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Theatre listings >
Scottish Ballet
- Autumn 2003 Tour.
Dangerous Liaisons.
Choreographer - Richard Alston.
MiddleSexGorge.
Choreographer - Stephen Petronio.
White Man Sleeps.
Choreographer - Siobhan Davies.
Cheating, Lying, Stealing.
Choreographer - Ashley Page.
Company - Scottish Ballet. Website.
Artistic Director - Ashley Page.
Dancers - here .
Tour Dates and Times - here
.
Seen to review at Edinburgh Festival Theatre on 27 Sept 2003.
Run Time - 2 hours 25 mins including two intervals.
Reviewer - Thelma Good .
Response and evolve.
We have to wait till just before Christmas to see a full length Ballet
from Scottish Ballet's New Artistic Director Ashley Page, but this Autumn
tour through significant choreographers of the past twenty years gives
an interesting background and hints what might come in their new repertoire.
It's also an opportunity to see the revised company with new as well familiar
dancers tackling a wide variety of pieces, each with challenges.
Richard Alston's piece Dangerous Liaisonsis done on a bare floor
with two groups of three dancers presents the greatest demands for the
dancers - resulting in sometimes indifferently executed figures and a
few unfortunate wobbles. But once embarked on the precise and demanding
MiddleSexGorge the company shows the new directions the company
are taking can be travelled in style and with accomplishment. Michael
Clarke is not on hand to recreate his role but the dancers available ensure
wicked androgynous sexuality is up front and tangible. The male dancers
may be clothed in tight laced basques but the loosening of balletic century
old constraints brings it alive.
After the first interval the curtain goes up to reveal still no set, but
a floor cloth which under changing lighting echoes many different moods.
The piece, Siobhan Davies' White Man Sleeping is danced to music
written in an African rhythm and scale, two harpsicords tuned to nonwestern
intervals are played along with other instruments. The choreography in
this piece has many different effects and pacing, most memorable of all
is where the dancers' movements combine to evoke the flashing constantly
moving image of a huge flock of birds.
Finally after the second interval there is a chance to see a short ballet
by Page, scenery including a literally combusting sofa and moving houses,
a wide variety of characters in costumes and dancers who go on pointe.
All these reassure that Page is not always going to take the company to
an austere pure dance place. He clearly understands many want drama, narrative
and surroundings as well as the delight of watching dancers move to and
against music, played live here by Icebreaker.
The costumes successfully symbolize the characters in Cheating Lying
Stealing. Whether they are fairly conventional, natural couples, or
sophisticates distanced from their souls ones, or the two young couples.
One of these couples has a woman so keen to be dominated, the other woman
looks on but only intervenes to swipe her man for a while. As a portrayal
of how we are in coupledom under Western skies it's acutely observed,
and the hobbling nature of certain ballet techniques underlines the dilemma
of needing to be needed, and the traps.
As a tour through the past the 2003 autumn programme is fascinating if
not always satisfying. It's also a chance to hear modern music influenced
by all sorts of sources used to create dance and ballet pieces. The whole
programme reflects how art forms to retain vitality will response and
evolve in our changing world. I look forward to Page's new choreography
for the Scottish Ballet's Nutcracker this Christmas - whether there's
a tutu or point work or not, this opener suggest we could be in for a
sharp and dark edged new look at a perennial delight that has often been
served too sweetly and cloyingly hard iced.
© Thelma Good 27 September 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Other EdinburghGuide reviews of Scottish Ballet Spring
2004 tour and The
Nutcracker.
Dancers when seen on 28 September.
Dangerous Liaisons - Sophie Martin, Lorna Scott, Adam Blyde, Luciana Ravizzi,
Emma Sandall and Robert Doherty.
MiddIeSexGorge - Patricia Hines, Victoria Willard, Diana Loosmore, Emma
Sandall, Martina Forioso, Jocelyn Giles, Mark Kimmett, Andrew Ross and
Lilian Pommier
White Man Sleeps - Kara McLaughlin, Martina Forioso, Louisa Hassell,
Jarkko Lehmus and GIauco Di Lieto.
Cheating, Lying, Stealing - Tomomi Sato, Erik Cavallari, Claire Robertson,
Robin Bernadet, Emma Sandall, Lorna Scott, Kara McLaughlin, Oliver Rydout,
GIauco Di Lieto, Mark Kimmett, Louisa Hassell, Lorna Beattie, Adam BIyde
and Andrew Ross.
Tour Details of Scottish Ballet's 2003 Autumn
Tour .
Tour begins
25 - 27 Sept at 7.30pm Edinburgh Festival Theatre 0131
529 6000.
2 - 4 Oct at 7.30pm Glasgow Tramway 0845 330 3501.
10 - 11 Oct at 7.30pm Stirling Macrobert 01786 466666.
17 & 18 Oct at 7.30pm also Sat at 2pm Dundee The Space
01382 834934.
Tour ends.
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