An austerely unseasoned start leading to a succulent finish
A Quiet Evening of Dance William Forsythe, Sadler’s Wells
‘My goal is to make people see ballet better,” says William Forsythe in the programme notes for his latest show. It’s a fascinating credo, and one that has helped the American become probably the world’s pre-eminent postmodern ballet choreographer. Pieces such as Steptext (1985) and in
the middle, somewhat elevated (1988) saw him scrutinise, dissect and reassemble classical-ballet technique in astonishingly rigorous, riveting and even thrilling ways, and the latter, in particular, remains an era- and genre-defining work.
But, for all his brilliance, he can also be heavy-going. Some more recent creations of his I’ve caught at Sadler’s Wells have seemed more academic exercise than stage show: punctilious in conception (his work invariably is), but decidedly hard to enjoy.
His latest offering, a combination of reworked and brand-new pieces, fits into both camps. Presented in two “Acts”, A Quiet Evening of Dance begins as just that, with the first of Act 1’s four sections (Prologue) performed only to gentle birdsong, and the second, Catalogue, to complete silence. Admittedly, the third part, Epilogue, does play out to contemporary “plinkyplonk” music for solo piano, but so sparse is this that the sense of studied austerity remains, and anyway those chirping birds soon return (for the aptly named Dialogue, at Act 1’s close).
It should be said straight out that the movement quality – and, as throughout the entire evening, the dancing – from the start is exemplary, full of fluid, generous, Merce Cunningham-esque gestures: not ballet, but balletic nonetheless. Catalogue, too, has an extra fascination in taking as its starting-point the idea that ballet is all about “folding”. With their breathing the only soundtrack, the two super dancers (Jill Johnson and Christopher Ronan), rooted to the spot, mark out schematic, right-angled and complex patterns with their arms before drafting in other “hinges” of their bodies. So far, so physically and cerebrally exacting – but also a full 50 minutes long, and not a lot of fun.
Act 2 – aka Seventeen/twenty One – is where it all comes together. As Forsythe also says in the notes, “It’s fascinating how your perception changes as soon as the acoustic changes”, which, in this context, strikes me as a fancypants way of suggesting that dance is one hell of a lot more enjoyable when performed to music – as indeed it proves here.
And so, Act 2 takes many of the physical tropes from the first half, but weaves them into an all-new episodic tapestry inspired by the formalisation of physical etiquette in the court of Louis XIV into “la belle danse” – or, put another way, the birth of ballet.
This is Forsythe at his smartest and most mischievous. The steps are at once rooted in ballet, structured in an often courtly fashion, and yet utterly modern, with a particularly striking sense of spontaneity here, as if each performer had little or no idea how they were going to move until watching the others, that very second.
Meanwhile, the dancers’ absurdly long, formal gloves vaguely evoke Louis XIV’S court, but – almost tights for the arms – they’re also comically at odds with their otherwise easygoing, multicoloured mufti. And, to add to the impish interweaving of registers and centuries, the whole thing is set to prerecorded but scintillating music by the 18th century composer Jean-philippe Rameau, yet among the cast is one Rauf “Rubberlegz” Yasit, an astonishing hip-hop dancer who appears to have been born without the inconvenient encumbrance of a skeleton.
Act 2, then, is a succulent steak to get to which you first have to gnaw through Act 1’s impeccably steamed, highly nutritious but totally unseasoned broccoli. It’s a bit of an effort, certainly, but well worth it. Run now over