Dresden’s Semperoper Ballett in an evening of William Forsythe in all his moods

Sadler’s Wells, London
June 21, 2018

David Mead

The London debut of Dresden’s Semperoper Ballett in an all-William Forsythe programme proved a diverse and sometimes challenging evening. The three ballets performed show the choreographer in all his moods, each work marked by excellent dancing from the whole company.

Semperoper Ballett director Aaron S Watkin started with something familiar. In the Middle Somewhat Elevated is Forsythe at his neo-classical best. The whole cast rose to its challenges, their phrasing, speed and contrasting attitudes exactly what is called for.

The insouciance of the opening is replaced by a driving dynamic that never quits. Dancers run or stride purposefully into position, pausing only occasionally, it seems, to glance up at the two gilded cherries hanging above the stage that were inspired by the decoration in the Paris Opera rehearsal room where the ballet was made back in 1987. It all builds to the pas de deux where Alice Mariani brought fierce focus to her role, partnered perfectly by Thomas Bieszka.

But the evening was about to get even better. Forsythe was always fascinated by the possibilities of the duet, not emotionally but in the way the two dancers physically interact or inhabit the same space. His ballets not only feature just two dancers on stage, but ensemble sections are frequently populated with multiple, simultaneous pairings.

Neue Suite is a collection of eight pas de deux, each taken from or based on one of three works created between 1995 and 2000: Film, Kammer/Kammer and Workwithinwork. They were specially arranged by Forysthe himself for the company in 2012.

Each dance has its own colour-coded costumes, each it’s own mood. The first three are all to Handel. The opener has Duosi Zhu and Gareth Haw in lyrical, as near traditionally classical as Forsythe is likely to be. A neo-classical turn is taken for the second for Chantelle Kerr and Julian Amir Lacey, both sharp, energetic and bright in green. The third, for Mariani and Bieszka in blue-grey could almost be Balanchine with its use of hips, slightly jazzy edge and sometimes skippy steps.

Italian composer Luciano Berio was noted for his experimental work and Forsythe’s pas de deux follow suit with Jenny Laudadio and Jón Vallejo particularly contemporary in outlook in the second of three.

Sangeun Lee and Christian Bauch made everything look smooth and effortless in the only dance to Bach, ending with a beautiful final image of he held high, back arched gloriously. Rounding things off and back to Handel, Zarina Stahnke and the sensational Houston Thomas were as bright and upbeat as their yellow costumes in a dance full of precise, neat jumps.

The more challenging and intensely theatrical Enemy in the Figure from 1989 is aptly described as a “play on chaos and order.” It is a good example of Forsythe experimenting with light and space as he so liked to do.

Save for the golden colour of an undulating wooden wall positioned diagonally across the space, it is a ballet of black and white, and of darkness and light, in costume and in mood. A second towering wall, this one black, is to the left, and much use is made of a rope, which is pulsed by the dancers as if messages were whizzing along its fibres. A single floodlight is also wheeled around, defining and redefining how the audience perceives the action.

Dance to a brooding score by Willems, right from the off, Enemy in the Figure is different. A woman in white, right upstage, lies on the floor. As she twists, folds and unfolds, her legs extending in juicy developpés, it’s as if her right shoulder is somehow fixed to the group. As the ballet moves on, it feels like we are watching a shadowy, dystopian world. It is chaotic but fragments of order remain, occasionally bubbling to the surface.

Dancers emerge from the shadows or from behind the wall, disappearing just as swiftly. Things happen in the shadows, sometimes barely visible. It is all full of Forsythe’s usual disjointing and twisting of limbs and bodies twist into unexpected shapes, except even more so than usual. It’s sometimes frantic and urgent, just occasionally calm. They dance alone and in duets. Nothing lasts that long and you never know what is coming next. At one point and out of nowhere, a group performs in soft-stepped unison. Later, dancers crash against the wall as if railing against its very presence. It is all quite fascinating, if hard to fully comprehend.