Sea of Troubles/ Silhouette
HHHH
Pierrot Lunaire
HHHHH
Duets
HHH
MAIN-STAGE, back-stage, even the upstairs foyer, have become stop-and-watch stations on Scottish Ballet's exhilarating travelogue of dance, where time-lines and style zones have been bridged by the unstintingly versatile bodies of (just about) every member of the company.
Family illness had prevented Edouard Lock from creating a new work for Scottish Ballet, but Friday evening's double bill of Kenneth MacMillan's SEA OF TROUBLES (1988) and Christopher Hampson's SILHOUETTE (2010) was much more than a stopgap piece of programming. MacMillan's take on Hamlet distils plot and central characters into an episodic jigsaw of lust, guilt and death where everyone is haunted by time being out of joint. Roles are interchangeable, the movement almost hyperventilates with stylised dramatic flourishes. Even so, the six dancers on the main stage found the emotional intensity in the non-naturalistic statements of inner turmoil that MacMillan set to Webern and Martinu. If Sea Of Troubles majored on "Sturm und Drang" Hampson's Silhouette breezed in with a tremendous reminder of how gloriously merry, elegant and timeless the classic ballet traditions can be. Poulenc's Concert champetre teased with mercurial shifts of mood, Hampson's black and white divisions - women in tutus, men in noble tunics and tights - responded in precise formations where playful shimmies and fizzy pointe-work showcased serious classical technique and humour alike.
IN 1962, Glen Tetley's PIERROT LUNAIRE breached the genre defences that kept ballet and contemporary dance on different sides of the fence. On Saturday night, Luke Ahmet took to the heights of Pierrot's scaffolding tower to get under the skin - and the liquid, acrobatic elan - of the white-face innocent whose trust is abused by a swaggering Brighella and an unscrupulous Columbine as his whore-accomplice - Owen Thorne and Bethany Kingsley-Garner are, like Ahmet, utterly compelling in their characterisation and connection with Tetley's choreography. Even so, It is Ahmet's night. An expressive tour-de-force that, at times, seems to float on the soaring, swooping thrill of soprano Alison Bell's live singing of the Schoenberg music (played by the RCS MusicLab). Fifty years on, Pierrot Lunaire still has a visionary beauty, a poetic wistfulness that embraces mankind's moonstruck hopes and vulnerabilities. An odyssey to cherish.
A studio space has been created on-stage and it's here that the programmes of short works take place. DUETS found Sophie Martin and Victor Zarallo interlocked in the slithery-fierce physicality of James Cousins's Jealousy, where Zarallo never loses his hold on her even in the sweat of the moment. Company member Sophie Laplane reveals a sharp, sussed instinct for eye-catching movement in Oxymore - so cool, it's hot with Brenda Lee Grech and Daniel Davidson dancing to the same beat, but with their own individual groove. Two "morsels" from the Darrell repertoire hinted at the emotional depths woven into his steps, but - with Bethany Kingsley-Garner's nuanced showing of Five Ruckert Songs especially - left you wanting more context. Helen Pickett's Trace was nicely to the pointe at the end.
The dance goes on today.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article