Yorke Dance Project : California Women, Three Pioneering Women

[SheilaC]

Last night Yorke Dance premiered the programme that will be shown in the Linbury in March. The company always presents interesting rep of works by British and American choreographers, not least Robert Cohan in  recent years. And of course they  revived Kenneth MacMillan's piece about Hamlet, Sea of Troubles, from which they created a film, shown at the Linbury last month. For this latest programme they have returned to a MacMillan ballet, assisted by Deborah MacMillan, in a further revision of his Isadora.

 

As ever, the small company has excellent dancers, including two wonderful performers from the previous Rambert company, Luke Ahmet and Pierre Tappon. In Leeds there was a guest dancer from the Martha Graham Dance Company, Laurel Dalley Smith (who was previously a Company member of YDP for a year ), she isn't cast for the next performance in Banbury next month but may perform at the Linbury I would guess (casting is only available for the first two performances).

 

The performance was in two halves. At the start Yolande Yorke-Edgell, the artistic director, introduced the bill, discussing the theme of pioneering women from California. This was helpful but equally interesting was the printed programme, given free to the audience, which gives information on the choreographers, the dancers, other members of the artistic team and, of course, the different dances.

 

The rest of the first half was Isadora- the third and, thankfully, shortest version. It lasted about 40 minutes and Amy Thake, who danced Isadora, was on stage the entire time. She was variously shown in relationships with Gordon Craig, Paris Singer, Beach Boy and Sergei Esenin, in a series of choreographed sexual couplings requiring complex partnering. At times she danced on her own to suggest her artistic aims but it didn't convey the spirit, personal and artistic, as persuasively as Ashton's solos, Brahms Waltzes, created on Lynn Seymour. (MacMillan had originally told Lynn he would create the Isadora ballet on her but in the end he chose Merle Park). Amy Thake's performance was, nevertheless, a tour de force, sympathetically charting Isadora's personal loves and tragedies through expressive dance. There was no actor on stage, unlike the original version, but Isadora's words are voiced by an actress.

 

The second half started with Martha Graham's famous Errand into the Maze, danced by Lalley Smith and Ed Mitton (who is also rehearsal director for the company). She was impressive, really exemplifying the Graham technique and style, so different from the current contemporary styles. Following that, there were two contributions from the choreography of Bella Lewitzky, the first, Suite Satie, two excerpts to some of Satie's best loved music, and then Meta 4, four dancers performing four movements. They were very well rehearsed, necessarily so, as at times they were dancing in parallel. I was unfamiliar with Lewitzky's choreography but found the use of space interesting and modern.

 

As ever. the company is well worth catching and I will probably book to see them again when they perform at the Linbury (March 21-22).

[Emeralds]

Thanks, @SheilaC, for the informative review. What an interesting programme!

[FionaM]

I loved the excerpt of Isadora that this company danced at Ballet Nights 001 back in September.  
 

I think it’s such a great idea for Ballet Nights to be a live ‘trailer’ to upcoming performances.