Scottish Ballet is not one of the larger British ballet companies, but it punches well above its weight, especially in terms of expanding the ballet envelope to make dance more accessible for younger audiences. It’s also a company that gets about, immediately following this brief season in London it is taking three productions to New Zealand.
This Twice-Born programme had two tasty morsels as hors d’oeuvres in preparation for a mighty main course, after which the whole evening’s programme was named. Christopher Hampson is one of those rare artistic directors who is also the company’s Chief Executive, and he took to the stage, appropriately dressed in a kilt and all the Highland accoutrements, excepting the dirk for understandable reasons, to announce the programme in an articulate extempore speech, accompanied by a BSL interpreter (which says a lot about the company’s principles).
The first of the three works was on-screen, rather than stage, in the highly professional and striking film, Dive, made collaboratively between choreographer, Sophie Laplane, director, Oscar Sansom and co-creator, James Bonas. Its credentials include the Venice Biennale (2021) and the Jury Prize at Cinedans in the following year.
Vivid colours played out against a white box background with fast transitions and screen-within-screen interludes. Dancers breathed out purple smoke, they froze in statuesque tableaux and at one point, much to the audience's amusement, a white llama wandered amongst them.
This highly visual opening reaffirmed Scottish Ballet’s leading credentials for producing quality films, having won the National Dance Award for best dance film twice in recent years. For me it was more a film with dance, rather than a dance film if you get the distinction and its main quality came with those rapid and colourful transitions, which will lose the essence of surprise on subsequent viewings.
After a brief pause, the first live action came with Cayetano Soto’s Schachmatt (Checkmate), a pulsating 20-minute work with clear references to Bob Fosse’s style that Hampson fell in love with when he saw it performed in Atlanta (“I wanted to see it immediately, all over again”, he told the pre-show audience). It is certainly a fine piece that benefits from an eclectic recorded composite of relatively random, largely vintage, music (beginning with Rina Kerry’s enchanting J’attendrai and including Los Panchos’ upbeat Lo Dudo). The movement motifs are often in horizontal lines across the stage (the floor is a chessboard although this could not be seen from my seat). It’s a joyful ensemble work with touches of humour although with the dancers wearing riding gear (designs also by Soto) the relevance to chess was vague.
After the interval, the main event was Dickson Mbi’s Twice-Born, and we must raise a glass in celebration to Hampson for spotting this prodigious talent because it is a very fine major debut work that marks Mbi (pronounced Bye) out as a fascinating choreographer to watch. And not just a choreographer because, astonishingly, he also composed the excellent score, as fine a new orchestral score for ballet as I have heard for some time, featuring the beautiful soprano voice of Lucy Crowe and significant evocations of Mbi’s African heritage (he is from Cameroon).
Like his contemporary, Mthuthuzeli November, Mbi seems to have nailed the dual skill of choreographer/composer with significant aplomb. I was reminded of sportsmen and women who excel at more than one sport. Usually, they have to give other sports up in order to prioritise just one: hopefully this exclusivity does not apply to the arts, and I hope Mbi continues to make music as good as this, whether for his choreography, or just for our aural pleasure (you can hear the whole score on Spotify).
There is a strong prehistoric, ritualistic Middle Earth feel to his epic theme, the latter emphasised by Gollum-like whisperings in the score and the former idealised in a large rock face as a backdrop with smaller rocks hanging above the stage and then falling dramatically (the monumental set design was created by Ruby Law). There are some stand-out moments including Rishan Benjamin being lifted magically up towards the flies. Marge Hendrick is another vital and dynamic presence, representing a powerful matriarch within the community. On the eve of International Women’s Day, these two women were central to this atmospheric and arresting work.
Mbi is himself a powerful performer, mixing hip-hop skills and contemporary movement (I also remember him being pretty nifty at rock climbing, alongside Tommy Franzén, in Russell Maliphant’s Wall) and he brings that eclectic range of movement to this excellent ensemble. If I have a quibble, it is that the last few minutes of Twice-Born seemed to drag with little to prolong the earlier fascination.
The overall programme appeared to be an excellent demonstration of Scottish Ballet’s diverse talents. New Zealand is in for a treat!
