Ballet Nights 008 – Spring into Summer was a well-curated mix of new work, work new to the UK and interesting legacy pieces that are rarely seen, adding up to an unusual and mostly fascinating hotchpotch of dance.
A particular innovation was to bring the TV screen to the stage in a new adaption of a solo created by Christopher Wheeldon for the Amazon Prime series Étoile, entitled I Married Myself, danced live onstage by Constance Devernay-Laurence, who seems to be busier than ever since leaving Scottish Ballet. She appears in Étoile as the star’s dancing body double and as one of the Parisian dancers (Mélanie). Performed to music by Sparks, now in their late 70s and still as whacky as ever, it is the climactic dance finale of the TV show and, in a veritable whirlwind of movement, this solo seems to essay a kind of greatest hits from the Wheeldon repertoire.
The first brand new piece was an onstage duet between dancer, Leila Wright, and violinist, Dominic Stokes. Choreographed by Ballet Nights mainstay Jordan James Bridge, Wright’s fluidity of gentle movement possessed a magnetic polarisation with Stokes, culminating with her spiralling into the darkness.
The third world premiere was a brief solo by Joaquin De Luz for Ukrainian dancer, Denys Cherevychko, entitled La Oración (The Prayer). De Luz is currently Artistic Director of Compañia Nacional de Danza and there is nothing more Spanish than seeing Cherevychko, dressed as a toreador, waving a cloak at an imaginary bull. Set to music by another Joaquin (Turina), it used this one-sided view of the bullfight as structure for macho, virtuosic dance.
Ballet Nights has a clearly well-informed knack of finding the golden ticket of new contemporary work that wows the audience. Last time around it was the cool, jazzy duo of BlacBrik and now the brand showcased another impressive choreographic/performance duo of Ekleido (Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser) who gave an extract of Splice. Wearing stunning black costumes with white highlights, this was a spectacular exercise in tying up and unravelling their limbs, as if solving a human-sized puzzle. Having recently been impressed by the film of Splice, which was nominated for a National Dance Award, it was especially absorbing to see these two excellent dancers perform it live.
The best of the works new to the UK came from Ballet Augsburg, performing Nemesis by London-born, Swiss-based Ihsan Rustem, danced by Alfonso López Gonzáles and Martina Piacentino. This was another highlight, performed in two distinct and highly contrasted sections, the first to the ubiquitous Casta Diva aria from Bellini’s Norma and then Benjamin Clementine’s emotionally intense Indie song, also entitled Nemesis. The dancers wore exaggerated expressions alongside purple clothing and their partnering sometimes resembled all-in wrestling studded by several exciting lifts.
William Forsythe’s Slingerland Duet, made in 2000 as a breakaway pas de deux from a larger work created a decade previously, was a surprising UK premiere. It’s an oddity that in 25 years no-one else has imported it but then I doubt that any other pair could give it the same degree of off-kilter stretch and length of limb as Gareth Haw and Sangeun Lee achieved here. Her height was accentuated by a wafer-thin tutu, like the ring around Saturn. Well, she is rather celestial!
This just leaves the three legacy works, two of which are rarely-if-ever seen. Northern Ballet’s Harris Beattie opened proceedings by tearing through Richard Alston’s unique neoclassical choreography in Dutiful Ducks; and Eve Musto gave an emotional performance of the woman’s solo from Peter Darrell’s Five Rückert Songs. This was presented in memory of the late Eleanor Moore, the first Scottish Principal of Scottish Ballet, who died earlier this year.
Usually, I might suppress a yawn at seeing that a gala is to include the balcony pas de deux from Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo & Juliet, since it is so often wheeled out at such events. However, Reece Clarke and Anna Rose O’Sullivan gave such meaning to the duet, dancing and partnering so beautifully, that one forgot the fact that there was a grand piano in the background and no balcony. These few minutes emphasised the timelessness of MacMillan’s much-used choreography, which was performed so completely.
There were the usual musical highlights to open each act: first with Viktor Erik Emanuel’s performance of Chopin’s Ballade No. 4; and then he joined the string Quartet Concrète in a contemporary Scandinavian double-header of Intermezzo by Fredrik Sjölin and Rune Tonsgaaard Sørensen’s Shine No More, both of which were highly enjoyable. Once again, the whole affair was eloquently compèred by Ballet Nights founder, Jamiel Devernay-Laurence.
To be frank, a dance programme of five solos and four duets, all being just a matter of a few minutes, would not normally enthuse me but the judicious choice of repertoire and the excellence of performance made it all more than worthwhile. To paraphrase an old East End tailor’s phrase, “never mind the width, feel the quality”!
