Stuttgart Ballet: Creations XIII-XV

Schauspielhaus, Stuttgart
December 8, 2023

Stuttgart Ballet’s series of triple bills of new work continued with Creations XIII-XV and three premieres by female choreographers. All are quite contemporary in feel. While classical technique is clearly at the root of Stuttgart dancer Vittoria Girelli’s Sospesi. which opened the programme, it is much less obvious in the other two. It was also an evening that not only lacked any sighting of a pointe shoe (sadly becoming all too common in new ballets), but of any ballet shoes at all, all three pieces being danced in socks.

In her Sospesi, Girelli takes inspiration from the Cloud Cuckoo Land of Aristophanes’ comedy The Birds and the grotesque paintings of Flemish artist Hieronymus Bosch, not that there is anything remotely grotesque about the choreography. It’s an accomplished work; an excellent visualisation of ideas and coming together of music and movement. It was the highlight of the evening.

Girelli imagines a place hovering (in Italian, ‘sospesi’) between heaven and earth. Absolutely at one with her theme, the opening image sees the dancers perched on the edges of the four curved sections of set designer Francesca Sgariboldi’s floor that sweep upwards. Although perhaps pathways to heaven, the picture painted rather shouts trees and birds, a suggestion confirmed when the dancers come to the floor and move with arms stretched to the side like giant wings.

As it progresses, the dancers inhabit the boundary between human and bird. While undoubtedly the former, they possess avian characteristics, thus following many Bosch images of beings that belong wholly in neither than earthly or aerial world.

Time and again, dancers break away from the ensemble, everyone getting their chance to shine in short duets. Girelli’s choreography makes excellent use of the whole space including those curved slopes. Sospesi is a dance of neat patterns, clear lines and beautiful movement that sits very happily alongside Davidson Jaconello’s arrangement of Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings in E minor, Franz Schubert’s Serenade and Frederic Chopin’s Night Piece No.20.

The opening mood of peace and happiness morphs into something darker with as the ballet develops. The final duet to the Chopin is particularly appealing, the sole remaining couple, Mackenzie Brown and Martino Semenzato, closing the work by sinking to the floor as the light closes in.

Norwegian National Ballet principal dancer Samantha Lynch’s Where does the time go? is set around a nest of tables that slide into each other as the work progresses, thus getting smaller, intended to symbolise the passing of time. I would question her claim that it’s “atmospherically abstract,” however. It most definitely does have moods, and it is very much about people and being human.

Hidden stories seem to be everywhere. With everyone dressed in rust-coloured loose trousers and tops or dresses, we first meet the ensemble gathered around the table seemingly passionately discussing something. As they jumped up and down gesticulating forcefully, it was impossible not to recall some of Crystal Pite and Jonathan Young’s work, just without the words.

The music of Luke Howard and songs by Ray Charles, Thurston Harris, Chuck Río and Nina Simone reflect life, complimenting the dance nicely, notably that of two couples who break away to dance the main duets.

That for Ruth Schultz and Alessandro Giaquinto is the brighter of the two but it’s the second, which closes the work, that really hits. Perhaps reflecting how time changes us, Rocio Aleman and Fabio Adorisio’s duet is much darker. They dance passionately. It’s not so much of a conversation as an argument, an untangling of feelings, and nowhere more so than in a long solo for Aleman that’s full of impressive, powerful gestures. It feels like she’s not just talking but really letting rip at her partner, who just sits and ‘listens’ to the tidal wave of movement. Later, they roll around, arms and hands looping over and around each other at speed. A sort of peace does come eventually, a beautiful, huge pendant lamp lowering to just above them, closing in the space.

Of all the three works, Where does the time go? is the one that seems to have most scope for development and extension.

Averno (Hell) by Morgann Runacre-Temple refers specifically to the fate of Persephone, whose mother took revenge on the Earth after her abduction by Hades.

The title comes from the name of a crater lake near Naples that has long been seen as the gateway to the underworld. It is not only a place where the worlds of the living and the dead meet, but also where traffic between them is invited while simultaneously resisting their reconciliation. The choreographer joins the many writers and poets who have been drawn to it, including Nobel Prize winner Louise Glück, who Runacre-Temple cites in her programme note.

With its telephone box, petrol pumps and a car that appears from the gloom, its blazing headlights scything through the darkness, the set hints at Edward Hopper. The car and pumps symbolise the journey to the netherworld, the former powered (pushed around) by five dancers in all-over black portraying crude oil, which also comes from below, where Hades lives.

It opens promisingly. Four people, all Persephone’s mother, stand by the call box. Quite why we have four, or two men and two women, is unclear. All waiting for a call that never comes. But, in what follows, myth and reality, dance and Runacre-Temple’s now familiar use of video do not so much co-exist as collide.

Theatricality and concept trump choreography. Although Mackenzie Brown (Persephone) and Matteo Miccini (Hades) occasionally find moments of dance that succeed, they are all too few. The work is also never as claustrophobic as you feel it should be. Ditto Mikael Karlsson’s disjointed score.

For much of the piece, an onstage cameraman allows the audience to get ‘up close,’ images being projected above. While hardly a new device, it can be effective. In Averno, the video doesn’t so much as frame the action as overpower it, however. And does the cameraman have to so often be in line of sight, thus stopping the viewer from also appreciating the live view? It all made for a rather disappointing end to the evening.