BY ANGUS MCPHERSON
Vitesse
The Australian Ballet
Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House, 26 April
A blast of sound and light jolts the audience to attention and William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, the centre-piece of the Australian Ballet’s Vitesse program, begins with nervous twittering and giggles. The first moment of Thom Willems’ electronic score is loud – the decibel level is written into the performance licence – but it settles into a metallic shuffle as dancers in green leotards congregate and stretch on the stage, as if gathering in the studio before a rehearsal. The raw effect is enhanced by the stripped-bare stage. This is not just minimal staging – anything that could even resemble staging has been removed. Stacks of lights and other backstage paraphernalia are visible and the lack of screens means the normally sharp delineation between on-stage and off-stage is blurred. Dancers walk casually around the stage and spring suddenly into stylised motion, or linger in the wings chatting and adjusting their clothing before exploding onto the stage.
In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated was created for the Paris Opera Ballet and is considered a turning point in the history of modern ballet. The movements are extreme – bodies stretching, snapping and extending – but underlying this is a strong sense of balletic tradition: the footwork is all classical elegance. Kevin Jackson distinguishes himself, as does Ako Kondo, the pull and push of their final pas de deux dripping tightly controlled sexuality, tension and violence.
John MacFarlane’s set for Jiří Kylián’s Forgotten Land is a dark, turgid seascape. The dancers stand with their backs to the audience, facing down the storm clouds as the timpani resounds in the opening of Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem. The work is inspired by Edvard Munch’s The Dance of Life, which depicts a woman in different stages of her life. The painting is divided into three – a young woman in white, a woman in red dancing with a man in black, and an older woman in black, looking back on her younger self. Forgotten Land follows the same schema in both its costuming and structure, presenting a dystopian, nightmarish vista. The dancers’ movements are florid but distorted, full of twisting curtsies and menacing contortions; the transformation of Munch’s grim impressionism into physical motion.
By contrast, Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV: Danse à grande vitesse is almost jarringly optimistic in its celebration of movement and speed. The work sets choreography to Michael Nyman’s bubbling Minimalist work, MGV: (Musique à grande vitesse), written to commemorate the inauguration of France’s TGV high-speed train line. With a large cast of 18 dancers, the work focuses on four couples, each representing a different aspect of travel: romance, speed, danger and technology. Jean-Marc Puissant’s burnished metal set divides the stage in two, a curving wave of metal panels separating background and foreground. The soloists are dressed in vividly coloured streaks that look painted on to their bodies. Like a landscape viewed through a train window, the dancers in the foreground often move at a different pace to those in the background. The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra infuses the music with powerful energy under Nicolette Fraillon’s baton, though the balance feels a little wind-heavy in the expressive third movement. The dancing is excitingly upbeat and choreographically precise, a bright finale to a virtuosic and high-octane program that revels in extremes of speed, movement and emotion.
Image supplied. Credit: Daniel Bound.
