NZ Festival opens with three formidable dance works

Speed of Light
Royal New Zealand Ballet
St James Theatre February 26–28, then Auckland, March 2–6, Christchurch, March 10-12, Dunedin, March 16

See also: A modern day version of The Beggars Opera

The Royal New Zealand Ballet opened the NZ Festival with a stunning trio of dance works which showed the company to be a formidable dance force. The three works were by three of ballet's most important modern choreographers; William Forsythe, Andonis Foniadakis and Alexander Ekman.

The standout work was the last on the programme and, ideally, would have been on first but then the best work would have been first and that would have lessened the impact of the other two works

Cacti by Alexander Ekman was the newest of the three works, having first been performed in 2010. It is one of the more inventive recent contemporary works by one of the world’s most innovative choreographers.

It is a complex multilayered work with dancers who express themselves through sound as well as dance, on-stage musicians, architectural elements which the dancers manipulate, a long spoken interchange and of course the cacti.

The work also makes references to other dance works, pop music videos, imagined primitive dance and Busby Berkeley. The architectural element are reminiscent of the Anthony Gormley designed plinths in “Sutra” choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui which was at the 2010 NZ Festival.

While the work takes an experimental and challenging approach to dance, it also takes a witty approach by reflecting on the nature of contemporary dance with the voice-over asking “what does it all mean?. We are asked to consider what the roles of the dancer, the choreographer the audience and the critic are – a postmodern questioning of a postmodern art form.

In this process of questioning we see 16 dancers on a checkerboard of metre square platforms performing a variety of dance moves that range from yoga poses to frenetic activity,

The music for the work is provided by members of the New Zealand String quartet who spend much of them time on stage playing disjointed passages of music, notably Schubert’s soulful “Death and the Maiden” along with passages from string quartets by Haydn and Beethoven.

The dancers respond the drama of the music but occasionally they appear to lead the music as their movements become those of a conductor, music and dance meshing in a new way.

After initially appearing to be constrained by their one metre square platforms the dancers begin to use them as architectural elements, turning them into elements of dance and then they construct an elaborate three-dimensional structure which allows for more unrestrained dancing.

Here we witness one of the more entertaining duos of the evening with Veronika Maritati and Shane Urton dancing to a long monologue that imagines the two dancers communicating to each other about the dance piece they are engaged in. The voice relays the sorts of commands, observations and reflections that could be running through their heads of the dancers. So, the elegant dance is reduced to the physical manoeuvrings and posturings that they have been instructed to perform.

The first work on the programme, Selon desir by Andonis Foniadakis, is danced to a compelling electronic score by Julien Tarride, which makes use of Bach’s St John and St Mathew Passions. While this is the first time the work has been performed in this country the ballet company performed it on last year’s tour of the UK and Italy.

The stage initially belongs to the dark world of Alayna Ng who dances with a frenetic pace, her movements matching the ecstatic music. Soon the corps de ballet takes to the stage in waves providing visual equivalents to the multi-layered music. At times their thrashing, racing, rolling bodies look like the writhing figures in a Renaissance illustration of the damned in Hell.

The dancers' bodies evoked notions of weight and vulnerability, displaying contrast between the frantic and the carefully measured, primal moves contrasting with finely tuned movements

In one dramatic duo Alayna Ng takes on a Christ-like role to be tempted and buffeted by Shane Urton with the two dancers displaying an intense physicality.

The work used the idea of the suffering of Christ as an allegory for the nature of the personal suffering and anxiety of individuals in crisis and under stress.

The other work on the programme was In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated by William Forsythe, which was originally written for Rudolf Nureyev and Royal New Zealand Ballet artistic director Francesco Ventriglia danced the work during his career as a dancer.

The work opens and closes with the explosive sounds of the music of Thom Williams who provides a fearsome score which plays with contemporary and classical musical themes.

The dancing itself is also as mixture of the traditional and contemporary. The dances appear to be in sync with each other performing traditional steps, moves and poses but these are accelerated, slightly shifting the movements between each other so there seems to be random, off-key relationships creating ghostly after-images.

At times the dancers appear to be responding to the music without real engagemnent, moving like marionettes while at other times they use their limbs in a form of semaphore-like communication then at other times they are reptilian in their movements, flitting between spaces. Then there are times when the dancers form into groups to observe and communicate with each other, creating a sense of narrative.

What Speed of Light” reveals is the change of pace and the increased dynamic nature of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Francesco Ventriglia has been able to assess and interpret the skills and abilities of the dancers and provided them with dances that offer challenges and opportunities for them to extend the company’s repertoire. He has also exposed them to the use of a new and more subtle language that will allow the company to expand its vision.

John Daly-Peoples has a relative on the board of the RNZB

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