I meant to give an advance plug for the Australian Ballet’s Interplay triple bill, as is my wont, but it crept up on me and now I guess I’m writing a review. Of sorts.
First, I didn’t go to Interplay for the “feast of superfit flesh”. The Herald Sun review from which this unfortunate phrase is taken is not available online, but additional snippets here suggest a riff on a recently topical theme:
“If you’re missing Olympian feats performed by extraordinary, athletic bodies, this program from The Australian Ballet will put you out of your misery.…The dancers seem superhuman. Beyond human, perhaps.”
Perhaps in this context the Herald Sun’s reviewer could justify the phrase, but it’s not clear to me what possessed the AB to build a campaign around it.
Never mind, by the time I’d bought my ticket (which was after I’d read the pair of Melbourne reviews by Deborah Jones and Eamonn Kelly), I was motivated as much by the opportunity to hear the music: three new Australian works by three important composers.
An additional attraction was the overall spirit of the endeavour: “three world premieres with three brand-new scores harness the collaborative spirit of the Ballets Russes.” It’s a brilliant concept, another impressive part of the extended study, exploration and creativity of the long-term Ballets Russes project. I love the way this project is bringing together archives, scholarship and performance; I love the way it’s a substantial project, extending over several years with dedicated curators.
It’s been nice to see the AB revive or reinterpret the Fokine ballets, as they did in 2006 with the Les Sylphides, Le Spectre de la rose and Scheherazade triple bill. Or Massine’s, as in Les Présages etc. last year. Or the Stravinsky ballets, as will happen in 2009 with Petrushka and Graeme Murphy’s new Firebird, and Les Sylphides, again. [Have they gained access to Stravinsky’s two Chopin orchestrations? I live in hope, but fear they haven’t. Richard Taruskin reports that the Paris orchestrations for Les Sylphides have never been published and are not in current use. After Diaghilev’s death the performance materials passed into Serge Lifar’s possession and have been unavailable for public performance. PS: Since this post was written, they have become available.]
But what Interplay does is seek to revive Diaghilev’s vision rather than the creations themselves. That is, the idea of commissioning new music as well as new dance, and of close collaborations between creative partners. Not that either of these ideas is a novelty in the dance world, but it’s relatively rare to enjoy the luxury of new or nearly new musical works in addition to new choreographies and David McAllister says he thinks it’s the first time the AB has staged three new works with three new scores. Brownie points all round.Which is not to say that the evening was entirely satisfying all round.
Richard Mills’ amazing orchestrations (with trademark percussion) received the most elegant choreographic and design treatment in a beautiful abstract piece, Night Path, musing on solitude, perception and nature.
Ross Edwards’ score provided the most distinctive musical voice, fresh even as it offered another variation on his “dance-chant” language. What was frustrating here, given the collaborative goals of the Interplay commissions, was the way in which Edwards’ initial synopsis was not so much interpreted as diluted by the choreographer, Nicolo Fonte.
Edwards’ richly detailed synopsis for his piece (To the Green Island) is not quoted in full, but the description is sufficient to give an idea of its themes and, dare I say, narrative. Choreographers nowadays seem overly shy of tangible narrative, feeling a need to go all deep and psychological. In any case, Edwards’ journey from fragmented society, through longing, resolution and a symbolic water crossing to an “Australian Dionysian ritual” became in Fonte’s hands:
“…an abstract manifestation of our shared human longing for transformation – and the crucial mental journey that precedes any physical one. That journey takes place in our imaginative state: what I refer to in the title The Possibility Space.”
The result: Fonte does some really beautiful things choreographically, things that transcend the turquoise hospital scrubs and strange fluorescent-lighting set. But I suspect the piece might have been more convincing in its journey if he’d gone for the tangible. (Not a story, just tangible.) I love ballet, but “mental journeys” is not its strength. Pure abstraction in dance is a wonderful thing, but let’s not pretend that line, movement and space can carry the burden of philosophising.
In this respect the titles for the evening are telling: Fonte substituted (as is his right) The Possibility Space for the composer’s To the Green Island. Without even seeing the ballet you can tell that some fundamental element of the composer’s vision is going to go astray in the mix. By contrast, Richard Mills’ title Symphony of Nocturnes (formerly Night Poems in its original version for the TSO) became Stephen Baynes’s Night Path. Baynes has recognised and built on a core theme, and his piece is the stronger for it. But then Baynes is a choreographer who seems to experience a very direct inspiration from music and to be sensitive to its expression rather than wanting necessarily to impose his own.
The central work on the triple bill was the only one where music and dance shared a title, and it was also the only one with a story to tell: Semele. Here I think Gerard Brophy’s music did a slightly better job of things than the choreography (and Matjash Mrozewski confesses that he was trying something new for him, since he normally works in the abstract). The score was a wondrous delight of spot-the-influences, with some repeated quotations from Ravel’s Bolero theme resulting in what a friend described as Bolero crossed with the Dance of the Seven Veils. Gapped scales established the “ancient” otherworldly context of the Greek gods, while more lusciously French and Straussian ideas suggested the love between Jupiter and Semele.
But Mrozewski’s inexperience with narrative dance meant that key moments where some convincing mime was needed went lacking. According to the synopsis:
“Semele persuades Jupiter to grant her any wish. He agrees and she demands that he show himself to her in his true form. Though Jupiter begs her not to ask this of him, she persists.”
I’ve italicised those verbs for a reason. At no point in this scene did the choreography and body language suggest persuasion, demanding, begging or persistence. And these are not difficult things to convey through movement. Some things were right, though: Juno was truly Juno-esque and the clever representation of Jupiter’s devious two-timing as Juno paces en pointe across the back of the stage and then across the front worked very well. A shrugged shoulder and arm movement with linked hands that opened and closed the ballet seemed to capture perfectly the awkwardness of relations between a virile Jupiter and the jealous Juno. Just a subtle thing, but within the narrative it made a point. As a complete ballet, Semele was perhaps the closest to a success, despite some oddities such as the onstage industrial fan (encased in an overgrown sewing machine bobbin and making about as much noise) necessary for the dramatic climax, and one awful costuming decision. Deborah Jones is more frank about it; I’d just like to say that there are some garments that should never, ever be ruched.
Musically, I found the Edwards score most interesting, but all three scores revealed strong instincts about what works well for dance. Choreographically, I was especially drawn to Baynes’s work in Night Path. Now if Baynes had been paired with Edwards…
Links: Valerie Lawson speculates about the effect of the financial crash on bold (and expensive) projects a la Diaghilev. Farah Farouque witnesses the creative process in Semele.