Dance
The Kirov Ballet (London Coliseum) The Ghana Dance Ensemble (Old Spitalfields Market)
How the mighty have faded
Sophie Constanti
There is no shaking the conviction held by a sizeable proportion of British bal- letomanes that Russian ballet companies — any of them — are superior to the British or American variety. Not so long ago, Bolshoi and Kirov dancers like Altynai Asylmuratova, Irek Mukhamedov, Lyudmi- la Semenyaka and Nina Ananiashvili legit- imised this theory. Before them, celebrated defectors such as Natalia Makarova, Mikhail Baryshnikov and, of course, Rudolf Nureyev convinced the already con- verted masses of the unchallenged supremacy of Soviet-schooled dancers.
Earlier still, the Bolshoi, on its first visit to London in 1956, introduced Galina Ulanova, a ballerina whose portrayal of the lovesick teenager in Leonid Lavrovsky's definitive production of Romeo and Juliet was to sear Ulanova's — and the Bolshoi's — legend into the public consciousness for- ever. Nowadays, to watch the two most important Russian troupes, Moscow's Bol- shoi and St Petersburg's Kirov, is to bear witness to how the mighty have faded.
Opening its five-week run with the Lavrovsky/Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet, the Kirov looked tired, disjointed and unre- hearsed. Bolshoi guest Nina Ananiashvili was a convincing Juliet, partnered by the unexceptional Romeo of Yuri Posokhov. And although their relationship is charac- terised by snatched moments and clandes- tine meetings, the lovers are continually interrupted and surrounded by a corps de ballet which appears to be marking time and not even doing that with much skill. Shoddy dancing and wooden acting com- bine with make-up and costumes in the worst tradition of amateur theatrics, the
whole company tracking along on reduced power and with dwindling attentiveness to detail.
Things improved with Swan Lake (Sergeyev's 1950 production, revised by Oleg Vinogradov), the company at least giving some hint of why the Kirov was once a glorious sight to behold. The female corps carried off Ivanov's lakeside acts with the discipline of form, line and unity for which it was once unrivalled. Yulia Makhalina as Odette/Odile gave a perfor- mance of yearning plastique, then majestic ornamentation, but her showstopping tech- nical brilliance tended to distract the eye and mind from the ballet's larger themes.
The Ghana Dance Ensemble, on a first visit to Britain as part of the London Inter- national Festival of Theatre, is testament to the astonishing variety and richness of African dance, drama and music. Alerting our senses to those bigger worlds beyond our immediate horizons, the troupe suc- ceeds in enlarging the small and insular everyday worlds we construct for ourselves. Curious then, that in a post-performance address to the audience, a spokesman for the ensemble stressed the importance of trying to make the world a smaller place. For in retrospect, this is exactly where black British companies specialising in African dance forms probably went wrong.
Believing that multicultural Britain offered a ready-made context for their art — and that this was reason enough for their activities — many of these groups have, over the last decade or so, failed to enlighten, entertain or even tenuously con- nect with the uninitiated viewer. Ironically, without the benefit of such a context (even though one might argue that it is, in reality, a mental construct born of idealism), the Ghana Dance Ensemble speaks to an audi- ence from the moment it finds itself in the company of one. A Grand Durbar procession set the scene for a programme of social dances, acrobatic clowning, choral singing of startling clarity and resonance, and chore- ographed warrior dances in which both men and women moved at great speed through a dazzling array of linear positions. While the Ghana Dance Ensemble illus- trates the compulsive energy and sinewy strength that tally with Western notions of African physicality, it also highlights the subtlety of hand movements, the forceful use of the head as a directional indicator and the infectious joy that binds perform- ers and onlookers.
Most surprising is the constant emphasis on defying gravity — these men have the kind of lengthy, elastic Achilles tendons which enable them to rebound with added spring from every jump — and the mis- chievous wit of the women who, in The King's Dilemma, expose and humiliate a deceitful and greedy local chief, the light- hearted, mimetic brutality of action and reaction making it delightfully obvious that he is being cut down to size.
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