Dance
Stepping out
Giannandrea Poesio on the challenging features of the Royal Ballet's Dance Bites Some inveterate balletomanes might look at the Royal Ballet's Dance Bites as a `daring' and radical way to approach new choreographic trends, thus moving away from the 'safe', long-established artistic tra- ditions of the company. Yet, both the con- cept and the purpose of Dance Bites stem from a well-rooted tradition which has characterised the company since its early days, namely to nurture choreographic tal- ents among its dancers and to offer them the chance of testing their creative skills with a live audience.
It would be a mistake, however, to con- sider Dance Bites as a mere showcase for wannabe choreographers. What only a few years ago started as a small touring group of enthusiastic Royal Ballet dancers willing to broaden their experiences — which is still one of the company's distinctive traits — is now one of the most interesting reali- ties of the British dance scene.
`Some people here do not seem to appre- ciate the significance of this project,' says Cathy Marston, one of the six choreogra- phers whose works are currently on tour. `And, yet, few foreign institutions are able to offer equal opportunities to emerging dance makers. It is only when one starts making comparisons with similar foreign artistic operations that one suddenly realis- es the uniqueness of the English one.
Dance Bites,' Marston continues, 'is not, in fact, one of those choreographic work- shops offered by most dance companies where all sorts of restrictions impinge on the creativity of the dance makers.' She explains that a piece commissioned for the annual tour must be a complete work that can stand on its own as part of any ortho- dox dance programme instead of an 'amor- phous, experimental choreographic fragment doomed to sink into oblivion the following day'. Its creator must be able to `work with first-class dancers from a presti- gious company, and to have the final prod- uct performed extensively, thus getting dance viewers to know more about you and your work, not to mention the constructive feedback that experiences like this one entail. And all this regardless of the fact that in other companies, such as the one in Lucerne where I am currently working as a performer, they might still consider you too young to be a choreographer!'
Although Dance Bites focuses on the works of dance makers who are or have been associated with the Royal Ballet either as ex-students, as in the case of Marston, or as members and ex-members of the company — the choreographers do not have to abide by the constraining rules of a given stylistic unity, as is often the case with those choreographic workshops men- tioned above.
`The sole stylistic commonalties are the Royal Ballet background and the basic technique, ballet, on which the various works build up,' Marston says. 'Inevitably, everyone brings into Dance Bites ideas and solutions that have been informed by dif- ferent experiences and contexts. For instance, in my new work Words Apart, the second for Dance Bites, the movement vocabulary is informed by the type of tech- nique and choreographic style used by the company I work with in Lucerne. To be free to use that particular kind of choreo- graphic idiom, which may not necessarily be "balletic", and to adapt it to "ballet bod- ies" is another stimulating and challenging feature of Dance Bites that, in my opinion, adds considerably to the artistic variety of the event itself.'
Such artistic variety depends also on the different levels of choreographic expertise of each dance maker. As stated above, the annual event is not just a springboard for `first timers': in the current tour the pro- gramme includes works by Matthew Hart and Christopher Wheeldon who have already created dances for the Royal Bal- let. It is not surprising, therefore, to find among them Ashley Page, a leading figure of British 'new ballet'. For Page, 'Dance Bites is an artistic arena where one can eas- ily take a step further into creativity and explore freely new ideas. This is probably why the works I have sreated for this year's tour and for the previous are slightly differ- ent, particularly in terms of content, from the ones I have created for the main com- pany. I am not saying that the work with the Royal Ballet limits one's creative free- dom or imposes particular choices. Still, the atmosphere that surrounds the Dance Bites prompts a more radical experimenta- tion with dance that leads constantly towards new discoveries. As a matter of fact, my own new approach to more narra- tive modes is a distinctive trait of the works I have created for both this year's tour of Dance Bites and the previous one and does not belong to works such as Two Part Invention, my last creation for the Royal Ballet. Having said that, the new findings are bound to influence my future work for the company. One can only wish that more and more dance viewers could appreciate the seminal function of Dance Bites as well as its productive interaction with the Royal Ballet. Unfortunately, it seems that only a few are willing to accept that even the art of ballet can develop and reflect the changes that underscore our culture.'
Indeed, the art of ballet needs to renew itself to prove that it is not a dead lan- guage. Events such as Dance Bites demon- strate that there is more to classical theatrical dancing than the stereotyped and lackadaisical images often associated with this art. Ballet has still a lot to say, and to speak it needs new additions to its vocabu- lary, shocking as this may sound or look.
Curiously, it did not look that shocking when some early 20th-century British choreographers derived their unique and acclaimed style from an often radical revisi- tation of the pre-existing rigid 19th-century formulae and presented it in pioneering performances.
The Royal Ballet is visiting Blackpool, Bath, High Wycombe, Woking, Darlington and Northampton. For dates and venues ring 0171-2401200. The tour ends on 8 March.
Previous page
