DANCE | Previews DANCE | Previews D A N C E
CONTEMPORARY / BALLET BALLET HISPANICO Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue 6–Sat 10 Mar
When Tina Ramirez founded Ballet Hispanico in New York in 1970, her intention was to ‘break through stereotypes’. Almost 50 years later, her humble dance school and community project has grown into a company of international repute. And now, for the first time in its history, Ballet Hispanico is visiting the UK. Eduardo Vilaro, who was passed the baton of leadership by
Ramirez in 2009, explains why her vision was so important. ‘The organisation was founded in order to give voice to Latino artists in the United States, at a time in the 1970s when there weren’t a lot of possibilities because you were pigeon-holed into a certain kind of dancer,’ he says. ‘And it continues to do that today, but in a very broad way. We try to capture the essence of the full scope of the Latino diaspora and then share it with the world.’
Vilaro says it’s the voice of the choreographers that gives the company its essence, and the two dance-makers whose work we’ll see in Edinburgh will be speaking loud and clear through two complementary works. Inspired by the work of Picasso, Gustavo Ramírez Sansano’s
CARMEN.maquia is a bold re-telling of Prosper Mérimée’s novella/Bizet’s opera, while Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Linea Recta explores the idea of partnership in flamenco. All those who saw Ochoa’s work for Scottish Ballet, A Streetcar Named Desire, will be thrilled to see her back.
‘Annabelle says to everyone “Eduardo pulls the Latino-ness out of me,”’ laughs Vilaro. ‘This gorgeous piece really tries to bring flamenco further into the contemporary dance world. And only Ballet Hispanico could do it, because the arch of the back, the hands, the liquidity of the flamenco movement is alive in us – and it just pairs beautifully with CARMEN.maquia.’ (Kelly Apter)
P H O T O :
E M M A K A U L D H A R
CONTEMPORARY SCOTTISH DANCE THEATRE Dundee Rep, Fri 9 & Sat 10 Feb; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Sat 3 Mar BALLET NORTHERN BALLET: THE LITTLE MERMAID Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Thu 22–Sat 24 Mar
In an era when men were calling most of the shots in the dance world, one woman was blazing a trail with her innovative choreography: Bronislava Nijinska. Although often eclipsed by her more famous brother, Vaslav Nijinsky, she created numerous works for the Ballets Russes, including 1923’s Les Noces. Fast forward almost a hundred years and choreographer Colette Sadler is
working her own innovative magic at Scottish Dance Theatre, re-imagining Les Noces for the 21st century with new piece, RITUALIA. And Nijinska has been very much on her mind.
‘I don’t directly reference her life in RITUALIA, but I’m interested in Bronislava as a woman working in dance at that time,’ says Sadler. ‘When I started working on Les Noces, I read her autobiography, and during an early part of the creation I wrote a short text called “Conversation with a dead choreographer”, which was myself and Bronislava having a conversation in a fictional realm.’
Part of a double-bill featuring Botis Seva’s TuTuMucky (pictured), the seed of RITUALIA was planted years ago, when Sadler first learned about the Ballets Russes and the music of Stravinsky.
‘I’ve been interested in Les Ballets Russes since I was a ballet student,’ says Sadler.
‘What interests me is how their work ushers in the era of modernism in ballet, and I find the artistic collaborations that took place within their creations very exciting, involving artists such as Picasso, Cocteau, Massine to name a few.’ (Kelly Apter)
88 THE LIST 1 Feb–31 Mar 2018 88 THE LIST 1 Feb–31 Mar 2018
It was Danny Kaye who first introduced David Nixon to The Little Mermaid, when Kaye starred in the 1952 self-titled biopic about its author, Hans Christian Andersen. But it wasn’t until years later, while artistic director Nixon was turning the fairytale into Northern Ballet’s latest production, that he started to appreciate its true depth. ‘I fell in love with the story as I worked with it because it has so many
layers,’ says Nixon. ‘At first you just think it’s about a girl with a tail who falls in love with a guy, but it’s much richer than that. At its heart, it’s about the way we look at people differently because they’re not the same as us, and the inability to communicate. Andersen has made that huge in the sense that it’s a water world versus a land world, but it’s very much the way we have looked at people for hundreds of years who aren’t our race or religion.’ Although often synonymous with Disney, and therefore deemed a work for
children, Nixon’s version of The Little Mermaid, set to an original score by composer Sally Beamish, is aimed at ballet-lovers of all ages.
‘The performance has really been able to reach across ages,’ he says. ‘For children, it’s about pace, and the piece is quite visually stunning with big puppets for some of the water creatures and beautiful costumes. And adults get a lot out of it because of the layers, and the fact that the mermaid goes through such sacrifice and pain for what she loves.’ (Kelly Apter)