Review – Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s flat Bach suites – Sadler’s Wells

Words by Katie Hagan

The idiom ‘lost in space’ typically refers to something that occurs sporadically or very rarely. In the case of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Mitten Wir Im Leben Sind (“In the Midst of Life”) set to Bach’s six cello suites, it was the choreography that was completely lost on the Sadler’s Wells stage.

De Keersmaeker has turned to Bach’s music repeatedly throughout her career. This particular interpretation features cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, a enigmatic, willowy figure whose music carries the dancers along. His is a crucial presence which holds this often loose performance together.

Throughout the piece there is palpable synergy between the cellist and the dancers, especially the dancer in the second suite, whose movements showcases the real technique, grace and consideration that underpins pedestrian contemporary choreography. This suite was indeed the highlight of the night.

Aside from this part, the evening was underwhelming and flat. De Keersmaeker made several fleeting appearances, performing the same choreography that actually did a good job at sewing each suite together. But however pleasing these clean transitions might have been, it didn’t make up for the patchy choreography that was lacking in gravity. Whilst her small bunny-hops gave way to some light-hearted chuckles from the audience, it achieved little else.

The staging itself was nothing other than reminiscent of the white room in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; a forceless, pale expanse in which the only thing haphazardly stapling everything together was the cellist.

It was hard to know what to expect when it came to this piece. And in my opinion I passionately believe a different, more intimate space would have made for a more compelling, engrossing performance. It would have given the ‘everyday, pedestrian’ movement some purpose and context. A smaller space would have enabled a more concentrated performance to emerge. Sadly – and frustratingly – on the Sadler’s Wells stage everything became diluted. It was a total wash out.

These kinds of questions – of the influence of space and place – are vital territories which the dance world needs to explore still. This piece could have accomplished this and much, much more.

Image: Anne Van Aerschot

BalletBoyz ‘Them/Us’, Theatre Royal Glasgow – review

A duet at the end of Them/Us stops me in my tracks. This evening of two separate works – demonstrating opposing modes of creation – is variable. But, in these final few minutes, I fall in love with the BalletBoyz: their powerful same-sex duos and their easy command of intricate choreography.  

Compared to huge ensembles from The Nutcracker or Romeo and Juliet, this double bill feels sparse. The stage space is limited, and the performance is slightly underpowered until the closing set-piece. Yet, having witnessed this one subtle, striking sequence, I’m keen to see more of what this company can achieve.  

While the fast, sinuated technique displayed in 2013’s fierce Serpent/Fallen is firmly on my agenda, the selling point of Them/Us is rooted in its methods. Them was created solely by the company themselves, the composer also in the room – a collective approach rarely used in ballet.Us is a more traditional set-up of movement ‘put on’ the dancers. 

BalletBoyz are to be applauded for experimenting with a radical – and potentially much more difficult – mode of authorship. An outside, authoritative eye is usually king. In Them, (confusingly, the self-made piece), the dancers don shiny tracksuits for agile group stints and bold solos. The backdrop is an arty paint splatter, white on grey. 

Rhythmically and with control, they hip-roll to infectious drumbeats as the music switches up a gear. A clubbier vibe kicks in, igniting fluidly hypnotic turns. Benjamin Knapper is the star, with a wilder take on the steps, enlivening the dynamic. Too briefly, the young men swing themselves around a compact rectangular metal frame, like an outdoor gym. We need more play with pace and tempo. 

The disconnected vignettes feel inauthentic. I’m keen to discover the individuals in front of me, in a work created by them. Nothing suggests an overarching concept. The pauses could be longer, more confident so they have a place. Some stretching and compressing of the phrases would provide a dash of the unexpected.

Overall, Them shows the BalletBoyz as capable creators. I urge them to have the guts to eek more from the quirks and extremities of the movement. These young men don’t need to paint by numbers when they have the skill to throw out the rulebook and still make something great.  

Us, the conventionally-made work by Christopher Wheeldon, comes out better, building on the success of his segment for Fourteen Days. The style is pedestrian but masterful. Cohesive and controlled, in loose grey tailcoats, these six men could be monks or dutiful domestic staff. They move with faultless synergy. 

The dark, moody soundtrack is bland, trying very hard to be emotive. It echoes the highly-recognisable (and vastly superior) Max Richter score for Infra. All faces are blank. What is the nub of inspiration behind this work? No intention can be read from neutral floor rolls and under-arm ducking. Viewers must be let in on the secrets behind these strict formations. 

We end with the aforementioned sequence: two men in black slacks, bare chested. They are so alike they appear a mirror image of one person. Their individuality is indistinguishable; too in-tune to be lovers even. Touching, finely-judged interactions read as a relationship with oneself: a strange aspect of being human, common to us all. 

They elegantly upend each other held the waist. I could watch the fluent beauty of Harry Price and Bradley Waller on repeat. There is a greater, unspoken connection at play that is missing from the rest of the bill; the interaction explores something deeper than can be done in conversation. A special, if concise, achievement.   

Words by Izzy Rogers. Images from Sadler’s Wells website.

The Idiot review – a real reworking of a Russian classic

Words by Katie Hagan

If you brought Dostoevsky back into a room to ask if his novel, The Idiot, could be considered an ‘embodied text’, I wonder what his answer would be. 

Renowned Japanese choreographer Saburo Teshigawara takes Dostoevsky’s treasured favourite; casting himself as the eponymous, pathetically innocent the “idiot” Prince Myshkin, with his life-long partner Rihoko Sato as his restrained love-interest Nastasya Filippovna. 

What unfurls onstage is, I presume, as close as you can get to embodying a text such as The Idiot. The Idiot has a convoluted plot bestrewn with Dostoevsky’s own frustration with 19th century Russia’s social codes, Christianity and indeed his personal experience with epilepsy. Teshigawara’s erudite reinterpretation enables these complexities to engender; and, rather satisfyingly, does this without being tempted to create a piece which seeks to resolve all the complications Dostoevsky left intentionally untied.  

The choreography in Teshigawara’s The Idiot embodies and articulates the text’s and its characters’ complexity. Dressed in white, Teshigawara’s movement is paradoxical. It is regularly irregular. With nimble footwork and flicks of the wrist, he is emotionally robotic, stopping and starting and then repeating. The paranoia of having a seizure overhangs Teshigawara’s choreogaphy; Myshkin moves in perpetual uncertainty, unsure when he will slip into a world where consciousness as we know it does not exist.

Rihoko Sato as Nastasya Filippovna is a complete wonder. We, the audience, join Myshkin to all become enraptured by her repetitive, undulating arm sequences. Whilst the effect of her rising and falling wears off in the places it shouldn’t; it still serves as a parallel to Nastasya’s character – as a good woman whose purity is marred by the society she lives in. 

Inevitably, Teshigawara’s embodied text falls short at times. Although he encapsulates Myshkin’s interiority and therefore his suffering, losing concentration even for a split second made it hard to get back into The Idiot’s rhythm. Although we can read into it and say the piece is merely mirroring the tidal, up-and-down movement of human experience and consciousness, the result made the overall effect seem somewhat diluted and tired. 

But in the grand scheme of things, isn’t movement supposed to reflect who we are as humans, how we behave, how we embody? If we were all without imperfection and if everything was uncomplicated, how true to life would everything be? We are supposed to feel, empathise and learn from art, particularly how it teaches us what it means to be human. Even if sometimes it is a little disappointing. 

At the Print Room Coronet, Notting Hill until 30 March. Photo: Abe Akihito