Sarasota Ballet digital Ashton bill

[Rina]

Thanks Alison. Can I add some thoughts arising from the review of Valses nobles et sentimentales in DanceTabs (in Jan McNulty's Dance Links for 6 May)?

The reviewer interprets some of the dance images in terms of narrative, and concludes that the final section represents the principal girl's memories of past romantic attachments. It seems important to remember that the ballet was made the year after Symphonic Variations, where “paring down” became a crucial part of the creative process, and was a new poetic version of a previous setting to the music which had a story.

The search for a narrative can be a defence against the power of images. It can shut them down, and prevent them working on you. I also suspect that it stems from a literal rather than a poetic perspective. For example, the review mentions the scene towards the end when we see the principal girl being carried from stage right to left behind the screen by two boys, her legs split across their shoulders. You can see it currently in the Sarasota compendium of Ashton performances on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/368351704) at 16.20. It's an arresting image – breathtaking – a moment of magic.

The review describes it as “a startling sight in so decorous a gathering”. As an image it reverberates on many levels at the same time. Yes, literally she is a glamorous woman in the anteroom of a ballroom being brought on by her two admirers. But the image also evokes a palanquin, or a Catholic saint or Indian god being carried through the streets. As a ballet image, it looks like an eternal jeté, an echo of the statue-like freezing and unfreezing that occurs throughout the work. As a threesome, it's a mythical creature with a female upper body and male lower body. Or an image of “threeness”. As an image it's inexhaustible.

[jmhopton]

Emailed Sarasota ballet today, asking if there was any chance they could continue with some of their streams into next season. I was thinking especially of the new David Bintley ballet. However, I had a very prompt but regretful reply from their Marketing Director Jason Ettore saying they can't continue because of the cost and extra rehearsal time entailed in filming a live ballet, plus  The other roadblock comes from whether or not choreographers and choreographic trusts will continue to allow for their works to be streamed online and if unions will continue to make the contract exceptions they have made for this past Season.  They say it wasn't a decision they took lightly because of the worldwide appreciation of their streams they have received but they have no option but to continue with just live performances. Sad, but at least we were able to see some of their wonderful rep. and one more still to go.     

[Rina]

The Sarasota Ballet finished their digital season with Ashton's Birthday Offering and Twyla Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs. I've never seen the Ashton ballet live and would love to, judging from this performance. As many have said, it may take many viewings to appreciate just how good an Ashton ballet is, and this one is a good example. It has an easy structure: opening ensemble of fourteen dancers with an adage section, seven solo variations for the women, a group dance for the men, a pas de deux, and a closing ensemble - alternating between group dances and a focus on detail.

 

I thought that the Sarasota company seemed best in the ensembles and some of the solos. The pdd was conscientiously done - lots to admire about the dancing - but it didn't move me and I'm aware of a number of differences from the film on YouTube of Lesley Collier and Anthony Dowell dancing it. For example, she traverses the stage in a supported bouree in one section, and accelerates when past the half way point. It's exciting because it feels like her heart beating faster. This didn't happen in the Sarasota version, at least not so clearly. Later, she does a back bend just held at the waist, whereas in the Sarasota performance it became a supported fall as in Swan Lake. Also, there is a beautiful section near the end when the couple have a kind of hug at arms' length, where they each stretch their arms out and place them over the other's, repeated three times I think. It's unusual, and reminded me of the people in Botticelli's Mystic Nativity. In the Sarasota version, they just touched fingers. I wonder why that was. It's not fair I know to criticise today's dancers for not being Collier and Dowell, but throughout I felt that although the movements may have been accurate, their significance or meaning was not communicated. In the video, the gestures make sense, and the pdd brings tears to the eyes. It can be something very simple, such as one dancer moving down as another moves up, but if they are together a kind of emotional conjunction happens and is felt; similarly if the angles of heads or legs are just right.

 

As a non-dancer, I found it very helpful to read the discussion of this ballet in Geraldine Morris's book Frederick Ashton's Ballets, especially her analysis of the solo variations. I could see how what flashes by in a moment (each is barely a minute in length) is in fact carefully constructed and full of detail and nuance. Overall I thought that the Sarasota dancers caught the very different spirits at work in the solos. At just over 25 minutes, this would be an ideal work to include in a triple bill. Finally a few thoughts about the title. It sounds like Bach's Musical Offering - which is a series of variations to a theme by the king of Prussia. It's as if Ashton is presenting his version of variations to Petipa - the king of classical ballet - as well as to the RB and its forebears. The title may also echo the offertory of the Mass - when the priest presents the bread and wine to the altar, and the congregation makes gifts of money - which Ashton knew as a child. For the astrologically minded, the ballet concerns the number seven: seven couples, seven solos in succession, seven men in a group, etc. The seventh house of the zodiac concerns partnership - in all senses, literal. metaphorical, spiritual - and thus reflects both the relationships within the dancing and how the dancers form a company. I like to imagine the section in the ballet when all seven couples form a diagonal, and as they pirouette, the couple at the back runs forward to the front, until all have done it. It's like an ever-filling glass or a cornucopia, of a company of dancers reaching maturity and being renewed from the ranks as the years go by. Similarly the section immediately preceding this [in the opening ensemble of the work] with all the lifts has a feeling of bounty, as if Ashton is drawing on an inexhaustible source. Well, if you've lasted this long, you can tell I liked this work!

 

 

[Two Pigeons]

Gosh Rina, you do write very well!

[Rina]

Thanks Two Pigeons! and to the Forum for the opportunity to express views. Ballet must be one of the most difficult art forms to write about, if not the most difficult. What I like particularly is when the writing stays with the dance images themselves (describing them in terms of steps, sequences, shapes, patterns, simultaneous movements) and their effect. Another thing I look for is when a writer responds to a dance image with another image rather than an opinion or a judgment. I like this approach because it can be surprising, in a way it enables the performance to continue in the imagination.

 

I don't know how to articulate it but even in this supposedly occasional piece Birthday Offering, Ashton is enacting a myth, which seems to touch on themes of survival and renewal. Working within a tradition is not old-fashioned or backward-looking. It acknowledges that something is creating through you, is calling on your craft to display itself. The result may at first seem unremarkable but it has some quality in it which deepens with time. Perhaps Ashton felt that the pressure was off with this piece d'occasion and was fully at the disposal of his muse. I have the feeling that psyche loves such modest structures of time and gleefully fills them: the result is a cornucopia of wonderful dancing!