The Royal Ballet: Wayne McGregor triple bill, November 2016

[jm365]

Which FT colleague was it, please? 

 

Sorry - posted this before I looked at the Reviews section.  Therefore ignore this post!

 

edited to add second sentence

Edited November 14, 2016 by jm365

[Sim]

Louise Levene.

[Sim]

According to the ROH website Luca Acri will be replacing Steven McRae in Chroma tonight and for the rest of the run.  In bocca al lupo, Luca!!

[John Mallinson]

And for McRae in Multiverse.

[Fonty]

 I didn't think he was there as he doesn't tent to bother himself with new works nowadays. He wasn't but his FT colleague has done a pretty good demolition job in his place (see Links)!!!

 

She still gives it 3 stars, though, which means she must have got something out of the evening.  I notice that the Alvin Ailey dancers get very favourable reviews.  Why did McGregor include them this time round?  Any particular reason?

[Sim]

Chroma is already in Ailey's repertoire.  He probably just thought it would bring an interesting new dimension to the piece, which it does.  As many critics and forum members have mentioned, Chroma's impact seems to have become diluted as the years have passed and we have all got used to McGregor's choreographic language (irrespective of whether we like it or don't like it).  I remember how bowled over we were that first night ten years ago;  now it is a bit more of a 'meh' reaction.  So adding new dancers with a different dancing style from that of the RB dancers makes for a breath of fresh air.  

[alison]

I notice that the Alvin Ailey dancers get very favourable reviews.  Why did McGregor include them this time round?  Any particular reason?

 

I assume it was a way of dealing with the practicalities of having the main usual suspects, casting-wise, in all 3 works.

 

I don't know how many people on this forum actually saw the cinema broadcast of the Ailey company in Chroma a few months ago. I thought those dancers were variable in how well they coped with the style, but the one who struck me most forcibly was, I think, Akua Noni Parker, who I thought wouldn't have looked at all out of place with the RB in terms of her attack.  I think she took Lauren Cuthbertson's role, which is presumably why she's not appearing in this cast.

[Bruce Wall]

Chroma is already in Ailey's repertoire.  He probably just thought it would bring an interesting new dimension to the piece, which it does.  As many critics and forum members have mentioned, Chroma's impact seems to have become diluted as the years have passed and we have all got used to McGregor's choreographic language (irrespective of whether we like it or don't like it).  I remember how bowled over we were that first night ten years ago;  now it is a bit more of a 'meh' reaction.  So adding new dancers with a different dancing style from that of the RB dancers makes for a breath of fresh air.  

 

I so agree with you on this score, Sim.  I found it wonderful to have the chance to see dancers whose entire careers have been lodged in a contemporary dance ethic - such as that encouraged by the RB's resident choreographer - share in this run of Chroma.  It seems only fitting that the Ailey dancers should join with the RB dancers in this celebration of the Company's master choreographer's tenth anniversary - given that he has now mounted more works for the RB than either Ashton or MacMillan individually did.  I'm sure Dame Monica Mason - who brought McGregor into the RB fold - must have been earnestly applauding this incentive.  

 

McGregor truly has focused the current RB ethic for the world in a way the other current core RB choreographers - Wheeldon and Scarlett - have not been able to so clearly do having been less present.   In the same way Tree of Codes to be seen in SW's new season is a celebration with dancers from both McGregor's own company and the POB as then led/agreed by Mdme Lefevre.  I say that because it reminds me of the potential aptness of a certain comment made by Millipied prior to his departure as a director of the POB.  Certainly everything is marked by its own time.  Twenty five years from now it could - and perhaps should - be quite different.  That very change marks the various artforms' life blood - as much as one of its unifying factors. 

 

In a similar way I applaud the Bolshoi in their upcoming visit to New York City for sharing Balanchine's (the patron saint of NYCB of course) Jewels with principal ballet dancers from NYCB and the POB.  Such simply enforces the difference in current (and in one instance rapidly changing) terms of dance ethic focus within each of these major companies.  What a wonderful kaleidoscope our dance world weaves ... and oh, to be sufficiently wealthy to be able to imbibe in it all.  Bless the RB for allowing our globe - through the films - the opportunity to share in so many of its own glories.  Most generous.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Bruce Wall

[Jam Dancer]

It's the 2nd interval at the McGregor triple bill and I just wanted to make a couple of quick comments:

 

Enjoyed Chroma with the mix of RB and Ailey dancers.. didn't find the Ailey dancers more muscular than the RB dancers as someone mentioned earlier ... I think musculature or definition shows more prominently on darker skin. I was glad to see the collaboration.

 

Multiverse: .... ahem umm... usually I am innoculated from any horrors by reading the comments here before seeing new pieces and usually I enjoy them much more than the general sentiment on the forum but this time it was truly a shock... I am open minded and like some of McGregor's stuff (not Raven Girl) but I did not like this at all ... still at loss for words

[zxDaveM]

Chroma - can't add much except is that got a bit of freshening up with the different crew, sometimes for the better, sometimes not quite so much.

Carbon Life - well, i've always loved it, mainly for the 2nd song, the last song, and some of the duets (dancing that is) in between. While i like Brody Dalle, did miss hugely the stage striding Alison Mosshart almost glowering around the stage in apparent rage!

Multiverse - can understand the majesty of what the two dancers (in each cast) were doing and how clever and skillful it was (both the choreography and its execution by each pair), but oh what a din. Stuffed paper and fingers in ear, and it didn't sound so bad - though with hardly any of the upper pitched notes and harmonies echoed in the twinned loops, it did become even more repetitive. The slightly more open middle section was fascinating in parts, but seemed somehow a little messy and incoherent - perhaps that was the point. I actually enjoyed the last section (the new music section, where there was actually music). I really wished he'd just done that as a short piece and left it at that.

[bangorballetboy]

given that he has now mounted more works for the RB than either Ashton or MacMillan individually did.

 

 

I'm afraid that's not true. McGregor has created 17 pieces for RB (if you include collaborations such as Machina and Acis & Galatea). MacMillan and Ashton each created in advance of 20 pieces on the RB (not including pieces created for the touring section, the New Group or the SW Theatre Ballet).

[Gargouillade]

Could one of the knowledgeable members of this forum confirm the name of the Alvin Ailey dancer who danced the Eric Underwood part in the Chroma pdd with Cuthbertson this evening?

[Bruce Wall]

I'm afraid that's not true. McGregor has created 17 pieces for RB (if you include collaborations such as Machina and Acis & Galatea). MacMillan and Ashton each created in advance of 20 pieces on the RB (not including pieces created for the touring section, the New Group or the SW Theatre Ballet).

 

Thank you for pointing this out, bangorballetboy.  I was simply quoting what I had read in a broadsheet account marking the anniversary referenced.  Perhaps they had not sourced all the additional items you quote.  Do you know exactly how many ballets Ashton and MacMillan each did as a whole for the entity we know as the Royal Ballet?  I would be most grateful to know.

 

Certainly it would seem that - as you kindly acknowledge - Mr. McGregor is making a substantive advance in his own right in this regard.  

[alison]

Could one of the knowledgeable members of this forum confirm the name of the Alvin Ailey dancer who danced the Eric Underwood part in the Chroma pdd with Cuthbertson this evening?

 

Jamar Roberts.

[bangorballetboy]

Thank you for pointing this out, bangorballetboy.  I was simply quoting what I had read in a broadsheet account marking the anniversary referenced.  Perhaps they had not sourced all the additional items you quote.  Do you know exactly how many ballets Ashton and MacMillan each did as a whole for the entity we know as the Royal Ballet?  I would be most grateful to know.

 

Certainly it would seem that - as you kindly acknowledge - Mr. McGregor is making a substantive advance in his own right in this regard.  

 

As Geraldine O'Dare is known to say in the wonderful musical Irene: "If it's printed in the papers then it's true."

 

I stopped counting the MacMillan works when I got to 20 (given the time of day I was looking at these things).  For Ashton, I think I got to 29, excluding diverts and pieces for the touring company, New Company and what is now BRB.

[Geoff]

Who knows the Alvin Alley dancers well enough to name the one who towered over the rest of the cast in the curtain calls, at eg the dress rehearsal? Given the names to choose from I am rather hoping it is Jeraboam (which might just be nominative determinism!)

[alison]

Jamar Roberts.

[bangorballetboy]

Who knows the Alvin Alley dancers well enough to name the one who towered over the rest of the cast in the curtain calls, at eg the dress rehearsal? Given the names to choose from I am rather hoping it is Jeraboam (which might just be nominative determinism!)

 

I think we were all hoping that!  He is Jamar Roberts.

[Bruce Wall]

As Geraldine O'Dare is known to say in the wonderful musical Irene: "If it's printed in the papers then it's true."

 

I stopped counting the MacMillan works when I got to 20 (given the time of day I was looking at these things).  For Ashton, I think I got to 29, excluding diverts and pieces for the touring company, New Company and what is now BRB.

 

Just wanted to say 'thank you' ... as well as 'a like'.  

[Ian Macmillan]

Anyone who has the time and inclination to count the MacMillan and Ashton ballets for the RB may find these links useful:

 

MacMillan:  http://www.kennethmacmillan.com/ballets/all-works.html

 

Ashton:  http://www.frederickashton.org.uk/ballets.html

 

 

Edit:  My apologies and I clearly had too many tabs open, leading to my repeating the MacMillan link.  The corrected Ashton one I had intended is based on David Vaughan's book - see Lee's post, below - but is very much a pared-down version of the Appendix there.  Further work would be needed to confirm the companies involved for each.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Ian Macmillan

[bangorballetboy]

Anyone who has the time and inclination to count the MacMillan and Ashton ballets for the RB may find these links useful:

 

MacMillan:  http://www.kennethmacmillan.com/ballets/all-works.html

 

Ashton:  http://www.kennethmacmillan.com/ballets/all-works.html

 

Thanks Ian.  That's what I was using to go through the MacMillan works.  I don't think you've posted the right link for Ashton.  For Ashton I was using the appendix to David Vaughan's book that lists all of Ashton's works and includes a reference to the first company to dance it (and who the dancers were).

[Jam Dancer]

I assume it was a way of dealing with the practicalities of having the main usual suspects, casting-wise, in all 3 works.

 

I don't know how many people on this forum actually saw the cinema broadcast of the Ailey company in Chroma a few months ago. I thought those dancers were variable in how well they coped with the style, but the one who struck me most forcibly was, I think, Akua Noni Parker, who I thought wouldn't have looked at all out of place with the RB in terms of her attack.  I think she took Lauren Cuthbertson's role, which is presumably why she's not appearing in this cast

 

Perhaps you noticed her Alison  because she started out as ballet dancer....She trained with Dance Theatre of Harlem and danced with Ballet San Jose before joining Ailey

[alison]

No, it was definitely the attack, although I knew she came from a ballet background

[Quintus]

Hmmm, just back and if this were a less decorous forum I'd refer to a certain kind of sandwich with an unpleasant filling to describe this triple bill.  For the top piece of bread I was very pleased to get to see Sarah Lamb in Chroma, a piece I've only seen on DVD and enjoy.  The Alvin Ailey dancers had quite a distinct style of movement, more sinuous and less snappy than the RB, which gave a degree of inconsistency across the cast, but I was quite taken by Jaqueline Green's performance.  The bottom piece of bread, Carbon Life, was a piece I'd seen before - it's pure entertainment and none the worse for that. It does also have some quite uncharacteristically lyrical dancing in it, which makes it all the more frustrating to describe the filling. The first half of Multiverse was really tedious and with an ear-bleedingly awful tape loop that just went on and on and on. To me the WMcG dance vocabulary looked random, limited and plain tired out. At least in the second half the music improved, but not even Fran Hayward, who looked absolutely drop dead gorgeous even in her dirty vest, could rescue it. I felt sorry for the dancers who put such effort into this mediocrity - they have such an amazing toolbox of capabilities, but they are just not used by the choreographer. You don't borrow a Ferrari then just use it to go to the garden centre..   

 

Enjoyed the evening overall because of the 'bread', but I hope they never bother putting the 'filling' on again.

 

As a footnote, I was annoyed by the Amphitheatre Right people who chose to stomp out very noisily during the silent passage in Carbon Life - show some respect, people!  If they had an early train then they should have left in the preceding interval, for goodness sake.  

[LinMM]

I really shouldn't comment as am not seeing this triple bill but somehow the very name "multiverse" already puts me off the piece!!

[bridiem]

 

As a footnote, I was annoyed by the Amphitheatre Right people who chose to stomp out very noisily during the silent passage in Carbon Life - show some respect, people!  If they had an early train then they should have left in the preceding interval, for goodness sake.  

 

Perhaps it wasn't an early train; perhaps they just couldn't take any more.

 

Spot-on description of Multiverse. Black Hole would have been a better title.

[bangorballetboy]

On the basis of what I hear during part 1, I have renamed Multiverse as Disco Wayne.  Explains the flashing coloured lights in part 3 too...

 

[Jam Dancer]

Interesting review today from Roslyn Sulcas in the New York Times.   She was positive about Chroma and  not as positive about Multiverse calling it "uneven and flawed" but she also said it was "ambitious and challenging". She didn't mention Carbon Life.

Perhaps I ought to go see Multiverse again and ensure I get a seat where I can watch the piece from the centre...not sure I could sit through the first part of the music again though.  By the way, the article is entitled "Review: A Decade On, Wayne McGregor Continues to Energize the Royal Ballet".  With encouragement like this, it's difficult to see McGregor being dislodged anytime soon.

[Geoff]

the article is entitled "Review: A Decade On, Wayne McGregor Continues to Energize the Royal Ballet". With encouragement like this, it's difficult to see McGregor being dislodged anytime soon.

Has this triple bill - an evening of the relentlessly repetitive, in some ways anyway - actually done Wayne all that many favours? Doesn't he often come up best when set against very different kinds of piece? Maybe some eyes were opened by this collection of works.

 

Just a thought, please forgive any trespassing on holy ground.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Geoff

[Mummykool]

 

Spot-on description of Multiverse. Black Hole would have been a better title.

 A black hole is where Multiverse should be consigned.

 

We have tickets for Saturday and there is no way I plan on sitting through that again. I shall be in the amphitheatre bar with a good book and a cup of coffee.

 

I think Geoff has hit it on the head....three McGregor pieces together has done more to highlight his shortcomings than enhance his reputation.

[FLOSS]

I think that we need to remember that every critic writes from their own perspective but that foreign critics' reviews of performances by companies such as the RB tend to reflect not only their personal tastes but their nation's view of the country, in which the company whose work is being reviewed, is based. That this is so was clearly reflected in the accounts that US critics wrote about Mr Millepied and his time at the POB and I think that something similar is happening in the review of this RB triple bill.  If you had read reviews of the programmes which Millepied had staged you would have been forgiven for thinking that POB was a company bogged down in the past which had no truck with modern choreography rather than one which has an institutional habit of discarding its past at regular intervals. As far as the NYT's  critic is concerned perhaps it goes like this the RB is a hidebound company because the British are a hidebound people dominated by their history and traditions. Here the company is staging something radical and new.It must be good mustn't it ? Perhaps she is experiencing the initial excitement of seeing McGregor's choreography for the first time. If she has not had the opportunity to see much of his work she may not have had the opportunity to notice how limited his choreographic vocabulary is and how repetitive his ballets are,

 

As far as local critics writing for the daily press are concerned they have to write to a deadline.They tend to hedge their bets perhaps because they don't want to be caught out damning a work which later comes to be revered as a major development of choreographic art.The critics who had time to reflect were not as enthusiastic about the triple bill. Luke Jennings said that Chroma had not aged well and that it was all veneer.He seems to have liked the first section of Multiverse but appears to have been disappointed by the secons section's failure to deliver on the expectations it raised and I don't think that describing the third section as being set in "lala land" sounds particularly complimentary. While he said that Mcgregor's work reflects the zeitgeist he also said that his works are are very narrowly focused. Saying that he is concerned about the RB's future and by the part that McGregor's narrow focused productions are likely to play in it does not sound like a ringing endorsement to me.Gerald Dowler did not sound that enthusiastic either.

 

As Luke Jennings says Wayne McGregor divides the audience. While he seems to have a very comfortable and assured position at Covent Garden at the moment I am far from convinced that his security is guaranteed.There are a number of factors that might unseat him. The most obvious one is a change of director which seems unlikely at present. But there are other potential threats. What would happen if he produced a series of duds? His works are not cheap to stage and it might be useful to remember that what put paid to the creation of new works during Dowell's directorship was the cost of a series of dud new works and the strain they put on the company's finances. I should have thought that McGregor's position would come under threat if he had a couple of expensive flops..I also wonder what effect it would have on his position if other choreographers working with the company came to be seen as better long term options for the company because they consistently produced high quality ballets with real choreographic content ? Then there is the question of just how safe his works are for dancers who have to switch between classical based ballets and his works with minimal transition time.for their bodies to adjust? What would happen if it was ever established that appearing in his works without adequate transition time was associated with increased rates of injury for the company as a whole or came to be associated with the premature ending of careers? 

Edited November 17, 2016 by FLOSS

[Jane S]

AIthough Roslyn Sulcas writes for the New York Times I believe she has been living in London for several years and has often written about McGregor's work .

[Bruce Wall]

I think that we need to remember that every critic writes from their own perspective but that foreign critics' reviews of performances by companies such as the RB tend to reflect not only their personal tastes but their nation's view of the country, in which the company whose work is being reviewed, is based.  

 

Forgive me, FLOSS but the word that immediately sprung to mind when I read your opening sentence was 'Balderdash'.  In fact I found myself hearing it with a 'Clive Barnes, CBE' snarl' which the dear man was quite capable of making replete with his Anglo-Saxon tonality.  

 

History is littered with examples of 'foreign critics' - covering a vast realm of endeavours inclusive of dance - and here I refer as you imply to BALLET - whose writings themselves would prove that such a statement - especially when issued with such an all encompassing brush as you chose to employ - is simply patronising.  There are a goodly few I think who might well find it - or certainly would have found it - offensive - although I'm quite certain - knowing you as I do from the vast amount of entries you offer on the various BcoF boards - that such was/is not your intent.  

Edited November 17, 2016 by Bruce Wall