A breathtaking history of some of ballet’s most radical choreographers
The English National Ballet’s R:Evolution is a quadruple bill of some of ballet’s most innovative works. It takes us through a brief history of four of the art form’s most radical choreographers, elegantly placing these pieces in conversation with one another in a moving display of what ballet can be at its most exciting.
It’s easy to be cynical about ballet. In many cases ballet deserves this; it is often overprotective of tradition and unwelcoming to new audiences.
This is not that kind of ballet.
First is George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, danced to music by Tchaikovsky. It is the oldest and most traditional of the four pieces – but even here Balanchine playfully parodies the styles that came before him.Theme and Variations is an incredibly precise and fast work. Guest principals Alice Mariani and Ricardo Castellanos are spectacular. They dance with such ease and technical brilliance that anyone who regularly watches ballet will immediately recognise them as among the best in the world – as is the whole company.
After Balanchine comes Martha Graham’s far more narrative Errand into the Maze. It tells the story of a woman venturing into a minotaur’s labyrinth and is staged on a surreal set by Isamu Noguchi. Rentaro Nakaaki dances with a wooden bar across his shoulders, pinning his arms in place. He moves in a series of expansions and contractions that Graham exaggerates to an almost impossible degree.
Next is William Forsythe’s Herman Schmerman. This is a clever choice to follow the Graham: we move from her abstract but narratively driven work to a more modernist piece. It also converses with Balanchine. Forsythe studied Balanchine’s methods closely, and at moments Herman Schmerman seems to directly iterate on Theme and Variations.
Set to an electronic score in complex time signatures, five dancers move like quantum particles, often changing direction mid-movement. Alice Bellini dances with an oxymoronically brilliant, jagged grace. There is a stunning moment where, from almost complete stillness, she launches into a perfect grand jeté.
Forsythe claimed that a piece of ballet is never completed, that with each new performance it rediscovers itself. The movements in Herman Schmerman are so well conceived that it feels as if the work is being created improvisationally. While Balanchine was fascinated by formations and patterns, Forsythe pushes towards a restless and twitchingly alive ballet.
The evening ends with perhaps the most moving of the four: Four Last Songs, choreographed by David Dawson. This is the most recent work, premiering in 2023.Strauss’ Four Last Songs were his final compositions, reflections on his own life and his coming death. The texts are taken from German poetry, three by Hermann Hesse and one by Joseph von Eichendorff. Soprano Madeleine Pierard sings them with terrifying passion, studying the dancers as they move. She seems as physically involved in the dance as them.
Dawson has created a piece that takes ballet, perhaps the most bodily sublime of all the arts, and uses it to confront mortality and frailty. It is a topic that brings out completely new feelings from what we are used to seeing in ballet and is truly radical.
R:Evolution is the kind of work ballet companies should strive to make if the art form is to rid itself of its current public perception. The works are cleverly chosen and deeply moving, and the dancers are of a standard unimaginably high. If you’ve never seen ballet, this is the right place to begin. If you go often, this is the kind of evening you surely hope for every time.