Dance
Ticklish
Julie Kavanagh
Number 3 (Royal Opera House) Eleventh hour drama: choreographer decides to scrap newly designed cos- tumes. Designer withholds consent. Com- promise reached: three performances of Michael • Corder's Number 3 in costume; ,tWo in 'simple white'. (Advantage Helen r'rankenthaler who gets the extra perform- ance and the first night.) Design for dance at Covent Garden is coming a ticldish issue. Without harping 011 about Wastage in these pound-pinching !lines, one can't help reproving the basic lack of foresight over recent commissions. Pirst there was Kenneth MacMillan's last- Minute rejection of conventional sets and costumes for Different Drummer; then, this very month, the unfortunate choice of 3 Painter whose work is characterised by `valedictory sobriety' to re-design Ballet linperial, that blazing statement of unshak- able grandiosity; and now example number three.
In fact, I found Ms Frankenthaler's set, consisting of three abstract backcloths, and (to a lesser degree) her costumes, smudged With key colours on the cloths, acceptable enough — if only because the concept behind her work corresponds with Cor- der's own theme. Frankenthaler's canvases explore the actual raw material of painting, While Corder's ballet is also about itself, Not the nature of creativity', he has said. Not having seen the alternative white costumes I can only speculate about this, but I would have thought that colour certainly helps to define and characterise Corder's hierarchy of dancers, contrasting, for example, the three sparky soloists (Paisey, Roberts and Tucker) costumed in yellow, the colour of energy, against the three, cool, blue-striped couples. But then it could be argued that the music (Pro- kofiev's glorious third piano concerto) and the movements are doing all this for us anyway. There is one instance though, where a coloured custume seems not only to en- hance Corder's choreography, but vindi- cate it. I'm thinking of Bryony Brind and the blue blob on the second cloth. The blob, positioned in a softly swirling shape, like ink dispersing in water, has two coloured lines leading to or from it, which encourages one to connect the blue- costumed Brind with the two lead dancers (Lesley Collier and Mark Silver). I realise this is over-literal, that Corder is not intending Colour Moves-type ' conceits (though if there is no interplay whatever between dance and design, why bother with a backdrop at all); but without this visual link, Brind's existence in the ballet strikes one at first as incongruous and puzzling. I should explain that she is conspicuously cast in her kooky, aloof mould, characterised by manic struttings to and fro and Agon-style high kicks and contortions. Although the other dancers on stage imitate her quirky movements as if experimenting with a new idiom, she appears to be a disruptive influence, caus- ing Collier and Silver to stand (in dance terms) speechless to one side. Although his ballet is plotless, Corder is obviously introducing a narrative element here in the way that Balanchine does in the second movement of Ballet Imperial (Balanchine's influence is proclaimed throughout this ballet, even in its terse, functional title). However, whereas in Bal- let Imperial the narrative is submerged — elusive and resonant like poetic imagery — in Number 3 it is imposed. Corder is consciously striving to create interest, as he does again with various arcane motifs the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil gestures and another, rather like Marcel Marceau's feel- ing along a wall mime. But instead of 'Let's throw a Joan-swapping party.' inspiring the audience to speculate and dream, these contrived elements provoke a sense of irritation at being somehow baited with red herrings.
Of his three most recent ballets, Number 3 is Corder's most substantial. I'm glad to see that he has got away from the limpness of l'Invitation au Voyage and the glibness of Party Games and is developing his evident talent as a craftsman. I specially liked the way he propelled his ensemble at the end in great blocks of movement, augmenting the impact with a mass repeti- tion of the same step. He does not yet have an identifiable choreographic style (apart from a rather over-mimetic approach to the music) but if his ballet is about the business of creating and those surging blocks represent the thrust of the Corder imagination, it's premature to judge him yet: there's a lot more to come.
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