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Choice pickings

Giannandrea Poesio

Wednesday, 8th October 2008

Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Barbican

Swan Lake
Royal Opera House

Scottish Ballet
Queen Elizabeth Hall

Luckily, technical evenness, stylistic consistency and a theatrical drive to die for were the main ingredients of Scottish Ballet’s performance for Dance Umbrella, which concluded the week on a very high note. Every member of the company seems to be blessed with outstanding artistic eclecticism, for throughout the evening the dancers moved with chameleonic effortlessness from one choreographic style to the other. The well-conceived triple bill started with Ride the Beast, a breathtakingly dynamic work by Stephen Petronio — who is also part, with his company, of this year’s Dance Umbrella — which mesmerises with its crescendo of choreographic geometries. The powerful dance, set to Radiohead music, was then followed by Trisha Brown’s For MG: The Movie, in which Brown’s typical reiteration of pedestrian movements and use of both stillness and slow motion create a unique game of psychological tensions and intoxicating imagery, which complements more than ideally Alvin Curran’s varied soundscape. As the end item, Ashley Page’s light-hearted Pennies from Heaven, set to songs from the 1930s, created yet another powerful contrast, bringing on stage the frivolity of an epoch in which people danced happily on the brink of Armageddon. The whole performance also stood out for being audio-described for the visually impaired, thanks to specially conceived headsets and the impeccable work of live descriptors. The possibilities that such a process opens up were later discussed by a lively post-performance debate, an added bonus to a more than memorable event. q