While the larger audiences flock to the established classics of story ballet, there's no denying that an artistic director's imprint on a ballet company is far more visible through the modern dance works, the commissions, and especially the mixed programmes of shorter ballets.
For this reason, I have been especially eager to see the first mixed programmes of Hope Muir's tenure as artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada.
Sadly, I had to miss the first one in November as I was out of the country, so this week I have finally gotten a chance to experience her touch in person.
This month's mixed programme marries one established classic of the National Ballet's repertoire with two premieres, one of them a world premiere of a commissioned work. Both choreographers of these new pieces are being introduced to National Ballet audiences for the first time.
First, though, the established classic, which also led off the programme. George Balanchine's 1947 work Symphony in C, set to the sole symphony composed by Georges Bizet. It's always puzzled me a bit that some commentators refer to the "icy" quality of this work, because it's never struck me that way. Brilliant it certainly is, but I don't find it at all cold. It winds up to the most spectacular grand finale of any ballet I've ever seen, with over fifty dancers on the stage all at once in the final moment.
The National Ballet has a long and fruitful record of staging many major Balanchine works, largely thanks to their long-standing thirty-plus years relationship with legendary Balanchine répetiteur Joysanne Sidimus. Generations of the company's dancers have benefited from her insights into Balanchine's unique and distinctive style, to say nothing of her ongoing concern for the artists' well-being. Sadly, this show marked her final engagement before retiring. I know her work will be missed.
As for the performance, the Symphony in C requires a lead couple and subsidiary couples in each of the work's four movements, but the work of the corps de ballet is also critical to the piece's success, and with the diverse casting of those lead and subsidiary couples all around, it can quite fairly be regarded as a "company piece" -- certainly not just a vehicle for a couple of principal dancers.
Balanchine made extensive use of symmetry as an element of the choreography here, at every level ranging from the precise degree to which hands are turned up or arms lifted all the way to entire symmetrical stage pictures. All of the company did themselves proud on this occasion by nailing all these aspects of required symmetry to virtual perfection, while still dancing with plenty of energy in the outer movements and a lovely lyrical sense of flow in the second slow movement. The hurtling bodies of the high-speed scherzo still maintained an absolute sense of control, even in Balanchine's most fiendish moments of complex footwork. A treasurable performance.
One final note about Symphony in C: with this run of performances, the National Ballet became the first dance company ever to present this work with the dancers wearing flesh-toned tights matched to their individual skin tones. Balanchine's work is closely hedged around with copyrights and legal protections, and this switch from the original pure white tights was remarkable even more because the copyright holders permitted it than because the National Ballet wanted to do it. By the way, the effect is almost unnoticeable, certainly unremarkable, in performance -- unless you are specifically looking for it. Baby steps? Perhaps -- but small changes can have large impacts on the individuals involved.
After the first intermission, we moved on to Rena Butler's Alleged Dances, a work commissioned by the National Ballet of Canada, here receiving its world premiere.
Where so much of contemporary dance can seem angular and very unlovely at times, what struck me more than anything about Butler's vision here was the fluidity of the movement, the frequent use of curved positions, of smooth flowing movements, with more continuous movement overall and less moments of stasis than in many contemporary works. It would be possible to trace many different artistic currents flowing through different moments in Alleged Dances, but I think that kind of blow-by-blow analysis would diminish the overall impact of the work as a whole.
I wish I could say the same for the music. Fruitful it may have been for Butler in stimulating her dance-making, but I found John Adams' music in John's Book of Alleged Dances to be among the more sterile examples of so-called minimalism in music that I've heard. I have nothing but praise for the work of the onstage string quartet, or the smoothness with which their playing melded with the pre-recorded track played on the sound system, but a little bit of Adams' music goes a very long way with me.
There were two curious (or perhaps not so surprising) overlaps between Butler's work and the final piece on the programme, David Dawson's Anima Animus. Both used musical scores stemming from the realm of minimalism. Both shows were costumed in effectively gender-free costuming by using plain leotards with solid-colour sections of varying shapes applied over the neutral-toned base -- brilliant red in Alleged Dances and stark black or white in Anima Animus. The effect in both cases was the same, although the means used were different; gender basically vanished as an element of the show, leaving a core fluidity of humanity to come through more clearly.
The contrasts of white and black in Dawson's work gave strong connection to his theme of working within the duality proposed by Carl Jung, of the anima as the feminine element in the masculine soul, and the animus as the masculine element in the feminine soul. In dance terms, this meant that the choreographer worked with a strong dose of classical technique, but having the male dancers in key moments performing movements normally performed by female dancers, while the women performed movements more usually reserved for the male dancers. It was a fascinating piece for me, but also a bit frustrating, as I found it hard to get beyond trying to parse all the gender shifts that were going on. A second viewing would be helpful to allow me to focus on other elements of this complex, multi-layered work.
I'd be more than happy to see either Alleged Dances or Anima/Animus restaged in the future, and certainly glad to see more work from either or both of these choreographers.
In closing, a shout-out to the busiest performer of the entire show. The performance started with all the high-speed and high-energy cascades and notes in the string parts of Bizet's symphony. I hope the orchestra was led by someone else for that, but I don't know. Then, this busy musician had to lead the quartet in the equally energetic music of John Adams for Rena Butler's half-hour work. And finally, he was faced with the dizzying acrobatics of the solo violin part in Ezio Bosso's Violin Concerto No. 1, EsoConcerto for Dawson's Anima/Animus. This 2017 work included seemingly endless roulades and ostinato passages, along with lengthy stretches set in the high harmonics -- among other challenges. So, a definite shout-out is in order for the National Ballet Orchestra's Concertmaster, Aaron Schwebel, and the huge roar of cheering for him when he appeared at the curtain call was surely no more than was his due.
Hope Muir has certainly moved the National Ballet into new territory with this programme, and I look forward to more of her choices of repertoire in future seasons.
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