Yet another sparkling gem from Crystal Pite
Ballet British Columbia Sadler’s Wells ★★★☆☆
There are two, inevitably overlapping triumphs in the triple bill (entirely by female choreographers) that Ballet British Columbia has brought to Sadler’s Wells this week. One is the dancing.
This is a young modern-ballet company that bills itself as “Canada’s leading contemporary dance troupe”. This might almost set alarm bells ringing, given how many drop-dead-dismal contemporary shows have paddled across the North Atlantic to London over the years. Except that, throughout this two-hour evening, the 17 performers are stunning, in the Rambert league.
They handle the kinetic speed, angular poses and sliding stops of the opener (16 + a room) with energy, gutsiness and complete ease. In Bill, the closer, they make dazzlingly precise work of the robotic-marionettish solos that metamorphose into far more sexy, human, hip-swivelling ensembles.
And then, there’s the snow-dusted centrepiece, Solo Echo. Canadian star Crystal Pite made it in 2012, for Nederlands Dans Theater. Inspired by the poem Lines for Winter, by Canadian-american Mark Strand (1934-2014), she produced an identically beautiful portrait of youthful exuberance developing into more delicate – but also more altruistic – maturity.
The first half is a complex and constantly inventive interweaving of extraordinary high-octane leaps and turns, and complex, sociable little encounters. But it’s the second that makes the skin prickle.
Here, Pite often has the seven dancers engage in instant, freezeframe imitations of each other. At times, the effect is almost like watching a large spring unfold, and yet that analogy does not come close to capturing the physical poetry of the piece, its alternating images of mutual support – regeneration, even – and forlorn elegy.
The first and last works have no such humanism. 16 + a room (by Emily Molnar, Ballet BC’S director) is a bare-stage, full-company workout that reveals Molnar’s Ballet Frankfurt training, but which too often feels like William Forsythe without the rule-scorning originality.
Meanwhile, Bill – made by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar for Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company in 2010
– has more of a twinkle in its eye. Thanks especially to some astonishing early solo work, the first 15 minutes or so are good fun, but by the far-too-distant end it feels like the perky party guest you simply couldn’t get rid of.
A bit frustrating overall, then? Certainly – but do give these lithe Canadians a look.
Now touring the UK. Details: balletbc.com