trog Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 Top 10 Creepy and Dark Ballets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 Erm, but it doesn't have any of the Draculas? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiz Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 I wouldn’t put Mayerling where it is, either. It’s truly shocking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RosiesDream Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 Or Akram' Khan's Giselle or Frankenstein or as you say, Dracula. and the Rite of Spring shown is not the original, which is creepy on account of being weird... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sim Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 Where is The Lesson?! 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharon Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 41 minutes ago, Sim said: Where is The Lesson?! Or The Invitation?? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bridiem Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 Or The Judas Tree? Or My Brother, My Sisters? Or Las Hermanas? Or Different Drummer? I don't ultimately find Giselle dark, though I suppose it's undeniably creepy... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 1 hour ago, RosiesDream said: Or Akram' Khan's Giselle or Frankenstein or as you say, Dracula. and the Rite of Spring shown is not the original, which is creepy on account of being weird... Hello RosiesDream and welcome to the Forum! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beryl H Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 The creepiest ballet I can think of is Liam Scarlett's Hansel and Gretel, that was really unsettling. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pas de Quatre Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 Petrushka, Miraculous Mandarin, Rake's Progress, Dark Elegies - all very dark, but old. So the list compiler probably hasn't heard of them! What about Pita's Metamorphosis? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scheherezade Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 Even creepier, how about Pita’s The Mother? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FionaM Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 And now to to add ENB Creature and Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake is pretty sinister too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capybara Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 The others mentioned above were watchable to varying degrees but I found Scarlett’s Hansel and Gretel too much to bear. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RosiesDream Posted October 7, 2021 Share Posted October 7, 2021 Forgot to mention Matthew Bourne's Romeo & Juliet. really unsettled me, so much I haven't revisited the recording, even though I thought it was his best since Swan Lake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pas de Quatre Posted October 7, 2021 Share Posted October 7, 2021 Pierrot Lunaire choreography by Glen Tetley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odyssey Posted October 8, 2021 Share Posted October 8, 2021 Christopher Bruce’s ‘ haunting’ Ghost Dances would have to be included in my list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scheherezade Posted October 8, 2021 Share Posted October 8, 2021 Ooh, I love Ghost Dances. Not sure about anyone else but I personally find it heart-rendingly sad rather than creepy. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted October 8, 2021 Share Posted October 8, 2021 50 minutes ago, Scheherezade said: Ooh, I love Ghost Dances. Not sure about anyone else but I personally find it heart-rendingly sad rather than creepy. I absolutely agree Scheherezade. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeannette Posted October 8, 2021 Share Posted October 8, 2021 The Mariinsky’s Nutcracker - M. Chemiakin version. https://www.mariinsky.ru/en/playbill/playbill/2019/1/3/2_1930/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odyssey Posted October 9, 2021 Share Posted October 9, 2021 9 hours ago, Scheherezade said: Ooh, I love Ghost Dances. Not sure about anyone else but I personally find it heart-rendingly sad rather than creepy. Yes, you’re right, but those ghost dancers are so sinister how they emerge silently and steadily take the people away. Moving indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnstar Posted October 9, 2021 Share Posted October 9, 2021 I found Scarlett's Frankenstein pretty dark. Though for me the worst moment wasn't anything to do with the monster but when Justine was hanged. I was not expecting that to be actually done on stage. I still feel slightly sick when I think of it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiz Posted October 9, 2021 Share Posted October 9, 2021 @DawnstarWe all sobbed. Poor innocent Justine! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnstar Posted October 9, 2021 Share Posted October 9, 2021 @FizI wasn't helped by it being Mayara Magri, who's one of my favourite dancers, at the performance I saw. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angela Posted October 12, 2021 Share Posted October 12, 2021 John Neumeier's A Streetcar Named Desire is pretty sinister. I adore it because of the storytelling - considering how he translates the Tennessee Williams play into pictures and movement, I would say it is almost his best work, better even then Lady of the Camelias. But with the rape pas de deux in the second act, with Blanche DuBois losing her mind in the end, it is really hard to watch. I remember that in the first run after the premiere, Richard Cragun (who played Stanley Kowalski) once received a cactus instead of flowers - there was no orchestra pit in the Stuttgart playhouse, so somebody walked to the stage and put that cactus in front of the dancer. He laughed about it, he understood why. And well, almost anything by German choreographer Marco Goecke is dark. Not always creepy, but sometimes very creepy. In "Der Rest ist Schweigen" ("The Rest is Silence"), an early piece, you could see see dark, shiny rags on the upper bodies of the dancers, which turned out to be black, palm-sized butterflies, a picture of eerie beauty. The dancers brushed them nervously from their bodies until the stage was littered with dead butterflies. And in the end, a phalanx of black alphorns emerged from behind, running right in the direction of the audience with a roar like elephants. They were played by hooded figures without faces - I really felt a shiver down my spine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToThePointe Posted October 15, 2021 Share Posted October 15, 2021 @trog this thread inspired a lot of our conversation in the first episode of Season 4 of Open Barre (launched today) so worth a listen! I've shared the link below but you can also find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other various podcast platforms. Thanks! https://www.spreaker.com/user/openbarre/open-barre-s4-01 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenn Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 I'm adding up my list: 1. Alice by Amir Hosseinpour and Jonathan Lunn 2. 40M Under and Eskapist by Alexander Ekman 3. Cinderella, May B and Groosland by Maguy Marin 4. POPPEA//POPPEA, Der Sandmann, and the Nutcracker by Christian Spuck 5. Notre Dame de Paris and Le jeune homme et la mort by Roland Petit Well I personally think the works of Ekman, Marin and Spuck are mostly creepy and dark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suffolkgal Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 That moment when Petrushka’s ghost appears to terrifying music does it for me. And Rite of Spring Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 The first ballet I ever saw was Petrushka when I was about 6, and I had nightmares for weeks afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 11 hours ago, Jenn said: I'm adding up my list: 1. Alice by Amir Hosseinpour and Jonathan Lunn 2. 40M Under and Eskapist by Alexander Ekman 3. Cinderella, May B and Groosland by Maguy Marin 4. POPPEA//POPPEA, Der Sandmann, and the Nutcracker by Christian Spuck 5. Notre Dame de Paris and Le jeune homme et la mort by Roland Petit Well I personally think the works of Ekman, Marin and Spuck are mostly creepy and dark. Hello Jenn and welcome to the Forum! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmhopton Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 Bits of Northern Ballet's Christmas Carol, especially the dance of the Ghosts near the start, and the Ghost of Christmas Future is definitely the stuff of nightmares. Perhaps we ought to compile our own list. It would be a big improvement on the one used to start the discussion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenn Posted May 29, 2022 Share Posted May 29, 2022 4 hours ago, Jan McNulty said: Hello Jenn and welcome to the Forum! Nice meeting you Jan! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivy Lin Posted May 30, 2022 Share Posted May 30, 2022 I always find Prodigal Son very creepy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrewCo Posted May 30, 2022 Share Posted May 30, 2022 I would add La Valse (Balanchine's version) to the list and maybe La Sonnambula (or "Night Shadow") as well....Both have a genuinely uncanny quality and La Valse ends in despair. But, though the original list was fun to read, and everyone's responses too, I think a list of 10 ideally needs narrower parameters. "Dark" takes in too many things that "creepy" does not -- pretty soon we could all probably make this a list of 100 ballets. (I exaggerate....or maybe not. We'll see how the thread unfolds!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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