Sunday 7 June 2015

Gripping Mixed Programme of Dance

At one time, the management of the National Ballet was taking its life in its hands by programming a modern dance work.  As a regular subscriber for over 30 years, I found these experimental excursions into modern territory fascinating, but I know many did not -- because any program involving a modern work inevitably saw many, many empty seats that would normally be occupied for more mainstream classical ballet repertoire.

Tempora mutantur.  Last night I was startled to see a nearly full house at the Four Seasons Centre for  a program consisting entirely of works new to the National Ballet's repertoire.  There are a lot of risk factors involved in programming new work, as last night's performance aptly illustrated.  Originally announced last year with the subscription offers was a ballet version of The Tempest choreographed by Alexander Ratmansky.  This was nowhere in sight, and plainly failed to materialize for reasons unknown to me.  But never mind.  The programme we did get was a striking synthesis of many different artistic and intellectual cross-currents, and left me with the definite feeling that all three of these challenging works ought to be staged again.

The evening opened with a nervy, intense, and ultimately engrossing new work choreographed by Guillaume Cote, Being and Nothingness.  The opening sequence, a stark, edgy solo for a woman in a dark room with a single bare light bulb glaring overhead had originally been staged last season (for my comments, see this post: Innovation Both Exciting and Moving ).  The solo was danced by Greta Hodgkinson, for whom it was created.  This expanded version of the ballet continues on through a series of scenes involving different characters, with the woman from the opening ultimately returning to conclude the ballet.  The idea of using dance to comment on the existentialist philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre is certainly both brave and intriguing, and the resulting work could easily bear those same descriptions. 

The setting too has grown, and now includes a single white-framed window, a single white door, and a small old-fashioned white washbasin with working plumbing -- all standing in the middle of an empty stage with side and back walls of the stage space plainly visible.  The door and the window are movable.  Within this space are a single chair, a carpet, and a utilitarian metal-framed bed.  The overall impression was of a room in an early twentieth-century asylum for the insane. 

Cote's choreography certainly abetted that impression, from the opening solo right through the ballet.  One and all, the "characters" (unnamed) seemed to be trapped in the prison of their self-imposed realities, unable or unwilling to break free.  Movement styles varied widely, from the frantically jerky (opening solo) to the tentative (a woman trying to attract the attention of her partner as he stares blankly out the window) to the robotic (a man shaving, danced with energy by Dylan Tedaldi) and the fluid.  The final sequence, in which Hodgkinson first answered a ringing phone which plainly conveyed a terrible message, and then struggled in vain to convey her distress to her blasé partner, left a haunting imprint in my mind.  After his departure, she was left alone, again executing the contorted figures of her opening solo until at last she blew out the light and darkness fell. 

The dark setting was of a piece with the spiritual darkness and vacancy which seemed to reign supreme in this world.  Definitely thought-provoking and gripping but, like the philosophy which inspired it, depressing to linger over (for me at least).  And some elements seemed frankly inexplicable and out of place.

The piano music of Philip Glass, with its obsessively repeating little melodic figures, was the perfect accompaniment to this nightmare delirium of endless mental and emotional paralysis, and was expertly executed by pianist Edward Connell. 

After the first intermission, we then turned to two of the three ballets contained in Alexei Ratmansky's Shostakovich Trilogy (I have been unable to discover what the third one is).  Ratmansky is a leading internationally famous choreographer who works in a classical style notably mingled with modern influences.  His trilogy of ballets explores the conflicting influences which did so much to shape Shostakovich's music, not only as a composer standing poised between the classical/romantic musical world and the innovations of modern music, but also as a man caught between his own determination to express himself with artistic truth and the contrary (and shifting) demands of the Soviet propaganda machine.  The composer's own responses to these cross-currents results in a curious and sometimes uncomfortable mixture of seriousness, satire, drama, and outright vulgarity.  I feel that Ratmansky is uniquely qualified to take on the task of bringing these multiple colliding currents into visual life on the dance stage.

Certainly, Symphony No. 9 accomplished this task with great success.  This symphony, in five short movements, is one of the composer's more enigmatic works, and resists simple explanation of its meaning or purpose.  The dancers moved across a bare stage in front of a cyclorama backdrop, in plain costumes.  The choreography pitted two couples and two individual dancers against the movements of a corps de ballet.  The dancing of the couples and the soloists was relatively free-wheeling, certainly individual, while the corps displayed either unanimity or (in some cases) sequential imitation of movement.  In the final movements a projection of machine parts, and marchers holding red flags, appeared on the cyclorama.  Although this overtly drew attention to the dictatorial machine ruling the Soviet Union, it also highlighted the relatively mechanistic choreography of the corps de ballet in contrast with the more liberated style of the soloists and couples.  At the conclusion, it was clear that the liberation was at an end -- and perhaps this was the message of Shostakovich's music, which was written quite rapidly during the months after the end of World War Two.

Another intermission, and then came the Piano Concerto No. 1.  This is a lighter work in tone, and lighter weight as well, being scored for a smaller orchestra of strings and solo trumpet.  This time the pieces of machinery were in the form of hanging sculptural red objects.  Costumes too were brighter, with more variety of colour (including leotards and tights coloured grey in front and mauve behind) -- all of which helped to lighten the feel of the work.  In keeping with the music, the cast of dancers is reduced as well.  The bright red leotards worn by the two women of the lead couples here (Svetlana Lunkina and Jillian Vanstone) were obviously calculated to draw our attention to them, although I was not really certain why this mattered so much.  This struck me as very much an ensemble piece, more so than the preceding Symphony No. 9.

Even more than the symphony, this concerto in four brief movements swerves wildly between the jocular and the solemn.  Throughout the first three movements the choreography ebbed and flowed in harmony with the music (a Ratmansky trademark) but in the rapid finale, essentially a march gone berserk, the choreography and the music seemed to me to have parted company.  Aside from that one moment of dissatisfaction, I definitely felt that Ratmansky's work continually illuminated Shostakovich's music, and vice versa.  And I definitely enjoyed all three ballets on this programme, and would be glad to see any of them staged again.

Both the symphony and the concerto were expertly and lovingly performed, with pianist Zhenya Yesmanovich and trumpeter Richard Sandals outstanding in the concerto.

One thing is for certain: Toronto is definitely living through a "golden age" of the music of Shostakovich right now.  In addition to these two ballets, we had last year's Nijinsky which included a complete performance of his Symphony No. 11.  The Toronto Symphony, too, has mounted that symphony several times in recent years, toured with it, and recorded it, as well as performing and recording the Symphony No. 7.  For those of us who enjoy this Russian master's music, it's a great time to be living around Toronto!

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