Jump to content

Carlos Acosta calls for more ballets that reflect "what the world is today".


Recommended Posts

I share Jan's enthusiasm for Swansong and its continued relevance for the world of today.  However, I cannot see it getting full justice in a theatre the size of the Hippodrome.  I am sure ENB did perform it there a couple of decades ago but I can see its power being severely diminished in such a large space.

 

Time to mention the much missed mid-scale tour?

 

Much as I admire Mr Acosta's determination to provide high quality ballet for a distinctive company I think many of the responses to this post indicate he has a very uphill struggle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

4 hours ago, Two Pigeons said:

I share Jan's enthusiasm for Swansong and its continued relevance for the world of today.  However, I cannot see it getting full justice in a theatre the size of the Hippodrome.  I am sure ENB did perform it there a couple of decades ago but I can see its power being severely diminished in such a large space.

 

Time to mention the much missed mid-scale tour?

 

Much as I admire Mr Acosta's determination to provide high quality ballet for a distinctive company I think many of the responses to this post indicate he has a very uphill struggle.

Actually in the BRB talk he did refer to splitting the company in two (as though it had never happened before!- and so successfully) so that different dancers could tour in different places.

This was in answer to a question about touring. He was asked about touring to the Lowry and Sunderland which he said would continue (he turned up at Sunderland last March, just for a single performance as he was then touring with, and dancing for, his other company, Acosta Danza). He stated hurriedly that touring would continue, then enthused at greater length about the importance of international touring (Tamara Rojo also is more enthusiastic about international than national touring, when asked); but then aded the idea of splitting the company for touring, which is encouraging for us provincials! And could also expand the number of ballets danced.

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

From my own experience bringing friends to the ballet who are my age (early twenties), many really like the choreography, music, ability of the dancers, and storyline, but disconnect with the ‘frippery’. Most friends’ reservations are that it’s hard to escape in an art form that is so formalised and reflects mostly on historical periods. 
 

So when I hear Acosta talk about making these ballets reflect today, I wonder does he mean simply updating the setting of these existing ballets? Making them a little less formal and a little more personal?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"The company's provincial tours have been the most successful on record.  They have revealed the essentially conservative nature of provincial audiences, who have preferred to play safe with the classics  rather than risk a triple bill of novelties, and the repertory has been modified in consequence.  This seems a pity, but the problem of presenting novelties does not belong to ballet alone, and is only too familiar to concert promoters."  

 

From the Royal Opera House  Annual Report, 1959-60.  The provincial tours mentioned would have been undertaken by the Touring Company, the lineal predecessor of BRB.  Compare and contrast with 2021 and later ....... 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, taxi4ballet said:

The world today is a horrible place in many respects. To be honest, if I'm going to take out a small mortgage for theatre tickets I want to be transported to a fantasy land, not subjected to gritty realism.

Totally agree, Taxi.  I love my escapes to historical fairyland!

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, taxi4ballet said:

The world today is a horrible place in many respects. To be honest, if I'm going to take out a small mortgage for theatre tickets I want to be transported to a fantasy land, not subjected to gritty realism.

 

Definitely.  I like traditional ballets with tutus and men in tights and a full orchestral score although I do enjoy seeing some of the modern choreographers' takes on this like Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella.  I make myself go to some of the more modern ones like Crystal Pite because it's something I think I should do but I don't feel the same sense of magic and escapism as I do with the traditional ones.    

 

If I want to see something more modern I would probably prefer to go and see something more world dance at Sadler's Wells like Tango Fire or their season of awesome Flamenco performers.  If I go to the ballet I want it to look like a traditional ballet.  

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't understand where Acosta's problem is: It's all there! He just needs to see it, take it and put it on his stage, like other directors do.

Back in the 1980s, William Forsythe changed ballet aesthetics by making dancers look like the young people they were in real life - cool, fast, athletic. In the 1990s, Maurice Béjart created works like his "Ballet for Life" (or "Le presbytére...") with modern, young people in very hip Versace costumes dancing classical ballet about Aids to music by Queen. Matthew Bourne brought all the classics in a modern setting. Watch modern relationships and self-confident women in Hans van Manen's pieces, watch Hofesh Shechter's hordes of young rebels in the streets dancing to rock music, watch Akram Khan's pieces that care about environment, world peace, diversity, watch Cherkaoui  - you will say it's modern or contemporary dance, but they all went to ballet companies and worked with ballet dancers.  Like it or not, ballet had always modern choreographers with modern themes and modern looks. 

Could it be that this is an British problem of ignoring what's happening in modern ballet? Asking from a continental point of view...

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reflecting the world today...let me see...dancing scientists chasing kids dressed as the virus with syringes? Or some victims of modern slavery freed by a brave undercover agent? I see her as female, having a romance with one of the slaves, and at the end going off to the immigration tribunal together. Or a brave girl and her teacher, trying for education in certain countries I won't name here? Come to think of it, how about a piece celebrating the advance of literacy in the world? More abstract that one, I think. Then there's the fall in neo-natal deaths over the last fifty years...or we could have a dance of nonagenarians, who are also a feature of the modern world. For something really light, how about a little tale of cruise ship staff returning to work?

What I do think is important is that 'reflecting the modern world' is generally taken to mean grim, shocking and miserable. And it shouldn't be! Good things are as relevant and important as bad, and celebrating them keeps them keep coming. Focussing on the grim just demoralises us all.

Besides, after what we've all been through, escapist entertainment is highly relevant, because it helps us all get through the day.

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ballet is a stylised art form that I don't think lends itself easily to very direct or literal expression of contemporary life. That's not to say it can't be relevant to contemporary life - it's most powerful role is to express universal themes that are relevant to all ages. That's what the best works of any era do no matter what their approach or subject matter.

  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, Angela said:

I don't understand where Acosta's problem is: It's all there! He just needs to see it, take it and put it on his stage, like other directors do.

Back in the 1980s, William Forsythe changed ballet aesthetics by making dancers look like the young people they were in real life - cool, fast, athletic. In the 1990s, Maurice Béjart created works like his "Ballet for Life" (or "Le presbytére...") with modern, young people in very hip Versace costumes dancing classical ballet about Aids to music by Queen. Matthew Bourne brought all the classics in a modern setting. Watch modern relationships and self-confident women in Hans van Manen's pieces, watch Hofesh Shechter's hordes of young rebels in the streets dancing to rock music, watch Akram Khan's pieces that care about environment, world peace, diversity, watch Cherkaoui  - you will say it's modern or contemporary dance, but they all went to ballet companies and worked with ballet dancers.  Like it or not, ballet had always modern choreographers with modern themes and modern looks. 

Could it be that this is an British problem of ignoring what's happening in modern ballet? Asking from a continental point of view...

 

I don't know if anyone has already mentioned that companies will be well underway with producing their plans and proposals for the next round of Arts Council bids.  Last time the Arts Council made pronouncements on what they were looking for the word "relevant" appeared many, many times.

 

You make some excellent points Angela.  Everyone always says (paraphrased) that the British ballet audience is ultra conservative but the last time ENB toured Khan's Giselle and actually brought it to the Liverpool Empire they had wonderful houses with a fantastic response at the 3 performances I attended.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

59 minutes ago, Angela said:

I don't understand where Acosta's problem is: It's all there! He just needs to see it, take it and put it on his stage, like other directors do.

Back in the 1980s, William Forsythe changed ballet aesthetics by making dancers look like the young people they were in real life - cool, fast, athletic. In the 1990s, Maurice Béjart created works like his "Ballet for Life" (or "Le presbytére...") with modern, young people in very hip Versace costumes dancing classical ballet about Aids to music by Queen. Matthew Bourne brought all the classics in a modern setting. Watch modern relationships and self-confident women in Hans van Manen's pieces, watch Hofesh Shechter's hordes of young rebels in the streets dancing to rock music, watch Akram Khan's pieces that care about environment, world peace, diversity, watch Cherkaoui  - you will say it's modern or contemporary dance, but they all went to ballet companies and worked with ballet dancers.  Like it or not, ballet had always modern choreographers with modern themes and modern looks. 

Could it be that this is an British problem of ignoring what's happening in modern ballet? Asking from a continental point of view...

 

You're right - ballet has always had these types of works and choreographers.  And no, I don't think it's a British problem of ignoring them, since most of the choreographers you mention are effectively part of main stream British ballet/dance. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

I don't know if anyone has already mentioned that companies will be well underway with producing their plans and proposals for the next round of Arts Council bids.  Last time the Arts Council made pronouncements on what they were looking for the word "relevant" appeared many, many times.

 

What is really disturbing about this is how 'relevant' is defined. i.e. are only certain topics/outlooks considered to be 'relevant', i.e. acceptable? Is this actually morphing into a form of censorship?

 

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, bridiem said:

 

What is really disturbing about this is how 'relevant' is defined. i.e. are only certain topics/outlooks considered to be 'relevant', i.e. acceptable? Is this actually morphing into a form of censorship?

 

I think you are right: this is a real and troubling trend, and I think it is already well underway. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, DVDfan said:

 

What I do think is important is that 'reflecting the modern world' is generally taken to mean grim, shocking and miserable. And it shouldn't be! Good things are as relevant and important as bad, and celebrating them keeps them keep coming. Focussing on the grim just demoralises us all.

Besides, after what we've all been through, escapist entertainment is highly relevant, because it helps us all get through the day.

 

This so much.  I don't mind things that reflect the modern world but does it always have to be so miserable and depressing?  I mean I love Madam Butterfly even though it's sad because the music is beautiful and uplifting and soars to the skies.  I love Swan Lake as a ballet even though they die because the dancing is so exquisite and the score is pure drama.  

 

I don't mind things that are sad but I don't like things that are depressing.  I guess I don't mind if individuals in the performance die but I don't like things that imply that we're all doomed on a collective level or which focus on entirely sad topics with nothing to redeem them.  Also I hate things that dress everyone the same so I can't tell who is who especially if it involves people wearing badly designed costumes. 

 

Personally having good music really helps for me.  I loved Dances at a Gathering because the music is exquisite even though I'm not hugely a fan of ballet without an underlying story. 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, bridiem said:

 

What is really disturbing about this is how 'relevant' is defined. i.e. are only certain topics/outlooks considered to be 'relevant', i.e. acceptable? Is this actually morphing into a form of censorship?

 

Why does art need to be 'relevant' anyway? How relevant is Constable's Haywain?  Should that be stored away in a vault to make room for a recent work of art depicting a more modern piece of agricultural machinery?

  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please may I add my voice to those posters who are praising wonderful music.  To me the three most worrying words in ballet are 'specially commissioned score'.  

 

My main concern about the description 'relevant' is when a work lapses into preaching.  My main interest is BRB but I regret that very little of the expressed plans for that company make me want to rush back to watching those wonderful dancers.

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Jan McNulty said:

the last time ENB toured Khan's Giselle and actually brought it to the Liverpool Empire they had wonderful houses with a fantastic response at the 3 performances I attended.

Glad people enjoyed it, but for me, Khan's Giselle is the sort of example of modern dance that has "reimagined" (or  plagiarised) a wonderful classical ballet and made it into something pretty horrible! I don't like Bourne's work for the same reason. This is the very trend I hope Acosta, the BRB and other ballet companies are not going to follow.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hope it is not a faux pas to post about English National Ballet in a thread about BRB, but I just saw Solstice.

William Forsythe’s Playlist (Track 1, 2) is such joyous proof that a modern work can uplift you. Worth the price of admission alone. (Admittedly, there are a couple angst ridden pieces in the bill as well that tick the depressing box, but also some gala worthy pas de deux/trois)

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Candleque said:

Hope it is not a faux pas to post about English National Ballet in a thread about BRB, but I just saw Solstice.

William Forsythe’s Playlist (Track 1, 2) is such joyous proof that a modern work can uplift you. Worth the price of admission alone. (Admittedly, there are a couple angst ridden pieces in the bill as well that tick the depressing box, but also some gala worthy pas de deux/trois)

 

Hello Candelque, this isn't really a thread about BRB so a perfectly valid comment.

 

It would be fantastic if you could report back more on the performance in this ENB thread specially set up by Alison.  I'm living London performances vicariously through reviews at the moment.

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is ballet escapist? Perhaps it depends on your attitude to the imagination. If you are literal-minded, any art form will seem a diversion from the problems of life. If you can see beyond the literal to “the poetic basis of mind” – as archetypal psychologist James Hillman says – the arts are intrinsic to being alive: seeing everything literally is the problem. Ballet is a highly developed form of image-making in performance, based on the human body. As an embodied art, you could argue that it cannot show anything other than “the world as it is”.

 

The history of ballet has many examples of politically “relevant” ballets (see Jennifer Homans’ accounts of post-revolutionary ballets in France, Italy and Russia in Apollo’s Angels) but the results are not encouraging. I’d suggest though that relevance is not a criterion of the imagination. I wonder whether part of the problem for Carlos Acosta, and for other directors of ballet companies, is that there is so little in depth discussion of ballet as an art form to rely on. The gushing of marketing departments does little to help.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm always afraid, with this stuff about "relevant," that what's being suggested is that classical ballet is a thing of the past and that neoclassical ballet and contemporary dance are the only acceptable art forms going forward. I've seen suggestions from bureaucrats over the years about making theatre more "relevant" by having a ten-year moratorium on performing Shakespeare so that modern playwrights can get a chance to be seen, that music from before the 20th century should be dropped from orchestra repertoires, and that GCSE curricula should drop the 19th century classics and concentrate on contemporary authors. I'm seeing Facebook groups going on about how the "knee-in-ear" elevations are the only thing people want to watch and everything else is too old fashioned, and that people are just squeamish if they don't want to see crotches every time dancers raise their legs, because ballet shouldn't be afraid to be sexy.

 

As a lover of history, I'm always afraid that if you remove art forms from their roots, everyone is poorer for it. IMO, fiction like Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels and JK Rowling's Harry Potter series owe part of their staying power to the fact that they're solidly based in folk tales and connect the reader to something more universal than just the author's imagination. Same with ballet, where the formal structure provides a framework that audiences understand, which isn't always the case for contemporary dance, with the performers writhing on the ground in their underwear under dark green lights and strobe effects to the sound of cats being strangled. Not that there isn't a place for writhing dancers and strangled cats, but it isn't ballet. 

 

I'm just afraid, when I see all this stuff about "old fashioned," that we're going to lose what makes British ballet British, part of which is the way (as Ninette de Valois once said in an interview) it's based on the older folk dance tradition, in an attempt to homogenise dance across the world so that tourists from America and Japan can see pretty much exactly what they see at home. I'm still, after all these years, unhappy at the way San Francisco Ballet has been removed from its west-coast roots by the current director and turned into a clone of NYCB, and I don't want to see the British companies being turned into neoclassical clone companies either. We've been through the "Ashton is old-fashioned, time to ditch his rep in favour of something more relevant" stuff before, and I'm not sure it was successful then and I'm not sure it'll be successful now. It bothers me that ENB has basically no Ashton in the repertoire, and I wouldn't like to see BRB go the same way. I know this isn't going to be a popular thing to say, but it worries me when so many of the major British companies are being run by non-British directors. I seem to remember Ross Stretton wanting to ignore the RB's heritage ballets, and I'm worried that the same thing is happening at ENB and BRB.

Edited by Melody
  • Like 14
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Rina said:

I wonder whether part of the problem for Carlos Acosta, and for other directors of ballet companies, is that there is so little in depth discussion of ballet as an art form to rely on. 

If they are looking for in-depth discussions on ballet as an art form, then I'd suggest that they look no further than the many thousands of threads on this forum.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry taxi4ballet, I didn't express myself very well. My impression is that ballet doesn't receive the same depth of treatment in public discourse as say theatre or poetry. Possibly this is due to the Nutcracker syndrome by which ballet becomes in the popular imagination an equivalent to children's entertainment. It's understandable - and right - that Carlos Acosta wants to change that. Philosophers haven't rated ballet as an art form - at least until recently. Nor have archetypal  psychologists, even though they have a very deep approach to myth and fairytale which might make them predisposed to favour ballet. The prevailing world view in the UK is scientific rationalism. It is difficult to get off the ground so to speak any discussion of the reality of the imagination. So a profound work such as Ondine is classed as a story ballet (with attendant  implication of the Nutcracker syndrome). On your point about the forum, I am sure you're right.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks RichardLH. Ideally, I would look to someone in the position of a director of a ballet company to speak for the medium in ways which offer insight into what makes it so much worth cherishing. In other words to describe for us the value of seeing images which are embodied and moving in space and time. What is the difference between seeing Romeo and Juliet as a play and as a ballet? How can movement be metaphorical and reach an audience through its images? The connections between gesture and emotion have been discussed for centuries. I'd like to hear a director speaking up for the existing repertory in more substantial and detailed terms - how Ashton's use of epaulement say can convey a heightened state of emotion. even an ecstatic mood, which can lift the spirit. How it is that Bournonville's bouncy style even with arms lowered evokes a feeling of joy in the audience? Maybe this is more what I was searching for when I mentioned depth earlier.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Rina said:

Ideally, I would look to someone in the position of a director of a ballet company to speak for the medium

 

Ideally, this would also be a job for the critics, and in former times we had authors who could write beautifully about such things. But somehow ballet has become a thing of scandals, "Bad Boys", MeToo, Diversity. Of course it is important to have more female choreographers and directors, of course we need to work against mobbing or harassment in companies and schools - but somehow the essence got lost on the way, I think sometimes.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 18/06/2021 at 23:53, Angela said:

Ideally, I would look to someone in the position of a director of a ballet company to speak for the medium

I think this is what Carlos Acosta is trying to do. He seems to have a more accessible position to the media, than some other directors, it appears, as barely a month goes by and he is quoted somewhere. In response to Angela, critics I would say have the power to make or break a production with a well chosen adjective, and should not be the best to represent the genre to the ticket-buying public. I am afraid to say, as a mother of a professional dance student, that it was the traditional folk-tale ballets that enticed her into the studio and still maintains her interest, long before she knew what modern ballet, neo-classical or contemporary ballet looked like, and I suspect that she is not alone.

 

When we see how much literature has been transformed into modern 'classics', Eugene Onegin, Anna Karenina, Anastasia and the list goes on, there is still much material to be interpreted in a classical style, and that's before we get to modern ballet and contemporary re-imaginings. As another thread here discusses, Ashton's work needs to be revised and presented to new audiences. There is a wealth of traditional material that will always pay the bills of the company by putting bums on seats, whilst new works are in production with emerging choreographers. It is all a question of balance, artistic and economic, I would say.

 

I can understand directors wanting to be less 'elitist' in style and wanting to present a broader palette of genres and mixed styles of dance and music. I would suggest though that it is the still the same audience that buys tickets, regardless of whether Vadim M , Stephen Mc, Sarah L  from ROH or  the company of BRB are suddenly girating,moonwalking and body-popping to Eminem or MC Whoever . Grannie still wants to buy a ticket for the grandkids for the Nutcracker, and then they will want Giselle, Swan Lake etc and later more contemporary works.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...