BALLETBOYZ: STILL POINTLESS
As a celebration of 25 years nothing could have felt more rounded, more complete and yet more timeless. Founders Michael Nunn OBE and William Trevitt OBE have created an evening of dance that excites, moves and goes beyond expectations. It balances film footage, a form that they have been embracing since that first outing at London’s Round House back in 2001, with interviews and delightfully spontaneous narration, clearly not that spontaneous as recorded, but maintaining that spirit. It intersperses the performance without ever feeling intrusive, and above all it tells their story of collaborating with the best, offering opportunity to the brightest new talent and badgering the stars of the dance world into working with them.
Working with a group of extraordinary young male dancers what is immediately apparent that this a company so very disciplined, there is an exactness, a precision that shines through every move they make. The exacting physicality required is obviously there, of course it is but it is delivered with a finely balanced quality of energy and elegance. Whilst this is in essence modern dance there is so much evidence of the classical form, beautiful solo moments and duets matched with precise ensemble work, gentle pitched against fierce, tenderness against aggression.
And this is an evening of shared glories, not just of the founders but of the creatives they have engaged with over those 25 years. Amongst them Christopher Wheeldon, Iván Pérez, Maxine Doyle, Liam Scarlett, Xie Xin, and Javier de Frutos, and composers Cassie Kinoshi, Ben Foskett, Keaton Henson, and Max Richter. It’s recipe that in lesser hands could be over-rich and confused but somehow they make it work. Elegant animalistic Serpent sitting comfortably against the fierce rage of Young Men in which the lead dancer displayed a quality of dramatic artistry that took the whole to an incredibly high level, story telling matching the gruelling physicality of his dance. Truly moving stuff!
Seirian Griffiths’ Motor Cortex opens the evening with a pair of dancers in a stark shaft of light, this punctuated by total black in which more and more couples take to the platform as they weave a complex pattern where synchronicity plays such a prominent thread.
Xie Xin’s Ripple is a delicate and sensuous ensemble work, intimate and beautifully combining both western and eastern movement. Russell Maliphant‘s Fallen is one of the works that having being refused they simply achieved by stalking him in New York, and how very worthwhile that was.
The evening continues, layering dancer, choreographer, director, designer in a display of talent, expertise, adventure, experiment and above all experience. There’s a simply brilliant piece that explores masculinity from a tribal display of preening and brutal lads to a score that sounds like a Bernstein having a nervous breakdown, to moments of intimacy that go beyond mere fraternity and the whole ending with violent black-eyed aggression.
The evening closes with Fiction, a barre, a fragmented voice-over, boys in rehearsal clothes and a storyline that declares that Javier de Frutos is dead, killed by a falling shard of plastic glass during a performance. This somewhat grim story at the heart of Fiction is delivered with both exuberance and humour and in the final moments the hinted at strains of Donna Summer’s Last dance finally emerge in a full on rainbow lit feast of disco dancing with company eventually spinning around and around. There is a lightness of intent in this finale that left me feeling joyous as I stepped out into the warm summer evening, wishing that I was still able to go on to some vibrant night spot and dance the night away.
Andrew Kay
27 June
Theatre Royal Brighton
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