Dance for You Magazine 81 (Nov/Dec 2017)

44 DANCEforYOU magazine
Certainly, this ambitious project could not
have been realized without the specialized
coaching for all of the ballets across all of the
companies from the dancers who had worked
directly with Kenneth.
The performance I attended opened with
Northern Ballet dancing Gloria, based on
Vera Britten’s book about World War 1, ‘Testament
of the Youth’. MacMillan’s father had
been gassed at the Battle of the Somme, and
although he didn’t talk about it much it obviously
profoundly affected him. Set to Poulenc’s
glorious Gloria in G major. It is a lament
for a generation lost. Northern Ballet rose to
the occasion and caught the grief, hope and
horror in equal measure, with interchanging
patterns, shapes and lines exact. Beautiful
Minju Kang’s expressive port de bras dripped
tears as the central Madonna figure, and she
was ably partnered by Guiliano Contardini
throughout the sustained adagios. Sarah
Chun was the one bright spark, radiantly pirouetting
across the vast stage, and tossed
blithely between Sean Bates, Ashely Dixon
and Nicola Gervasi, all accomplished dancers.
Bur it was Riku Ito who impressed, with soaring
leaps and an anguish that did not stem
his quintuple off balance pirouettes. A very
moving performance.
The Judas Tree, performed by the Royal Ballet,
is a visceral work. Set in a building site on
Canary Wharf in the 70’s, it is nevertheless
inspired by the age old story of Judas’s betrayal
of Jesus. The Judas Tree, it is said, bears
purple flowers that have been turned to red
by drops of Judas’ blood when he hanged
himself. MacMillan, always sparing on the
program notes as he wanted to engage the
audience enough to work it out for themselves,
illuminates the ‘reap what you sew’ idea
with The Foreman (Thiago Soares every bit as
macho as you could want) hanging himself
after the betrayal of his friend and indeed
the very graphic gang rape of his girl on
who he wished revenge. As the only female
in the piece Lauren Cuthbertson was stunning.
Long legged and sassy, she remained
completely dominant in this turbo charged
masculine environment until brutality asserted
itself. Her ‘lover’ Edward Watson gave a similarly
potent performance, and his eventual
murder was sickening. It was certainly an immensely
powerful piece, and the Royal ballet
men were convincingly pack-like, but it was
almost too much to take in such a short space
of time. Certainly the audience welcomed a
restorative interval drink.
The closing Elite Syncopations with full ragtime
band on stage is a consummate crowd
pleaser, a cocktail of vaudeville and comedy
guaranteed to entertain. There are however,
as usual with MacMillan, considerable physical
demands beneath the froth and the frolic,
but all well accomplished by principals from
across the companies. The Royal Ballet’s Laura
Morera gave a glisteningly suave performance
in Calliope Rag, BRB’s Maureya Lebowitz
and Mathias Dingman danced a sweetly
romantic Alaskan Rag, and Northern Ballet’s
Kevin Poeung zipped through the demands
of Friday Night without disturbing a slickly oiled
hair on his head. A truly celebratory performance
and a little piece of history.
Viki WESTALL-EYRE
Precious Adams in Elite Syncopations. © ROH, 2017. Photographed by Bill Cooper
The Judas Tree. Lauren Cuthbertson and Edward Watson, ROH, 2017. Photo by Bill Cooper.
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