Once again, I am late-late-LATE in posting a review! Life gets hectic at times. But anyway, harking back almost 2 weeks, here are my thoughts on the National Ballet of Canada's Innovation mixed programme.
For me, this was the most consistently rewarding Innovation programme yet. Three of the four works were strongly influenced by classical ballet traditions and styles, yet each one found an individual voice.
Jose Navas led off the show with Watershed, a work strongly influenced by the colours, moods, and dynamics of water, and set to the Four Sea Interludes from the opera Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten. A very appropriate tribute so close to the 100th anniversary of Britten's birth! As suggested by the title, the choreography here was for the most part very fluid until the final Storm movement when the dance became evocative in a much harder-edged style. I could appreciate the value of having some of the men wearing tutus for the benefit of filling the space on the stage (as water spreads to fill space), but I still found it arbitrary and intrusive.
The second work was Being and Nothingness (Part 1), a gripping solo created on Greta Hodgkinson by Guillaume Cote, using for music a piano work by Philip Glass. Cote said that this work was inspired by the idea of nothingness as propounded by Sartre, and the connection was obvious. A bare stage, a single bare hanging light bulb, the woman anonymously dressed, and the abrupt, brittle, even violent movements contrasted effectively with the monotonous flow of the music. That light, indeed, became a second character in the piece as it flashed and flickered from time to time. For me, both choreography and the light evoked Picasso's renowned painting Guernica, with its primal-scream quality and the glaring eye of his sun were reflected in the staging and in Hodgkinson's edgy performance.
Robert Binet's Unearth was set to an original score by Owen Pallett. This to me was the least successful piece, for a couple of reasons. One was the music, which was the least satisfactory as music, consisting of rather aimless doodling about. Binet's choreography showed much promise, and he will undoubtedly develop into a major talent to be reckoned with. The great weakness of Unearth was the underlying idea. Binet wanted to show a state of inertia and a gradual emergence from that state into a dynamic of growth and development. This would be an incredibly difficult idea for even the world's greatest choreographers to convey through dance! The result was a sameness of movement across the whole piece which worked against the creative idea. The only real clue to the breakthrough from inertia came when the large, monolithic backdrop suddenly split apart and its pieces moved in different directions.
The final work was the strongest and most moving and involving of the quartet: ...black night's bright day... by James Kudelka. The music was the entire Stabat Mater of Pergolesi, and the ballet explored the human needs of coping with death and grief and loss in a large, general way. From the first notes, you had the sense of the firm control and gentle touch of a master hand. This just might be the finest ballet Kudelka has ever produced (certainly the finest work of his that I have ever seen). Music, dance, and ideas flowed together in virtual symbiosis. Pergolesi's famous cantata is made up of a number of movements in contrasting styles, and Kudelka effectively varied the mood and texture of the dance to match -- large ensemble pieces alternating with solos and duets. Some moments were almost hilarious, and if you've ever seen a person go into giddy hysterics in bereavement, you'll understand why. Others were filled with the real heartache and sense of loss that characterise our efforts to come to terms with death. As Kudelka said, "Sometimes we have to make difficult subjects beautiful in order to be able to look at them." This ballet did exactly that, in spades.
The music added a not-inconsiderable bonus. The orchestra pit was raised somewhat to enable better spread of the sound into the auditorium, and every word came across clearly. The National Ballet was fortunate in being able to call on the services of two of the world's leading singers of Renaissance and Baroque music, British soprano Dame Emma Kirkby, and Canadian counter-tenor Daniel Taylor. Accompanied by an appropriately small ensemble drawn from the orchestra, their two magnificent voices alternated and intertwined in a radiant performance that plainly captivated both dancers and audience. At the end of the show, Kirkby and Taylor received the loudest cheers and swell of applause of the entire performance, a testament to the integrity and musicality of their work.
All in all, a memorable afternoon of new dance work. If I had to pick one piece to be restaged in a few years, though, it would have to be the Kudelka's. I have rarely become so deeply involved and engaged by a ballet performance, much as I love and enjoy the art.
