Classicism to the fore at the John Cranko School Matinée

Opera House, Stuttgart
July 14, 2024

It’s always a fine way to spend a Sunday lunchtime: in the company of the students of the John Cranko School at Stuttgart’s Opera House. This year’s matinée performance was packed with top quality dancing in a mix of familiar and unfamiliar choreography, including a truly excellent student piece. The partnering was top notch throughout. But perhaps best of all, everything was very classically rooted, with pointework very much to the fore for the women.

Vivaldi Suite, by Stefania Sansavini and Valentina Falcini for Classes 1-4 (11 to 14-year-olds), presented a summery scene to match the fine weather outside. The girls, in flower-decked long skirts, danced finely showing delicate ports de bras, but it was Italian Kei Malatesta who really took the eye. His multiple pirouettes were fast and came with clean endings; and there were excellent cabrioles and double tours too. He only turns 14 in August. Clearly one to watch!

Graduating student Carlos Strasser is seriously multi-talented. Besides the choreography for his Zwischen Wind und Asphalt (Between Wind and Asphalt)  seen previously at May’s Noverre Young Choreographer evening, he is responsible for the self-recited poem that the dance illustrates, and the music, with him on on-stage grand piano.

The text addresses what the world has lost and paints pictures of nature, opening as if someone is musing aloud. As Strasser recited its words, Carter Smalling evoked expressively its mood and feeling in movement. When a woman appears in the poem, Smalling was joined by Yana Peneva, their dance becoming conversation, again like the text. The pas de deux also saw much fine partnering with notably solid overhead lifts. A sensitive and deeply thoughtful work, Zwischen Wind und Asphalt engrossed from start to finish.

Albinoni by Germinal Casado, danced to an adagio by the composer, is a considered, coolly precise pas de deux that presents unusual picture after unusual picture. A common, if unexplained motif, sees fists opening, fingers spread wide, then closing again. The choreography also includes the rare sight of a women pirouetting on pointe from second position. And very finely graduating student Annabelle McCarthy did it too. The highlight is a gorgeous long section where she dances while on classmate Serhii Zherikov’s shoulders.

Shimmer Simmer by Kinsun Chan is a ballet of contrasting moods and sections. Varied footwear too, with pointe shoes, ballet flats, socks and bare feet all spotted. The ballet succeeds in showing off well the talents of students from Class 5 upwards (ages 15 and up), and was finely danced, although I found its many ideas a little choreographically confusing.

Among the best moments were a duet for Justin Padilla and James Platts, and a powerful ensemble section for the older men. Another male duet, for Padilla and Ryan Handa, later joined by two women, hit the mark too. But while the subsequent side-by-side duets appealed in themselves, their part-framing by the other women who formed a sort of sort of chorus at the side, and especially their feet being attached with stretchy bands to something in the wings, felt an idea too far.

Akville Sulcaite and Alexei Orohovsky, who will graduate next year, gave a fine rendition of the Act 3 pas de deux from Coppélia. Orohovsky notably impressed in his variation with excellent turns and height on his leaps.

In Suite for Two Pianos, to Rachmaninov’s music of the same title, Uwe Scholz attempted to place his essentially abstract choreography in context by referencing the art of Wassily Kandinsky, further illustrating the relationship between the two by projecting Kandinsky illustrations onto the backdrop. While the connection remains a little obscure, the excerpts danced by the Academy (‘Upper School’) students were delightful.

As always with Scholz, it’s really all about the music, made visible is beautifully watchable choreography. In the first of two sections shown, Ryan Hanada and Reito Nashiki appear to be friends in gentle competition, one dancing fast, the other slower. A bit of lightheartedness is introduced when they get in each other’s way. That was followed by a delicious pas de trois for Katherina Buck, Adrien Hohenberg and Smalling, again with wonderful partnering, in which she seemed to fly when lifted.

From the classics, Yana Peneva and Andrew Shields performed the Act 3, Black Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake. It was well executed, including a spot on set of fouettés from Peneva. Maybe it was just missing that certain ‘something’ when it comes to character and sense of narrative, but that is difficult but no doubt will come with experience.

As tradition demands, the matinée concluded with the whole school in Etüden. Choreographed by artistic director Tadeusz Matacz, his wife, Barbara Matacz, and Galina Solovieva, it’s a whole school affair that starts with the youngest and works up. It’s always a fabulous end, although the older men do get the more exciting steps and the chance to show off individually in a series of mini solos filled with leaps and turns.