I think I’m through with Hofesh Shechter, and that’s a pity, because earlier work of his such as Political Mother thrilled me with its unedited passion and energy. But after several duds and misfires, I feel that with Theatre of Dreams he’s run out of ideas and hit a dead end. The title suggests what’s gone wrong: labelling something Theatre of Dreams gives you licence to go crazy and do what the hell you like, without any purpose or structure, rhyme or reason. And that’s what has happened here. Over 90 uninterrupted minutes, curtains close and open to reveal a hundred or so snapshot tableaux of 13 dancers doing nothing of any discernible significance in a void.
It’s all great if you suffer from attention deficit disorder. But count me out
It’s a trick Shechter has played several times previously, and it is realised here in dance that is entirely without originality, expressive nuance or formal elegance. Random and largely frenetic, it relies on periodic outbreaks of tribal stomping, as well as the odd feeble joke, such as a man running about naked but for his socks, clutching his genitals in embarrassment. The dancers are admirably tireless and committed; the electronic music, composed by Shechter and enhanced by a jazz combo, is thumpingly banal; Tom Visser’s lighting is the show’s most imaginative aspect. I should add that the audience – invited at one point to jump up from their seats and join in a mass jive, which they did with vigour – went wild with enthusiasm. All great if you suffer from attention deficit disorder. But count me out.
The first thing to note about the National Ballet of Canada, which last month briefly visited Britain after a decade of absence, is that its dancers emerge collectively as a beautifully schooled troupe, cohesive in style and confident in different idioms. The second thing of note is its management’s brave decision to present a programme of new work by three native choreographers, all of whom had an engaging idea to offer. Never mind that total success wasn’t the result.
For Passion, James Kudelka builds on Beethoven’s piano transcription of the first movement of his Violin Concerto. It’s an oddity of a score, swollen by repetitions that oblige Kudelka to over-extend his promising concept. This consists of a mismatch between a posse in tights and tutus responding to the music through conventional balletic classicism – all symmetries, parades and poses – and a couple in vaguely contemporary clothing who seem alienated and anxious about each other, looking for a way into or out of a relationship. Both parties seem oblivious of each other, and there’s no obvious resolution or pay off, though the modernists are left alone to dance out Beethoven’s extended cadenza. If only Kudelka had ratcheted up the contrast between styles of movement, but there’s not enough tension or development on offer to make it forceful and it all merely peters out.
Emma Portner’s islands squeezes Heather Ogden and Genevieve Penn Nabity into a giant pair of elasticated trousers, inside which they move like conjoined twins, their writhings and wrigglings comic rather than erotic. When they finally divest themselves of this cocoon, they yearn to be reunited and can’t let each other go.
A gentle allegory of us all, I suppose, in modest contrast to the more grandiose statement made by Crystal Pite’s Angels’ Atlas, an exercise in apocalyptic eco-mysticism. Against gushes of abstract video evoking volcanic smoke and torrential inundation in the manner of Bill Viola, a mass of dancers, moving in inexorable swarms, rage against the dying of the light as if imploring harsh gods for mercy on a beleaguered planet. Tableaux of pietà are enacted; humanity confronts its nemesis.
There’s magnificence here, and a breadth of vision to complement Pite’s boldly sculptural vocabulary. But it’s also a bit vaporous in its generalised imagery and mournful musical soundtrack, similar to but less focused than the Flight Pattern that she created for the Royal Ballet. I can’t help ultimately preferring the subtler shades and ironies that colour Pite’s brilliantly original work for Kidd Pivot.
Comments