Ballet Black, 08/06/2018
The Suit (chor. Cathy Marston)
A Dream within a Midsummer Night's Dream (chor. Arthur Pita)
Ballet Black
It's been a little under two years since I first came across Ballet Black, on their last visit to Glasgow, and I was keen to renew acquaintance with this excellent small company, with its original (in all senses of the word) ballets. This time they brought two pieces, both (more or less) narrative, the first a new commission, the second of a revival of a work originally created by them in 2014.
The Suit is based on a short story by the South African writer Can Themba. It's possibly his best known work, and has previously been dramatised both for stage and film. Set in a South African township in the 1950s, it recounts a common story of adultery with an uncommon set of consequences. Marston has stuck very closely to the story; a man wakes in the morning, gets ready for work, kisses his wife a lingering goodbye, blissfully happy in his marriage, but the moment he is out the door, she welcomes her lover into the house. One morning, he has forgotten his briefcase, and returns to the house, to find the lovers in flagrante. The man runs off, leaving behind his suit. In a bizarrely conceived punishment, Philemon, the husband, insists on treating the suit as an honoured guest in the house; it must sit at table with them, accompany them on walks, be a constant, present reminder of the wife, Mathilda's offense. At a party, he even insists she danse with the suit, and nothing she does or says can persuade him to pardon her. Ultimately, driven half-mad by the situation, she hangs herself, leaving Philemon alone with the suit.
Marston tells this with a central pair, and five other dancers, one of whom doubles as the lover, who are both other characters - neighbours, colleagues, townsfolk - and a "chorus", in the Greek sense, commenting both on actions and on inner thoughts. There's some clever choreography whereby the "chorus" members become elements of the decor - a pump and basin, a mirror. There's also an intriguing distinction between the early interaction of Mathilda and Philemon - and there's no doubt that there is passion between husband and wife, this does not look like a relationship that has gone sour - and Mathilda and Simon, the lover. Marston's choreography is easy to read, mostly, expressive and attractive, but sometimes there's a little too much going on. When Philemon heads off for work, there's a clever sequence of him in the street, going to the bus-stop, meeting and crossing many people in the street - bumping into most of them, amusingly - which was very well devised. However, simultaneously, in the upper left quadrant of the stage, Mathilda and Simon are involved in a languorous, almost slow-motion pas de deux, and it was practically impossible to watch both at the same time.
Cira Robinson was Mathilda, eloquent in her long, supple lines and fluid extensions, while José Alves, as Philemon, went from almost puppyishly happy to rigidly implacable with earnest conviction. The music was a patchwork mostly of Kronos Quartet recordings, stitched together by composer Philip Feeney, of 20th century music. My one complaint was that it was very, very loud!
The title of Arthur Pita's ballet tells you more or less everything you need to know. It starts out very dignified, three couples in standard classical ballet costumes - tutus and pointe shoes for the girls, tights and doublets for the boys - elegantly parading to an orchestrated version of Handel's D minor Sarabande, all arabesques and attitudes, until Puck shows up, a demented Boy Scout with a neon-green mohawk and the elaborately painted face of a Japanese demon, and freezes them all in their tracks. Then Puck gets creative with the happy juice. To a selection of vintage popular and show tunes, we do see Demetrius and Lysander pursue Helena, with much testosterone-laden posturing between the two rivals, and Titania enjoy a dreamy pas de deux with Bottom-the-ass (except that Bottom is actually Demetrius), but also Hermia lets her hair down, literally, in a leonine mass of curls, and stakes her own claim on Helena, while Oberon, after fruitlessly trying to catch some invisible bird or insect, is finally distracted by a tender interlude with Lysander, and dreams (within the dream) of Salvador Dali coming to him to retrieve the lost half of his moustache. In the end, Puck surveys the re-formed couples with satisfaction, but then, regretfully, releases the dream, and the piece closes as it began, with Handel, and the original couples in suitably grand poses.
From what I've seen of Pita's choreography previously (not a lot, I admit), I thought his style tended to a somewhat spikily revised classicism, but much of this was a lot more romantic in style than I'd expected. Puck's last solo was perhaps the closest to what I had thought I would be seeing. The whole piece, though, is a tour de force for the company, each dancer with distinct and developing characters to express, with some very virtuosic choreography, witty yet affectionate, somewhat bewildering and often downright funny. Robinson and Alves were the Immortals, though revealed as just as human as the Athenians under Puck's manipulations, just as desirous of love, no matter the form. Sayaka Ichikawa's Helena, at first both scared and cross at the pursuit by the two men, is wide-eyed with wonder when Marie Astrid Mence's bold Hermia mades her own bid. Ebony Thomas becomes a fluid, almost ethereal being in the duet with Oberon, while Mthuthezeli November was a touching Bottom. Isabela Coracy's Puck poked and prodded, pushed and pulled, and capered brilliantly, a true Spirit of Mischief.
[Next : 10th June]
A Dream within a Midsummer Night's Dream (chor. Arthur Pita)
Ballet Black
It's been a little under two years since I first came across Ballet Black, on their last visit to Glasgow, and I was keen to renew acquaintance with this excellent small company, with its original (in all senses of the word) ballets. This time they brought two pieces, both (more or less) narrative, the first a new commission, the second of a revival of a work originally created by them in 2014.
The Suit is based on a short story by the South African writer Can Themba. It's possibly his best known work, and has previously been dramatised both for stage and film. Set in a South African township in the 1950s, it recounts a common story of adultery with an uncommon set of consequences. Marston has stuck very closely to the story; a man wakes in the morning, gets ready for work, kisses his wife a lingering goodbye, blissfully happy in his marriage, but the moment he is out the door, she welcomes her lover into the house. One morning, he has forgotten his briefcase, and returns to the house, to find the lovers in flagrante. The man runs off, leaving behind his suit. In a bizarrely conceived punishment, Philemon, the husband, insists on treating the suit as an honoured guest in the house; it must sit at table with them, accompany them on walks, be a constant, present reminder of the wife, Mathilda's offense. At a party, he even insists she danse with the suit, and nothing she does or says can persuade him to pardon her. Ultimately, driven half-mad by the situation, she hangs herself, leaving Philemon alone with the suit.
Marston tells this with a central pair, and five other dancers, one of whom doubles as the lover, who are both other characters - neighbours, colleagues, townsfolk - and a "chorus", in the Greek sense, commenting both on actions and on inner thoughts. There's some clever choreography whereby the "chorus" members become elements of the decor - a pump and basin, a mirror. There's also an intriguing distinction between the early interaction of Mathilda and Philemon - and there's no doubt that there is passion between husband and wife, this does not look like a relationship that has gone sour - and Mathilda and Simon, the lover. Marston's choreography is easy to read, mostly, expressive and attractive, but sometimes there's a little too much going on. When Philemon heads off for work, there's a clever sequence of him in the street, going to the bus-stop, meeting and crossing many people in the street - bumping into most of them, amusingly - which was very well devised. However, simultaneously, in the upper left quadrant of the stage, Mathilda and Simon are involved in a languorous, almost slow-motion pas de deux, and it was practically impossible to watch both at the same time.
Cira Robinson was Mathilda, eloquent in her long, supple lines and fluid extensions, while José Alves, as Philemon, went from almost puppyishly happy to rigidly implacable with earnest conviction. The music was a patchwork mostly of Kronos Quartet recordings, stitched together by composer Philip Feeney, of 20th century music. My one complaint was that it was very, very loud!
The title of Arthur Pita's ballet tells you more or less everything you need to know. It starts out very dignified, three couples in standard classical ballet costumes - tutus and pointe shoes for the girls, tights and doublets for the boys - elegantly parading to an orchestrated version of Handel's D minor Sarabande, all arabesques and attitudes, until Puck shows up, a demented Boy Scout with a neon-green mohawk and the elaborately painted face of a Japanese demon, and freezes them all in their tracks. Then Puck gets creative with the happy juice. To a selection of vintage popular and show tunes, we do see Demetrius and Lysander pursue Helena, with much testosterone-laden posturing between the two rivals, and Titania enjoy a dreamy pas de deux with Bottom-the-ass (except that Bottom is actually Demetrius), but also Hermia lets her hair down, literally, in a leonine mass of curls, and stakes her own claim on Helena, while Oberon, after fruitlessly trying to catch some invisible bird or insect, is finally distracted by a tender interlude with Lysander, and dreams (within the dream) of Salvador Dali coming to him to retrieve the lost half of his moustache. In the end, Puck surveys the re-formed couples with satisfaction, but then, regretfully, releases the dream, and the piece closes as it began, with Handel, and the original couples in suitably grand poses.
From what I've seen of Pita's choreography previously (not a lot, I admit), I thought his style tended to a somewhat spikily revised classicism, but much of this was a lot more romantic in style than I'd expected. Puck's last solo was perhaps the closest to what I had thought I would be seeing. The whole piece, though, is a tour de force for the company, each dancer with distinct and developing characters to express, with some very virtuosic choreography, witty yet affectionate, somewhat bewildering and often downright funny. Robinson and Alves were the Immortals, though revealed as just as human as the Athenians under Puck's manipulations, just as desirous of love, no matter the form. Sayaka Ichikawa's Helena, at first both scared and cross at the pursuit by the two men, is wide-eyed with wonder when Marie Astrid Mence's bold Hermia mades her own bid. Ebony Thomas becomes a fluid, almost ethereal being in the duet with Oberon, while Mthuthezeli November was a touching Bottom. Isabela Coracy's Puck poked and prodded, pushed and pulled, and capered brilliantly, a true Spirit of Mischief.
[Next : 10th June]