Dance
La Fille Mal Gard& (Scottish Ballet, Theatre Royal, Glasgow)
Intoxicating Ashton
Giannandrea Poem
An intriguing component of Frederick Ashton's La File Mal Gard& is the refined sauciness that permeates the work and counteracts the delicate choreographic imagery, thus preventing the work from slipping into balletic soppiness. There is no doubt that, in reviving the 1789 ballet, Ash- ton decided to preserve its original frisson, summarised in the 18th-century print depicting a mother scolding her daughter while a young fellow does a runner from the back door of the barn, pulling up his trousers. Yet, Ashton's naughtiness is far from the stereotyped modes of some well- known 18th-century paintings.
Created in 1960, his Fille — as the ballet is known among dance people — is an affectionate portrayal of 20th-century youth, where transgression and innocence go happily and inevitably hand in hand. The subtle innuendoes, therefore, do not belong to a bygone era, but stand out for their immediacy, conferring everlasting freshness on the work. The titillating play- fulness of Fille, however, comes across only when there is a thorough understanding of Ashton's stylistic canons. The various dra- matic solutions and the interpretative pos- sibilities offered by each role depend greatly, if not exclusively, on an attentive rendition of the choreographic text that goes beyond the mere execution of the given steps.
Fortunately, artistic eclecticism has always been one of Scottish Ballet's strengths and, although the company was not brought up with a full adherence to Ashton's aesthetic, both the matinee and the evening performances of Fille I saw confirmed that the company has an unri- valled way of absorbing different choreo- graphic styles. It has been a long time since I attended such an intoxicating staging of Ashton's masterwork where most of the original dramatic and choreographic ele- ments were not overlooked, as has been the case with other companies' recent pro- ductions.
And it has been a long time since I saw an entire company approaching the danc- ing with such gusto and good taste. Each performance, moreover, made me discover new details about a work I thought I knew very well. A striking feature, for instance, is Ashton's almost operatic use of the various musical 'voices' assigned to each character. As the eminent dance scholar Marian Smith has recently demonstrated at the dance conference held at Roehampton Institute, a characteristic of most early 19th-century dance works is the musique parlante, which, by a complex system of ref- erences to well-known tunes and a particu- lar use of instruments, either 'narrated' the action or provided the danced and mimed roles with a 'voice', so that their dialogues and monologues, whether danced or mimed, could be easily understood. Indeed, this is a component that Ashton preserved and used fully, with excellent results, in his revival of the work — which includes some choreographic and musical sections inter- polated in subsequent early 19th-century productions of the ballet.
Another element that I was able to `rediscover', thanks to the brilliant perfor- mance of the company's' artists, is the char- acterisation of each member of the corps de ballet. Unlike most of the ornamental peasants or 'friends' to be found in many ballets from both the 19th and the 20th century, each farmer or village girl in File stands out for his/her individuality which contributes greatly to the dramatic depth of the work.
The distribution of the roles was excel- `Take me to your Lieder' lent too. Yurie Shinohara, in the evening performance, stood out as an ideal inter- preter of the cocky heroine, while Aki Takashi, in the matinee, sailed through her first rendition of the complex role with a pleasant mixture of graceful tenderness and witty temperament. Vadislav Bubnov, as the male protagonist in the matinee, would have surely been one of Ashton's favourite interpreters of Cola; Campbell McKenzie, on the other hand, took full advantage of the interpretative options offered by the same role, to provide a truly 1997 reading of the same. Kevin Burke, in the ctravestie of Widow Simone, showed how comic roles can still be performed with artistry and good taste. Finally Wayne Sleep's 'dimwit' Alain was simply a show- stopper.
It is hard to believe that the company recently went through a major crisis that resulted in a total administrative and bureaucratic reshuffle, for these kinds of problems inevitably reflect on artistic standards. And it is hard and sad to believe that, according to rather ominous rumours, the future for these artists is rather grim.
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