With a Spring In Their Steps

Among the welcome signs of the gradual return of normality was the reappearance, for the first time in three years, of the annual Spring Showcase of Canada's National Ballet School.

 

It would be easy to dismiss this as "just kids" -- easy, and very much mistaken.

 

The students who participated in this performance, from Grade 10 upwards, gave a stirring and exciting performance of four classical or classically-inflected dance works. The maturity and polish of their dancing was no less remarkable than the sheer energy and joie de vivre which they brought to the stage, and to us.

The entire performance was pervaded by that energy, with the sparkle in the eyes and the broad smiles on faces saying it all as far as the students were concerned. Later on, perhaps, it would be time enough to rein in some of that excess and harness it to generate greater intensity, but on this night that excitement and joy of the artists became in turn an absolute joy to the audience.

 

The first and third works on the programme, respectively Spring and Autumn from James Kudelka's The Four Seasons, showed off the great strengths of the small group of dancers involved. In Spring, Graydon George gave a poised, graceful performance of the role of the Man, the central figure in Kudelka's allegory of life. Maya Fazzari contrasted with a clean-edged, restrained performance as the lead woman. The men of the corps brought real lift and propulsion to Kudelka's endearing prancing movements.

In Autumn, Anton Tcherny took over the role of the Man, giving an edgier reading well suited to the rather different character of this piece. Ana Sofia Hernandez as the lead woman, presented the softer-edged presence which becomes so important a contrast here. The corps brought tremendous energy to the unique scything movements, making much of the unique sound effect of dance shoes striking flat upon the floor in time with Vivaldi's emphatic triple-time rhythm.

 

As a by-the-way, for those not familiar with the complete work, the Man would be danced by one person throughout, but the lead women in each part would be (as here) performed by different artists in each season. 

  

Spring and Autumn bookended a new work, choreographer Robert Stephen's Boundless, danced to the second movement (con moto) of Schubert's Piano Sonata in D Major, D.850.

 

Conflict of Interest Alert: Robert Stephen is my nephew.

 

Schubert's music, like many movements of his later piano sonatas, is full of dramatic contrasts and unusual, even odd, key changes. There are lighter, more reflective passages, and full crescendo climaxes followed, in his later manner, by sudden silences. 

The company of 13 women and 5 men captured the essential character of so much of the dance, a serene fluidity which contrasted strikingly with both the works we saw before and after (Kudelka) and with the music to which it was set. The artists made much of the innate musicality of Stephen's choreography, and if some of the busier scenes seemed to call for a little more traffic control, that all helped to project the boundless energy which lived up to the title of the work.

 

The final main work was the Grand Pas Classique from Marius Petipa's Paquita. Generally regarded as the ultimate virtuoso showpiece of the nineteenth century Russian ballet, Paquita is entirely typical of its time in showing off the talents of as many female dancers as possible, while having only one role for a man (although that one role is a wowser). Back in the day, the dancers' patrons expected nothing less and would have rebelled if their favourites were in any way excluded.

Given that expectation, it's no surprise that the choreography for Paquita involves plenty of "stand and pose" attitudes for the corps de ballet, and for every one of the individual dancers in the pas de huit, the pas de six, and the three solo variations. The seventeen women in these roles showed themselves as much at home in this more regimented style as in the freer, more fluid choreography of the other works.

The dancers of the three solo variations -- Anna Neudorf, Sophia Bielik, and Emma Topolova -- brought great sparkle and presence to their brief but effective dances.

With immense precision and gusto, and with almost nonchalant skill in their respective solo variations, Lilia Greyeyes and Wesley Miller as the lead couple in the pas de deux brought the house down -- and rightly so.

 

The entire programme was exciting and involving. With artists of this level of maturity and energy, the future of the dance world is definitely going to be something to see.