Ballet
Getting oriented
Robin Young
Orientals have taken most of the honours in London's first summer spate of international balletic activity. The Chinese at the Coliseum were doing very much their own thing with a display of Wushu, martial arts techniques performed with an astonishing array of swords, cudgels, daggers, pike and whips. Wushu is a sport in China and not an entertainment, and although it is competitive, the winners are decided by marks for skill, not by blows landed, blood shed or sudden death.
The programme was made up of almost fifty short items, divided between solo expositions of set exercises in the various forms of combat training, and carefully choreographed rapid-fire fights between artists armed with a variety of weapons. The audience responded more eagerly to the latter, though there was a profound sigh of satisfaction from the large Chinese contingent at an exquisitely performed shadow-boxing display based on the movements of the praying mantis — an animal to beware of, no doubt.
The show is a little less astonishing than the acrobats who came last year — but is performed with a simple and unaffected skill which is at times quite breathtaking. The ducking and weaving to avoid, fast-jabbing spears looked terribly dangerous, and one man lay flat on his back and then bounced up and down miraculously while he twirled a whiplash beneath himself.
The Japanese, by contrast, are doing our thing, or more precisely the Russians' thing, since the Tokyo Ballet Company who are now at Sadler's Wells are Soviettrained and inspired.
Western ballet is more popular with performers than audiences in Japan as yet it seems, and the Tokyo is the country's only fully professional group. Even they have to give a very high proportion of their performances on tour abroad, and this is their first visit to this country.
In view of their short history and underprivileged status, the standards of performance are exceedingly high. The corps is well-drilled, the soloists are able, and the principals, if not wildly exciting, have star quality and abilities far beyond mere competence.
The Japanese version of Nutcracker is a very straightforward and unpretentious one, almost entirely devoid of fancy frills and psychological complexities. Clara's little brother has seldom seemed so untiresome and unbeastly, nor Clara in her nightdress so naturally childlike and charming. (The lady in question, however, turned out to be considerably over thirty, or, as it was euphemistically put, is 'the senior ballerina'.)
The dancing is direct and enthusiastic, but the choreography is sensibly designed not to overtax the company's quite considerable abilities. The consequent air of confidence and enjoyment adds to the audience's pleasure in a very charming evening.
The company add some enterprising triple bills to their programmes at Sadler's Wells, and it is to be hoped that these will prove happier than the Gothenburg Ballet's recent offerings. The Swedes started with .a maudlin piece about a madhouse. continued with a very twee exercise for girl, two boys and drums (played on stage with balls by a drummer suitably surnamed Bang), and ended with a dim ballet to Emerson Lake and Palmer's dim pop version of Pictures at an Exhibition. This was the sort of thing that Hair did much better years 'ago, and even a bit of face-pulling nudity did not help.
1 am grateful for the opportunity the company provided to see a full-length version of Napoli, though. The dancing here was generally satisfactory, though the re-created second act was dreadfully uninspired. It is high time this Bournonville piece was added to the repertoire of classics regularly available here in a production on a larger scale.
Previous page
