United Kingdom New English Ballet Theatre: Cycles of Loss and Love: Aud Jebsen Studio Theatre, Royal Academy of Dance, London, 11.11.2022. (JO’D)
Nocturne
Choreography – Daniela Cardim
Music – Frédéric Chopin, Nocturne No.13 in C minor Op.48 No.1
Costumes – Lisa James.
War Women Awaiting (excerpt from Remembrance)
Choreography – Wayne Eagling
Music – George Frideric Handel, Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day
Sets – Nina Kobiakshvili
Costumes – April Dalton.
Re(Current)
Choreography – Matthew Ball
Music – Jean Sibelius, ‘Laetare Anima Mea (My Soul Rejoices)
The Four Seasons
Choreography – Jenna Lee
Music – Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons
Costumes – April Dalton
Lighting – Andrew Ellis.
In 2018 New English Ballet Theatre commissioned a piece from choreographer Wayne Eagling, Remembrance, to mark the hundredth anniversary of armistice yr. On Remembrance Day 4 years later, and within the context of a up to date warfare in Europe, the corporate performs an excerpt from the piece as a part of a four-work programme: Cycles of Loss and Love.
Starting with a pas de deux between a girl (Remembrance was based mostly on the lifetime of Marie Rambert) and her soldier lover, it develops right into a dance for six girls: the Marie Rambert determine and 5 warfare widows. It stood out on the Peacock Theatre in 2018, this dance of ladies mourning to the music of Handel. It stands up right here. Like the unhappy Young Girl in Frederick Ashton’s The Two Pigeons, the central determine (Natalia Kerner on this event) is comforted by her companions in what could possibly be a small-scale model of early-nineteenth-century ballet’s ‘white act’. The emotions of 1 lady amplified, made common, by motion, together with the pas de bourrée, that’s repeated by, or shared with, others.
Two extra pas de deux, certainly one of them new, additionally function on the programme. Daniela Cardim’s Nocturne, to Chopin, was carried out by NEBT as a part of the Next Generation Festival on the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre in June of this yr. In the smaller house of the Aud Jebsen Studio Theatre on the Royal Academy of Dance, Genevieve Heron and Aitor Viscarolasaga Lopez carry a softer, much less intense however extra intimate tone to its choreography.
The second pas de deux, Re(Current), was choreographed by The Royal Ballet Principal, Matthew Ball, who carried out it with fellow firm Principal, Mayara Magri. Sleek, and within the case of the bare-chested Matthew Ball, muscular, they appeared to occupy the entire of the stage with actually sweeping port de bras, actually assured lifts, actually assured balances. Like the music of Sibelius that accompanies it, the choreography flows. The two dancers looked like understanding precisely what they and their associate ought to be doing at any specific second, precisely what they will do subsequent.
Jenna Lee’s The Four Seasons offers the dancers of New English Ballet Theatre, as an organization, ‘world enough, and time’ to carry out in ensembles and duets of neo-classical and modern type. Set to Max Richter’s transforming of Vivaldi, significantly enhanced by Andrew Ellis’s lighting and April Dalton’s costumes, it’s a work with which the corporate is acquainted and which it performs with gusto.
From Spring to Winter, from sunny ensembles to sultry duets, the dancers sustain a momentum as they undergo variations of tempo and emotion. The choreographer, a former soloist with English National Ballet, makes references to George Balanchine, Kenneth MacMillan, Wayne McGregor. The piece ends with a deal with its feminine dancers in a lovely and delicate response to the rating: separately, in fast succession, 4 girls dance on to the stage and off in a sort of graduated farewell to the viewers.
John O’Dwyer