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May 22, 2006
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The Spring, 2006 issue of Ballet Review arrived in my mailbox today. It is not available online, but I have two pieces in it:
In the front section there's a report on Wheeldon's Swan Lake for Philadelphia:
The most exciting thing about his corps work is its spatial energy; it bursts with patterning and peelings and surges in unexpected directions. It is classical in vocabulary but very much of its time. It doesn't look like Petipa – it moves too much and too fast. It doesn’t look like Balanchine – instead of the erect carriage of the torso Balanchine used, Wheeldon prefers a more mobile one, especially of the upper torso, seemingly influenced by contemporary dance. It looks flattering on the company and makes Pennsylvania Ballet look like a company that has the resources to do Swan Lake even though they just barely have enough dancers to tackle it.But this isn’t just a new classical ballet; it’s a new version of Swan Lake. Wheeldon’s work can’t be judged only on the fluency of his choreography, but on his treatment of the story. Do any of the changes or deviations from the traditional Swan Lake illuminate or enrich the story? Has he made a Swan Lake that is in any way better than a traditional version? The answer is no.
I wrote the above in October, 2005; there's a good chance if I had seen Evenfall (had it existed) at that time I might have been more willing to cut Wheeldon a break. I've found that Wheeldon usually keeps at a theme or genre for several times until he gets it.
I've also got a longer report on the end of the Ashton Centennial Season at the Royal Ballet:
These performances brought Monica Mason’s second full season running the Royal Ballet to a close. Her approach has been cautious and partially guided by the commemorative obligations of the Ashton centennial, but it’s painfully easy to imagine far more perverse approaches to a centennial than the respectful one Mason took. From the look of the company’s dancing the retrenching has done the company good. Even with a large contingent of dancers of many nationalities, the company looks English.
Now that Mason no longer has the Centennials to oblige, it's interesting to note that the coming season unfortunately has very little Ashton. I'm willing to trust Mason. For the past two years there have been precious few new works, and little MacMillan. I might prefer the Ashton but there are people clamoring for premieres and MacMillan as well. Still, what the Ashton Centennial showed without a doubt is the ballets need to be danced to be danced well. I hope she'll put more back in 2007-8. Were it me, I would have cut Theme and Variations and put in another Ashton work, but that's because I can see Theme with little effort and I haven't had luck with the Royal dancing Balanchine. A British Balanchinomane might think otherwise.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at May 22, 2006 11:38 PM
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