DANCE | PREVIEWS D A N C E
P H O T O :
E M M A K A U L D H A R
NARRATIVE BALLET NORTHERN BALLET Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Wed 10–Sat 13 Apr
‘When you look at Victoria as a person, the empire, the reign, the queen, the mother, the wife; it’s almost 100 years of world history,’ says choreographer Cathy Marston, describing the challenge of making her new biographical dance for Northern Ballet. ‘It’s probably enough material for at least ten ballets.’ Sadly, Marston was only commissioned to create one, so
we’ll have to make do with that. To be fair, she’s packed a lot in, having worked alongside dramaturg Uzma Hameed to cherry- pick the most important people and aspects of Queen Victoria’s life. ‘Uzma and I wrote anything that we found interesting – whether that be an image, a historical point, a character or an event – on Post-it notes and stuck them all over my living room,’ recalls Marston. ‘From there, we slowly began to group them together and filter them down. We couldn’t include everything, but there are certain characters like Albert who are really crucial, as well as her nine children.’ One child in particular sits squarely at the centre of Marston’s
ballet. Victoria’s youngest child, Princess Beatrice, was four years old when her father died, and spent much of her childhood wrapped in her mother’s grief. ‘During my research I read that when Albert died, Victoria ran to Beatrice’s bedroom, gathered her sleeping daughter in her arms, wrapped her in Albert’s dressing gown and took her into her bed,’ says Marston. ‘Beatrice was only a young child at the time and, after that,
Victoria never really let go of her. After Victoria’s death, Beatrice took on the task of editing the diary her mother kept throughout her life. This struck me as interesting because Beatrice had only really known her mother as the widow in black. Her journey re-discovering her mother must have been incredibly emotional, and imagining this felt inspiring to me.’ (Kelly Apter)
CONTEMPORARY DANCE 10 SOLDIERS Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Thu 30 May
As any military unit knows, the more personnel you have, the bigger the impact. So when choreographer Rosie Kay was given the chance to double the size of her award-winning 2016 work, 5 Soldiers, she jumped at it. ‘Originally there were only five because that’s all I could afford,’ explains Kay.
‘But we had to work really hard to make them look like a full army unit. Then Fiona Allan, artistic director of Birmingham Hippodrome, saw the show and said ‘I could see ten soldiers on our large stage.’ And I thought wow, not only is she supporting us growing the piece but she’s going to put it on one of the biggest stages in the country.’ With that support in place, Kay went back to the drawing board, reading over
old notes from her time training with the Army, and adding in a whole new section about the transition from civilian to soldier. Continued help and interaction from the Army itself also gave Kay new content to work with.
‘One of the big things the Army has been working hard on is its equality for
women and ethnic diversity,’ she explains. ‘They’re certainly not there yet, but it’s heartening to see them have really clear targets.’ As a result, 10 Soldiers has grown from having one female dancer to two, and
incorporating a male dancer of Indian heritage and one who is mixed race. ‘When you’ve got five more dancers, you can have five more stories,’ says Kay, ‘so I’ve had a chance to look at a few more issues as well.’ (Kelly Apter)
110 THE LIST 1 Apr–31 May 2019
CONTEMPORARY SCOTTISH DANCE THEATRE Dundee Rep, Fri 3 & Sat 4 May; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 24 & Sat 25 May
‘When you go on a first date, you don’t decide beforehand how many kids you want and what their names are,’ says Emanuel Gat, explaining his choreography process. ‘I bring my own experience and tools for working, but I’m not interested in creating clones of how I move. I want to pull them out of their habits, make them think, see what languages they use.’ The Israeli choreographer recently spent a fortnight in Dundee, where he was workshopping and rehearsing 12 individual dances with Scottish Dance Theatre as part of a special collaboration. His brand-new work The Circle will premiere in Dundee alongside Colette Sadler’s RITUALIA (pictured).
Gat describes the group of 12 dancers as, ‘like a football team, all pulling together’, combining their different styles. With voluptuous, baroquely detailed costumes specially commissioned for The Circle and designed by Thomas Bradley (a young Australian dancer in Emanuel Gat Dance company) and an electronic soundtrack by Squarepusher, Gat is excited to see how the elements come together. ‘I have certain precise rules and clear aims that I want to convey to the dancers, but I don’t like to control it. It’s a process of observing, then changing things. It’s a pleasure to work with hard working dancers who know each other well, but find ways to present them in a different light.’ (Claire Sawers)