ToThePointe Posted December 14, 2015 Author Share Posted December 14, 2015 https://twitter.com/TheRoyalBallet/status/676370750975172608?t=1&cn=bWVudGlvbg%3D%3D&sig=2c0a19e1e82bba5336a9ed9b5a5a2d680b6f8ff2&al=1&refsrc=email&iid=75c2cfcb5fa84cbca41434e924d71349&autoactions=1450094328&uid=2648076871&nid=4+1489 The Royal Ballet have picked up this discussion, if anyone would like to see what others think of this topic... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sim Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 Good to see that they have picked it up and have asked people in the Twittersphere for their opinions on the matter! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colman Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 Except Twitter may be the worse possible venue - not a good place for expressing nuanced thoughts. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToThePointe Posted December 14, 2015 Author Share Posted December 14, 2015 I am not convinced that many people after a day at work dealing with real contemporary problems, such as domestic violence or serious illness really want an evening of earnest ballets dealing with "serious " contemporary issues created by people whose working lives are far removed from such things. I completely agree with this argument and I think we could all agree that after a stressful day and then reading the metro on the Tube with the usual depressing content, the last thing one would want is to see a 2 or three act ballet on war, terrorism etc. But I don't think that means it shouldn't exist. There's plenty of serious and dramatic theatre that has a public...I mean jeeze look at how many people watch abusive scenes in Soaps or Box Sets daily after work. It's a choice to go and I don't think ballet should limit itself to brighter themes just in case the audience doesn't want to see the darker themes that it might dare to portray. The thing is, we aren't watching the Nutcracker and Fille all year round...we are watching Manon get sexually assaulted, Romeo and Juliet killing themselves, a young girl hanging herself in Las Hermanas, Prince Rudolph killing himself, Odette killing herself, Giselle (possibly) killing herself...it's not a barrel of laughs all Season and all of these ballets have an audience. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLOSS Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 (edited) To ThePointe. The ballets to which you have referred, would certainly be dismissed as escapist by those who want ballet to address "serious topics" and "contemporary issues".They don't qualify as anything other than light weight works because their interest derives as much from the skills of the choreographer as a creator of dance as from the tragic events they portray. Those who earnestly call for ballets about real life contemporary issues are far too puritanical to accept any ballet of choreographic interest as meeting their exacting standards.In order to qualify as a work of contemporary social interest the ballet must employ a limited dance vocabulary as nothing must distract the audience from being forced to "confront real life".The dancer's costumes must not get in the way by diverting the audience's attention from the ballet's message either... Edited December 14, 2015 by FLOSS 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lindsay Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 I think there is a false binary being drawn here between "ballets about issues" and "escapist" ballets. There are ballets from all dates/all styles/all types of music/tutu to vest-and-pants that convey "truths" of some kind. Romeo and Juliet is about the dangers of tribal loyalties and antagonisms, Infra is about isolation in modern urban life, Giselle is about truth and trust and love. The ballets that find a truth (by which I mean convey it successfully through choreography and staging, not just act out a theme or story) that resonates with the audience tend to work and remain in the repertory, those that don't, do not. To think about "relevant" ballets only in terms of dealing with particular issues in a narrative way misses the whole point of "art". That is what newspapers are for. Art is to make us think about things in a way which is less straightforward. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quintus Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Or a ballet about the traumatic and scarring humiliation of turning up for games at school without your PE kit, and the teacher making you do it in your vest and pants. Oh, no, sorry, Wayne's already done that one 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 OK, I've been thinking about this for a while and have decided to post something about Fallen Angels Dance Theatre whose AD - Paul Bayes Kitcher - is ex-Scottish Ballet and BRB. Paul started running workshops to help addicts in recovery through dance. Fallen Angels Dance Theatre uses professional dancers for performances of works by Paul that are created as a result of inspirations from recovery workshops. Ballet-based but not ballet driven I have never been less than profoundly moved by the works that I have seen. On Tuesday morning I was invited to attend a session with Risen, which is a dance group that grew out of workshops in the Liverpool area. The short performance that was given as part of the morning was performed by the addicts in recovery who are part of the group. Most of them would not have had any dance background at all. However all the people within the performance danced from their souls and I am sure I am not the only member of the audience who was in tears. Talking to people afterwards most of them said how much being able to express themselves through dance had given them a purpose and was helping with their recovery. It was a moving and emotional morning. Ballet and dance can cover serious subjects in a way that can make the audience stop and really think about what the movement has grown out of, whether you are watching a professional company or a group such as Risen. Unfortunately I was unable to see any of FADT's November performances that included one in the Clore. Did any of our members go to see it? More information about FADT can be found here: http://www.fallenangelsdancetheatre.co.uk 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Wall Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 (edited) OK, I've been thinking about this for a while and have decided to post something about Fallen Angels Dance Theatre whose AD - Paul Bayes Kitcher - is ex-Scottish Ballet and BRB. Paul started running workshops to help addicts in recovery through dance. Fallen Angels Dance Theatre uses professional dancers for performances of works by Paul that are created as a result of inspirations from recovery workshops. Ballet-based but not ballet driven I have never been less than profoundly moved by the works that I have seen. On Tuesday morning I was invited to attend a session with Risen, which is a dance group that grew out of workshops in the Liverpool area. The short performance that was given as part of the morning was performed by the addicts in recovery who are part of the group. Most of them would not have had any dance background at all. However all the people within the performance danced from their souls and I am sure I am not the only member of the audience who was in tears. Talking to people afterwards most of them said how much being able to express themselves through dance had given them a purpose and was helping with their recovery. It was a moving and emotional morning. Ballet and dance can cover serious subjects in a way that can make the audience stop and really think about what the movement has grown out of, whether you are watching a professional company or a group such as Risen. Unfortunately I was unable to see any of FADT's November performances that included one in the Clore. Did any of our members go to see it? More information about FADT can be found here: http://www.fallenangelsdancetheatre.co.uk Thanks for this, Janet. I am happy to say this kind of work has been carried on proactively in prisons for at least (well, to at least my own certain knowledge) the past 15 years by such groups as DanceUnited. It has always been most potent be it in the UK - which has often led the way - or in any similar situations around the globe and these entities have now happily been well documented. Where words are not enough the movement itself can and does make humane emotions particularly pungent to an ever burgeoning many. The many, of course, are the ones who can and must seed positive change. These expressions bring us all together surely ... and certainly the open communication that grows from such can only aid in making us all safer. Where those pro-creative borders remain closed the opportunity for victimization of/in our world is - without question - heightened. Edited December 22, 2015 by Bruce Wall 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penelopesimpson Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 In between getting cross about Acosta's Carmen (and I don't mean to open up that discussion again) I fell to brooding on the very strange story that Carmen is. Just because the opera is so very familiar does not mean it really makes good psychological sense, which may be one reason one so rarely finds Carmen, the character, truly convincing. I haven't read the original book but this is not the point (apart from anything, Carmen in the original is a married woman, which is a rather different story). A trip to the opera to see Carmen tends to give us a woman who delivers some generalised vamping, which leads a soldier to abandon his duty, and various forms of chaos follow. Ok in outline but pretty puzzling once one gets down to the detail of exactly how the story unfolds. Of course people can lose their heart to those who may be unworthy (eg Proust) but what is this woman really all about? Why do the men react as they do? And, by the end, what is she thinking? My question is, has anyone done a same sex Carmen (not like the Matthew Bourne show)? Pulling the whole thing out of the pantomime past and setting it inside the contemporary gay scene (beautiful boys, older queens, drug-fuelled club events, maybe even bulls) might just provide some new insights into a work which after nearly 50 years of opera going often leaves me at a loss. I am not normally a fan of updating for the sake of updating - but an all male and very gay Carmen might have held my interest more successfully than Acosta's endless cliches. Just a thought...it's probably already been done, apologies if so. In between getting cross about Acosta's Carmen (and I don't mean to open up that discussion again) I fell to brooding on the very strange story that Carmen is. Just because the opera is so very familiar does not mean it really makes good psychological sense, which may be one reason one so rarely finds Carmen, the character, truly convincing. I haven't read the original book but this is not the point (apart from anything, Carmen in the original is a married woman, which is a rather different story). A trip to the opera to see Carmen tends to give us a woman who delivers some generalised vamping, which leads a soldier to abandon his duty, and various forms of chaos follow. Ok in outline but pretty puzzling once one gets down to the detail of exactly how the story unfolds. Of course people can lose their heart to those who may be unworthy (eg Proust) but what is this woman really all about? Why do the men react as they do? And, by the end, what is she thinking? My question is, has anyone done a same sex Carmen (not like the Matthew Bourne show)? Pulling the whole thing out of the pantomime past and setting it inside the contemporary gay scene (beautiful boys, older queens, drug-fuelled club events, maybe even bulls) might just provide some new insights into a work which after nearly 50 years of opera going often leaves me at a loss. I am not normally a fan of updating for the sake of updating - but an all male and very gay Carmen might have held my interest more successfully than Acosta's endless cliches. Just a thought...it's probably already been done, apologies if so. Get as cross as you like about Acosta's Carmen... I saw Cavalleria Rusticana yesterday and in between the wonderful singing and sublime music, I started wondering about the plot which is positively prehistoric with its blood revenge and deeply religious overtones. But the thing is, there really are only a few themes in literature - probably five storylines - and this is why original concepts are so frequently updated. Fantastic though it may seem to a modern audience, yesterday's opera still resonated, even if I felt my sympathy less with the spurned heroine (who was a cross between a drudge and a sneak) and more with the avenging husband. New works are great but it is surely a truism that in the end they are all more or less based on the same few themes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 This is a fascinating article (to me anyway) about an artist using ballet to reflect on modern times: http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2015/september/29/how-jr-uses-ballet-to-break-down-barriers/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sim Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 Thanks Janet. That is fascinating and I think is a good example of the point that TTP was originally trying to make here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colman Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 I guess the political problems of staging a ballet can be reduced by staging it outside the context of the events. A review of Les Bouquets. It doesn't sound like a classical story ballet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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