United Kingdom Ivan Putrov’s Men in Motion tenth Anniversary Gala: Paradisal Players / Samuel Burstin (conductor). London Coliseum, 6.11.2022. (JO’D)
Starting with a piece from 1911 and transferring swiftly on to at least one from 2021, Ivan Putrov marked the tenth anniversary of Men in Motion with a ‘gala’ containing no fewer than twenty items of dance to hint the evolution of the male dancer from the 20th to twenty-first century. Michael Fokine, Bronislava Nijinska, Serge Lifar, Frederick Ashton, Matthew Bourne, Edward Clug, Christopher Wheeldon…: a melange, even a surfeit, of choreographers and kinds as male dancer after male dancer carried out on the largely naked Coliseum stage. A melange through which a number of the items inevitably fitted higher than others and have been greatest preferred, so it’s these I’ll give attention to.
Pink-costumed Luca Acri, one of many night’s seven dancers from The Royal Ballet, confirmed remarkably delicate arms, shoulders and palms initially of Le Spectre de la rose (the work by Fokine from 1911). His legs have been highly effective within the entrechats and arabesques en l’air because the dance, and Weber’s music, developed. But it was the super-supple, up to date torso of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Jack Easton in his personal Fremd (the work that adopted) which drew the primary of the night’s actually rapturous applause.
Rudolf Nureyev’s Prince’s Variation for Act I of Swan Lake, carried out by Vadim Muntagirov, fell reasonably flat (the dancer was to look far more comfortable in Alexey Miroshnichenko’s Adagio, afterward). While an excerpt from Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, with Matthew Ball and Luca Acri, precipitated viewers members to stamp their toes and cry: ‘Bravi!’ Luca Acri has, I believe, developed right into a advantageous actor-dancer. I first obtained a way of it when he was Alain within the 2016 manufacturing of La Fille mal gardée.
In the Men in Motion of 2014 Edward Watson introduced the home down by revealing his torso on the finish of Arthur Pita’s then newly created Volver, Volver. This was wittily carried out within the gala by Leo Dixon, however to much less éclat. Perhaps as a result of, with its gunshot wounds, the work has dated, or as a result of it was wrongly positioned within the working order (earlier than, not after, the interval), or as a result of in 2014 Edward Watson was a extremely skilled dancer, and Leo Dixon is a dancer not lengthy into his profession.
The éclat, although, was for Edward Watson nonetheless. Although retired as a dancer from The Royal Ballet, he returned to the dance stage mockingly cross-dressed in strapless, silver-sequinned leotard and excessive heels for Arthur Pita’s A Sheila Dance. Like a lot of Pita’s work, this owed extra to its preliminary, visible impression than to its choreography. But Watson retains his trademark flexibility and stage presence.
Ivan Putrov himself was a lot applauded for his efficiency of Frederick Ashton’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits. As have been Matthew Ball and The Royal Ballet colleague, Joseph Sissens, in Christopher Wheeldon’s Us. Koyo Yamamoto, from Dutch National Ballet, gave off an infectious sense of enjoyment in Hans van Manen’s 5 Tangos. A jacketed and trousered Isaac Mueller, additionally from Dutch National Ballet, prompted light laughter for Milena Sidorova’s Rose (2021). In a gala that centered on the male dancer, this brief piece by a feminine choreographer, with motion that’s nearly round or spherical, may very well be stated to give attention to the male per se: ‘Solo of a man walking into a bar…A glimpse of what might keep a man’s thoughts busy’.
John O’Dwyer
Le Spectre de la Rose
Choreographed by Michael Fokine
Performed by Luca Acri and Fumi Kaneko (The Royal Ballet)
Fremd
Choreographed and carried out by Jack Easton (Birmingham Royal Ballet)
SSS…
Choreographed by Edward Clug
Performed by Matteo Miccini (Stuttgart Ballet)
Swan Lake (Prince’s Variation Act I)
Choreographed by Rudolf Nureyev
Performed by Vadim Muntagirov (The Royal Ballet)
5 Tangos
Choreographed by Hans van Manen
Performed by Koyo Yamamoto (Dutch National Ballet)
Gopak (Andriy’s solo from Taras Bulba)
Choreographed by Rostislav Zakharov
Performed by Dmitry Zagrebin (Royal Swedish Ballet)
Swan Lake
Choreographed by Matthew Bourne
Performed by Luca Acri and Matthew Ball (The Royal Ballet)
Eightfold: LOVE
Choreographed by Peter Leung
Performed by José Alves (Ballet Black)
Originally commissioned as a part of EIGHTFOLD, a movie by Cassa Pancho’s Ballet Black, and carried out with particular permission from the Company
Rose
Choreographed by Milena Sidorova
Performed by Isaac Mueller (Dutch National Ballet)
Dance of the Blessed Spirits
Choreographed by Frederick Ashton
Performed by Ivan Putrov
Volver, Volver
Choreographed by Arthur Pita
Performed by Leo Dixon (The Royal Ballet)
A Sheila Dance
Choreographed by Arthur Pita
Performed by Edward Watson
Bloom
Choreographed by Milena Sidorova
Performed by Isaac Mueller, Guillermo Torres, Koyo Yamamoto (Dutch National Ballet)
Le Train Bleu
Choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska
Performed by José Alves (Ballet Black)
Us
Choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon
Performed by Matthew Ball and Joseph Sissens (The Royal Ballet)
Originally commissioned by BalletBoyz
Suite en blanc, Mazurka
Choreographed by Serge Lifar
Performed by Dmitry Zagrebin (Royal Swedish Ballet)
Swansong – Solo
Choreographed by Christopher Bruce
Performed by Matthew Ball (The Royal Ballet)
Adagio
Choreographed by Alexey Miroshnichenko
Performed by Vadim Muntagirov (The Royal Ballet)
Äffi
Choreographed by Marco Goecke
Performed by Matteo Miccini (Stuttgart Ballet)
Lacrymosa
Choreographed by Edward Stierle
Performed by Dmitry Zagrebin (Royal Swedish Ballet)