Pite, Preljocaj and Scottish Ballet

Sadler’s Wells, London
June 8, 2017

David Mead

Scottish Ballet’s very modern double bill highlights the power of the group. It also highlights that of its dancers, who performed with exemplary strength and, when required, no little grace, in both works.

One day, Crystal Pite is going to disappoint. Even the very best do eventually; and she is one of the very best. Her Emergence, made in 2009 on The National Ballet of Canada and now taken on by Scottish Ballet is another strong, gorgeously constructed work, brim-full of ideas and images. It’s also a real coming together with Jay Gower Taylor’set, Linda Chow’s costumes and Owen Belton’s dark, pulsing score all emphasising the atmosphere and place.

For Emergence, Pite turns her attention to the natural world. Dancers often arrive via an aperture upstage that light shines through, and that suggests a passage to the open-air perhaps.

Emergence is an ensemble dance for the whole company that emphasises the power of the group. Yet Pite never loses sight of the fact that the group, any group, is actually made up of individuals. Look closely and you see many small gestures, all important, and which sometimes start off something much bigger.

The ballet opens with the outstanding Sophie Martin in a teasing duet with Evan Loudon; an invitation to join his community, perhaps. Loudon also features in a second duet with the equally excellent Bethany Kingsley-Garner.

Then come the men. Bees or other insects, take your pick, but they’re an edgy group who cluster and swarm busily, whose dance features much sharp articulation of the body. When the women arrive, they are a trembling mass en pointe. The men swirl around them, scattering them. As they reform, Pite rather neatly hints at traditional corps de ballet groupings. And just as in traditional classical ballet, in Emergence it always seems to be the women who, if not controlling things, are certainly the most important beings in this place. The way they subsequently power through the men you almost expect them to hoover them up.

Later, now breezily bare-chested, Martin is at the heart of a striking quartet with the identically-dressed Victor Zarallo, Nicholas Shoesmith and Jamiel Laurence. It has a somewhat different feel as the four buzz around, supporting, falling into and lifting each other. Here, Martin, the woman, is very much the equal in the men’s world. A metaphor for Pite in the male-dominated world of ballet, perhaps.

Whatever, Emergence is gripping from start to end. Marvellous stuff, marvellously danced.

Angelin Preljocaj is another choreographer I’ve admired over the years. His MC 14/22 (Ceci est mon corps) that opened the programme is full of ideas and images too. While the all-male piece about the Last Supper (the clue is in the title) is rammed with testosterone and is sometimes violent, that’s contrasted with moments of gentleness.

Those moments include one man tenderly washing another in the opening scene, although more striking is the upstage image of eight men on two four-high bunks shifting restlessly, often in perfect unison with their neighbour or others on different levels.

Disassembled, the bunks are, in fact, gleaming metal tables that look like autopsy slabs, especially when bodies lay lengthways on them. Soon, though, those limp forms in their black skirts are being manipulated: tossed, turned and thudded down, more like being readied for butchery than post-mortem.

When the tables are lined up, we are treated to tableaux that parody the Last Supper and, if my memory is working, other art works too. It’s a cue for more impressive ensemble work that’s always absolutely together.

While MC 14/22 has a number of many memorable images, it frequently feels like scenes are overplayed. A dancer is slowly wrapped in parcel tape, increasingly restricting his ability to dance a solo. He refuses to succumb and surrender, though. The point, I guess, is that nothing can stop things, nothing can stop someone or a message that is strong. But it does go on. Elsewhere, there’s a lot of repetition, and while that can emphasise things, there comes a point when it starts to diminish the impact; a point that Prelocaj passes again and again.

The programme’s description of Ted Zahmal’s accompaniment as ‘sound’ rather than ‘music’ is apt.