You never know what to expect with Arthur Pita’s choreography. His adaptation of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis at The Royal Opera House had Edward Watson literally climbing the walls and covering himself with brown slime as he transformed from businessman to bug. There was a gothic Snow White in Black for Phoenix Dance Theatre, and his Dream within a Midsummer Night’s Dream, for Ballet Black, with tutus and pointe shoes. Pita tells his tales with great quirky humour and – often surprising – attention to detail, which always keeps the audience on the edge of their seat.
Now he has put his stamp on The Little Match Girl, Hans Christian Andersen’s short story about child poverty in the 19th century. And again, Pita’s anticipated surprises are here in abundance. His ballet is an absolute delight and, despite its often tough moral story, it makes a perfect performance for not only children, but all ages to enjoy.
The Little Match Girl tells the story of a poor child, on the freezing streets of a small town on Christmas Eve, attempting to sell matches to passers by. Hungry and shivering from the cold, she meets both kind and cruel people. Her boots are stolen; she is tied to a lamppost; and her single coin snatched. While one family is planning an extravagant Christmas with all its trimmings, they cruelly refuse to help her in any way. They even turn the lights off when she comes knocking for left over scraps. The child sees a shooting star and remembers what her beloved, now dead grandmother once told her– that it means someone was going to heaven. When the little girl eventually dies from starvation and the cold, the two are reunited, and here, Pita takes puckish poetic license for they set off, not for heaven, but on a trip to the large shining moon where they meet up with an astronaut and his moon buggy! After a sympathetic and gentle pas de deux, the astronaut realises that his sputnik spaceship won’t start for him to return to earth. So guess who comes to the rescue to make it go, with just one strike of a match! Andersen, known for his vivid imagination and also great love of ballet, would probably have been highly amused– the children in the darkened Studio certainly sat up in their seats in awe.
This short – one hour long– action-packed children’s ballet captured the imagination of its young audience. Eyes were steadfastly pinned on the stage and no one moved, so intense was their concentration. Part of the fascination was the sole musician — and composer —of the work, Frank Moon. As we entered he, dressed in a long floor-length coat and tall top hat, was fiddling away to a mesmeric chant, which went on until the show started. Throughout, he was very much part of the action. He played a vast collection of instruments --violin, oud (Arabic lute) and music box-- and added electronic wind, static, and blowing sounds. With his wide-eyed pale face and costume, Moon was very much one of the ballet’s characters.