Young Choreographers At Covent Garden
The founder of England’s Royal Ballet, Ninette de Valois, had her recipe for a balanced repertoire. It included classics, contemporary works and novelties, all in proportion. The company’s current director, Monica Mason, has spent her tenure getting the classics back in order. It was time to tackle the other ingredients in de Valois’s stew by presenting two new works by young English choreographers, along with a Balanchine masterpiece, in November at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.
Though the program notes spout grandly about neuroscience and “freedom space,” Wayne McGregor’s work can have the depth of a music video. However, his new piece for 10 dancers, Chroma, would have de Valois checking “topical novelty” off her list in approval. Shortly after this performance, Mason announced McGregor’s appointment as resident choreographer—not the proportion de Valois imagined.
Chroma took place in a brilliant setting, lit by Lucy Carter and designed by noted architect John Pawson. Entering through a dark alcove at back, the dancers wore Moritz Junge’s unisex, flesh-toned sarongs. McGregor’s musical response can be a blunt instrument, but the range of moods in Jody Talbot’s music—tenderness as well as aggression—forced adagio sections on McGregor, including a rich pas de deux for Alina Cojocaru and Edward Watson. Nobody looked quite like Watson in the wriggling, shaking and violent partnering. His manic fury set the tone of uncertainty and conflict and made the choreography unique.
Watson’s perfect qualities for Chroma are a near-disaster in The Four Temperaments, however, where his Phlegmatic seemed psychotic. He’s merely the most extreme in a company of dancers trying to act their way through Balanchine. The female Themes who open the ballet either grinned or vamped the audience. They should heed Balanchine’s advice, “Don’t think, dear. Just do.”
Christopher Wheeldon’s new ballet DGV, for Danse à Grand Vitesse (Dance at High Speed), takes its name from Michael Nyman’s music MGV, named after the French high-speed trains. The music is derivative schlock but seductively enjoyable.
Wheeldon’s typically British talent lies in his sense of the total ballet beyond the steps; his dance used every aspect of the dark, industrial set designed by Jean-Marc Puissant and lit by Jennifer Tipton. Four couples and a large corps shuffled or raced in the gloom.
Up-and-coming Steven McRae may one day show Wheeldon’s steps the way Watson shows McGregor’s. Martin Harvey was heroic, hoisting and flinging Deirdre Chapman in the best Soviet acrobatic tradition.
Like the music and the trains, the ballet picked up momentum as it went. Wheeldon has a glib facility that can seem insincere, as if modern or ballet vocabulary were different scarves to try with one’s outfit, but his talent makes us wait impatiently for his next ballet, when he may say what’s really on his mind.
Leigh Witchel is a ballet choreographer and regular contributor to Ballet Review, Dance Now and Danceview Times.
