Dance
Confusing
Jann Parry
The Swan of Tuonela (Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet) The Ring' Cycle in dance: now, there I would be a project to daunt even Diaghilev. David Bintley is not that am- bitious — yet. He confines his first full- length ballet to a section of the Finnish epic, the `Kalevala'. Ballet (and modern dance, for that matter) uses myths and legends happily enough; epics and sagas tend to be rather too intractable. Bintley handicaps himself by taking on a com- plicated story that is largely unfamiliar to the British ballet-going public (and pro- bably the Finnish one as well, for all I know). He provides a prologue to explain the creation of the Land of Heroes and of the Swan of Tuonela, as well as the significance of the Sampo. Since the action has, necessarily, to be condensed and since it takes place in suitably Nordic gloom, the audience confronts the first Act even more baffled than it was before the curtains opened.
The tale of Lemminkainen, the youngest of the Finnish heroes, is told to Sibelius's music illustrating episodes from the whole of the `Kalevala' epic, including his Karelia Suite and the tone poem from which the ballet takes its name. The musical suites, which were composed over different periods, do not cohere to make any kind of dramatic continuity. Though Bintley has rearranged their order and retold the story to suit his needs, the music still does not make balletic sense. There are some se- quences that provide dance set pieces: but you constantly get the feeling that Bintley has reached a high point in the story and in his choreography — and then has to wait for the music either to catch up or to work itself out.
Bintley also has to leave some vital elements in the plot unexplained: characters change bewilderingly from foes to friends; dance is both tragic and longed-for; and what is the significance of the Sampo talisman? It seems to be a sort of breastplate, which for much of the ballet is passed around in bits and pieces until it is forged, in an absurdly Wagnerian scene, back into its original form, thus marginally advancing the plot. Talismans can be effec- tive in a dance work: look at the Firebird's feather or pretty well any object Martha Graham elects to be sacred. It does help, though, if the object is familiar and its powers known. You have to take a lot on trust with a Sampo.
An epic should provide a strong sense of the society in which the heroic deeds take place. We need to know what sort of virtues are admired; whether, for example, honour
comes before family life, or even life itself. Bintley almost succeeds in creating a plausi- ble Nordic society, aided by Terry Bartlett's splendid designs. It is a cold, barren world, with tribesmen dressed in heavy, dark clothing or barbaric ceremonial outfits, outshone by the greater magnificence of the gods. From the start, a sense of social hierarchy and ritual is established. Abuses of hospitality are reproached, as they must be in so harsh a world. Even a beggar can- not be turned away. He turns out to be Lemminkainen, lost and clutching the fragments of the tribe's talisman. The god s laws decree that he inherits the Kalevalan kingdom and marries the ruler's daughter' David Ashmole is Lemminkainen, in his first full-length created role. Lemminkainen is an unusually reluctant hero, who cannot at first accept his good fortune or its responsibilities. In the course of a long solo and pas de deux with his bride-to-be, Rauni (Marion Tait), he grows in confidence and manhood. Bintley has the courage to make the two characters express themselves as much through gesture as through dance. It is the way that Rauni first puts her hand on Lemminkainen's arm and the way in which he holds her in the pas de deux that reveals their growing love for each other. The temptation for any young choreographer (and Bintley is only in his mid-twenties) is to invent elaborate steps and lifts in the hope of saying something new. By avoiding this trap, Bintley runs the risk of being criticised for his old-fashioned approach and for not providing enough pure dance for a full- length ballet. In fact, there is more dancing than one realises; several ensembles for the warriors and a very attractive dance for Rauni and
i her maidens, as they gather white flowers n
the birch woods. The scene that follows is one of the high points of the ballet, when Rauni learns that she is pregnant; she cradles the flowers to her in a shawl and,' turning, unexpectedly meets her husbano. Lemminkainen's dawning realisation and his joy are movingly expressed in their Pas de deux. The celebration of love is shattered by the call to Lemminkainen to fight his ritual enemy, Tuoni, ruler of the under- world, Tuonela. Lemminkainen disobeys the basic rules for a hero: he places his family before his duty and thereby loses his wife and his kingdom. The domestic drama up to this point is excellent. So is the maturing of the hero, whose crucial experiences are expressed in stillness — of understanding the implica- tions of his actions — rather than through movement. A hard test for a dancer, and one which Ashmole passes with honour; The ballet's problems come with the 'We requirements of the plot. Bintley's imagina- tion cannot encompass the world of the gods. His designer, Terry Bartlett, creates! spectacular coup de theatre when Tuoni is revealed in his fiery splendour. But he turns out to be something of a pantomime villain and his sons and daughters are a sore disaP pointment. The Swan herself (June High- wood), beautiful though she and her costume are, has an unsatisfactory role in Hell. The bringer of death, she is both :Destroyer and Releaser, an ambivalent force that her final solo fails fully to con- vey. The other gods are stiff, hieratic figures from a pageant — which is what the ballet basically is. The fact that a young choreographer Should want to make a ballet after so naive and antique a form, has been met with a cer- tain amount of derision and alarm. Stories and spectacle are not supposed to be for the dance of our times. Why, the price of just one of the costumes could fund an entire evening of post-modern dance. In the best of all possible worlds there would be room for all approaches — epic and ascetic. For °°w, perhaps, one stab at a saga could be enough. Spare us 'The Ring'.
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