Theatre
PREVIEW CONTEMPORARY BALLET SCOTTISH BALLET Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Thu 8–Sat 10 Oct; Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Thu 15–Sat 17 Oct
They say life begins at 40, and looking at Scottish Ballet it’s hard to disagree. Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the company has never looked better. They have A fantastic new home at Tramway in Glasgow, an impressive team of technically strong dancers and an autumn tour that is arguably their finest triple-bill to date.
Followers of the company will note that none of the works are new to Scottish Ballet, but all bear repeat viewing. At the 2005 Edinburgh International Festival, George Balanchine’s Rubies received a round of applause before a single step was danced, so beautiful are the costumes. Krzysztof Pastor’s In Light and Shadow proved a stunning closer at the 2006 Festival, while William Forsythe’s Workwithinwork was a dance highlight at this year’s Festival.
So, three former Festival works – all of which make
huge demands on the dancers, but offer pure entertainment to the audience. ‘The programme
features three very different examples of contemporary ballet,’ says Scottish Ballet’s artistic director Ashley Page. ‘Even though Rubies dates back to 1967, it was pushing the envelope in those days and everybody still finds it hard to do well, because it’s such a challenge. All three pieces are about dancing – there are no stories, no narrative element – and it’s nice to have a triple-bill like that.’
That said, for Krzysztof Pastor, there’s no such thing as a dance that’s completely devoid of narrative. Inspired by two pieces of music by Bach, In Light and Shadow may seem abstract on the surface, but underneath the shimmering costumes and explosive movement lies a sea of emotion. ‘I think there is always something behind a dance,’ says Pastor. ‘Because it is performed by human beings, so there has to be a story or an interpretation. Even the most abstract ballet is enriched with the human spirit – you can see the same work twice and it can touch you or do nothing for you, depending on how it is performed.’ Happily for Pastor (and Forsythe and Balanchine for that matter), his work is in safe hands. (Kelly Apter)
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PREVIEW CONTEMPORARY DANCE CURVE FOUNDATION DANCE COMPANY Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, Fri 9 & Sat 10 Oct, then touring
When Peter Darrell choreographed O Caritas in 1974, it was to ‘express the senselessness of violence’. Thirty-five years on, the late founder of Scottish Ballet would no doubt be horrified to see how little has changed. Having staged two previous Darrell
works, Ross Cooper of Curve Foundation Dance Company was keen to tackle a third – and found the piece sadly appropriate for today’s conflict- ridden world. ‘The reason Darrell choreographed O Caritas in the first place,’ says Cooper, ‘was to highlight the innocent victims of war and conflict. And because of that, I felt the piece was very pertinent just now. So the video imagery has been updated and the costumes re- designed from flares to skinny jeans.’
Darrell’s piece is part of a diverse triple- bill programmed by Cooper, featuring Close-up by Nederlands Dans Theater dancer Fernando Hernando Magadan, and the UK premiere of Ohad Naharin’s Passo Mezzo. Last seen in Scotland with his company Batsheva at the 2008 Edinburgh International Festival, Naharin is a major choreographic force – and a real coup for Curve.
‘We’ve been developing relationships with established artists for a long time,’ explains Cooper. ‘Because not only is their way of moving the most articulate, but their choreography is also the most enriching for the dancers. So, having worked with Merce Cunningham and William Forsythe in recent years, the most obvious choice seemed to be Ohad, who poses a completely new set of challenges for us.’ (Kelly Apter)
PREVIEW ADAPTATION THE GRAPES OF WRATH King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 13–Sat 17 Oct
The relevance of John Steinbeck’s 1939 tale of the Joad family’s enforced odyssey across America in search of work and a place to settle following eviction from their farm is grimly evident in a world of foreclosures and chronic unemployment. Yet in director Jonathan Church’s new production of The Grapes of Wrath, the temptation to clumsily update the story or draw overwrought analogies to the present day has been resisted. Rightly so perhaps, for this is a story that has long been recognised as having a timeless, universal significance. The cast, which includes TV favourites Christopher Timothy, Oliver Cotton and Sorcha
Cusack, seems aware of the need to successfully marry the personal and historical aspects of the story. As Cusack, who plays Ma Joad in the production, points out, ‘In writing about the way we exploit everything until it’s exhausted, Steinbeck was being extremely prophetic.’ And if Steinbeck saw fit to describe the banks of the Depression era as ‘monsters’, we can but wonder what he would have made of today’s financial behemoths. Damien O’Hare, who plays Tom Joad, and is also charged with driving the large truck which forms part of the lavish set, contrasts this historical aspect of ‘the immensity of what the Joads are experiencing’ with ‘the nuances of the family relationships’ that make this story so universal, or as O’Hare puts it, ‘mythological’.
Like the Joads, audiences can expect to be taken on an emotionally exhausting journey that ends, not in milk and honey in the promised land of California, but at least, perhaps, in a new understanding of small-scale, humanistic morality. (Laura Ennor)
84 THE LIST 8–22 Oct 2009