Ballett Zürich’s latest offering, Timekeepers, proved to be an extraordinary evening. Three very different ballets and three atypical musical scores made it memorable.
George Antheil’s Ballet mécanique was the inspiration for Meryl Tankard’s ballet, For Hedy. It was a rare treat to hear the "concertante" version developed by Paul Lehrman for solo piano and an acousmonium, an orchestra made up of loudspeakers. Seated centre stage, with his back to the audience, Guy Livingston, an Antheil specialist, gave an energetic and mesmerising performance. This is Antheil’s most notorious composition, one that put paid to his career as a serious composer. It is brutalist, violent and fiercely rhythmic; the musical equivalent of throwing your toys out of the pram in a temper tantrum.
As the score was originally conceived to accompany Dadaist painter Fernand Léger’s film (although that didn’t work) it is fitting that it now supports the portrayal of Hollywood diva, Hedy Lamarr, a cameo role for Shelby Williams. Williams' strong boned angularity and powerful presence maintain her central position. She strikes the sensual poses of the era, holding the audience firmly in her gaze. The dancers, anachronistically cross dressed, compete with the machine gun percussion of the piano in frenzied movement. It is left to Williams to hold the work together, a vibrant presence in silky siren dress, sequinned jacket and high heels.
Régis Iansac's video projections play their part, creating first geometric shapes and then a spider’s web of filigree patterns across the backdrop. Tankard works hard to give relevance to the work but Hedy, despite her beauty and intelligence, is of little significance today. We may live in a chaotic world, and we are in Zürich, but Dada anarchism is somehow too playful for the mood of the times.
A six-minute pause swopped the mechanical coldness of Antheil’s solo piano for the warmth of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in the version for two pianos. Mthuthuzeli November, a fast-rising choreographic talent had taken on a challenging assignment in accepting ready made sets, costumes and score but managed splendidly to give Rhapsodies a distinctly African jazz flavour.
I had thought I was going to miss the wailing clarinet glissando and heavy brass of Gershwin’s composition but the virtuosic playing of Robert Kolinsky and Tomas Dratva more than compensated and in the finale Mthuthuzeli had the music dancing in a tremendous uplift. You could feel the warmth flowing into the auditorium as he and the dancers shared their rhapsody.
Mthuthuzeli generally contributes in part or whole to the musical scores of his ballets. He stamped his mark on Rhapsodies by inserting a personal reflection in the brief pause in the middle of Gershwin’s score. The dancers’ voices, from a low murmur to gentle ululating, accompanied the drumming as the woman bourréed on pointe and Nehanda Péguillan stood in the red glow, her curls silhouetted in the light and hands quivering like one possessed.
His signature style of contemporary ballet suffused with powerful rhythm was given full expression by the dancers, notably by Brandon Lawrence who devoured the stage with glee and Dores André bringing warmth and agency to the quieter moments. The work was skilfully structured to catch the huge waves of emotion in the music.
Magda Willi’s versatile set of wooden rectangles creates a subtext, framing individual moments and ringing the changes in mood in the changing lights. Rhapsody in Blue is one of the world’s best known, and best loved, pieces of music. Mthuthuzeli’s choreography finds the roots in its African heritage, adds an emotional centre and delivers the package with warmth. There is a lot to love in this joyous work.
Watching Les Noces, Bronislava Nijinska’s totally original voice still resonates with crystal clarity a century after the ballet was conceived. We are left wondering what else she might have created had circumstances been different but thankfully we are left with this wonderfully preserved ballet, here staged by Christopher Saunders from the Royal Ballet. The resources of Zürich Opera House came to the fore to do justice to Stravinsky’s masterpiece providing a quartet of magnificent solo voices, a chorus, the pianos, now increased to four, plus percussion.
The technical mastery of Stravinsky’s score is in contrast to simplicity of the theme – the rituals of an arranged peasant marriage. However, the thrust of suppressed energy in the peasant dance and the outbreaks of solo dancers raise questions about the passivity of the peasant community. Natalia Goncharova’s plain dress is so right that an update has never been allowed. The iconic poses: the pile of female heads, wrapped in headscarves with expressionless faces and the yards of plaited braids are memorable but there is also the wealth of folk dance cleverly woven into the score.
A slightly nervous start soon blended into perfect unison as the ensemble stepped, stamped and leapt as one. A commendation to Saunders and the répétiteurs and the ensemble who did so well dancing to the complex score. As Bride and Groom, Max Richter and Lawrence, who have long periods of stillness, created the aura of nervous expectancy. It’s a wonderful work where the arts come together in such a rich mix. The triple bill had seemed something of a gamble but has paid off and new director, Cathy Marston, has an evening to celebrate.
Maggie's accommodation was paid for by Ballett Zürich
