Sinfonietta/ Vespertine/ Night Creature, mixed programme, Ballet Nice Mediterranee

[Duck]

I was back in Nice at the weekend for the current triple bill of Ballet Nice Mediterranee, which included the premiere in France of Liam Scarlett’s Vespertine. I saw the performances on Saturday evening and on Sunday afternoon.

 

The programme started with Sinfonietta by Jiri Kylian. Sinfonietta was part of the first programme that I ever attended at the ROH, back in 2006, and it was a joy to see it again. In particular the entry of the men at the beginning, one by one, and each then performing the same choreography, the duets of grands jetes in rectangles across the stage, and the closing section with couples performing higher and higher lifts diagonally across the stage. It’s that energetic, joyful, celebratory atmosphere that captivated me, and also the backcloth which reminded me of a rural coastal area in the UK or in Ireland.

In watching the duets with their grands jetes, I was thunderstruck by a dancer whom I hadn’t seen before. His lines, his precision, the clarity of his dancing, the way he moved between the jumps and turns completely got me. I was properly awestruck. A check in the programme book during the interval showed Alessandro Audisio as name. A search on the web later that night showed that he graduated from the RBS in 2014 and then joined the Romanian National Ballet. So no wonder! He did the RBS proud, he will be a great asset for the company in Nice (yes, I am still awestruck!), and I look forward to seeing more of him in future seasons.

 

Scarlett created Vespertine with music by Arcangelo Corelli for Norwegian National Ballet in 2013. With the exception of a PDD for two dancers at POB last summer, I understand that Nice is also the first company in France that shows any piece by Liam Scarlett. The stage is lit by (up to) 9 chandelier-like groupings of around 25 bare light bulbs each. 4 lead dancers and a further 8 dancers perform in 17^th century-style clothes – high-waisted culottes and knee-length coats for the men, long dresses with an extremely wide skirt, a tight top and a shoulder cover for the woman, all in burgundy. Plus nude trunks & bodies underneath, as the choreography later shows. An introductory male solo is followed by a long and sensual PDD (trunks and full dress), superbly danced by Zaloa Fabbrini and Zhani Lukaj, both promoted to soloist level only at the end of last season. Various lifts upside down, including with shivering of legs by the woman and one very high lift upside down where the female dancer does what looks like a one-armed handstand on the man’s shoulder; he holds on to her thigh and then walks across stage in that position rather fast. Various group sections with a female solo and a male duet in between follow, sometimes in full clothes, sometimes in underwear for the men and/ or the women. Some group movements look like court dancing, some like playing a string instrument, all are highly musical. The male duet seems to be about relationships and male rivalry. The programme booklet doesn’t indicate a story for the ballet, and yet I’ve taken this piece as couples at a 17^th-century court and what happens on stage - and more importantly, what happens behind the scenes.

 

Alvin Ailey’s Night Creature, to music by Duke Ellington, comes with the atmosphere of a NY jazz/ night club. 1920s style dresses and headbands for the female dancers, lots of hip shaking, some ballroom dancing, some jazz dance, and intermittently overhead lifts, arabesques, pas de bourree, pas de chat and jetes. This was not my piece as there was too much hip shaking for my taste. The audience on Saturday however truly adored it (I didn’t stay for it on Sunday as I was heading to a local cinema to see the new documentary about the Opera de Paris, see my post in the Opera & Music section), and the music proved to be an earworm – on the way back to my place, I was shaking my hips, too.

 

Eric Vu-An has published two videos with extracts of stage rehearsals on his public Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Eric-Vu-An-383731904998106/?fref=nf.

There’ll be further performances of the triple bill later this week. Sinfonietta will also be performed by the company in Antibes in June as part of another mixed programme.

 

The programme booklet shows 28 dancers, up from 26 dancers when I saw the company last autumn and 25 last spring. This growth in size (well, I hope it is growth rather than filling vacancies that happened to exist just when I saw the company last year), the addition of Alessandro Audisio and the entry of Scholz’ Oktett into their repertoire last year/ Scarlett’s Vespertine this year makes me excited about the future development of the company. I really look forward to the announcement of the coming season (and as an aside, I do hope that the flight connections from Stuttgart will have improved by then as getting there from London seemed to be somewhat easier & cheaper).

 

Edited April 11, 2017 by Duck
Put titles of the three choreographies in bold font

[Sim]

Thanks for that wonderful and interesting review, Duck.  It's great to hear about a company that we don't hear too much about!  

[Duck]

Thanks so much, Sim    I hope I'll be able to see the company also in future seasons and will happily feed back then, too. 

 

[ninamargaret]

Thought for a moment they'd dug up Ashton's Sinfonietta! Another Ashton piece I'd love to see again.

[Duck]

11 minutes ago, ninamargaret said:

Thought for a moment they'd dug up Ashton's Sinfonietta! Another Ashton piece I'd love to see again.

 

Just looked at a short video of Ashton's Sinfonietta on the web.  This looks great, and I'd happily watch the full piece.

 

 

 

[ninamargaret]

Thanks for that - didn't know about it.  Will look.

[Scheherezade]

Yes indeed, Duck, many thanks for your review of a company and programme that I would have liked to have seen. I love Alvin Ailey, unlike some in the UK I enjoy Jiri Kylian and I have to say that Scarlett's Vespertine sounds an extremely interesting piece.

[Duck]

Thanks so much, Scheherezade. Atlanta Ballet has recently taken Vespertine into their repertoire, too, so there is a further video on the web about the piece

 

[Duck]

... I tried unsuccessfully to convert the above video into just showing the link, and somehow I must have clicked on "submit" in doing so, hence the incomplete post above

-------------

 

... plus a review of a performance of Vespertine by Atlanta Ballet http://www.danceinforma.com/2017/03/22/atlanta-ballet-triple-bill-gennadis-choice/ 

 

Other than that, I find Eric Vu-An's public facebook page the best source to seeing extracts of the ballets if I unable to go to Nice for a performance

 

 

 

[Scheherezade]

Thank you for the link, Duck. I enjoyed watching the video.

[Sim]

So did I....thanks Duck!  Vespertine definitely looks like a ballet I would like to see.