Wayne McGregor's “Yantra”, Edward Clug's “PocketConcerto” and Jorma Elo's “Red in 3.”
The Stuttgart Ballet
Schauspielhaus
Stuttgart, Germany
July 10, 2010
by Horst Koeglercopyright 2010 by Horst Koegler
For the end of its 2009/10 season, the Stuttgart Ballet moved to the Schauspielhaus. In spite of that theatre's smaller capacity, the company had to fight against dwindling audiences because of the simultaneous football world cup championship in South Africa, which drew thousands of fans to the open-air screens in parks and public places. Performances, though, did in no way suffer, as the company was dancing brilliantly – as if itself fighting in a competition of supremacy.
Offering a triple bill, it sandwiched a revival of Edward Clug's “Pocket Concerto” from last year between two creations, Jorma Elo's “Red in 3.” and Wayne McGregor's “Yantra” – with the new Elo proving a cliché-ridden blatancy, while the McGregor scored a smash hit.
Clug is a young Rumanian choreographer who leads the company in Maribor/Slowenia. He has set his “Pocket Concerto” for three plus four dancers, who perform it to minimal music by his compatriot Milko Lazar – a restless driving, kaleidoskopic, piano dominated score, and his steps, minced from the classic vocabulary, are richly varied and incessantly newly assembled. Moving walls (set and costumes by Thomas Mika), however, allow one to view only parts of them, with the mind busy to find out what goes on behind them, maybe some rather wicked things. Its very funny and twinkly flippant – a light summer soufflé, served by the dancers with tongue in cheek glee, the females Oihane Herrero, Anna Osadcenko and Rachele Buriassia teasing the cock-sure males Marijn Rademaker, Evan McKie, Brent Parolin and Attila Bako.
Elo is Boston's resident Finn. He seems to be in constant demand around the globe and arrived here directly from Vienna, where he had set at the State Opera as his first full-length piece, “A Midsummer-Night´s Dream” – a muffled success (but then it must be remembered that over here we have our own “Midsummer Night's” dreams, exorcised by John Neumeier´s superb production, which for us is not even matched by Balanchine's or Ashton´s version). Anyway Elo seemed to still cater for his sweet tooth, for he chose for Stuttgart the Tchaikovsky Violin concerto, and I must admit that it had not hit me before, how much Tchaikovsky owed to Mendelssohn´s earlier fiddling caprices. Actually there were moments in “Red in 3.” when I envisioned fairies flitting around the stage. But that was my unbridled fantasy and not in any way suggested by Elo's choreography, which places the dancers in their classic white tricots and tutus (by Yumiko Takeshima) against Linus Fellbom's flaming red curtain and baldachin, in what looks like Balanchine´s Diamond-“Jewels” gone tipsy, a choreographic cocktail, its vodka base mixed up with dashes of Tudor´s “Gala Performance”, Robbins´ “The Concert”, Kylián's “Sinfonie in C”, van Manen´s “Black Cake” and Béjart's “Operette”. Oh yes, the dancers like – no: love - to wallow in the ironic mannerisms of their craft. And Elo provides ample chances to show off, not only for the five solo couples Angelina Zuccarini and Alexander Zaitsev, Alicia Amatrirain and Filip Barankiewicz, Maria Eichwald and Jason Reilly, Elizabeth Mason and Arman Zazyan, Anna Osadchenko and William Moore, but also for the four plus four groupies. It's a ballet for the dancers to really let themselves go, and they do not miss the chance to do so.
And so on to “Yantra”, McGregor´s piece set to Esa-Pekka Salonen´s “Foreign Bodies”, décor and costumes by Vicki Mortimer and lights by Lucy Carter, for six plus six virtuoso dancers, whose common terminator seems to be turbo speed. This is McGregor's third ballet created for Stuttgart. He started to work here years before he was appointed the Royal Ballet's resident man (which shows Reid Anderson's flair for budding choreographers). He explains “Yantra” being Sanskrit and meaning instrument or machine and connects it with everything which is based on a structure or organization, and he likens it to time, body and space. And so he goes on in the programme book to philosophy on it and fuel it with the music´s metronomic heart-beat. While I wouldn't pretend to understand the scientific theorizings of his working methods, it seems clear to me that he represents the antidote to Pina Bausch's creed that it is not how man moves which interests her, but rather what makes him move, while for McGregor it is the other way round, which may explain his preference of nonconsequential methods of moving bodies. Which I find endlessly fascinating as dancers twist and wriggle their bodies, doing all the things which are strictly off limits according to the syllabus of the danse d´école. It is as if the music provides the streams of blood pulsasting through the bodies of the dancers, compelling them to forget everything which they have learned and exercised in their daily classes and by that discovering a cosmos of bodily choices they hadn´t known that it existed. That makes his choreography so multifacious and one wonders how the dancers do remember their enchainements. Anyway their bodies seemed to have completely soaked it up, as if for weeks they had been marinated in it. Thus he choreographs differently to each dancer´s individual bodily predisposition. There are six couples of Stuttgart´s elite squadron of dancers involved, and never before have I been aware of their twelve individual DNAs. And yet they collectively communicate the feeling of belonging to the same company. Wow!
Photos, both (c) Ulrich Beuttenmueller.
"Yantra" Ch: Wayne McGregor. Dancers: Alicia Amatriain and Marijn Rademaker.
"Yantra" Ch: Wayne McGregor. Dancers: Angelina Zuccarini, Evan McKie, Alexander Jones, Elisa Badenes.
