DANSOX lecture: Alastair Macaulay ‘On Meaning in Swan Lake’, JdP Music Building, St Hilda’s College Oxford, 2nd March 2022 – Maggie Watson reports

Alastair Macaulay delivered the first face-to-face DANSOX lecture of 2022 against a background of loss and tragedy.  The loss was the death of the critic Clement Crisp at the age of 95; the tragedy, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.  Macaulay dedicated his lecture to the memory of the former, and  acknowledged his initial difficulty in speaking to a topic that might have seemed trivial against the background of the latter. 

He then delivered a talk that proved quite the opposite.  Taking inspiration from Arlene Croce’s assertion in 1973 that ‘Swan Lake is not a drama about birds – it’s a drama about freedom’, Macaulay cogently argued that it is a ballet about power and subjugation; bondage and liberation; trust and betrayal, which extends beyond the personal tragedies of Odette and Siegfried into the wider social and political domain.

 

Nureyev: documentary directed by Jacqui Morris & David Morris, Phoenix Picturehouse, 1st October 2018 – Maggie Watson reviews

This wonderful but exasperating documentary film celebrating the art of Rudolf Nureyev almost succeeds both as a work of art in its own right, and as a discussion of the role of dance in mid-twentieth century European history. Although it suffers from too much material and too many ideas for its thematic structure to accommodate, the mode of presentation, which includes the use of dance to embody meaning, is highly original in a documentary format. Magnificent montages of archive film and newly created dance footage overlaid one upon another provide a depth of experience that is sometimes exhausting: watching Russell Maliphant’s choreography, accompanied by Alex Baranowski’s score, while listening to a Russian language interview translated by subtitles is almost overwhelming.

 

English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer competition – Maggie Watson reviews

English National Ballet Emerging Dancer:  Monday 5 March 2012

If you saw Strictly Gershwin at the New Theatre in the autumn, you may have voted for the “People’s Choice Award”, which was presented at the end of the ENB Emerging Dancer competition at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Monday night.

The winner of both awards was Yonah Acosta.  It was almost inevitable:  he took the audience’s breath away with solos from Diana and Actaeon and Don Quixote.  Both performances were charismatic and courageous, but I thought he chose two variations that allowed him to display similar qualities of daring, elevation and spectacular pirouettes.  I should have liked also to have seen him in something more lyrical, or even less than a century old.

The other competitors demonstrated a wider range, but I thought that only one, Ksenia Ovsyanick, was completely successful.  Her first solo, Out of Line, was fluid but accurate, showing clear understanding of the patterns on the floor as well has the shape of the movement, and in Don Quixote she was exciting, spirited, in character, and technically precise.

Three of the other dancers’ classical variations were flawed by loss of balance or uncertainty on pointe, but Black Swan and Paquita were very difficult choices, and Nancy Osbaldeston even had to contend with a late arrival in the audience being led across the auditorium by an usherette with a torch just after she had started.

I enjoyed Barry Drummond’s solos.  He made a very good job of a variation from La Sylphide, dealing well with fiendishly tricky batterie, although I think he needs to develop even more control of his upper body and arms to perfect the style, and his beautiful if lengthy solo by Nacho Duato was a complete contrast in style and technique.

Nancy Osbaldeston, interestingly, had choreographed her second solo herself.  Sassy and fun, not surprisingly, it showed both her personality and her strong technique to great advantage, and also went very much better for her than did Paquita.  I was glad to see someone who may be an emerging (female) choreographer, as well as a dancer.

Introduced by the “original Ballet Boyz”, Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, this was a highly professional evening, until the moment that the decisions had to be announced, when the show seemed almost to fall apart for lack of planning.  Perhaps it was the pain of not being able to give awards to all his dancers that threw Wayne Eagling a little off his stride, but I think that next year a rehearsal for the judges would help.  It would have been interesting for the audience, and perhaps for the dancers, if he had explained which qualities the judges valued the most.   Looking at the result, presumably it was virtuosity and showmanship.  The decision was bound to be made on the basis of what each dancer achieved on the night itself, and I think that some of them will have been disappointed by their particular performances, but I should have liked to know whether the judges considered other talents, such as the ability to perform different sorts of work to the highest standards or indeed the ability to choreograph.  As they took longer than planned to make up their minds, there must have been some interesting discussion.

When asked to speak off the cuff, Clement Crisp was eloquent, praising the company and pointing out that these six dancers are representative of the future of ENB.   Interestingly, David Wall chose to address his words directly to the dancers, reminding them that dance is not all about pyrotechnics;  it is about engaging the emotions of the audience.  I hope that neither the dancers nor the company lose sight of that.

The dancers were Yonah Acosta, Barry Drummond, Nancy Osbaldeston, Ksenia Ovsyanick, Junor Souza and Jia Zhang.

Maggie