Ballet de Lorraine bring a tight and punchy twist on tradition in this energetic double bill. It’s bright, bold and vibrant on the surface, but is might lacking a bit of fire in its core
Based in Nancy, France, Ballet de Lorraine are a company known for flipping the script on the traditions of dance, incorporating modern music and blending styles to bring something new to the artform. In this piece, the choreographers Marco da Silva Ferreira and Adam Linder fully utilise the company’s talents, bringing us two pieces which take inspiration from history and reimagine them for our current times.
The first is Acid Gems, a piece devised as a response to the 1960’s ballet Jewels by George Balanchine. Here, Linder seeks to give a makeover to the well-worn piece, with a freshness vibrancy cast through neon colours and the melding of street dance and theatrics. The piece is certainly otherworldly, starting with two masked figures atop tall thrones, seemingly controlling the narrative. Our ensemble are writhing beings, awakening and starting to emerge under the thumb of their overlords. The thing feels alien, distant, and ultimately freakish. Billy Bultheel’s music is brash and pulsing, with a bass that makes the walls of Elisabeth Hall shake under its strain. The costumes by Antonin Tron are similarly extra-terrestrial, neon and asymmetrical. The dance itself is well constructed, beginning with faint gestures, slowly building into something like an uprising. The strongest sections of Acid Gems are the ensemble movements, where the dancers seem to be one, breathing together and uniting. However, the narrative that the piece was seemingly trying to achieve is nothing new, and at times the piece feels a little stagnant and perhaps even unrefined.
However, Marco da Silva Ferreira’s a Folia made for more pleasing viewing. Set at a 15th century folk party in Ferreira’s native Portugal, a Foila, meaning madness, is a highly energetic and debauched dance. Despite being set in the 15th century, Aleksandar Protic’s costumes are straight out of Bergheim, lots of netting and skin-tight rubber, loosely covering the dancers as they bound about the stage. The old and modern mixing work well in this piece, Ferreira’s choreography incorporating elements of traditional folk dance but interspacing these with moments of contemporary ballet. The music by Luis Pestana features baroque instrumentation set to trancey club beats. The dancers are clearly enjoying their party, and there’s a lot of whooping and cheering from the troupe. A Folia also makes good use of the lighting in the space, playing with shadow and haze to create a variety of environments. There is no narrative as such, but the piece plays out with scenes that might evoke memories of wild nights and wild deeds. The strongest moment is towards the end, when the music suddenly cuts and you are left with only the noises of the dancer’s bodies, the breathing, shuffling of feet, clapping of hands, adding a human element to the whole thing.
As enjoyable as some of the key moments are, both a Foila and Acid Gems suffer from a lack of direction, and the audience might hope for more of a story, or certainly to be left having seen some sort of arc play out. There are nods to political messaging here and there, but these are often by association rather than being overtly explored. However, the quality of the dancing is unsurprisingly exceptional, and the company put a lot of energy and enthusiasm into the work, which, combined with the technical elements, make for a pleasing spectacle.
Ballet de Lorraine: Acid Gems and a Folia is running from 5th – 7th March at the Southbank Centre.