Extremely beautiful and quite appalling, all at once
The First World War has yielded some first-rate art, and ENB’s ‘Lest We Forget’ is no exception, says
Have you ever noticed how the First World War seems to have yielded relatively little art, but of a very high quality? And how the Second, by contrast, has generated copious amounts of mostly pulp fiction? The latter was a very unusual conflict in that, once the belligerents had played their opening hands, it had to be fought: there was essentially no moral, practical or political choice. This sense of purpose, the horrific ideology of the Third Reich, and the implicit drama of the “What would I have done?” question add up to the ideal good-vsevil scenario (and potential for moral inner struggle) to fuel a Hollywood thriller or airport potboiler, as has happened countless times.
The Great War, however, gives would-be entertainers no such firm footing. Exactly how and why this catastrophic conflict played out the way it did (or perhaps even at all) is a question that many of the greatest artists over the past hundred years have tried to make sense of. And, from Siegfried Sassoon’s poetry, to John Singer Sargent’s Gassed, to Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong, to (in the dance arena) Kenneth MacMillan’s Gloria and Akram Khan’s recent Xenos – which Khan happened to perform for the last time in Britain last night – the results have been extraordinary.
Four years ago, on the centenary of the start of the First World War, English National Ballet entered the fray with its Lest We Forget bill. A triptych of new pieces by three leading but different choreographers – one of them Khan, in fact – this was originally staged with the garnish of George Williamson’s Firebird, but revived to even more powerful effect the following year without it. This week sees a fresh, 1918-centenary Land No Man’s revival, also sans that extraneous fowl, and it’s a relief to say that the conclusion of my 2015 review – that the programme “stays with you long after curtain-down” – is one I stand by still.
The evening opens with No Man’s Land, by Royal Ballet artist-in-residence Liam m Scarlett. The ghost of MacMillan hangs nobly over this empathetic, sevencouple tribute to the so-called “Canaries”, the he women who packed explosives into bullets and shells, turning their hands yellow in the process: not just in the dark and dramatic composite Liszt score (which inevitably calls to mind MacMillan’s 1978 masterpiece Mayerling), g), but also in the intricacy and physical abandon of its duets, especially the astonishing climax, heart-rendingly danced d by Alina Cojocaru and
Isaac Hernández.
Designer Jon
Bausor’s set vividly evokes and links both munitions factory and battlefield, cleverly emphasising the connection between the two – it’s not a massive stretch of the imagination to see these armaments as TNT-stuffed billets doux that the women were sending on to their menfolk. Meanwhile, the portrait that emerges from Scarlett’s eloquent neoclassical choreography, of couples left only with evanescent memories of each other, is a potent one.
The more common definition of “No Man’s Land” is exactly where we are taken by Second Breath. Created by that most graceful of contemporary choreographers Russell Maliphant, this opens with a sea of swaying bodies, which before long repeatedly rise and fall, and it soon develops into individual little vignettes of men going “over the top” and instantly perishing. These episodes manage to be at once extremely beautiful and quite appalling, though it struck me this time round that however expertly Maliphant’s piece holds the attention throughout, it does p play its strongest cards early on. Of the bill’s three pieces, the one that has perhap perhaps aged best of all is Dust, by Kha Khan. In the astonishing ope opening, a lone man, firing off stricken, Khan-ish shudders, soon has his h movements imitated by exq exquisitely rippling chains of dan dancers either side of him: echoin echoing him, but also seeming to s support him too. A fusion o overall of Indian classical Katha Kathak and Western contemporary dance that is Khan’s calling-card, Dust e emerges above all as a collective, percussive rage against the emotional privation privations of war, and one that, l like No Man’s Land, Lan brings women to the fore. For m most of it, ENB’s dancer-director Tamara Rojo leads from the front in every way, the 44-year-old’s razor-sharp musicality and furious physical attack perfect for the anguished matter in hand. abruptly but it’s a warmly enjoyable, highly engaging 100 minutes nonetheless. handsome “period” production, beautifully designed by Michael Yeargan. An interesting cast includes Carlos Alvarez as the Doge of Genoa, Ferruccio Furlanetto as his antagonist Jacopo Fiesco and Hrachuhi Bassenz as his cloistered daughter Amelia. After his success with Salome last season, Henrik Nànàsi returns to conduct.