Ballet-hoo

There’s something I forgot in my cynical old grumblings about Ballet proper like. How Nutcrackers and Romeos are dull and dated, conservative and elitist (well, it may still well be the latTer two). It’s the magic, see. I spent the afternoon watching the More4 back to back repeats of “Ballet changed my life: Ballet-Hoo“. The youth project “Youth at Risk” teamed up with the Birmingham Royal Ballet to provide a once in a lifetime opportunity to difficult and disadvataged kids in the West Midlands; to train to appear in a special performance of Romeo and Juliet alongside the Company’s professional dancers on stage at the Birmingham Hippodrome. The underlying aim of the project: to see if Ballet could change these kids lives.

One of the older white male teenagers, baseball cap, pasty looking, pierced and previously surly, came out of his first professional ballet performance to say, incredulously, “I was rooted to my seat”. Even came out with a stiff neck from not wanting to move in case he blocked anyone else’s view and missed something himself. The magic. Proper good ballet, that. Creating a world through incredible movement, mime, music and storytelling. It really can be something else.

This is an great series and an inspirational project which you can find out more about here.

Swan Lake: the one with boys

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake
New Adventures
Sadlers Wells, 21 December 2006

Swanage

This is fun. Great visually (colourful sets, costumes etc), comedy and tragedy in near equal measure, knowing and relevant with sprinklings of satire and spoof. A cracking Christmas production that left me with a threat of a tear in the eye and a whooping audience. This is a long post so scroll through to sections if you can’t be arsed with it all. Hear this though, Swan Lake is on at Sadlers Wells until 21 January so go see it if you can. It’ll warm the cockles and make you forget your New Year gloom. Until he dies at the end, that is. Ooops! Spoiler alert!

What you need to know

Swan Lake is the ballet you’ve heard of even if you’ve never seen it or have any interest whatsoever in dance. Swan Lake means tragic romantic love, tutus, good and evil magic and a lovers’ leap off a cliff at the end. One of the most technically demanding roles for a ballerina she must play both virginal swan maiden, Odette and evil temptress magician’s daughter Odile. The stuff that little girl’s dancing dreams are made of.

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake takes the original Tchaikovsky score, played live in all its orchestral glory, but decimates the old time story to create something relevant, hilarious and gorgeous as well as touchingly tragic too. It sits somewhere between ballet, modern dance, musical theatre and pantomime. What this means is that it’s excellently accessible and suitable for anyone. A particularly good introduction to dance, especially at Christmas.

The story

Single mum, the Queen, has unhappy Princeling to raise in his royal role. L’il Prince is bored rigid by his monotous duties smiling and waving and all attempts to elicit affection from mumsy are rebuked. Cue grown up Prince in much the same situation. Queenie’s Private Secretary introduces a giggly, vapid blonde to the Prince in a bid to cheer him up. She’s a hilarious gawky creation in a pink puffball making social gaffes left, right and centre and the Queen doesn’t hide her absolute disapproval. The Royals tootle off to a theatre performance with the Girlfriend in tow and a wickedly funny spoof of romantic ballet is performed on one side of the stage (mooning fairies, leiderhosen woodcutter and tree demons with bulging genitalia) with the Girlf’s gauche reactions and the Queen’s horrified reponses acted out from a theatre box on the other side.

Prince is depressed and hits the bottle. Queenie walks in on him, disgusted and is then subjected to a fabulously erotic assault upon her by her son, desperate for her love. Gosh.

Getting nowhere he escapes the castle and goes to an excellently seedy nightclub where Tchaikovsky’s rousing music becomes disco dancing, lasciviousness and drunkeness. The character acting is very funny from the stumbling tweedy old lady to the terribly bored Burlesque dancers. The Prince flails around and ends up beaten up on the streets, snapped by the Paparazzi. The Girlfriend is paid off by the Private Secretary to disappear. Prince is suicidal.

Returning to the castle he psychs himself up to chuck himself in the wintry lake when…… a flock of swans descends and transports him with their feral proud beauty and freedom.

A digression

The swans are male. This is a good thing. It’s rare to see male dancers get such beautiful, bestial, athletic yet delicate choreography to work with, especially in a group, and it’s great to see the swan maiden ideal turned on it’s neck with half nekkid males in feathery pants and white paint. Especially good if you’re in the third row with prime view. The men are great and as they dance with the Prince, first attacking and repelling him and then allowing the main swan to accept him and dance ‘a deux’ with him. You see the Prince gaining in confidence and revelling in the freedom suddenly shown him. But it’s impossible not to read a homosexual awakening into it too, although none of the official publicity material will endorse such a reading. Funny, really, when, rightly or wrongly, ballet dancing is so famously associated with homosexuality in men. Consider, it could have been a mixed sex cast of wild swans – no reason why women can’t do this kind of dancing to get across the repression/freedom theme. But, anyway, these swans are great and it gets better…

Plot continued, second half

Post swan revelation a ball is the offing at the Palace to find the Prince a wife. This is Queenie’s ball. It’s dark and sensuous and she looks incredible in a red pouffy evening gown. All sorts of sleazy European royals turn up (as well as the hopeful Girlfriend tart with a heart) and there’s the whole red carpet, Paparazzi and anorak fans at the front door. Queenie flirts with everyone and as all get drunken there’s sexy groping and seduction all over the shop. Prince is subdued and finds it rather distateful. Then a dark stranger enters bearing a striking similarity to the swan man except he’s wearing black, leather trousers and is a right slut. He charms and sleazes over everyone in a fantastically dishy way even wooing the Queen and sexily licking her arm. Prince goes bonkers, brandishes a pistol and ends up getting his silly Girlfriend shot.

Here it gets messy. Prince is sedated in a sinister sectioning moment. He descends into a fantasy world as the swans invade his bedroom and dance an aggresive, nightmarish scene ending with the main swan being pecked to death for defending the Prince.

Morning comes. Queenie finds Princeling dead in bed. Too late she grasps him in her mother’s arms. The white swan appears at the window cradling the Prince. Dramatic fin.

What I think

It’s beyond criticism really. This is popular entertainment done well. The only problem I have with the show is that the role of Prince is a difficult to pull off. He’s a tragic victim, repressed and desperate; a really unfortunate character who never catches a break. The true star is the Queen, danced this night by Saranne Curtin. She was brilliant. A fine actress and character dancer she did the swing from haughty to sexy with the arch of an eyebrow and a coquettish look. Stunning, too, in the gorgeous dresses. Just brilliant. Ah, fuck it. Just enjoy it.

Take: absolutely anyone really. Kids, grandparents, annoying aunties, football fans, vicars, luvvies, train drivers, anyone. Except, possibly, purist balletomanes who can get a bit upset by this kind of ‘dumbing down’ or subversion. The sillies.

Links to reviews on Londondance.com 

The trouble with ballet

Brought up here. I couldn’t agree more.

Swans tomorrow, though!

New Year’s Resolution!

Spangle fatigue

As the silly season of fake snow, eyeshadow with glitter in it and puff ball skirts passes me by there’s the usual slew of sickly sweet Nutcrackers, pantos and all things unchallenging filling the dance venues. The notable exception is Matthew Bourne’s “Swan Lake” at Sadlers Wells which packs out theatres with its promise of an alternative to the classic tragedy: the swans are (fit) male dancers in feathery pants rather than tiny ladies in tutus. Although, apparently, it isn’t a gay thing. Oh no. Anyway, more of that anon as I’ll be there on 21 December gawping from the third row. Those swans deserve close attention.

Take a chance on the new

January brings something fresher, more random and potentially interesting, if not – at times – downright dreadful. Resolution! is a season of 114 new short dance works hosted by The Place. “First Footing” is open to all who have completed full-time dance training, and are presenting work in Resolution! for the first time, “Evolution” is selected from those who have appeared in the season before and Aerowaves is for works produced elsewhere in Europe. The only criteria apart from that seems to be the willingness to take a financial risk (performers rent the theatre and share the income from ticket sales – hence the auditorium is often packed out with friends and family who leave the show en masse at each interval leaving the final performers rather lonely) and put together a piece of dance. The chance to be critically reviewed on an internationally respected contemporary dance platform is not to be sniffed at for emerging dance companies. The writers programme “Resolution! Review” partners a group of new writers, via a competitive process, with professional critics. The review team review all performances of Resolution! and the reviews are posted online. I did it and it’s great.

So, why should you get tickets for Resolution!?

1) If you book 7 days in advance tickets are just a fiver. That’s cheapo, cheapo for a fresh, cultural experience in the strapped for cash post New Year depression. Impress your friends. Embrace the new!

2) Each night there’s a triple bill of new works. That’s three different things and statistically, it’s unlikely it will all be dire (although, it has happened). It is a lottery so my advice is to drink before the show and in each interval. The Place is a great, intimate and un-intimidating venue with a friendly bar easily accessible between Euston & Kings Cross. Go with an open-mind and don’t take it too seriously.

3) There’s every chance you’ll find a gem. And if not, you might laugh so hard deconstructing it in the interval that you’ll feel just as good. Just remember though, the audiences will be full of friends & family so be careful where you vent your spleen.

Go forth, be brave, good luck!

Resolution runs for 6 weeks, 5 Jan to 17 Feb. Book tickets at www.theplace.org.uk