In conversation – British Ballet Now & Then

Earlier this month Julia and Rosie travelled with their friend Rebecca to Leeds to see Northern Ballet’s new ballet Victoria, choreographed by Cathy Marston. The ballet offers a particular perspective on the life of Victoria, based on the rewriting of the Queen’s diaries by her youngest daughter, Beatrice. It’s presented in flashbacks as Beatrice reads the diaries, both remembering the mother she knew, and discovering the young Victoria, whom she of course never knew.

On the journey back from Leeds we discussed our initial thoughts, commenting firstly on the set, designed by Steffen Aarfing, and the lighting, by Alastair West, then on aspects of characterisation and choreographic structure that struck us, and the emotional resonance of the work.

The set

JULIA: Sandra Callard of Yorkshire Magazine describes the stage set as relatively simple but I see it as minimalist. I believe it is carefully planned; it leaves space for the choreography and at the same time contributes to the action on stage, supporting the flashback structure of the ballet; for example, the white curtain that helps with the seamless transitions between the past and present.

ROSIE: Yes, I agree, the set is absolutely integral to the work. Although Sandra Callard says it requires little attention, from reading about the ballet beforehand I knew that the set was based on a library and that Victoria’s red diaries were going to be replaced by Beatrice’s blue volumes. So I was always checking out what was happening with the set during the different stages of Victoria’s and Beatrice’s life. It’s a really fabulous set.

REBECCA: I also noticed that before the shelves are filled with the blue books, they become windows. This is when Beatrice is discovering her mother as a young woman, when Victoria is falling in love with Albert, before her life is filled with the burden of childbearing and when she is enjoying her early popularity as Queen. Her life seems carefree and full of light.

JULIA: This makes me think of the lighting in the opening scene, when the spotlight on Victoria is surrounded by darkness. It seems such a simple device, but I found it very powerful as an opening, especially the way it was accompanied by that melancholic fanfare that starts off the music score by Philip Feeney. Perhaps I would have liked to see more of this kind of lighting. For example, in Act II when Victoria and Albert consummate their marriage, it’s followed by the bright light of the morning sun. I loved the choreography for the pas de deux, but it might look even more stunning with more distinctive lighting.

Victoria’s motif

JULIA: From the start of the ballet I could identify Victoria’s motif. It is a simple motif which in ballet terms is a 2^nd position of the feet, with the arms in an open 5^th position. This creates an X shape through the body, which to me seems to signify authority and dominance. As Act I developed, it evolved and became more pronounced.

ROSIE: In Act II, there were all kinds of variations on this motif. This is when the young Victoria has a lot of dancing, representing major events in her life, like the coronation, her marriage to Albert, and growth of her empire. It’s like we’re watching Victoria develop her identity as a human being and a queen before our eyes; whereas in Act I she is already established as a character so the motif isn’t as varied. It works so well with this idea of Beatrice discovering her mother’s youth through the diaries.

REBECCA: I wondered whether the X shape of this motif can also be seen as two V shapes, connecting to the name Victoria and the idea of victory. One of the variations that I found intriguing was when Victoria plunged into a very deep 2^nd position plié, slightly rocking from side to side. This seemed to be when Victoria had to reach a difficult decision, for instance, when she was obliged to go through documentation regarding matters of state.

Moments of emotional poignancy

ROSIE: For me one of these moments was directly connected to Victoria’s motif. I think it was after Albert’s death when Victoria was literally crumbling, and so losing her signature motif, almost as if she were losing her identity. Beatrice showed her emotional support by physically enabling her mother to take up her Victoria stance once more, regaining her identity and power. It was like a labour of love.

JULIA: I found the duet between John Brown and Victoria particularly touching, especially when they were encircling the bust of Albert, as if he was included in this new love. It was unexpected and made me well up for a moment.

REBECCA: For me it was when Beatrice’s husband dies: she dons her widow’s weeds and suddenly realises with dismay that she is turning into a version of her mother. This makes the older Beatrice try to rip off the black dress which she’s been wearing throughout.

Structure and transitions

ROSIE: One of the things I really appreciated was the seamlessness of the transitions, because I find that when there are lots of scene changes it can be clunky and disrupt the flow of the narrative for me. But as well as that, Beatrice is seeing her mother through Victoria’s diaries, and when we see things in our mind’s eye, they are not neatly compartmentalised. So the structure reflects the free flow of our thoughts.

REBECCA: There was a real contrast between the two acts, with a lot more interaction between Beatrice and Victoria in Act I; whereas in Act II Beatrice is watching the Victoria she never knew, so she’s more distanced from the action.

JULIA: Yes. This reminds me of Sanjoy Roy’s review which he starts off by commenting on the fact that reading is the “driver” of the ballet – very unusual for choreographic works.

ROSIE: And writing too is a really important theme, I think. Cathy and her librettist Uzma Hameed enable us to see how Beatrice edits Victoria’s writing. It’s altogether a fascinating ballet.

REBECCA: Yes, it’ll be great to see it again in London.

JULIA: And with a different cast. Northern Ballet dancers are very expressive, and the characters are rich and complex, so it’ll be wonderful to see different interpretations.

REBECCA: Then we will have the cinema screening to look forward to in June. It’s bound to highlight details we have missed in the theatre.

JULIA: I hope it comes out on DVD. Then we can add Victoria to our dance analysis modules.

ROSIE: That would be great!

References

Callard, Sandra, “Victoria (Northern Ballet) – Review – Leeds Grand Theatre”. Yorkshire Magazine, March 2019, http://www.on-magazine.co.uk/arts/yorkshire-  theatre/victoria-northern-ballet-review-leeds-grand. Accessed 25 March 2019.

Roy, Sanjoy, “Northern Ballet: Victoria review – royal story is a feast of brilliance”. The Guardian, 10 March 2019, http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/mar/10/northern-ballet-victoria-review-  cathy-marston-ballet-queen-daughter-beatrice-choreography-grand-leeds. Accessed 25 March 2019.

Last weekend Julia, Libby and Rosie went to the closing night of Voices of America at Sadler’s Wells. After discussion and reading reviews of the first night performance, here are our thoughts.

There was a lot of publicity around Forsythe’s new work Playlist (Track 1,2), and the reviews emphasised the strength and skills of the company in their performance of it. What are your thoughts on this?

Over the past few years, it’s become clear to us that the company has been growing in strength and becoming very versatile in adapting to different styles. Rosie has written about this in our recent post The Rise & Rise of ENB: Style Matched by Substance. Therefore, it came as no surprise to us that the dancers were able to show off a lot of tricks and that they also worked cohesively as a group to give the performance its exuberant ambiance.

Libby thought that the dancers’ ability to work as group was particularly evident in the first work Fantastic Beings by Aszure Barton, where there was a collective energy between the dancers which united them. The unison sections evidenced precise movement and impressive timing that didn’t suffer from “over rehearsal” but rather remained fresh and vibrant.

Emma Byrne from the Evening Standard refers to Fantastic Beings as a “fantasy fairytale”. Did it strike you like that?

Yes, absolutely! It reminded Julia of watching Disney films as a child with all the stars in the backdrop, the glittery and magical feel in the music, and the black creatures creeping across the stage. For Rosie, in contrast to its first showing as the closing work of She Said in 2016, this worked much better as an opening piece, due to its fragmented, less climatic structure.

In fact, Jann Parry from DanceTabs comments on this saying “there’s no apparent structure, other than one quirky number following another for a different combination of dancers. The music keeps promising dramatic climaxes that come to nothing”.

For us this means that as a whole evening there’s a sense of moving up to a satisfying climax of the final Forsythe piece Playlist (Track 1,2).

So are you saying that these climaxes are partially dependent on the music choices?

We are sure they are. The audience reaction to Playlist (Track 1,2) was particularly interesting. There was already a sense of anticipation because Forsythe had not choreographed for a British company for more than 20 years, and after the premiere an online video of Forsythe himself freestyling with the dancers increased the anticipatory excitement making it palpable in the theatre.

Playlist is beautifully crafted and easily legible in terms of spatial patterning, rhythm, and vocabulary, despite some examples of typical Forsythe deconstruction of classical lines and codified steps. This is Forsythe at his most buoyant. Rosie went to see it twice and found it as delightful the second time around as the first time, but not as intellectually engaging. On both occasions, however, the audience as whole were clearly enthralled from start to finish.

Do you think then that the music is as important for the audience as the choreography?

Libby was the first to ask to what extent the audience reaction was dependent on the house and club music in Playlist.Would the work have had the same impact if danced to 19^thcentury ballet music, like Le Corsaire for example, we wondered. Or if “Black Swan pas de deux” were danced to Playlist? It made us think of the YouTube clip of the Royal Ballet dancing excerpts of their repertoire to Tinie Tempah’s Pass Out.

As Julia pointed out, basically Forsythe’s vocabulary in Playlist (much more obviously than in Approximate Sonata 2016) is drawn from la danse d’école: épaulement, tendus, brisés, and pirouettes are central to both Playlist and daily class. But the combination of the music and the way in which Forsythe inflects the movement gives a sexier quality to the classroom steps, like the sensuous skimming sideways courus.

For Rosie, the music scores were striking for the whole evening. The subject matter of predatory female insects in Jerome Robbins’ 1951 The Cage seemed oddly juxtaposed to Stravinsky’s Concerto in D for string orchestra, which reminded her too much of Apollo, whereas Sacre du printemps (Rite of Spring) with its ritualistic pounding force would have offered a more fittingly violent soundscape to the choreography, making the kind of fusion that Forsythe created in Playlist.

On the other hand, for Approximate Sonata 2016 Forsythe eschews this type of fusion, highlighting the independent rhythms of the movement. For us, the complexity of movement, particularly in the duets, is counterbalanced by the bright costumes on the one hand and the understated music on the other. Here the technical challenges are presented in a much subtler and more fascinating way than in Playlist.

Three of the works are new to ENB, Barton’s Fantastic Beings is the only one that wasn’t – are there any of these works that you would like to see again?

Yes, we really appreciated seeing the Forsythe works because there’s restricted opportunity to see his works in this country currently. How about an all-Forsythe evening? ENB already perform In the Middle Somewhat Elevated and it would be a delight to see perhaps the ebullient The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude (1996) or the witty pas de deux from Herman Schmerman (1992).

References

Byrne, Emma. “ENB – Voices of America review: Fast and furious movement from English National Ballet”. London Evening Standard, 16 Apr. 2018, http://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/enb-voices-of-america-review-fast-and-furious-movement-from-english-national-ballet-a3814641.html. Accessed 27 Apr. 2018.

Parry, Jann. “English National Ballet – Voices of America bill – works by Forsythe, Robbins & Barton – London”. DanceTabs, 16 Apr. 2018, http://dancetabs.com/2018/04/english-national-ballet-voices-of-america-bill-works-by-forsythe-robbins-barton-london/. Accessed 27 Apr. 2018.

“The Royal Ballet. Not What You Think” YouTube, uploaded 16 Feb. 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-46BZD4zNlk. Accessed 27 Apr. 2018.

Category: In conversation

Cathy Marston’s Victoria: in conversation with British Ballet Now and Then

ENB Voices of America: in conversation with British Ballet Now and Then