English National Ballet, Akram Khan’s Giselle, September 18th, 2024, Sadlers Wells
By Amanda Jennings
Dance Writer +44 7879632546
Erina-Takahashi-as-Giselle-in-Akram-Khans-Giselle-©-Camilla-Greenwell
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” wrote Robert Frost. Akram Khan’s Giselle, created for English National Ballet in 2016, always calls this evocative sentence to mind. The production is dominated by the giant wall that forms the set and symbolises the societal division between the Outcasts (disenfranchised immigrant workers made destitute by the closure of the clothing factory where they were employed) and the members of the aristocratic Court, owners of the factory. As in the original ballet, Albrecht is a member of the aristocracy who has disguised himself to mingle with the Outcasts in order to woo Giselle. She has another suitor, Hilarion, who here is a kind of foreman of the Outcasts, keeping them in line according to the wishes of the aristocracy. Unbeknownst to the Outcasts, Albrecht is betrothed to Bathilde, daughter of the head of the aristocratic dynasty. Act I proceeds along these familiar lines, including the poignant recognition by Giselle of her own skilled handiwork in Bathilde’s sumptuous gown, but there are sinister overtones; Hilarion forces the Outcasts to bow their heads to the aristocracy, and Giselle’s death, hidden from our view by a huddle of Outcasts, is a violent murder commissioned, we assume, by the aristocrats, carried out, we assume, by Hilarion, who is seen cradling her body as the curtain falls. Act II takes place in the disused factory where many Outcast workers have died through lack of safety precautions. The Wilis are their ghosts, bent on revenge. Hilarion arrives to mourn Giselle, and is brutally killed by the Wilis by means of the large bamboo canes they carry. Albrecht arrives, is redeemed from death by Giselle’s forgiveness as she is finally subsumed into the world of the Wilis, and is seen finally at the wall, barred from his aristocratic cohort and henceforth an Outcast himself. Khan is an ingenious creator, full of twisty, clever choreographic ideas, and has theatrical insight that leads him to choose creative collaborators whose work will come together with his own to produce a true work of art. Designer Tim Yip does full justice to the concept of the Wall, which rotates through 180 degrees to reveal rungs on the reverse down which Hilarion can climb into the disused factory, and through a further 45 degrees to sit parallel with the floor as the Wilis emerge from underneath it. The composed score by Vincenzo Lamagna, orchestrated by Gavin Sutherland, is a blend of sound design (by Yvonne Gilbert) with strains of Adolphe Adam’s original running through it, highly effective. Mark Henderson’s lighting design works perfectly with the action. Is there any area of weakness? Sadly, yes, and it’s the narrative, as so often with story ballets. Audience members with no prior knowledge of Giselle must be very hard pressed to work out what is going on; I myself, having seen the ballet at its premiere, had no idea the Wilis were in a disused factory until I read the programme. A very well-seasoned and knowledgeable critic for a revered London broadsheet, a veteran of this and the numerous other incarnations of Giselle we have seen in London over the decades, turned to me at the interval and said, “can anyone tell me what on earth is going on with this plot?” Nevertheless, the ballet is a huge success wherever the company takes it, thanks to the above-mentioned creative skills and several superlative performances. Erina Takahashi and James Streeter as Giselle and Albrecht draw every ounce of nuance from the choreography, creating a palpable bond between them and an atmosphere of tension with the cohort of dancers on stage. Ken Saruhashi’s Hilarion is created with tremendous feel for artistry and one of the most charismatic stage presences in the business. Emma Hawes is a commanding Myrtha. Every dancer commits to the performance utterly, always a strength at ENB. So, a great asset to the company’s repertoire, and a must-see for anyone who has the chance. You’ll experience the melding of great artistic talents, but read the programme notes before curtain-up.
London City Ballet: Resurgence, Sadlers Wells, London September 11th, 2024
Joseph Taylor and Isadora Bless in Concerto. photos by Ash Photography
No praise is high enough to describe the magnificence of Christopher Marney’s achievement in resurrecting London City Ballet, the much-loved touring company started by Harold King in 1978 with short lunchtime performances at the tiny Arts Theatre in Covent Garden. Harold took the company onward and upward through nearly two decades: by the time it was forced to close for financial reasons in 1996, Diana Princess of Wales had come on board as Patron, and the company of 32 dancers had toured all over the world. It was the first ballet company that Marney saw as a child. Marney’s charming, persuasive personality, and his passion for the art form, are resonant of Harold King’s own, and these characteristics have stood him in excellent stead in his efforts to get the new company up and running. Since their initial performances in Portugal in July, they’ve toured around England and to China, and when the current run at Sadlers Wells ends they’re off to perform at the Joyce Theater in New York. In today’s tremendously difficult economic climate the materialisation of a new ballet company on the British scene feels like nothing short of a miracle, but Marney recognized the gap left on the theatre circuit for a mid-size company, and leapt in to fill it. < Marney’s refined good taste has led him to build a cohort of 14 dancers who balance and complement each other. All are capable technicians with individual artistic qualities, and they include the luminaries Alejandro Virelles, an ex-principal with the National Ballet of Cuba, English National Ballet, Bayerische Staatsballet and Staatsballet Berlin; Joseph Taylor, principal with Northern Ballet and Cira Robinson of Ballet Black, with Alina Cojacaru as guest star. The good taste spills over into programme curation, five works, old and new, each well-made and engaging. On opening night at Sadlers Wells the audience included former LCB dancers and many luminaries of today’s dance world, alongside dance writers and the core of London’s avid ballet-goers. The atmosphere was buzzing, and as the curtain rose the air of expectation reached a high pitch—would we be disappointed? Of course not. After a short but beautifully made film about the original company and its history, the dancing began with Ashley Page’s Larina Waltz, a technically challenging piece that is always fascinating to watch with its intricate footwork and changes of direction. It held no fear for the cast of five couples, who sailed through it cleanly and stylishly. Alejandro Virelles shone, and I picked out the elegance of Ellie Young, and the technical accomplishment and charming stage charisma of Arthur Wille, winner of the Youth America Grand Prix in 2022. Marney is keen to show lesser-known work by Kenneth MacMillan, and here we saw Ballade from 1972, made for Vyvyan Lorrayne, Stephen Jefferies, Paul Clarke, and Nicholas Johnson, and performed only once. Centered on a female lead (Cojocaru) pursued by three would-be suitors (Taylor, Virelles, and Nicholas Vavrecka, all excellent), there is plenty of lovely fluid choreography that, as always with MacMillan, perfectly reflects Faure’s gorgeous music. Arielle Smith, a formidably talented young choreographer, made a world premiere for the company, Five Dances. Each of the titular dances has a unique flavour, allowing individual interpretation by each dancer and enabling the audience to connect with them on that individual basis. Much of Smith’s work to date has been based in joy, and this is no exception, the choreography full of blithe joie de vivre as well as joie de danse. Like Marney, Smith has excellent taste and chooses collaborators cleverly, so Five Dances is set to the engrossing John’s Book of Alleged Dances by John Adams, costumed by Emily Noble in warm, uplifting colours, and lit in scrolling, vibrant shades that enhance every aspect of the work. Again, all danced excellently, but a solo by Wille was particularly striking. Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto is, of course, familiar, and much loved. Here the second movement pas de deux was given a streamlined, elegant account by Joseph Taylor and Isadora Bless, a dancer with mesmerizingly beautiful legs and feet. The closing piece was Marney’s own Eve, and I was delighted to have the chance to see this again, having loved it when it was shown in 2022. Marney says that he does not intend to use the new London City Ballet as a platform for his own work; he may well be subsumed in directorial and administrative tasks in these early stages, but I hope that later on he will choreograph, as he has interesting talent in this area and allows his passion for the art form to shine through his work. Eve is beautifully constructed, using different styles of movement for Eve and the Serpent, and depicts the interaction of two intellectually independent characters, the Serpent’s manipulative skills matched by Eve’s insightful decision-making; she’s not the embodiment of original sin but someone using her humanity, with its strengths and weaknesses, to find out about the world. She and the Serpent proceed through their negotiations, and are finally joined by Adam, and a cohort of shape-shifting beings representing the journey on which she (and humanity) will now embark. The piece is a triumph of depiction of the human condition. The music, by Jennie Muskett, melds seamlessly with the choreography, and I love the costumes for the central characters, Eve in a corseted, nude-coloured gauzy dress with pointe shoes, the Serpent in a red unitard and a gothic-style greatcoat that adds to his sinuous, sinister grandeur. Cira Robinson and Alvaro Madrigal drew out every nuance of their characters. What a pleasure to witness the rebirth of a popular company, accomplished so artistically with sleek professionalism. Congratulations to all concerned, and we look forward to following the company’s progression.
Into the Music
by Alastair Macaulay
The title of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s triple bill Into the Music addresses the issue that, for many people, is fundamental to dance as art: the harmony between sight and sound, and specifically the response of choreography to music. The programme, which opened in Birmingham last month and runs all this week (November 2-5) at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, is also an important introduction to the taste of the Birmingham Royal’s new artistic director, Carlos Acosta, who, taking the job immediately before the 2020 lockdown, has still achieved relatively little. The three scores are agreeably played by the Royal Sinfonia, conducted by Koen Kessels. The final work is to Beethoven’s Symphony no 7, which Wagner called “the symphony of the dance”; it introduces many of us to the choreography of Uwe Scholz, who made more than a hundred ballets* (mainly in Zürich and Leipzig) before dying in his forties in 2004. There are, however, pervasive problems. Each of these ballets is choreographically horrid - each a different kind of horrid - and in two cases vile. They are delivered with over-emphatic facial expressions that further undermine the choreography, powerfully communicating the dancers’ belief that the choreography cannot be trusted to make its own expressive points. And these ghastly facial exaggerations are surely Birmingham Royal characteristics that pre-date Acosta. Jirí Kylián’s Forgotten Land (1981) and Scholz’s The Seventh Symphony (1991), both of which had their premieres with the Stuttgart Ballet, are over-scaled responses to important works of classical music. Forgotten Land is to Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem. (Why did Scholz title his Beethoven ballet The Seventh Symphony as if there were no seventh symphonies but such composers as Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Mahler, Shostakovich?) It’s hard to spot a small step in either Kylián’s or Scholz’s ballets. The Seventh Symphony has a very few passages of footwork that do not stretch above the waist, but also all the evening’s most appallingly over-scaled images. Ballet is an art of spatial complexity and three-dimensional plasticity - and yet both Forgotten Landand The Seventh Symphony are made with minimal use of diagonals in either space or use of the body: horizontals and verticals are almost all you see. When you see The Seventh Symphony starting with the same choreographic device as Forgotten Land - numbers of dancers all facing upstage, backs to the audience - you wonder why on earth Acosta had the daft idea of putting them on the same program. The late Clement Crisp, dance critic to the Financial Times for decades, enjoyed comparing Kylián’s brutalist, unsubtle, over-intense choreography to the torments of the dentist’s chair. Crisp was by no means wrong about Kylián, and yet Forgotten Land is the most evening’s refined work. Only in Forgotten Land , for example, do we see partnering as something two-way, with women sometimes supporting men. Although Kylián’s women are too often lifted, propelled, and supported by their men in huge shapes, these shrivel beside the epic horrors of Scholz’s Beethoven amipulations. Or do you like Women As Bendy Toy choreography? Well, it’s a regrettably large genre, with the Stuttgart Ballet a leading proponent for overt fifty years (and the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden catching up more recently). If so, don’t miss The Seventh Symphony. To a minor transitional passage of music in the first movement of The Seventh Symphony, multiple women, in the splits on the floor and with heads down, are dragged horizontally onto and across the stage by their men. (Few images of the systematic degradation of women have dismayed me more.) To a gentle, poignant melody later in the work, a ballerina is brought onstage with her legs wide apart carried overhead. This isn’t “into” the music; it’s offensively against it. Wagner was no dance expert, but his “symphony of the dance” remark about Beethoven’s Seventh regrettably inspired many fatally over-ambitious choreographers (including Leonide Massine and Twyla Tharp) to burn their fingers on it. Many of us especially love the sublime Adagietto second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh, where Scholz’s anti-humane use of dancers, both militaristic and marionette-like, proves especially galling. In what ways does Acosta think Morgann Runacre-Temple’s Hotel is “into the music”? This foolish piece is chiefly an essay on the meeting of live film and choreography, but its music, by Mikael Karlsson, is trivial, tepid, semi-jazz, largely applied as a film score, as imposed atmospherics. The story is silly, a camply surreal essay (very sub-Matthew Bourne - imagine a bad imitation of his superb Play without Words) about guests and hotel staff and - oh no - food poisoning. There are no interesting steps or configurations. The film technology, sometimes suggesting multiple locations, is the only feature of note. In Hotel, Beatrice Parma (the Assistant Manager) and Tzu-Chao Chou (the Manager) direct knowingly wide-eyed gazes both at camera and at audience: film sometimes expands their faces to stage height. Chou plays the fourth movement of “The Seventh Symphony” with epic-scale smiles of roguish flirtation, while the very pretty Céline Gittens maintains the same big smile throughout the first movement. Most of the dancers follow suit: this Birmingham broadcasting of facial coquetry could not be worse for Beethoven. Alastair Macaulay, 2022 *This figure has been questioned by observers of Scholz’s professional career. 1: Yijing Zhang and Brandon Lawrence (Birmingham Royal Ballet) in “Forgotten Land” by Jiri Kylián. Photograph:Johan Persson. 2: Mathias Dingman and Miki Mizutani (Birmingham Royal Ballet) in “Forgotten Land”. Photograph: Johan Persson. 3: Céline Gittens and Tyrone Singleton (Birmingham Royal Ballet) in Jirí Kylián’s “Forgotten Land”. Photograph: Johan Persson. 4: Birmingham Royal Ballet in Jirí Kylián’s “Forgotten Land”. Photograph: Johan Persson. 5: Céline Gittens and Tyrone Singleton (Birmingham Royal Ballet) in Jirí Kylián’s “Forgotten Land”. Photograph: Johan Persson. 6: “Hotel” by Morgann Runacre-Temple (Birmingham Royal Ballet). 7: Matilde Rodrigues in “Hotel”.Photograph : Johan Persson. 8: Three members of the hotel staff perform grand jeté croisé en attitude en avant In Morgann Runacre-Temple’s “Hotel” (Birmingham Royal Ballet). Photograph: Tristram Kenton. 9: Uwe Scholz’s “The Seventh Symphony”As danced by Birmingham Royal Ballet. Photograph: Tristram Kenton. 10: Birmingham Royal Ballet in “The Seventh Symphony” by Uwe Scholz. Photograph: Johan Persson. 11: Karla Doorbar and Gus Payne (Birmingham Royal Ballet) in “The Seventh Symphony”. Photograph:Johan Persson. 12: Yuki Sugiura and Daria Stanciulescu in “The Seventh Symphony”. Photograph: Johan Persson. 13: Uwe Scholz’s “The Seventh Symphony”, danced by Birmingham Royal Ballet. Photograph : Johan Persson.
First published by "Slipped Disc" on November 3, 2022