Dance
Rambert Dance Company (London Coliseum)
Great expectations
Giannandrea Poesio
Rambert Dance Company's brief sea- son has drawn flocks of enthusiastic dance- goers to the London Coliseum as the result of the publication of an excellent book on the company's history and through a clever advertising campaign. Neither of the two programmes I,saw, however, met my expec- tations and the overall effect was similar to Audrey Hepburn's cheese souffle in Sabri- na: in spite of all the right ingredients, such as a high standard of dancing and a remarkable variety of works from different epochs and styles, both performances lacked that special factor which would have raised the event to one of this summer's highlights.
Bad programming was indeed one of the causes of such a disappointing result. Jiry Kylian's Petite Mort, an exploration of 18th- century sexuality, is not an inspiring or appropriate opening piece. A stilted sequence of slow movements, some convo- luted, yet predictable partnering and an overwhelmingly superfluous symbolism replace the powerful speed and immediacy that characterise other works by the same choreographer. Even the various metaphorical images, such as corseted men waving phallic-like weapons and female dancers popping in and out of stiff crino- lines on castors, lack Kylian's typical fresh- ness and appear rather trite.
A patina of déjà vu also covered the sec- ond piece of the first programme, Ohad Neherin's Axioma 7. Chairs on stage have been seen in contemporary dance since the early Fifties, and the use of choreographic repetitions, stretched here to its limit with harsh consequences for the structure of the work, can hardly be regarded as innovative. Despite some energetic dancing and some supposedly humorous ideas, such as the dancers' progressive strip-tease, Neherin's choreography results in an inconclusive showcase for the interpreters. It is not clear why these two dances were chosen to open the London season.
Quicksilver, the new work created by Rambert's artistic director, Christopher Bruce, and presented at the beginning of the second programme, would have been a more appropriate start to the run of perfor- mances at the Coliseum. Inspired by a well- known picture of Marie Rambert, the founder of the company and one of the two ladies who managed to establish an English ballet tradition, Quicksilver is an interesting dance in which psychological and narrative elements are masterly combined to convey Rambert's personality and to illustrate salient moments of her career.
Each programme included a 'historical' work in the middle section and ended with works by Christopher Bruce — the light- hearted Meeting Point and the popular Rooster. Robert Cohan's Stabat Mater, cre- ated in 1975 for the London Contemporary Dance Company, is aptly considered a 'classic' of English contemporary dance. Unlike other creations from the same peri- od, the work stands the test of time amaz- ingly well, revealing an immaculate, solid structure. On the first night, Rambert dancers gave an impeccable performance, although slightly too balletic, of this Gra- ham-influenced choreography.
I wish I could say the same for Dark Ele- gies, the 'historical' work of the second pro- gramme. Choreographed by Anthony Tudor in 1937 for the Ballet Rambert — as the company was then called — this dance, set to Mahler's 'Songs on the Death of Children', is both a masterwork and a fit- ting example of that choreographic genre called 'contemporary ballet'. Apparently plotless, the ballet reflects the moods of the five songs, thus focusing on the inner drama of the characters — often described as bereaved villagers. In other words, Dark Elegies relies mostly on the understanding of the characters' psychology and on its refined rendition, a distinctive component of Tudor's choreography which, unfortu- nately, was totally missing in the perfor- mance I saw.
The dancers should not be blamed for this entirely, though. To reconstruct chore- ographic works from notated scores is always problematic. In most instances, dance notators stick to their written sym- bols to reproduce the 'original' steps, not giving a toss about any kind of artistic interpretation — which cannot be notated. Their contribution, therefore, should be complemented by the supervision of some- one who knows or, at least, understands the dramatic implications of the work in question, which is seldom the case. I won- der if this is what happened for the restag- ing of Dark Elegies, for the programme note refers to notated scores of the ballet? All I can say is that the dance lacked its tension, thus becoming a rather monotonous sequence of allegedly correct steps.
It was a relief, therefore, to attend the Royal Ballet School performance last Sat- urday. The young dancers showed a great deal of dramatic skill, particularly in David Bintley's En Bateau and in Ninette de Val- ois's The Rake's Progress, thus restoring the faith of those who still believe that, after all, dance is a 'theatre' art.
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