Dance
Scottish Ballet
Theatre Royal, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
Five Stars
When Crystal Pite’s Emergence blazed onto the stage during this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, it was coupled up with Angelin Preljocaj’s all-male endurance test MC 14/22 (Ceci est mon corps). For the Autumn Tour, however, Scottish Ballet have looked closer to home for a piece to sit alongside Pite’s seething evocation of swarm mentality in dynamic motion: that piece is the newly premiered Sibilo by company member Sophie Laplane.
Four women and four men cluster in an initial ensemble where Laplane’s sharp-sculpted, rapid angularities hint at busy, almost over-regulated lives. As couples emerge, the score increasingly lives up to the title, Sibilo (it’s Latin for ‘whistle’). Sometimes a piercing, referee-ing blast initiates change, but mostly the mix of music and whistling creates a nuanced mood-board for Laplane’s cunning jigsaw of relationships.
Think of Lauren Bacall’s line “If you want me, just whistle...” – a similar, teasing frisson of sexual come-on runs through Laplane’s choreography, even when the sassy, agile signals are ignored or unrequited. There’s so much high-class invention crammed into just thirty minutes: a cartoon-y vaudeville duet, male doublework where the slipping in and out of one jacket speaks volumes, and more sly fun when - at the peep of a whistle - costumes are whisked away on wires. Cleverest of all, though, is how the jauntiness, the rivalries and games-play all tell recognisable stories of what whistles up togetherness.
A surprise curtain-raiser saw Christopher Harrison - tip-tilted backwards as if in an astronaut’s chair, with his limbs slow-floating weightlessly - in Jack Webb’s solo Drawn to Drone, seen earlier this year at Cottier’s when Webb himself was in the chair. With Emergence showing the entire company on-stage - so sharp, so precise in Pite’s uncanny, insect-like moves - this really is Scottish Ballet at the top of its game.
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