Category Archives: Dance

Review – Richard Alston Dance Company, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 4th October 2016

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If it’s October, it must be Richard Alston! This marks the (wait for it) 14th time we’ve seen them tour, the first being back in 1998. When you follow a company like this over the years, you get the privilege of seeing the tentative first steps of the new recruits; how the best of them blossom into world class dancers; then the slightly older years, when their influence is more in their presence and experience than in their athleticism; with finally a move maybe into choreography or another part of the business. It’s like watching the new generations of an ever-developing family. Every time we see them it’s like a coming home party.

For the first night in Northampton, we had one very new, one quite new, one newly revised and one not-new-but-still-fresh dance making up the programme. The first piece was the only one we’d seen before, Rejoice in the Lamb, which the company brought here in 2014. It’s the strangely wacky story of the 18th century poet Christopher Smart, who had a tendency towards religious persecution mania, would accost strangers in the street into praying with him, was later confined to an asylum, and was taken seriously only by his cat Jeoffry. Britten’s music accentuates the religious and devotional aspects; Alston’s choreography is elegant and crisp and not without its comic highlights. There are several sequences when you forget to try to interpret what you see, but just get carried away by its beauty and flow. Just as when we saw it two years ago, there’s a truly authoritative central performance by Nicholas Bodych as the misguided poet. The company is just back from having performed this in New York and I think maybe its having experienced the metropolitan madness gave it just a little extra zing this time around. A beguiling start to the evening.

After a pause we had the brief but high impact Isthmus Remix, Richard Alston’s revision of a duet he made in 2013. Clad in multi-coloured tabards, giving the impression perhaps of being on rival school sports teams, the dancers move to the spiky rhythms of Jo Kondo’s Isthmus, weaving in and out of relationships with each other in a state of borderline aggression. The dancers’ arms are outstretched above and to the side to occupy the biggest space possible around their bodies, which for me created a sense of a classical position gone slightly skew-whiff. It’s a truly ensemble piece and it looked stunning.

Our next piece was as new as it’s possible to be without being a premiere – Martin Lawrance’s Tangent receiving only its second public performance. It’s inspired – at a distance – by the Argentine Tango but there’s nothing Strictly about this routine. The piano arrangement, played to tremendous effect by Jason Ridgway, lends a huge amount of elegance and refinement to the depiction of four couples’ relationships as seen through different seasons of the year. What I really loved here was the balance between power and control in both the actual physical dancing and also in the interactions between the individuals. Oihana Vesga Bujan and Liam Riddick in particular formed an astonishing partnership for their own duet and Nancy Nerantzi was simply stunning throughout. It was breathtaking to see how the dancers occupied the entire space of the Derngate stage for the Spring finale; how can anyone cover that much distance with such apparent ease? That, gentle reader, is why they are the dancers and I’m not. Also a word of appreciation for Jeffrey Rogador’s fantastic costumes; the colours of the dresses were just amazing – in particular Miss Nerantzi’s wow-factor Tequila Sunrise outfit; the hard-edged black semi-robotic costumes of the men made a brilliant contrast. For me that was the dance of the night.

The programme concluded with Richard Alston’s An Italian in Madrid, a two-act mini-masterpiece that tells the side by side story of Domenico Scarlatti’s tutelage of the young Princess Maria Barbara, who takes him to Spain, where he creates his sonatas with an Andalusian influence; and her encounter with Prince Ferdinand of the Asturias who seeks her hand in marriage under the distant eye and musical watch of the composer. It’s an absolutely beautiful dance simply to watch and admire, with effective, clear story-telling through the choreography, superbly atmospheric Baroque music and costume (I loved the accordion arrangements) and the chance for a few stand-out performers to give some crowd-pleasing solos. For this piece, the company has been joined by BBC Young Dancerfinalist from 2015, Vidya Patel. She is an expert in the art of Kathak, and her contributions to the piece so beautifully blend that traditional Indian style with western contemporary dance, giving her character in this piece a thoroughly exotic edge. She has outstanding stage presence, performs her solos for the Prince with verve and grace and is one of those dancers you can’t take your eyes off! So there would be no one more technically spot-on than Liam Riddick to dance the role of the Prince, with his fantastic show-off skills and thrills, to impress the Princess. It goes without saying that both their solos received rapturously appreciative applause. Exquisitely beautiful, tremendous artistry; we loved it.

The company has one more night in Northampton (tonight – 5th October, the town loves having you!) then the tour continues to Brighton, Snape Maltings, Glasgow, Dartford and Woking. The company are always a complete pleasure to watch and my admiration for their athleticism and grace knows no bounds. Top quality contemporary dance in a nutshell.

The Edinburgh Fringe One-Weeker 2016 – Flesh, 25th August 2016

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Back to the world of dance, and Flesh, performed by Ugne and Poliana, at Studio 1 @ Dance Base, Grassmarket, at 16:00 on Thursday 25th. Here’s the blurb: “Without name, without identity – the body in its physical, sensual nature. Dreamlike, surreal animal shapes appear and vanish, merge and separate. Familiar and unknown images discovered in flesh. In movement, the body is reclaimed and flesh becomes a place of struggle and reconciliation between human nature and animal instinct. Flesh is a duet of volatile and fleeting realities that seduces and mesmerizes.”

Ugne and Poliana’s website is all in Spanish, and the description of the dance is one of those rather ethereal, abstract and ambiguous affairs which means it could be about anything. Check back around 5pm to see if we understood it and by then the preview blog for our next show should be available to read too.

Post-show update:

For us both this was definitely a show of two halves – or maybe three thirds. The first sequence reveals all the contours of Poliana’s and Ugne’s bodies in unusual, muscular contortions, and although it contained very little movement, was really fascinating to observe. And indeed the final sequence showed the two dancers in other unexpected positions, where they seemed conjoined, creating an almost sub- or ultra-human appearance. However the central sequence, that involved the two hurling each other around the stage felt both very repetitive and lacking in charm or artistry. So all in all we enjoyed it, but I would have hoped for something more telling from its narrative.

The Edinburgh Fringe One-Weeker 2016 – Brain Matter(s), 23rd August 2016

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This is another production that comes under the heading of “Dance, Physical Theatre and Circus”. It’s Brain Matter(s), at Venue 13, Lochend Close, at 18:40 on Tuesday 23rd. Here’s the blurb: “For all of those who have ever questioned: what on earth are they thinking? Watch as the two halves of the brain find their way through the confusion of life and look to answer some big questions along the way. Can we ever really avoid becoming our parents? How do we feel faced with our mortality? And why can we remember the words to a song we heard twice when we were 18, but not where we put our house keys five minutes ago?”

If only we knew the answers to all that! It’s a tall order to get all that sorted in an hour show, so I’ll be interested to see what Fen’harel Theatre make of it all. Check back about 8pm to see if it made sense or all went over our heads and by then the preview blog for our next show should be available to read too.

Post-show update:

A highly inventive dance drama with two dancers, each representing one half of the brain, as their “person” goes through all the stages of life. Quirky soundtrack, great moves and loads of humour create a really satisfying and revealing account of a life. I loved the fact that the male half was emotional and the female was factual – how very much like true life. Great stuff!

The Edinburgh Fringe One-Weeker 2016 – M.I.S. – All Night Long, 21st August 2016

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For our first foray into the world of Dance, Physical Theatre and Circus this Fringe, our next show is M.I.S. – All Night Long, produced by the Danish Physical Theatre company, Don Gnu, at Dance Base, Grassmarket, at 13:00 on Sunday 21st. This is how it’s described on the website: “DON GNU are decked out in hand-knit socks and worn-out sandals and on the hunt for that dang thing called self. In a hard-boiled mix of jackass stunts, slapstick comedy and raw physicality, three men start their hunt. Outside their comfort zone and coming to grips with their inner beast, the Latino lover, the pushover, the best buddy and others enter a quiet battle for man’s right to be himself. A backdrop of absurd film projections and live club music set the scene for the characters’ physical endeavours – all night long!”

The “M.I.S.” part of the name stands for “Men in Sandals” and this apparently is the third part of a trilogy – and we haven’t seen the first two parts, so I hope that won’t matter! I’m expecting a lot of comic/physical theatre about what it is “to be a man”. Check back around 2.15 to find out if I discovered anything that I didn’t already know! By then the preview blog for our next show should be available to read too.

Post-show update:

That was absolutely great! An hour of constant surprises, performed with huge expertise and accuracy, terrific character, mutual challenges and loads of fun. It starts before it starts and it ends after it ends, if that makes sense. And yes, it did tell me more about what it’s like to be a man, with the macho rivalries, petty one-up-manships, gang mentality and a hundred things you can do with a plank. On our performance, there was a problem with the music – it failed halfway through – and the guys dealt with it immaculately. Highly recommended and very very funny.

Review – Jekyll and Hyde, The McOnie Company, Old Vic, 28th May 2016

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The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has come a long way since its first appearance as Robert Louis Stevenson’s celebrated novella back in 1886. Several films, a musical, a play, TV series, even video games have all taken their inspiration from that original story about the decent everyman character who cannot control his evil side. Even if you haven’t read it – and I expect precious few of us have, I certainly haven’t – everyone knows the premise and everyone will have, at some time or other, have had reason to refer to someone as “a bit Jekyll and Hyde”.

It’s excellent news for dance lovers that the Old Vic have decided to bring dance back to their regular drama seasons in their beautiful traditional theatre. And I can think of no choreographer better than Drew McOnie to bring a big, punchy story-based dance to the London Stage. He’s the next generation’s Sir Matthew Bourne. One of the reasons why I wasn’t wowed on the recent touring production of Chicago was that it lacked Mr McOnie’s choreographic deftness that we had seen in hisLeicester version of the show. He can bring magic to an old favourite, such as Oklahoma, or create something completely original like Drunk. I’m still to see In The Heights, I expect that will be amazing too. So when I realised that he was creating a dance version of Jekyll and Hyde I knew it was a Must See.

And, boy, was I right. It’s an immense production. The set is extraordinary, the costumes are evocative, and the lighting is sensational, with some of the best use of strobe you’ll see in ages. There’s an intricate array of props that really provide detail to the scenes, like all the stock in Jekyll’s flower shop or all the potions and chemicals in his laboratory. Grant Olding’s soaring score is passionate and evocative, combining dozens of different rhythms and moods, perfect for accompanying the range of scenes from high comedy, through Hollywood glamour to Grand Guignol. The overall effect is an assault on the senses and the feeling that you are watching something on a huge scale. It was that marvellous sense of being delightfully overwhelmed.

The show has some really big dramatic moments and the combination of top choreography and exciting music means that they work incredibly well. The first time that Jekyll turns into Hyde really spooks you. Jekyll nips into the shower and you think this might become a slightly saucy comedy moment, but as his jaunty cheery music gets gradually taken over by Hyde’s serious heavy metal, you realise that the man also has been taken over, but by someone with evil on their mind. It’s a brilliant idea to have two dancers play the roles, rather than have one try to encapsulate both sides of the character; the visible difference between the two dancers makes the differences between the two characters much stronger. All the murders that Hyde commits are really powerful dance/drama moments; chillingly executed (literally) by both Hyde and the production. And there’s a very effective nod to the aforementioned Sir Matthew Bourne in the final scene, where all the characters crawl out of the woodwork at Jekyll’s lab (just like the swans do from the headboard in Swan Lake).

But the stand-out aspect of the piece for me was its extraordinarily clear storytelling. Dance can beguile you with its mystery, its deliberate ambiguity, and with just a suggestion of narrative leaving you to fill in the gaps. That’s fine – I really enjoy that challenge. But with Jekyll and Hyde Mr McOnie has made the narrative as clear as daylight. And by that, I don’t mean it’s one-dimensional or “easy”; I mean that it’s a strong story with rewarding plot development that unfolds naturally and for the benefit and entertainment of the audience. This also helps you to identify with the characters – to will them on, to empathise with them, to keep your fingers crossed that they will survive unscathed – even though you know this is a forlorn hope. You couldn’t fail to identify with the character of Jekyll, as his emotions are all laid bare by Mr McOnie’s dramatic choreography.

But that’s only part of Jekyll’s magic. I’d seen Danny Collins in Drunk, and Show Boat, and thought he was a great dancer. However, this role has taken him to a new level. Within literally seconds of the show starting I knew that he was going to make a truly stunning impact. I can’t dance but I would have thought it was an extraordinarily demanding role. His athleticism combined with his characterisation is superb. He dances in love, he dances in fear; he dances with cheeky humour, he dances facing intimidation and threat; he dances facing death and destruction. For me it was one of the finest dance performances I’ve ever seen.

Tim Hodges is perfect for the other side of his character, the malevolent and selfish Mr Hyde. He really conveys the delight with which Hyde goes on his sprees, and whenever Mr Collins goes out and Mr Hodges reappears you get a real frisson of horror. The swap-round moments where Jekyll becomes Hyde are brilliantly realised all the way through; and I also really loved Mr Hodges’ interactions with Ebony Molina’s incredibly expressive Ivy, including his dramatic launch on the bed from way on high!

I particularly enjoyed the performance of Alexzandra Sarmiento as Daisy, who has a fantastic I’m happy to be dancing in a flower shop solo, full of genuine joy and optimism, which makes the character’s ultimate demise even more affecting. After Hyde has run riot, Miss Sarmiento is extraordinarily good at playing dead! Anabel Kutay, as always, delivers both comic and serious with her inimitable sensual style, Rachel Muldoon conveyed all Dahlia’s growing affection for Jekyll with great sincerity and class, and Jason Winter was a terrifically bullying Charlie (whose come-uppance was fantastically dramatic). But the whole cast are amazing and give such strong, committed performances so that there’s never a down moment or a misplaced foot.

I’ll be honest – I thought the constant scene changes, though accurately and seamlessly achieved, slightly got in the way of the dancing, sometimes creating an unwanted interruption to the action, rather than enhancing the performance. But this is a comparatively minor quibble. The show had such a brief run at the Old Vic for this superb production – surely it deserves a life somewhere after this? If you were lucky enough to see it, cherish those memories! If you didn’t see it – you definitely should be kicking yourselves!

Review – Nederlands Dans Theater 2, Birmingham Hippodrome, 3rd May 2016

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This was one of those no-brainer bookings. We haven’t seen NDT2 perform since 2007, having discovered them in 1997 and seen them seven times over the following decade. You could call them the youth faction of the Dutch National Dance Company, its performers being strictly limited to those aged between 18 and 23. After that they get promoted to the Premiership level of NDT1. And for those aged over 40, there’s an NDT3 too. Over the years we’ve seen them rise to the challenges of fantastic choreographers such as Jiri Kylian, Hans van Manen, Lightfoot Leon, Johan Inger, Ohad Naharin, and many others.

Paul Lightfoot, currently Artistic Director of Nederlands Dans Theater, is quoted in the programme as saying “we don’t do strong narrative works”. I read that in the first interval, having tried desperately hard to find a narrative in the first dance of the evening, Johan Inger’s I New Then. It was with some relief that I realised that Paul Lightfoot had already tacitly agreed with me that there wasn’t one. What was clear from the very start was that the quality of NDT2’s dancers is as amazing as it ever has been. Whether in the solos, or partner work, or as part of a full ensemble, the precision, the commitment, the athleticism and the sheer exuberance of each dancer is remarkable.

In an attempt to find the narrative (that wasn’t there), it seems to me that the strength of I New Then comes from the dualities of freedom of expression versus imprisonment, of control versus submission. Expect the unexpected with this dance; whether it be the sudden appearance of a forest of poles that you didn’t realise were there; or the slow undressing by two of the dancers (don’t worry, they don’t go all the way); or the abstract vocalising by one of the dancers as he witnesses this undressing, which takes on a life force of its own. Mrs Chrisparkle wasn’t convinced by this series of ohs that culminate in a shrieking sequence. Not that Guido Dutilh didn’t do it brilliantly (there’s a star in the making, for sure) or that the audience didn’t appreciate it – indeed many audience members were laughing their socks off. She just wasn’t sure of its relevance to the piece, other than simply finding a new way to do something different in the world of dance. But then she’s never been convinced of avant garde for avant garde’s sake. I understand where she’s coming from though – that aspect of that dance was perhaps a trifle tedious.

Our second dance of the night was Edward Clug’s mutual comfort (deliberately no capitals, apparently). Again, no point looking for a narrative; this dance for four people is characterised by a fascinating choreography that combines sparky, disjointed, and almost brutal actions with really smooth and silky moves. This was the first appearance that evening of the dancer Gregory Lau who struck me as being the company’s truly outstanding dancer of the night. But I also thought Katarina van den Wouwer danced superbly in this deceptively simple short piece – just eleven minutes. After a pause we were treated to a stunning performance of Hans van Manen’s Solo, where three dancers (ironically) all perform aspects of one character. It was an exceptional display, with Benjamin Behrends, Miguel Duarte and Gregory Lau all giving us immaculate spins, remarkable fluidity of movement and a true opportunity to show off their athleticism and power. Even though it’s only seven minutes long, afterwards Mrs C commented, “that was worth the ticket price alone”. It certainly was. A real tour de force.

The final dance of the night, occupying the traditional “crowd-pleaser” slot, was Alexander Ekman’s Cacti, a very tongue-in-cheek piece that deconstructs beautifully all that pompous pontificating by dance reviewers. Instantly full of high impact, as it starts with all sixteen dancers on the stage, perched on what appear to be recycled packing pallets, making as much noise as they like by tapping, patting, thumping and stomping around, not forgetting making all those gasps, sighs and other aspirations that us unfit people make when we’re overdoing the exercise. In other scenes these pallets are upended, with the dancers performing behind and partly on top of them, as if they were swimmers in a pallet sea, constantly creating visual jokes that work wonderfully well.

Interspersed with the exhilarating rhythms that really encourage the athletic dancing, there are some wonderfully po-faced spoken word tracks that try to dissect and make sense of the dance, always in the most riotously pompous way. At one stage, the opinion is voiced that the true power of the dance stems from the cacti themselves (yes there are real (or very good look alike) cacti as part of the performance. There’s another wonderful scene where you can hear an imaginary conversation between two dancers as they work their way through their routine, essentially providing a running commentary on what they’re doing, and whether they think any particular movement has intrinsic artistic merit. It’s all very funny and cleverly done. And who can forget the dead cat?

We didn’t stay for the Q&A session afterwards as we had a train to catch and it seemed very naughty being at large in Birmingham after 10pm on a school night. Thank you to Dance Consortium for bringing NDT2 back to our shores; we have missed them very much and it’s a thrill to see that they are as exciting and rewarding a watch as ever. They’re still to tour to Plymouth, Nottingham, Brighton and Sadler’s Wells – don’t miss the opportunity to catch them.

Review – The Last Tango, Derngate, Northampton, 21st March 2016

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The last time we saw Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace, in Midnight Tango, the show reminded us so strongly of our (then) recent visit to Argentina, as it was full of drama and excitement, edgy sensuality, dynamic rhythms, and powerful storylines told through the medium of dance. When you walk the streets of Buenos Aires, Tango can just emerge on a street-corner; a young couple will commandeer an area of pavement, place a ghetto blaster on the floor, turn it on and suddenly busk the most extraordinarily passionate dancing for the hope of earning some passing pesos. How much more thrilling than in the UK where it’s probably an old bloke with a penny whistle and a cap. Mrs Chrisparkle and I adored Midnight Tango; in its own way it was as exciting as the best contemporary dance or classical ballet.

We missed Vincent and Flavia’s next show, Dance ‘til Dawn, but thought we should catch The Last Tango as, indeed, it is meant to be their Last Tango. After this show they have resolved to hang up their stage dance shoes for ever – maybe to move into the world of film, as Vincent suggests in the programme. In their programme interview, they point out that they have always wanted to give each of their shows a very different theme and atmosphere. They didn’t want to bore their audiences by churning out the same old thing every time. A laudable aim. The very romantic story thread for this show is an older guy sitting in his attic, sorting through old stuff, some of which he can keep, some of which he can’t. As he finds old items, toys, clothes, papers, they remind him of his younger days, and as he daydreams, the cast dance out his memories. Vincent plays the man in his younger days – a very knowing greeting to each other through a full length mirror makes that clear – and Flavia his lady; and you can tell from the very start that the absence of an older lady also rummaging through the attic means this isn’t going to end happily for her.

The dance sequences take you through the life of the younger couple – from meeting, and early dates, through marriage and his being called up in the army (for World War II you sense, although the time sequence is muddy, more of which later); his return, their settling down in a house and having a family, a 40th birthday party and so on. And if you’re waiting for this last tango; it comes right at the end after the initial curtain call.

There’s a lot of good about this show but a few frustrations too. It looks great. It’s an intriguing and versatile set; Vicky Gill’s costumes are terrific (Flavia in particular looks absolutely stunning the whole night long), and Steve Geere’s orchestra, nestling in the pit in front of the stage in the most traditional manner, are on brilliant form, giving us fantastic renditions of thirty, mainly familiar, songs. Matthew Gent and Rebecca Lisewski sing with passion and style – I particularly liked the way Beyond The Sea segued into Moondance, very classy – and the ensemble work wonderfully well together, filling the stage with lively and entertaining dance sequences. You’ve also got the marvellous Mr Teddy Kempner. I always feel happy when I open a programme to discover Mr Kempner’s in the cast. I first saw him back in 1984 in Snoopy the Musical and I feel like he and I have grown up together through the years. He’s playing the older guy, pootling around his attic, making wry comments about jackets that don’t fit anymore and doing a great line in vocalising surprise discoveries.

Which brings us to Mr Simone and Ms Cacace themselves, who, of course, are still sensational. They can turn their hand (feet?) to any style you choose, and in this show we get the full range of ballroom and Latin dances, not just the Tango/Argentine Tango. I found the scene just before the interval, where the young man receives his calling-up papers (I loved the idea of using the papers as an interface between foot and floor) very moving, not only because of the beautiful dance itself but also the expressions of the dancers: Vincent in abject dismay and Flavia in almost uncontrollable weeping. Mrs C was not so moved by this: “well you know he’s going to come back alright; you can see him up there in the attic”. True enough. Another really enjoyable routine was the jive to (not inappropriately) Jump Jive an’ Wail, which earned one of the best receptions of the night.

It was a shame that they didn’t sequence the dances more in keeping with the progress of the years, which would have been helpful for understanding the timeline of the story. When the couple take delivery of their incredibly old-fashioned sofa and chair, bedecked with ancient anti-Macassars, I recognised them from my Great Aunt’s home circa 1966 – and they were old then. A little Rock’n’Roll dancing, maybe, wouldn’t have gone amiss at that point to pin the era down. That said, I really did love the rumba that Vincent and Flavia danced near the end, as if she were beyond the grave, and that last, last tango was incredible. And on reflection, that was also part of the frustration. It was such a perfectly executed, intricate, stirring dance, the type that makes you gasp in awe and wonderment; and we couldn’t help but think it would have been great to have seen more of it earlier in the show. Yes, there were other Argentine Tango routines, but none of them half as exciting as that final dance. They certainly saved the best till last.

It’s a very attractive show, and there’s barely a moment without some enjoyable dancing to watch. But for us it lacked just a little of the bite – and certainly the humour – of Midnight Tango. Just a little more vanilla than we would have preferred. But it’s all a question of taste. The audience loved it, and why not? The tour continues through to July. This might be your last chance of seeing Vincent and Flavia live!

Review – Rambert Dance Company Spring Tour, Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury, 11th February 2016

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It’s been a couple of years since we’ve caught the Rambert team doing their thing so I thought their Spring Tour would be a perfect opportunity to catch up. Killing two birds with one stone, we also finally got round to visiting the new Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury – I say new, but it actually opened back in 2010. No excuse really, as I normally go to Aylesbury twice a week to see how the Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle is getting on. Verdict? On the plus side, the seats are very comfortable, the sightlines are good from the stalls, parking is easy, and it had a busy and good-natured vibe. On the down side, it’s a bit municipal, and not remotely intimate; there would be plenty of smaller shows that would be absolutely lost in that environment. And the décor inside is….shall we say….individual.

Enough of that, let’s talk about Rambert. Their Spring Tour features seven modern dances, none of them premiered before September 2014, which certainly shows that as a breeding ground for new work it’s doing amazingly well. Our programme showcased three of them, each by a different choreographer, and each with live music – which was played with pizazz and gave an extra dimension of exhilaration to the performances.

First up was The 3 Dancers, choreographed by Didy Veldman. Mrs Chrisparkle and I always used to watch out for her work when we first started seeing a lot of dance about 25 years ago – yikes, where have the years gone! And it’s a pleasure to see she’s still creating great work. The inspiration for this piece came from Picasso’s The Three Dancers, but she also drew on other aspects of his life when creating the content. The music is by Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin and reminded me of Philip Glass’s work for the film Koyaanisqatsi – slightly less menacing perhaps, but equally haunting.

Given that it’s called The 3 Dancers, I was amused by the subversion of having six dancers on stage – a group of three in white, shadowed by another three in black. As you transfer your gaze from one group to the other, prompted by the lighting cues, you see the other group finishing off the movement that the first group started, giving it a great sense of flow. Soon the two groups integrate and then break off to form different duets. I was very impressed by the strength and precision of the first duet by Miguel Altunaga and Stephen Quildan, and by the puppet/manipulator characterisation in the second duet by Liam Francis and Daniel Davidson. The choreography was exciting and engrossing to watch, with wide arm and leg gestures stretching out in sweeping rotations. At various points the dancers were joined on stage by what appear to be enormous shards of glass shooting down from the sky. One of them made a beeline for one of the dancers who escaped from its clutches by means of deft choreography. It’s not obvious how those shards relate to the picture; perhaps they represent piercing blows to Picasso’s heart as he reflects on the fates of his three friends portrayed in it. Still, it’s a very stirring and thought-provoking piece, with much pent-up power, and beautifully performed; and it was definitely my favourite of the three items on the programme.

The second dance was The Strange Charm of Mother Nature, choreographed by Rambert Artistic Director Mark Baldwin. It was inspired by a visit to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN – yes science and art can come together – and I believe the dancers represent the particles used in the collider. It’s set, first, to Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks and then Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 3; Stravinsky reconfigured Bach’s notes to create his piece, just as the collider takes the particles and subsequently bashes all hell out of them. So you could say that the dance and the music are two ways of expressing the same concept.

Visually it’s stunning, with the dancers wearing a sequence of full-length, multi-coloured bodysuits, and the choreography is athletic, frequently frantic, with the dancers performing both solo and in groups. Whilst it looked great and definitely showed off the dancers’ incredible skills, I nevertheless found it difficult to appreciate the vision of this piece – I couldn’t quite understand what it was all about, even though I had read the programme notes. Sometimes that doesn’t matter – but in this case I eventually decided that the whole didn’t quite add up to the sum of all its parts. I also found the change of music during the dance strangely disturbing. The Bach sounded to me like a musical non-sequitur after the Stravinsky – possibly because it always reminds me of the Trocks performing Go For Barocco, which I’m sure is not the kind of impression Mr Baldwin meant to give. Mrs C disagreed with me and found the whole dance exciting and satisfying throughout.

Our final piece was Transfigured Night, choreographed by Kim Brandstrup to Schoenberg’s Verklaerte Nacht. The inspiration for this work is a narrative poem by Richard Dehmel where a woman confesses to her lover that she is pregnant with another man’s child. Nevertheless, her lover forgives her, continues to love her and says he will love the child as his own. The dance is broken into three sections where you see three possible outcomes following a devastating disclosure. The first, concentrating on the fear of being abandoned as a result; the second, where everything is forgiven and forgotten; and the third, a compromise between the two, where despite the relationship being damaged, the lovers continue together as best they can. Or, as Mrs C succinctly put it: Relate, the ballet.

I really enjoyed the concept and the structure of this work, with the desperate couple dancing both together and apart, making clear those moments of support and abandonment, and with nameless hordes of others dancing in the background, doubtlessly spreading rumour or name-calling. Miguel Altunaga and Simone Damberg Würtz were particularly moving as the couple in scenarios 1 and 3, broken up by a less tragic form of choreography for scenario 2, danced by Liam Francis and Hannah Rudd. If I have a criticism it would be that, to me, there wasn’t that great a difference in atmosphere between the situations in scenarios 1 and 3, and dynamic and attractive though it was, by the end of the dance I felt it was a little repetitive. Mrs C had already decided that she’d had a long enough day and decided to snooze out the last half of this particular dance. Personally, I didn’t feel it was snoozeworthy; but I did get her point. I think maybe it would have been better if Transfigured Night and The Strange Charm of Mother Nature had been reversed – you would then have had the slightly more challenging dance in the middle of the evening and the more traditionally crowd-pleasing at the end. But, hey, what do I know?

Rambert’s Spring Tour continues to Aberdeen, Mold and Brighton until March. Innovative, musically rewarding, technically strong, at times challenging – everything contemporary dance should be.

Review – Sleeping Beauty, The Australian Ballet, Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House, 16th December 2015

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It was fifteen years ago that Mrs Chrisparkle and I last went to the Sydney Opera House. We were in Australia to celebrate the marriage of her brother, Lord Leumeah, to the Countess of Camden. One evening, whilst they were enjoying their nuptials, we snuck off to the Opera House and saw the Australian Ballet perform The Merry Widow, and damn fine they were too. Fifteen years on, we found ourselves once again in a land down under, and, joined by my Lord and the Countess, now accompanied by their daughter and heir, the little Marchioness of Minto, we took the opportunity to return to the stunning setting of the Opera House – this time to see the Australian Ballet take on Tchaikovsky’s 1890 hit, The Sleeping Beauty.

If you’ve been to the Opera House before, you know that one of the things you can do to make your evening extra special is book dinner in the Bennelong Restaurant, the fine-dining establishment that nestles at the front of the theatre, basically housed underneath the first nun in the scrum, if that’s how you characterise the building. The five of us enjoyed its pre-theatre sumptuousness, including a rather delectable McLaren Vale Somerled Shiraz, served in an elegant decanter. I had the carrot salad, roast lamb and the pine-lime, all of which tasted much more spectacular than they sound. They did however let themselves down by refusing to mix and match two items from the children’s menu onto the same plate. The Marchioness, like many a six-year-old, is quite a fussy eater. “The chef isn’t prepared to do it”, our waiter informed us. Pity. As a result, I wasn’t prepared to tip as generously as I normally would.

But what of the show? This is one of those grand productions that has been formulating in the back of someone’s head for decades. The someone in question is David McAllister, Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet, who’s worked with the company, man and boy, on and off since 1983. Somewhat extraordinarily, this is the first full length work that he has choreographed for the company – in combination with the traditions of Petipa, of course. In the programme he explains that if he had commissioned anyone else to choreograph it, he would have been constantly interrupting and seeking changes, so clear is his vision for exactly how this work should look. So he had no choice but to do it himself. The production started in Melbourne, moved on to Perth, and finally had a three-week sell-out residency at the Sydney Opera House, closing on 16th December, which, as luck would have it, was the date on which we saw it.

Considering Australia is an innovative, “new” country, it’s maybe a surprise, but you can’t get more traditional than the Australian Ballet. They employ every classical trick in the book to keep alive the old performance traditions of Russian ballet down under: elaborate curtain calls, gentlemanly hand-waving any time a prima ballerina comes within a five feet radius of an inactive member of the corps de ballet, prolonged sequences of mime whenever they need to expand on plot development (a frown and two crossing hands means “no”; pointedly tugging at your ring finger means “I want to marry your daughter/princess/swan/nymph”.

But they carry it off spectacularly well. A full, resonant orchestra rings out Tchaikovsky’s great tunes under the baton of Nicolette Fraillon (who at a distance looks alarmingly like Nicola Sturgeon). Simply magnificent sets and costumes by Gabriela Tylesova, where no extravagance is ever considered an extravagance too far, grace the stage. The set even gets its own round of applause at the beginning of Act Three.

And then there is the dancing, of course. For the most part, it’s exquisitely beautiful. In our performance, Princess Aurora was danced by Benedicte Bemet, a coryphée, and she’s certainly going places. It’s a demanding role and she danced with skill, grace and beauty throughout. Her Désiré was Kevin Jackson, one of the company’s Principal Artists, and he invested the role with great character and athleticism, really bringing the house down in his third act pas de deux. But for me the star of this show was Amber Scott, another Principal Artist, dancing the role of the Lilac Fairy. Elegance just radiates from her. I doubt she could open a tin of peas without doing it gorgeously. She’s just one of those dancers you just can’t take your eyes off. I was also really impressed with the pas de deux by Chengwu Guo and Ako Kondo as Bluebird and the Princess Florine. The five fairies who dominate the prologue were also danced with enormous grace and beauty. From my vantage point in the circle I couldn’t quite identify who was dancing which role – but I particularly liked the dancer in ice blue and the one in dark red. Another was dressed in flamingo pink and green, and when she whizzed around, she looked like a watermelon in the blender.

The Sleeping Beauty Waltz is, naturally, a highlight; danced, traditionally, with floral garlands, and I must say it was a stunning sight: beautiful control, sheer elegance. Our mean and nasty Carabosse was danced by Gillian Revie, a guest artist whom I remember from her appearances in the Royal Ballet in the 1990s. The dancers who surrounded her costumed as rats gave great support, but my only criticism of the dancing would be concerning some members of the corps de ballet. The girls were great, but some of the guys were rather heavy on the crash landings from time to time – I know, I’m very demanding. Watching the entire ballet, you realise that the drama comes to an end all too soon with the conclusion of Act Two;Act Three is just an excuse for celebratory dancing for Aurora’s Wedding. This gives the ballet as a whole a slightly unbalanced feel – and with two twenty-minute-plus intervals, the show stretches out to almost three hours, which is a lot for a six-year-old Marchioness to take, not to mention two British tourists suffering from jetlag. But it really was a stunningly beautiful production, and the Opera House audience went wild with appreciation.

As implied earlier, the wine selection at the Bennelong Restaurant is pretty damn amazing. Buoyed up with confidence, I ordered a couple of glasses of fizz for the second interval from the circle bar. Oh dear. Any memories of the lavish, elegant fruit notes that might have lingered from our dinnertime Shiraz were eradicated by that glass of paint stripper. Lord Leumeah had a glass of white. Grudgingly, he described it as adequate, by which I interpreted that it was far from adequate. How very odd that the Opera House puts its inestimable name and splendid reputation to such lousy house wines?

Review – Richard Alston Dance Company, Derngate, Northampton, 20th October 2015

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aving discovered the joys of live theatre at the age of seven, and opera at fifteen, I came to dance relatively late at the age of nineteen. None of my friends or family had the remotest interest in it. I had always admired the concept of it enormously, but for some erroneous reason thought that it was just something that wasn’t for me. I even remember enjoying contemporary dance (although certainly not classical ballet) on TV arts programmes as a younger teenager. But it wasn’t until I saw Ballet Rambert in 1982 performing Christopher Bruce’s Ghost Dances that I was hooked. That was when I realised – and I still believe this today – that Dance Done Well is the finest thing you can witness on a stage. It has the power to communicate most directly strong emotions whether it be with elegance and clarity or raw savagery. Dance Done Poorly on the other hand is one of the most woeful things you can witness on a stage. But that’s another matter, and you won’t find it here.

Looking back at that Rambert programme from 1982, another piece on the menu was Night Music, choreographed by a certain Richard Alston. Ignorant me didn’t know who he was at the time, and I have to confess I have no memory whatsoever of the dance. Nevertheless, I do remember his name cropping up very frequently over the years and it was in 1997 that Mrs Chrisparkle and I saw the Richard Alston Dance Company for the first time. By my estimate, the show we saw last night will have been our 15th time of seeing the company, not bad for what is actually their 21st season.

There was a pre-show talk, where Mr Alston spoke about the pieces and explained how they were created and what they are all about. However, as usual, we didn’t get to the theatre in time for that, so the considerations that follow in the paragraphs below about the individual dances come purely from my own reactions to what I saw on stage and what I have read in the programme and online. And if I get it wrong, sue me. (Please don’t.)

The programme started with Stronghold, a new work choreographed by Martin Lawrance, that only premiered last week at Brighton. It’s set to music by Julia Wolfe, scored to 8 double basses, and they make a thoroughly overwhelming sound; sometimes reassuring, but mainly harsh and disconcerting, with a growing sense of menace throughout. You can define Stronghold in many ways. The programme gives you some suggestions: “A fortress, a protected place, an area dominated by a particular group, a place of survival or refuge”. There’s also the play on words, with “strong hold”, which is certainly what the dancers have to do to each other, and the strong hold that a fine piece of dance can have over the hearts and minds of its audience.

I found the dance instantly captivating, showing off the athleticism of the dancers, full of high kicks and spins, constantly breaking off into subgroups and switching around the numbers and the partnerships. First one dancer will appear to take control of the group, then another, then patterns of other dancers will emerge, and it all combines in a kind of organised mayhem. You can see there are power strategies being played, changing relationships, dancers influencing each other on which move to make next. It’s all very fast and dynamic, and full of individual highlights. There is a very exciting moment, which only lasts about three seconds,when the five guys all suddenly appear at once, spinning constantly and symmetrically into the centre of the stage – that had tremendous visual impact. There was a particularly beautiful duet between Elly Braund and Nicholas Bodych where she just glides onto him and envelops him with some very sensual moves. There’s also some brilliant solo work from Ihsaan de Banya, whom I feel has developed into a world class dancer. He seems to have come to some sort of deal with Sir Isaac Newton in that when he leaps or is lifted in the air, he defies the law of gravity and seems to stay up there for ages – how does he do it? It’s a very rewarding and intensely intriguing dance.

After the first interval we saw Espresso Vivace – a world premiere no less; presumably so new that there isn’t a description of it in the programme. It’s a work for two dancers, choreographed by Richard Alston to two sonatas by Scarlatti – played, rather impishly, on the accordion; baroque by squeezebox, you might say. The arrangement gives it a delicate sense of fun which is perfectly reflected by the dancers, Jennifer Hayes and Ihsaan de Banya, both on fine form. It’s light, frothy and courtly; a little bit like a dance version of a very successful first date.

After the briefest of pauses – how quickly and silently they moved the piano into place – came Mazur, choreographed by Richard Alston and first performed in June. The Mazur of the title refers to the Polish mazurka music which accompanies it, composed by Chopin and played live on stage on the piano by Jason Ridgway. This is a really elegant and gentlemanly dance performed by Liam Riddick and Nicholas Bodych. In smart suit trousers and black velvet waistcoats,their dance suggests agreement between friends who share the same feelings about the Mazurkas and, by extension, the homeland to which they can no longer return. But by dancing side by side, and separately, and finally together, you sense there is a meeting of minds (and just possibly, bodies) in a very refined, emotionally reserved and stoic, but nevertheless expressive way. Mrs C described it as contemporary dance à la Downton Abbey. It’s a stunning piece, performed exquisitely by two of the country’s most accomplished dancers.

The final dance of the evening – the slot traditionally reserved for “crowd pleaser” – was Nomadic, first performed in January this year and choreographed by Richard Alston and Ajani Johnson-Goffe. The curtain rises to reveal four female dancers, ostensibly in their jim-jams ready for a sleepover, to the very rhythmic and vibrant sound of the Shukar Collective – it’s music that is very hard to define, but it really pulsates and is the kind of sound it’s impossible not to dance to. Nomadic is a piece into which the entire company throws themselves, as the music demands the need and desire for movement,whether that’s of the nomadic kind or simply a physical reaction to the beat. The music itself is, I think, a bit “Marmite” – I loved it, Mrs C found it slightly wearisome – but the mix of “classic” contemporary dance with hip-hop street choreography provides some really original and entertaining moves that I would guess both challenge and satisfy the dancers’ desire to create something exciting and new. I thought it was an astonishing piece, full of excitement, humour, drive and vigour, danced with tremendous commitment and I really didn’t want it to end.

The Richard Alston Dance Company remains one of the finest exponents of contemporary dance and this is a great programme that will lift your spirits, set your brain racing and fill you with admiration. After Northampton, they have five more dates touring in Autumn – at Edinburgh, Truro, Yeovil, Shrewsbury and Richmond. A must-see!