning.
 

Sterling Hyltin and Amar Ramasar in George Balanchine’s Who Cares?
© Paul Kolnik. (Click image for larger version)

The rest of the program consisted of a medley of excerpts from familiar works. In Robbins’ “Cool,” from West Side Story Suite, the cast, led by Andrew Veyette, sang, snapped its fingers, and erupted into a series of jazz-inflected moves, urged on by Bernstein’s syncopated, explosive score. In the mostly-male section of Glass Pieces, Justin Peck led a pack of warriors, running and gliding across the stage, marking its ground with stomps and hops, in counterpoint to Philip Glass’s percussive rhythmic phrases. As always, one is struck by Robbins’ ability to create shifting patterns and his responsiveness to the smallest details in the music. The evening’s closing number, a crowd-pleaser, was an excerpt from Stars And Stripes, with Veyette as the vapid, self-important Capitán – a role he embraces with great flair and more than a touch of irony – and Ashley Bouder as his peppy, high-stepping gal. They brought down the house.
 

Queen Latifah, Amar Ramasar, and Sterling Hyltin bows for Who Cares?
© Paul Kolnik. (Click image for larger version)

That leaves the other gala highlight, Queen Latifah’s star turn in “The Man I love,” from Balanchine’s Who Cares?. Latifah – or is it Her Highness? – gave a creamy, down-home rendition of Gershwin’s bluesy song. After a jittery start, clearly unused to following a conductor, she just went her own way, lingering here and there on a juicy note. The orchestra gamely followed, and so did the dancers, Sterling Hyltin and Amar Ramasar. It’s a testament to this company’s sensitivity to music – and the dancers’ ability to listen – that it all went so smoothly. The lyrics, and Latifah’s sultry sound, added an extra layer of warmth, hiding some of the hokeyness of Hershy Kay’s orchestration. Hyltin and Ramasar, too, slowed things down, enjoying the pauses, stretching things out, toying with the playful, sensual undertones of the choreography. Maybe “The Man I Love” should always be performed with this way, gala-style.

Leane Cope and Steven McRae in Liam Scarlett’s Hansel and Gretel.
© Dave Morgan, courtesy the Royal Opera House. (Click image for larger version)

Royal Ballet
Hansel and Gretel
London, Linbury Studio Theatre
8 May 2013
www.roh.org.uk
Dave Morgan: Royal Ballet in Hansel and Gretel – 27 pictures
www.roh.org.uk

The Royal Ballet’s Artist-in-Residence, Liam Scarlett, still only in his 20s, is attracting considerable attention as a choreographer. He has had short ballets on the main stage here at the ROH, and has a number of commissions next season for other companies. His work ranges from abstract pieces to last year’s complex and tangled narrative, Sweet Violets.  Hansel and Gretel is his first full-length ballet.  It is in the more intimate setting of the Linbury, but there is still a challenge to develop characters and hold the audience’s attention over a couple of hours.  It is a mixed experience: too long and overworked in places, a dark vision, unevenly realised, with some striking and chilling moments.
 

Leanne Cope and James Hay in Liam Scarlett’s Hansel and Gretel.
© Dave Morgan, courtesy the Royal Opera House. (Click image for larger version)

In the original Brothers Grimm narrative, the children Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in the forest at the suggestion of their stepmother, when the family does not have enough to eat. They find their way to a house which turns out to be inhabited by a witch who intends to eat them, but they resourcefully manage to kill her and escape.   Here Scarlett has moved the action to the American mid west in the 1950s, and reshaped the story into two acts.

It is a chamber work, with a small cast, played out in a traverse setting.  The set is on different levels incorporating the kitchen and stairs of the family home at one side, a park, and an innocent looking wooden house which rises up unexpectedly to reveal steps down to a basement filled with unpleasantness.   The performers are sometimes within touching distance of the audience.  However, at other times, depending where you are seated they can be frustratingly difficult to see, for example in the children’s bedroom on a higher level.
 

Bennet Gartside (Father) and Laura Morera (Step-Mother) in Liam Scarlett’s Hansel & Gretel.
© Dave Morgan, courtesy the Royal Opera House. (Click image for larger version)

The intimacy means that the performers need to judge their effects carefully. Bennet Gartside as the father gets this right, not overdoing it but still letting us know that he is a weak and hopeless drunk without telegraphing the fact. Leanne Cope as Gretel is the caring, sensible, protective older sister to James Hay’s younger Hansel, still clutching his teddy bear.   Hay’s acting seems too over emphatic. Perhaps this is just the result of deliberately casting an adult in a role choreographed as a child. (This adults-playing-children approach worked for Denis Potter in Blue Remembered Hills, but all the cast were children played by adults in that work.)

The father is selling the house, desperate for money, and Gretel helps to pack up cardboard boxes, in which she finds a photograph of her mother. The moment evokes Cinderella’s handling of the portrait of her mother by the fireside. Leanne Cope has a lovely natural warmth in the role and her relationship with her father is neatly handled by Scarlett. Laura Morera as the stepmother taunts the father, flashing her stocking-clad legs.  There’s strong Matthew Bourne influence in the choreography for these two, and another Bourne influence in the reversal of gender. The Witch (Brian Maloney) is not a woman but a rather prim and prissy man with a frumpy pullover and heavy spectacles.
 

Brian Maloney in Liam Scarlett’s Hansel and Gretel.
© Dave Morgan, courtesy the Royal Opera House. (Click image for larger version)

Scarlett’s further twist on the story is to add the Sandman (Steven McRae), a character who might be another side of the Witch’s personality.  He looks eerily like a ventriloquist’s dummy with an inexpressive mask-like head. There is a genuinely creepy moment as he emerges out of the fridge to confront Hansel and to lure him away to meet the Witch. McRae is seriously scary, floppy and puppet-like but exuding a malignant power.  Another shock is when both children follow the Sandman into the wooden hut which rises to show the basement below, where the Witch awaits with his stuffed toys and a dead body in the oven.  We leave them all down there in the dark for the interval.
 

James Hay, Leanne Cope, Brian Maloney and Steven McRae in Liam Scarlett’s Hansel and Gretel.
© Dave Morgan, courtesy the Royal Opera House. (Click image for larger version)

The designs (Jon Bausor) sometimes deliver more of a frisson than the choreography. There are long and ambiguous confrontations between the two children and their captors, but these are not Scarlett’s best or most memorable dance creations, though performed with terrific commitment by the cast.  There is much grappling and energetic partnering whose effectiveness may be greater with different sightlines.

Dan Jones’s music felt like a weak link in the production, though it was specially commissioned for it. His background is in film scores. He certainly delivered the sense of threat and menace of a horror film.  But the score does not offer obvious melodies or give much for Scarlett, usually a deeply musical choreographer, to get his teeth into.  It does not sink into the memory.
 

Leanne Cope in Liam Scarlett’s Hansel and Gretel.
© Dave Morgan, courtesy the Royal Opera House. (Click image for larger version)

Children being abducted and held in basements is a grimly topical subject.  Scarlett plays effectively on our contemporary unease and fears. The Linbury as a basement theatre is a natural home for this unsettling production.  While not wholly successful it does offer some gripping and chilling theatrical experiences.
 

San Francisco Ballet in Wheeldon’s Cinderella.
© Erik Tomasson. (Click image for larger version)

San Francisco Ballet
Cinderella – Another Look
San Francisco, War Memorial Opera House
4 May 2013
www.sfballet.org

Review of the SFB premiere
Interview with Christopher Wheeldon
about Cinderlla and other things

On Saturday, by sheer good fortune, I am able to attend both the matinée and evening performances of Cinderella, each with a different cast. A new set of dancers changes the dynamics between the characters and also brings fresh perspectives to the action on stage. Most important to note is that this production, though impressive for the visual elements on first viewing, does not hold up well the second time around on the comedy side. Many of the attempts at humor just aren’t funny any more, though there are exceptions.

The matinée cast, Shannon Rugani as the stepmother and Dana Genshaft and Clara Blanco as the stepsisters, however, make the excellent Friday night cast seem like slapstick music-hall comediennes. These three, instead, elevate the jokes to sharply-drawn satire through the precise execution of the steps, often in perfect synchronisation, and the razor-sharp hand gestures and facial expressions. They don’t resort to low-class buffoonery to be entertaining. Genshaft shouldn’t be afraid to exploit her role’s mean streak even more.
 

San Francisco Ballet in Wheeldon’s Cinderella.
© Erik Tomasson. (Click image for larger version)

As Cinderella’s Mother and Father, Charlene Cohen and Ruben Martín Cintas are very touching as loving partners and parents. Martín Cintas goes on to reveal his skill as an actor, showing facets of a bereaved widower, hen-pecked husband and affectionate father. He also shows a talent for comedy when dealing with his drunken wife at the ball.

The role of the prince’s long-time friend, Benjamin, offers Myles Thatcher, a corps de ballet member, the chance at a major soloist role. His matinée-idol looks and solid technique mark him as a contender, but he needs to bring more emphasis to the devious prankster side of this part.

Sarah Van Patten is a wonderful Cinderella, more real young girl growing into a woman who is finding her way in love and life than a fairy tale character. She is very adept at quickly switching moods from sadly mourning her mother to playfully enjoying a private daydream, or gently caring for and falling in love with the beggar (the prince in disguise), then grating under the cruelty of her step-family. Her partner, Carlos Quenedit, also astutely portrays all the aspects of the prince: conniving with Benjamin, chafing under parental pressure to marry, acting the humble beggar and sweetly wooing Cinderella.
 

San Francisco Ballet in Wheeldon’s Cinderella.
© Erik Tomasson. (Click image for larger version)

By the evening performance, I am starting to feel the effects of too little sleep and too much ballet. Guest conductor, Ermanno Florio, currently music director for the Dutch National Ballet, wakes me up with his energetic interpretation. Most of the cast I have already seen in the previous two performances, except for the principal roles. Taras Domitro substitutes for Garen Scribner as Benjamin, and I am very happy to see him again. The stepmother and stepsisters, danced by Marie-Claire D’Lyse, Vanessa Zahorian and Dores Andre, do not form a tightly cohesive unit as the other two teams of nastiness do. Zahorian is far too nice in the first act, but does start connecting to her inner harpy in the ballroom scene. The roles require more distortion, edginess and exaggeration from these performers. On the other hand, the trio of foreign princesses at the ball is the strongest cast so far. Jennifer Stahl as Russian, Kimberly Braylock as Spanish, and Wan Ting Zhao as Balinese are individually and collectively extremely good. They both imbue the roles with national flavor and parody themselves.

Excelling in fluidity and lightness, Yuan Yuan Tan is beautiful to watch. However, she still hasn’t discovered how to become Cinderella, and to touch me in a deeply human way. Luke Ingham is an inspired prince, jumping and turning with exacting form. He is truly marvelous in his pas de deux work; his sure-handed ability and instinctive sense for keeping his partner on balance in turns or lifts translates into seemingly effortless dancing for two.
 

San Francisco Ballet in Wheeldon’s Cinderella.
© Erik Tomasson. (Click image for larger version)

I could spend pages dissecting the entire production. I will spare you and mention a few pet peeves instead. Although I appreciate the role of the four Fates in protecting and guiding Cinderella, they are so ubiquitous that I wish they would take a break once in a while. Their costumes of black and blue lend a Ninja look that makes them seem menacing rather than helpful. When they pass Cinderella constantly from one to another while she is aloft, the effect is rather heavy, rather than giving the impression of floating or flying. Each Fate needs to hold her longer and move farther to create the illusion of weightlessness. The same is true after the mother dies and her spirit heads heavenward.

The other complaint concerns the use of the music. There are so many missed opportunities for sweeping choreography. During an intermission at the afternoon show, I run into a friend who knows the Prokofiev score backwards and forwards, and who tells me that many sections of music have been moved around. Perhaps, leaving it in its original form would have been a better idea. That way the story might follow the flow of the music.

Let’s hope as the company settles into the production, the large assemble scenes grow less chaotic and the all the roles are fleshed out and refined. The rest of the run is sold out so it’s standing room only. Cinderella will be presented again next season so if you like this kind of over-the-top Broadway-style extravaganza be sure to order tickets well in advance.
 

ZooNation in Some Like it Hip-Hop.
© Dave Morgan. (Click image for larger version)

ZooNation
Some Like It Hip Hop
London, Peacock Theatre
7 May 2013
Dave Morgan: ZooNation – Some Like it Hip-Hop (Finale) – 20 pictures
www.zoonation.co.uk

The title of Kate Prince’s latest extravaganza is way too modest.  On the basis of the universal adulation pouring from this audience, not just at the end but throughout the show, it would appear that EVERYONE likes it hip hop.

The title, of course, is a pun on the name of the Billy Wilder film, Some Like It Hot, although it would be a mistake for anyone to believe that this is an interpretation of that plot.  The only common theme is one of humorous cross-dressing although the genders are reversed:  in “…Hot” the characters played by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon disguise themselves as women in order to escape the Mob by joining an all-girl band (famously including Marilyn Monroe); whereas in “…Hip Hop” the same device has two girls dressing as guys to join the all-male staff of Governor Okeke, a man so embittered by the death of his wife that he has blotted out the sun and runs the City with an iron rule that bans books and relegates women to only the most menial roles.   As an aside, as Okeke, Duwane Taylor’s two standing-on-the-same-spot-but-explosive Krumping routines are extraordinary.
 

Tommy Franzen and Sarah Richards in Some Like it Hip-Hop.
© Dave Morgan. (Click image for larger version)

I love hip hop audiences!  At 7-05, I was alone in the Stalls bar, save for the staff on the other side of the counter.  Asking if the start time was later than I had anticipated, I was told “No, hip hop fans always cut their arrival fine”.  Sure enough, as the curtain should have gone up at 7-30, people were still streaming in.  When it did get going ten minutes’ late, they were still arriving!  At the other end of the show, the whole auditorium was on its feet (including some venerable, creaking dance critics) roaring approval and rocking away to the effervescent finale.  But, the second the curtain hit the floor, it stopped and the fans were off, no doubt already late for their next engagement!
 

Tommy Franzen in Some Like it Hip-Hop.
© Dave Morgan. (Click image for larger version)

I saw Wicked last week – running since 2006 – and it strikes me that the musical theatre quality of Some Like It Hot is easily good enough to make the leap from a few weeks at The Peacock to a long run in a West End.  Kate Prince’s last big show, Into The Hoods, did just that at the Novello Theatre and so let’s hope for a repeat booking.  Many new populist dance shows might have memorable choreography but they fail to reach out beyond a specialist dance clientele on the quality of the musical score.  Not so here, because the music and lyrics by DJ Walde, Josh Cohen and the multi-talented choreographer/director, Kate Prince, are well-balanced and contain some seriously infectious songs, notably the plaintiff Invisible Me and the rousing final duo of Light Up followed by the title song.
 

Duwane Taylor and Teneisha Bonner in Some Like it Hip-Hop.
© Dave Morgan. (Click image for larger version)

The dancing is absolutely superb at every level.  Tommy Franzén (as Simeon Sun) and Teneisha Bonner (as the cross-dressing Kerri Kimbalayo/David Davidson) did the double for this show winning both Dancers Pro Awards for Outstanding Modern Performance in the 2012 National Dance Awards (the first street dancers to win an NDA) and these performances were again out of the very top drawer.  This was even more amazing since Franzén sustained both hamstring and neck injuries over recent weeks but no-one could possibly have suspected this from his ebullient, stamina-draining work.  I detected a few subtle differences in his choreography but overall it seemed as if he was adding extra difficulty into his routines rather than making them easier.  Bonner is the sexiest “man” I have ever seen although in a certain light she bears a passing resemblance to a member of The Stylistics!   Her macho walk is hilarious.
 

Sarah Richards in Some Like it Hip-Hop.
© Dave Morgan. (Click image for larger version)

The role of Jo Jo Jameson, usually played by Lizzie Gough was taken with a zestful, fresh panache by Sarah Richards (who normally plays the supporting role of Tweets Sutherland) and there were a few other knock-on cast changes.  Subtle changes have also been made to the production, as Prince and her team gradually hone it even closer to a perfect show.  Judging by the reaction to this revival, it is already into the five-star class.

Leanne Cope and James Hay in Liam Scarlett’s Hansel and Gretel.
© Dave Morgan, courtesy the Royal Opera House. (Click image for larger version)

Picture above is from
Dave Morgan: Royal Ballet in Hansel and Gretel – 3 pictures to start, more will be added later
 

© Breakin’ Convention

Breakin’ Convention
Day 1 – Nomadic Souls, Myself Dance Company, #PPL Dance Company, 10 Tens, Ukweli Roach, Zamounda, ILL-Abilities, Kompany Rep, NextLevel Squad, Project Soul
London, Sadler’s Wells
4 May 2013
www.sadlerswells.com
www.breakinconvention.com

Each May bank holiday, Sadler’s Wells is transformed into London’s biggest Hip-hop party. Not only do some of the world’s best-known crews take to the main stage, but every foyer in the building pulses with funk-driven breakbeats, the walls are covered with fresh graffiti and the floors are filled with top-rocking and backspinning as a trainer-toting crowd throws down. Now in its 10^th year, Breakin’ Convention aims to pull the wider dance community into Sadler’s and show the contemporary face of Hip-hop in a theatre context. Over the years, the event has been a launchpad for UK touring companies including ZooNation, Birdgang, Avant Garde and Impact Dance, as well as a place to see top international perfomers from Europe, the US and Asia.

As per previous Breakin’ Conventions, Saturday night’s programme kicks off with a series of shorter routines from local crews. Those who enjoy tight, front-facing unison are well-served here; Nomadic Souls kick off proceedings with a likable set of high-speed, high-energy locking performed in fluorescent t-shirts and accompanied by an onstage rhythm section. Female collective Myself Dance Company burst into sprays of fierce street dance as slick as their costume of wet-look leggings; London’s #PPL Dance Company bring Africanistic spine-snapping and a thumping percussive soundtrack into the mix.
 

© Breakin’ Convention

Stealing the early part of the show is 10 Tens, a youth collective of 10-year olds drawn from all over the UK and choreographed by Boy Blue’s Vicky Mantey and Bruno Perrier. Their six-minute piece is a super-cute rush of energy performed with skill and plenty of personality. Mantey and Perrier’s soundtrack keeps the feeling party-light and pleasingly retro, and there are choreographic nods to the four core elements of Hip-hop (DJing, MCing, Graf and dance) that are represented all over the Wells this weekend.

Perhaps the most inventive of the pieces shown in the first half is Ukweli Roach’s Vice. Seated at a desk, Roach slaps and taps out anxious rhythms on the tabletop that bring Wim Vandekeybus to mind; puffing on a cigarette he summons nine mysterious black-clad figures that swirl around in a cloud of nicotine smoke. The figures – manifestations of his vice, or maybe of the inner demons Roach is trying to slay with his habits – pin him to the chair and prevent him taking action, even when confronted with the girl of his dreams (beautifully danced by Shannelle Fergus). An ingenious physical sequence sees Roach seemingly stuck to the table, thwarted by inertia and left to seek solace at the bottom of a boozy-looking bottle. Vice is humorous and thought-provoking, a very promising outing from this young choreographer.

French all-female troupe Zamounda bring the 1990s to the Sadler’s Wells stage with CrazySexyCool, an energetic synthesis of B-girl moves, New Jack and waacking that gets heads nodding and trainers tapping all the way to the back of the second circle. The first half finishes with a half-hour set from ILL-Abilities, the international “super-crew” of disabled dancers. Less a fully-realised theatre piece than a show-and-tell exposition of the challenges each dancer faces, Limitless has each member of the crew arrive on stage to a pre-recorded voiceover explaining his particular disability. The tone is earnest, the music documentary-channel uplifting, the message reach-for-the-stars positive. There’s a missed opportunity here: more ensemble work and movement dialogue between the cast members would add texture; less voiceover would allow more of a visual focus on the crew’s unique skills. Where it triumphs over one set of limitations, Limitless reveals the distance Hip-hop has to go before it reaches the bar set by other integrated dance companies.

Irish Choreographer Robby Graham represents the more theatre-led, experimental end of the Hip-hop spectrum; with his new Kompany Rep Graham presents Men on a Mission, a male quartet delving into the murky side of recreational drug use. Graham segues fluid B-boying danced with expressive skill into long-limbed contemporary motion; the effect is darkly mesmerising, the quartet of coiling bodies springing and unspringing beautiful to watch. Men on a Mission ends with a stark image of a young man with a tourniquet around his arm; how it got there and what it means are left opaque by the choreography. Graham’s piece feels like a good first draft, a work-in-progress that should hopefully grow into something more complete.

Brooklyn’s NextLevel Squad make their UK debut showcasing their eyepopping “bonebreaking” style, in which dancers’ joints appear simply not to exist in the way that they do for the rest of us. The six crew members wrap arms and shoulders into some genuinely jaw-dropping configurations, all the while maintaining a rhythmic flow that makes the insane hyperextensions appear almost natural. I found myself involuntarily twitching my own shoulders for hours afterwards; still, despite the slight squick factor, this was a unique piece of top-drawer entertainment.

Think of Korea and you probably think of two things: the sunny, YouTube sensation-spawning South and its militarised Northern neighbour. Hiphop fans might also think of Project Soul, the acrobatic B-boy crew that lit up the first Breakin’ Convention back in 2004. Urban Arirang is the troupe’s playful riff on Korean heritage – folky bamboo flutes on the soundtrack, military drills led by a khaki-clad sergeant, and yes, that bouncing “invisible horse” dance seen and shared a billion times on a certain social network. Project Soul’s 13 athletic B-boys hit the ground with some fierce footwork and gravity-defying freezes; it’s very much an extended battle routine rather than a dance theatre work, but that doesn’t disappoint the capacity crowd one bit.
 

Project Soul.
© Paul Hampartsoumain. (Click image for larger version)

Saturday’s programme perhaps contained more in the way of Hip-hop as crowd-pleasing entertainment and less in the way of Hip-hop as boundary-pushing experiment; Sunday’s and Monday’s artists may have more to offer on that score. But the crowds – from the six-year-old toprocking on stage for a prize t-shirt to the octogenarian gentleman seated next to me in polite raptures – were most definitely entertained.
 

Araminta Wraith & Shevelle Dynott in Tamarin Stott’s Work in Progress.
© Arnaud Stephenson. (Click image for larger version)

English National Ballet
Choreographic Evening – Choreographics – A Letter to…
Hooked, A Fruitful Death, Work in Progress, Domna, Waiting for the One, [co][hes][ion]
London, The Place
3 May 2013
www.ballet.org.uk
www.theplace.org.uk
www.enbschool.org.uk

In taking over directorship of English National Ballet (ENB) one of Tamara Rojo’s prime aspirations is to be “The go-to company for creatives“. We’ve yet to see this fully hit home at all levels but one thing she did was ask her newly-appointed Associate Artist, George Williamson, to start growing creative partnerships for emerging talent in the company. It’s a big ask as Williamson is only 3 years out of English National Ballet School himself and chasing his own significant choreographic aspirations. The first push in this direction is a collaboration with the Royal College of Music in which young composers were matched with young, or first time, choreographers to create brand new work. Normally choreographers would only expect to move to using custom scores after showing considerable promise and success, so joining newbies to newbies (forgive me) is a hell of a thing, with zippo guarantees of great work. That said, it should prove an enriching experience to all and hopefully grows talent in interesting ways. To provide project muscle and mentoring in what is uncharted territory, the experienced Kerry Nicholls was brought on board and several of those involved thanked her for all her support and encouragement.
 

Emmeline Jansen and Ashley Scott in Emmeline Jansen’s Hooked.
© Foteini Christofilopoulou. (Click image for larger version)

In all there were 5 ENB pieces performed but the short evening started with English National Ballet School’s Choreographic Platform Competition winner and a piece – Hooked – in which the choreographer, Emmeline Jansen, selected her own music – part of The Da Vinci Code soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. It’s brooding music and then explodes with sweeping strings 2 minutes in. I thought this piece for 2 girls (Jansen and Ashley Scott) showed choreographic promise with its snatched, fluttery, movement and strange coughing shrugs. But toward the end of its 3 or 4 minutes minutes it got confused with long silence and sudden down-lighting out of kilter with the broader sweep of it. But it certainly held its own against the company pieces that followed. Hope Jansen does more.

A Fruitful Death, by Makoto Nakamura and composer Gerardo Gozzi, looked to explore Japanese notions of death by focusing on the good of the life that was, rather than its sudden end. The score was full-on Japanese – sparse percussion and wind instruments as if for Kabuki. A 10-minute three-hander for a girl (uber-pared-down Anais Chalendard in her last performance with the company) and 2 boys, Juan Rodriguez and Junor Souza; there was a solo for her and duet for the boys with mirrored moves but it only really started to take off for me when the 3 performed together with some clever thrown lifts. Not sure I know much more about death but the good partnering fragments are worth exploring more and it’s interesting to see an unusual subject tackled.
 

Nathan Young & Crystal Costa in Stina Quagebeur’s Domna.
© Arnaud Stephenson. (Click image for larger version)

Stina Quagebeur had a great idea sparked by a Philip Larkin poem in which a man (Nathan Young) becomes involved with 3 very different women, none of whom match up to the siren cocktail-dress-clad girl of his dreams. Domna featured some interesting partnering and close manipulation, not least with a tough-nut and smouldering Adella Ramirez. The sadness was Laurence Osborn’s screechingly discordant music which didn’t really go with the idea or movement and being over amplified was rather an assault on the ears, too. Anyway the movement needed other music or the music other movement. A shame.

First Soloist Fabian Reimair got the obtuse title award with [co][hes][ion] and the most words on the programme sheet trying to say what it meant. The score, by Raquel Garcia Tomas, had an atmospheric sci-fi feel and there was a good cast of six including Erina Takahashi and Nancy Osbaldeston. But other than that it didn’t really register so strongly. It all seemed too complex and too clever-clever, and I just gave up on it all. Sorry. The piece before it, Anton Lukovkin’s Waiting for the One, with music from Andrew Baldwin, was much more straightforward and clear: nominally about human relationships it was also declared itself abstract… and in actuality had a huge whiff of Balanchine neoclassical movement and Stravinsky music to it. This was fine because it was done pretty impressively and he deployed his cast of 7 (the most in any piece) well across the stage. I particularly liked Bridgett Zehr as the lost girl in a coupled-up world. Lukovkin has a keen and structured eye and I want to see more.
 

Ksenia Ovsyanick Anton Lukovkin’s Waiting for the One.
© Arnaud Stephenson. (Click image for larger version)

The all-out best piece in this night of serendipity came from composer Ryan Cockerham and First Artist Tamarin Stott, making her debut as a choreographer. The idea was simple: to reveal what dancers are thinking just before entering the studio or before a performance. Cockerham’s soundtrack featured the voices of the dancers sampled and overdubbed with breathing and an occasional radio tuning buzz as you ‘changed channels’ across the space and thoughts. “Release that Tension”, “Concentrate”, “Calm” were some of the words that floated by as the 4 dancers operated in their own separate boxes of light, warming up, stretching, each lost in their own fluid inner place – almost narcissistic in their free movement. They eventually all get going together and are synchronised and counting steps etc. Aside from the strong down-lighting the dancers were dressed in loose t-shirts and trunks – all very contemporary and chic. The net result was an illuminating piece, for now called Work in Progress, that looked thoroughly modern and where dance and soundtrack fused to be more than the sum of the parts. I have no idea if Stott just mined this gold as a one-off or it portents greater things. I hope the latter, but we won’t know until she does more!
 

Tamarin Stott’s Work in Progress.
© Arnaud Stephenson. (Click image for larger version)

All that really underlies why nights like this are put on. I’m not sure if this is the best way to grow choreographers but it does usefully mix it up differently and in presenting the results to a paying public they all get some feedback on their success or otherwise – that experience above all is priceless. I hope ENB do lots more short and sweet choreographic initiatives to real audiences. Well done all, great to have a go – now do more.
 

Cathy Marston.
© Philipp Zinniker. (Click image for larger version)

www.cathymarston.com
www.thecathymarstonproject.com
Bern Ballett at konzerttheaterbern.ch
Witch-hunt ROH performance details/booking – 22-25 May 2013

Earlier Cathy Marston interviews
on Balletco…
February 2010
October 2006
February 2004

5 Questions for Cathy Marston as she and Bern Ballett, the company she directs, prepare to show their latest work, Witch-hunt, at London’s Royal Opera House…

Witch-hunt sounds a powerful piece “…inspired by the harrowing tale of the ‘last witch in Europe’” – do tell more and how you came to do it.

The idea came about through the music: I was asked to collaborate with the Camerata Bern (a wonderful Bern-based string orchestra) on a piece with baroque music, using their newly-acquired original instruments. After spending some time researching with dramaturg/playwright Edward Kemp, we became interested in the fact that so many witch-hunts took place in Switzerland (and the rest of Europe) during the baroque era. We were particularly drawn to the story of Anna Goeldi, whose trial took place considerably later than most others, making her known as the ‘last witch of Europe’.
 

Bern Ballett in Cathy Marston’s Witch-hunt.
© Philipp Zinniker. (Click image for larger version)

 
Goeldi was a maid in the house of the Tchudi family in Glarus in the 1780s. There were several children in the family, but the one we are concerned with was called Anna-Miggeli. Researchers believe she was probably hysterical/epileptic. One day she found pins and needles in her glass of milk. Her parents, horrified, assumed Anna Goedli was responsible and fired her. However, some days after she was gone Anna-Miggeli started to vomit pins and needles. Family and neighbors thought that Goeldi had bewitched her and sent out a search to bring her back to Glarus as ‘only a witch could reverse their own magic’. When they found her she was accused of witchcraft and told she must ‘heal’ Anna-Miggeli, who had now gone lame too. She tried (and partially succeeded) to heal the young girl and was subsequently imprisoned, tortured and killed.

This story has managed to survive the centuries; there are three books about Goeldi, a film, a museum, a Stiftung (a charitable foundation), a prize and even an ‘Anna Goeldi annual day’.

A group was formed by one of the authors, Walter Hauser, to lobby the Swiss Government to exonerate her and in 2008 they were successful – the ‘guilty verdict’ was taken back. This prompted others, including Jack Straw in the UK, to consider the same process for ‘British witches’!

This rather unique turn of events has made her an icon for human rights, and in particular women’s rights. That said, I am personally drawn to the story as a study of guilt and innocence. This is not a black and white picture for me, but I’m drawn into the grey areas of this judgment. Other themes are ‘inclusion/ exclusion’, ‘family’ and ‘mother’ as well as the way we remember the past and how it changes when viewed from the present.
 

Bern Ballett in Cathy Marston’s Witch-hunt.
© Philipp Zinniker. (Click image for larger version)

 
You’ve just premiered Witch-hunt, your last piece as director of the company – so how did it go? And how do you feel after a premiere – all elated or deflated ‘cos it’s over?

I am really happy with the piece – and that brings an enormous relief because I really wanted to be proud of my last creation for Bern Ballett – whatever anyone else thinks! As it happens, I also received some very nice feedback from both critics and the public which feels good too. I almost always experience a low after the high of a premiere and all the work that’s taken place to get there. In anticipation of this being especially strong because it’s the end of my tenure here in Bern I decided to accept a commission in Germany right on the back of it – so have started a new ballet today in fact!

I will be sad at the last performance, I’m sure, but I’ve got a great deal to look forward to – professionally and privately -  and I will take with me a huge amount of experience, lessons learnt and happy memories to inform future projects!
 

You are much more prolific as a choreographer than your occasional shows in London might suggest, and not just in Bern either – can you give us a feel for what else you’ve been up to?

Since I began in Bern in 2007 I’ve created 13 new works for the company including 5 full-evening pieces (Wuthering Heights, Juliet and Romeo, Flight of Gravity, A Winter Night’s Dream and Witch-hunt.) I’ve also created works for Northern Ballet (A Tale of Two Cities), the Graz Ballet (Ashes), Finnish National Ballet (Blood Wedding) and the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts (Persisting Memory.)

Some of these works have also included commissioned scores for turntables and orchestra or female beatboxer with soprano or ‘simple’ symphony orchestra.
 

Cathy Marston.
© Philipp Zinniker. (Click image for larger version)

 
You’ve been at Bern Ballett 6 years – your first directing post – so what’s the biggest thing that you have you learned? (aside from how to have a baby – congrats on which!)

I’ve learned a huge amount about politics, lobbying, developing relationships with your (potential) audience. Also about leading a company, programming and commissioning other artists. Some of these skills are ‘Bern-specific’ but an awful lot are transferable, I hope!

Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned to do is resist knee-jerk reactions. This applies to almost all contexts (although, perhaps ironically, with the exception of when I’m actually choreographing, when a sharp instinct can be useful!)
 

Bern Ballett in Cathy Marston’s Witch-hunt.
© Philipp Zinniker. (Click image for larger version)

 
You stand down as director in the summer – so what next?

I’m going to be freelance again. I’ve already started a new version of Stravinsky’s Orpheus for Bridget Briener and her new company at Theater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Bridget was a principal dancer for Stuttgart Ballett and is a strong believer in narrative work. She will feature as Euridice and next year I’ll also make a full-evening version of Three Sisters (based on the Chekhov) in which she will dance.

Orpheus at Theater im Revier
Three Sisters at Theater im Revier

In the summer I’m creating for some other high-profile, distinguished and mature dancers: Alexander Koelpin has commissioned me to create The Elephant Man, in which he will dance the title role beside Nikolaj Hubbe (current Director of the Danish Royal Ballet) as Dr Treves. The premiere is 10^th August in Copenhagen.

The Elephant Man in Copenhagen

In the autumn I’ll choreograph a new work for David Hughes Company in Edinburgh which will premiere in Aberdeen on the 26^th October. I’ll also do some workshops with students of RADA and Central School of Ballet together with Edward Kemp – a long-term collaborator of mine and also Director of RADA. We would like to develop further some ideas we’ve been working on to do with dance/text, dancers/actors.

www.davidhughesdance.co.uk

Further plans are in development for collaborations in Estonia, Germany and I hope when I get time to ‘wake up’ The Cathy Marston Project!  I’m looking forward to travelling and particularly to being in London more than I’ve been able to in the last six years. I’ve developed a lot as an artist whilst being based in Bern, being exposed to a much more Germanic influence culturally. I’m glad of this, but also excited to open up to other new influences again, as well as returning with fresh eyes to my British roots and artistic home.
 

Sarah Crompton and the Sadler’s Wells: Dance House book cover.
© Sarah Crompton and Tristram Kenton.

Sadler’s Wells: Dance House
by Sarah Crompton
Oberon Books, £25
ISBN: 978-1849430623
Publishers Page on Sadler’s Wells: Dance House
www.sadlerswells.com
 

5 Questions to Sarah Crompton about her new book: Sadler’s Wells – Dance House

How did the book come about and how long have you been working on it?

The actual book has been in progress since Christmas 2011 when Alistair Spalding asked me whether I would be interested in writing a creative history of Sadler’s Wells since 2005. I then researched and wrote it in around six months to meet the publisher’s deadline. (I’m a journalist, so I always meet deadlines!) But then there was a lot of checking and changing and sorting out the wonderful photographs, so it took just over a year from idea to finished manuscript.
 

Sadler’s Wells Theatre.
© Derek Kendall. (Click image for larger version)

But the themes of the book have been bubbling around in my head for much longer. I am arts editor in chief of the Telegraph, but I took over as dance critic about eight years ago when Ismene Brown left to write a book.

It had always been my dream job and the moment I finally began to write regularly about dance coincided with the rebirth of Sadler’s Wells as a commissioning house.
 

ZooNation Dance Company’s Into the Hoods.
© Tristram Kenton. (Click image for larger version)

What the book is about and what I have found so fascinating to watch and report on, is the way that the theatre has gathered together a group of strongly contrasting associate artists who have made new work for the theatre – and in doing so, brought it back to life.

Sarah Crompton.
© Sarah Crompton.

What interested me was the ways in which this reflected and differed from the great period in Sadler’s Wells earlier history, when Ninette de Valois founded her fledgling Vic Wells ballet company there. As I say in the book, Sadler’s Wells is at its best when it has resident companies and new work being made within its walls.
 

So what’s your earliest memory of seeing a performance at Sadler’s Wells?

I grew up in Manchester, and worked for a long time in the Midlands, so most of my early dance watching was outside London. But my earliest clear memory – and the earliest programme I can find in my collection – is of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s 21st anniversary visit in 1985. I saw a mixed programme featuring Roadrunners, and remember feeling a bit confused; it took me a long time to get Cunningham and at that point I felt alienated by his work.
 

Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker!
© Bill Cooper. (Click image for larger version)

In fact what I chiefly remember is how brown and dingy the theatre was – and how separate from the rest of the building you felt if you were sitting up in the gods, which naturally I was.

I much prefer the atmosphere now – you can still sense its past, but it is a welcoming and buzzy place to see dance.
 

What was the most amazing fact or story you turned up about the Wells dance rebirth?

I discovered quite a lot I didn’t know including a brilliant description by de Valois of the “large, fat, slow old women of Islington” who sheltered there during the Blitz, emerging each morning “to seek the air they had breathed since birth.”
 

 

In terms of modern history, I think the story that most took me by surprise was when Sylvie Guillem told me that the first night of Push was one of the most terrifying of her life. It wasn’t the duet with Russell Maliphant that caused the problem, but the solo he had created for her, which opened the bill, and which was still in flux right up to the premiere.

“It was one of the only times I wanted to get out of the theatre before the show,” she said. “I didn’t know the steps in my body because it was still changing… I don’t know how I found the strength to stay.”

In general, what I most loved about researching the book was talking to the choreographers and performers – and quite often watching them at work. It is so interesting to see the creative process in action, and I hope I have conveyed some of the excitement to the readers.
 

Hofesh Shechter’s In Your Rooms.
© Tristram Kenton. (Click image for larger version)

For example, I love the way Hofesh Shechter tells his dancers to progress silently. “Moving quietly helps me to discover the right balance between intensity and looseness in the body,” he told me. Once you hear that, you have a key to understanding the extraordinary movement he creates on stage.
 

If you had an unlimited budget and artistic control of the Wells for 2 weeks what would you commission?

I’d give Sylvie Guillem, William Forsythe and Russell Maliphant the green light to make anything they wanted. And I’d also pay a lot to see the new ballet Matthew Bourne is thinking about, which I’d better not reveal here.
 

Sylvie Guillem and Nicolas Le Riche in William Forsythe’s Rearray.
© Bill Cooper. (Click image for larger version)

But outside of the current crop of associate artists, I’d commission something from Kristen McNally of the Royal Ballet who is beginning to make some fascinating work. And I’d import Mark Morris’s new piece, A Wooden Tree, with Mikhail Baryshnikov.

I’d also try to persuade the Bartok estate to licence a revival of Pina Bausch’s Bluebeard’s Castle, which is the first piece I ever saw by her company and which haunts me still.
 

Wayne McGregor’s Entity.
© Ravi Deepres. (Click image for larger version)

So what next in dance – any other books you just have to write?

Lots. It is just a question of finding the time. I have two jobs and a family to think about. But I can’t imagine ever not wanting to write about dance. I am intrigued by its power to convey all kinds of ideas and emotions. Each night at Sadler’s Wells is a sort of inspiration – I sit in the dark and think about movement and what it means and I hope those thoughts will provoke many books in future.
 

Tommy Franzen in Some Like it Hip-Hop.
© Dave Morgan. (Click image for larger version)

Picture above is from
Dave Morgan: ZooNation in Some Like it Hip-Hop – 20 pictures