SATORI review. Cape Town City Ballet’s Spring Season comprising George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco. Music: JS Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in B Minor BWV 1043. Repetiteur Diana White. Michelle Reid’s Sheeple. Music: Varied. Kenneth Tindall’s Polarity. Music: Varied. Lighting designs Wilhelm Disbergen.
SHEILA CHISHOLM reviews.
A Cape Town City Ballet (CTCB) triple bill always gives rise to disparate opinions. Patron’s pre-curtain buzz – possibly influenced by advanced publicity press releases – in no way matches post-curtain-down buzz. That’s when, having watched the ballets offered – in this instance Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, Michelle Reid’s Sheeple and Kenneth Tindall’s Polarity – aficionados can voice well-considered criticisms.
Much verbiage rests on personal likes and dislikes …is the viewer a traditional classical ballet enthusiast who only accepts tutus, tiaras and dancers performing to Tchaikovsky, Minkus or Delibes? Or, is something choreographed in contemporary dance idiom to Queen, Berg or mixed atonal sounds your taste? Or, if the programme is a bit of both, how does that fit into a classical ballet company’s repertoire?
Wherever the viewer’s taste lies, what’s relevant is to carefully examine this trilogy in relation to expectations from a company that boasts being a world class classical ballet company. What that implies is that each and every company member is blessed with an exceptional classical ballet training. A training of such technical expertise choreographers have no difficulty maximising their gifts on which to craft innovative dance art works.
Technically challenged
However, it doesn’t take an expert to see that few CTCB company members are technically up to international standard. One exception is Mariette Opperman, closely followed by Kirstel Paterson. These two principal dancers performed as First and Second Violin in Diana White’s reproduction of George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco. Both are elegant dancers but it was left to Mariette to bring a hint of the greatness to this Balanchine opus.
Set to JS Bach’s three movement Double Violin Concerto in D Minor masterpiece, Concerto Barocco is regarded as quintessential Balanchine. New Yorkers first saw Concerto Barocco when New York City Ballet premiered it on 11 October 1948. It was then that renowned English ballet writer and critic Clive Barnes wrote: “the three hallmarks of the American classical style are poetry, athleticism and musicality; these three graces are exceptionally exploited in Concerto Barocco.” Other Balanchine characteristics are uniformity of dancers’ heights, light, neat footwork, high leg elevation, exquisite arabesque line, delicate port de bras and phrasing. Add to those superbly rehearsed dancers and Barnes’s three graces would be evident.
Unfortunately, CTCB’s performance showed none of these. Uneven heights, under rehearsed and unmusically performed, a work of this stature deserved greater reverence from all involved in its presentation.
A contemporary dance world
From Bach and Balanchine’s purity, as Michelle Reid took CTCB dancers into a different world. A contemporary dance world where, matched to bells and whistle soundwaves, 24 supernatural (almost evil) Sheeple bounded. Coined from people and sheep, Sheeple’s tight fitting white body tights, splashed with black limbs, (unnecessarily) clearly divided rams from ewes. However, as Reid advanced her quirky, animal/human mindboggling, body squiggles, hops, bends, slides and twists, she did indicate that humans, like proverbial sheep, tend to follow blindly. The difficulty comes when one (Kristin Wilson) sees danger lurking, but it’s almost impossible to break away. A profound message in today’s environment. Reid’s Sheeple sits well on CTCB where technical weaknesses are not that obvious. However a question arises … should Sheeple’s style belong in a classical ballet company?
Successful Polarity
What does is Kenneth Tindall’s Polarity – a work inspired by “the suggestion opposites are interconnected.” Here Wilhelm Disbergen’s searchlight, spotlights, bands of light and colour streams focused on four wide banners added immeasurably to Polarity’s success.
A success resting on Tindall having accurately assessed CTCB’s dancers’ capabilities and drawing upon these to create this artistic contemporary/classical piece. A piece where pas de deux, groups coming together, parting, then returning identified the polarity between male and female.
Satori is a Buddhist word meaning “the road that leads to enlightenment.” Whether this is applicable to this Cape Town City Ballet’s programme is open for discussion.
What: Satori: Cape Town City Ballet
Where and when: Artscape until 9 November 2019
Tickets: Computicket
WS
