Amour, Amor
Rameau / Fähndrich : Les liaisons dangereuses
Falla : El amor brujo
Artists of the Ballet du Capitole
(Pre-recorded soundtracks - no credits given)
The choreographer of the first item on tonight's double bill on the theme of love, Davide Bombana, was at one time a principal dancer with Scottish Ballet. Like many dancers as their performing careers begin to wind down, Bombana has turned to behind-the-stage activities - ballet master, company director and choreographer - and I was curious to see some of the fruits of this phase, no longer new for him, but quite new to me. This medium-length balletic interpretation of Choderlos de Laclos's famous epistolary novel was a commission for this company, originally planned for 2011 but having to be postponed until the opportunity came to revive the project, and tonight was its second night. Rather to my regret, I have to say that I was not impressed.
It's a nice idea. The novel is certainly meaty, maybe too much so for successful compression into 60 or so minutes, but the main points were clear enough, with a slightly more prominent part for Gercourt (the lover who abandoned Merteuil in order to marry the innocent Cécile de Volanges, thereby setting the whole proceedings in motion) than even in the book. Certainly, also, the emotional detachment of the novel is key to its understanding; that and the pernicious effects of libertinism taken to excess, that flourished so readily during the Age of Enlightenment. However, putting those ideas across in dance is not at all obvious, and emotional detachment on stage did not strike me as the way to go. I got very little "feel" from any of the characters, nor did the choreography offer much of visual interest.
The production was sparse, a mostly plain, box-set, more props than scenery, with period costume suggested rather than fully rendered, and the music chosen was predominantly Rameau, both orchestral and keyboard works, with some electro-acoustic contributions from the contemporary Swiss composer Walter Fähndrich. However, there was really only one scene that has stayed with me, the duel between Valmont and Danceny, and that mostly because of the quality of Takafumi Watanabe's Valmont, long, attractive lines, and an explosive elevation.
I concede that my indifferent impression was not helped by my distance from the stage. The venue was unknown to me, and I chose my seats unwisely, without much assistance from the online booking process. During the interval, the very friendly staff actively encouraged us to move down into empty seats much nearer the front, and we duly did so. The first and immediate improvement was that for the second piece, at least the dancers looked properly human-sized!
Thierry Malandain is a French choreographer who runs his own contemporary dance company in Biarritz. I don't know his name or his work at all, but on the strength of this version of Falla's Love the Magician (created in 2008), I'll happily give anything else of his that comes along a try. Although the Falla is also a narrative ballet, Malandain suggests, rather than depicts, the original plot. He has, instead, created more of a reflection on love and loss, death and renewal, for eight couples performing on a stage thickly strewn with charcoal-coloured petals. Although there is a central pas-de-deux, strongly delivered by Lauren Kennedy and Shizen Kazama, on the whole it's an ensemble piece, with alternating groups, men only, women only, couples. There are brief hints of the flamenco origins - a turn of a wrist here, a stamp of a foot there - as well as suggestions of folkloric ritual from other Mediterranean countries, but the choreography never falls into any kind of "tourist trap" facility. There's a fluidity of the ensemble movement, like the quicksilver ebb and flow of a flock of starlings or a shoal of fish, that's very striking.
It's a much shorter piece than the Bombana (less than half the length) and the music's rather more enjoyable, but even so, here was choreography that seemed to have a purpose, and to offer an expressive content while leaving you free to interpret it as you saw fit. This is the kind of contemporary dance that speaks to me, and offers both entertainment and satisfaction.
[Next : 11th April]
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