Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet at Sadler's Wells

[aileen]

I have just come back from Sadler's Wells. To my mind, all three pieces presented by the company were contemporary rather than ballet, which perhaps I should have expected. This does raise the question of what makes a dance piece a ballet but, as far as I am concerned, when the dancers enter the stage wearing socks it's a strong indication that you're not going to be seeing anything remotely resembling classical ballet. As far as I could see, there was scarcely a ballet step the whole evening. I don't know how representative of the company's repertoire tonight's programme was. All three pieces were absorbing in their different ways, but I felt that they very much relied on the novelty factor in the case of the Ekman piece (the dancers' voices were incorporated into the score and they responded a bit like puppets when their individual voices were heard) and the atmospheric scores and moody lighting in the case of the other two pieces and that the choreography was subordinate to these things and, consequently, not especially interesting. However, it seems that this opinion is very much at odds with the various reviews which I have read and so perhaps I have missed something. I would be interested to hear from anyone else who sees this programme.

[johnross]

We were only shown the Alexander Ekman piece and it was chalenging to record but they seemed a happy bunch. This is what it looked like.

 

 

Matthew Rich, Ebony Williams and Joseph Kudra in Alexander Ekman's Tuplet

 

 

 

Jonathan Bond and Matthew Rich

 

More pictures on www.johnrossballetgallery.co.uk

Edited October 13, 2012 by johnross