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Friday 9 January 2009

Brief innovations

Compagnie Beau Geste
Parsons Green

Toilet Tango
Bathstore, Baker Street

Stephen Petronio Dance Company
Queen Elizabeth Hall

Australian Ballet
Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Manon
Royal Opera House

Indeed, brevity seemed to be a recurring trait of most of the dance performances I saw last week. As one of the Dance Umbrella’s most awaited events, the Stephen Petronio Dance Company presented a triple bill that lasted fewer than 90 minutes. Unfortunately, neither the dancing, nor the programme itself, had the sharp edginess seen in Petronio’s Ride the Beast with the Scottish Ballet the previous week.

The Australian Ballet’s double bill at Sadler’s Wells was also mercifully short. It opened with a revival of Massine’s 1933 Les Présages and concluded with Rites, a new-ish version of the Rite of Spring, in which the classically trained artists of the company joined forces with the indigenous dance-trained members of Bangarra Dance Theatre. Alas, Massine’s revived balletic Expressionism came across as unbearably stale and even somewhat ridiculous, while the intercultural efforts of Rites failed to produce anything truly outstanding.

Luckily, most disappointed ballet fans found solace at the end of the week, in the Royal Ballet’s revival of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon. Although the corps de ballet is not in good form, the superb dancing and acting of Leanne Benjamin, Johan Kobborg, Lauren Cuthbertson, Viacheslav Samodurov and Christopher Saunders turned the whole performance into something to remember for a long, long time.

More articles from: Giannandrea Poesio | this section

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