David Hallberg, The Australian Ballet’s artistic director, describes the ballet’s current double bill as a “collision of worlds”. The word collision is an interesting one to use. This description is accurate if one of the worlds is heaven, and one is hell.
Circle Electric and Études is marketed as a “diverse and exhilarating double bill”. Oh boy, did I have high hopes for the opening piece, which is the premiere work of The Australian Ballet’s new resident choreographer, Stephanie Lake. Circle Electric is Lake’s first major work with The Australian Ballet.
I’d researched Stephanie Lake before the performance and she’s highly articulate when it comes to speaking about dance and movement concepts. Unfortunately, this verbal intelligence didn’t translate to the performance, which is particularly concerning in an art form that is supposed to transport the audience beyond words.
The program tells us that Circle Electric looks at the “fundamental paradox of our existence”, which is said to be the fact of our profound insignificance and importance, both at once. If this narrative existed in the piece, I failed to locate it.
Circle Electric takes the viewer on a series of unrelated scenes, with no cohesive relationship between them, including any emotional one. My scribbled notes made during the performance retrospectively read like a bad sexual encounter: self-indulgent, random noises – and about fifty minutes later – I want this to end. Yes, even with the entire, ridiculously talented cast of The Australian Ballet to work with, it was that excruciating.
At one point, two drummers joined the dancers onstage. While their presence made zero thematic sense, they were still a welcome relief from the banal choreography and high school drama-esque milling and shouting from the ensemble. A bit like the famous music quartet on the Titanic, the drummers played on admirably, a beacon of commitment to humanity, despite the evident disaster unfolding around them.
As someone passionate about Australian contemporary dance, I don’t enjoy taking such a dim view of Circle Electric. I hope Lake’s residency with The Australian Ballet, and her future works for the company, bring more meaningful storytelling and engagement with the audience.
Thankfully, the double bill is gloriously saved by the second half. Études is described as choreographer Harald Lander’s ‘love letter to classical technique’. It is a neo-classical work, created in 1948, set in the sanctity of the ballet studio. Études follows the dancers through the series of exercises that are part of the foundation of life as a professional dancer: daily ballet class. While daily class may sound dull, Études is anything but.
For every dancer, each day starts in first position at the ballet barre, warming up the body, remembering how to move again. Even for professionals, it’s amazing how much the body forgets overnight. Class is a universal language, structured, disciplined and creative. I often write about how, in the creative arts, it is structure that forms the basis for freedom. In classical ballet, this structure is to be found in the basic positions, from first through to fifth. It is the geometry of dance.
Études is truly a performance, from the opening scene of a solo ballerina performing a full grand plié, to a sea of spot-lit legs executing crisp frappés and long arabesques, building to soaring grand jetés and dynamic pirouettes in diagonals across the stage. In Études it all comes together, from the crisp tutus to the atmospheric blue lighting, in an experience that moves the audience beyond words.
It is a credit to The Australian Ballet to have been granted the rights to this ballet. The choreographer’s widow only gives them to companies with the depth of technical skill required to perform it. Upon seeing the performance, it is clear why. Études is both disciplined and virtuosic, and The Australian Ballet dancers do both aspects justice. Indeed, it is a masterclass in articulating that the virtuosic is grounded in the daily discipline of dance class, just as the concerto requires the scales to soar.
One of my dance teachers, who is a former dancer with The Australian ballet, told me that Études is one of his favourites. I wanted to understand why. “There’s no where to hide,” he explains. “There’s no narrative; it’s pure classicism.” Having now seen the performance, I understand the adoration. It is pure, clean classicism: lively, elegant and bright.
For those who attend the ballet hoping to see the art of classical ballet in its highest iteration, Études is not to be missed.