Arthur Pita’s The Mother at Southbank Centre

Arthur Pita, The Mother, Queen Elizabeth Hall, June 20

Gerry Fox’s documentary about Natalia Osipova, Force of Nature Natalia, was originally conceived as a promotional film about Arthur Pita’s new work for Osipova and Jonathan Goddard, The Mother, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, The Story of a Mother. Fox started filming in 2018, and soon realised it would be a shame to limit the scope of the film to one work among many that Osipova was rehearsing or performing concurrently with Pita’s rehearsals. Force of Nature Natalia thus looks at a year in the life of Osipova as a dancer while spreading its biopic scope to her youthful background in gymnastics and ballet. Clips of those early years of burgeoning talent and promise, both in class and on stage with the Bolshoi, are enthralling, while a rehearsal with Natalia Makarova of La Bayadère at the Royal Ballet and a tantalisingly short extract from a performance of Giselle with Carlos Acosta are proof of her extraordinary ability to find the drama within classical ballet technique. Ballet developed its dynamism and virtuosity around an upright axis — its origin is in seventeenth-century court etiquette — and within its highly codified language the dramatic expression for an artist as gifted as Osipova arises out of the technique. Fox transitions from this stage of the ballerina’s fêted career to her desire to branch out into contemporary dance by filming her dancing body as it negotiates the work of choreographers Ivan Perez, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and Jason Kittleberger. But in a contemporary dance setting it’s as if Osipova’s emotional compass has been reset and is missing its true north. In charting the course from Giselle to The Mother, Fox unwittingly shows that no contemporary choreographer has yet managed to mine Osipova’s rich seam of expressivity in the way the ballets of Marius Petipa or Jules Perrot have done. Of those choreographers she has worked with, Pita’s predilection for narrative would seem to favour Osipova’s ability to inhabit a character on stage. Pita claims his form of narrative dance theatre is ‘worlds away’ from Osipova’s famous classical roles and that ‘Natalia is a very instinctive performer’. Both statements are true but it is Osipova’s technical prowess that frames that instinct. For her to express the drama of Pita’s narrative in a contemporary vocabulary she has to create a maelstrom of movement — as she does memorably at the very beginning of The Mother when she realizes her child has died, which she recapitulates at the end when she crosses the lake of tears (shades of Swan Lake) — but in between these moments her body is in motion but not moved. Apart from a Russian folk dance with Goddard, she seems in a constant state of transition between leaving her classical world and entering the contemporary one, and what we see too often are the vestiges of the former — her elevation, flexible extensions and exquisite articulation — without the evidence of the latter. 

Andersen’s tale follows the mother as she chases after Death to retrieve her child, bargaining along the way with a number of anthropomorphic spirits — the faceless Babushka, the Rose Gardner, the Ferryman, the White-Haired Witch and the Lover — who test her resolve by setting her monstrous tasks that emphasize the supernatural and psychic nature of her quest. Pita has Goddard play all these roles in an array of costumes — designed by Yann Seabra, aided by costume supervisor Giulia Scrimeri and made by Hania Kosewicz — but his quirky sense of humour morphs the supernatural nature of the original tale into camp extravagance that is at odds with Goddard’s dour muscularity. Andersen’s Rose Briar thus becomes Goddard the Rose Gardner in a long black dress and high heels snipping stems in her flower stall. So on the one hand you have Osipova as the harrowed mother dealing with the death of her child and on the other Goddard’s profusion of partners whose interaction revels in the comedic rather than in the psychological trajectory of mourning symbolised by the spirits. If Pita is using The Mother — not to mention Osipova’s reputation — as a sly send-up of the classical pas de deux, he is also trivialising Andersen’s dark tale. Seabra’s revolving set adds its own drole fairground mechanics to the mix while David Plater’s lighting and haze, especially as seen through the set’s opening doors, is profusely melodramatic. Frank Moon and David Price are the multi-instrumental two-piece band on either side of the stage who anchor a work that is otherwise in danger of shipwreck. 

An introduction to Groundwork Pro in Cardiff

A multi-modal introduction to Groundwork Pro, Chapter, June 8

Groundwork Pro, working from the ground up (photo: James Merryweather)

When a young Gillian Lynn was taken by her mother to see a psychiatrist to assess her ability to learn, the wise man observed to her mother there was nothing wrong with her: she just needed to dance. Fortunately her mother followed his advice and Lynn found to her amazement that at dance school there were other kids who could not sit still; they had to dance in order to think.

Joanna Young and Deborah Light took this notion on board in their inaugural session of Groundwork Pro, a new Cardiff-based, artist-led collective, on the final day of Dance Roads at Chapter in Cardiff. The confluence of this workshop with Dance Roads, featuring dancers from five EU countries, was not coincidental. Referencing the cultural state of affairs the EU referendum threatened to affect, Young and Light titled it, Are We Independent or Interdependent Artists?

By definition ‘independent’ means free from outside control, not depending on another’s authority. In purely artistic terms each artist in the room is independent. But when training, performing opportunities and funding structures are taken into account, the notion of independence is no longer sufficient. A dance infrastructure in which artists can grow and thrive together in a relation of interdependence is necessary. The EU itself is an interdependent infrastructure in the political sphere and the result of the UK referendum has underlined just how fragile and volatile such a structure can be. There is nothing natural about any social structure; it is constructed according to the wishes and the constraints of the people it sets out to serve. It has to remain relevant. This in itself creates interdependence not as a requirement but as an effect of careful, continued planning. When the structure no longer serves the needs of its community, its effectiveness is diminished. By inviting artists in Wales to meet with their international peers from France, Holland, Italy and Roumania in a physical workshop, Young and Light wanted to provide an opportunity for open exchange, provocative questions and play, through which they hoped to clarify a basis on which to build a thriving dance community in Wales.

Because dancers use their bodies to think, Young and Light devised ways to articulate ideas in movement. Walking around the room is one way, loosening up our interactions with people we may not know; or by choosing three objects in the room and placing them somewhere inside the circle we have made, stating why that particular object and why that particular place. Humour arises from this kind of interaction and humour is a potent means of breaking down barriers. Closing our eyes and walking slowly from one end of the room to the other involves trust and group coordination. No strategies were formed during these exercises but we were becoming a unified group and when we were asked questions by Young or Light the responses and the freedom with which they were expressed were revelatory. We wrote phrases on long pieces of paper, or we called out an idea that someone else noted down. Discussing together whilst sitting on the floor was another strategy (this is groundwork after all). The process was like performing a guided improvisation. Actually it was a guided improvisation in which our moves and expressions formed the content of the work.

Groundwork Pro is an experiment, currently running a 6-month pilot. Its aim is to create a hub of activities in Cardiff that allow dancers and choreographers to develop their art as a community while connecting with developments in the UK and internationally. Activities include classes — teaching will be shared between Wales-based artists and their UK and international counterparts — and performances. Groundwork Pro also wants to highlight the work of practitioners in Wales and to provide artists with paid work that sustains and nourishes their practice. Supported by Coreo Cymru and Chapter in terms of studio space, reduced ticket prices and other support in kind, Groundwork Pro is funded by Arts Council Wales which allows assistance to Wales-based artists for travel, accommodation, access needs and childcare, as needed. Artists from outside Wales are welcome to attend events but the access fund is limited to Wales-based artists.

Groundwork Pro is now creating the opportunities that fulfill what the participants in the room felt were important. Such a structure is fragile, and in a sense needs to remain fragile to be able to respond to new demands, new directions, to keep alive the interdependence. It is equally vital that the participants, or members, of Groundwork Pro, support it actively and creatively so it doesn’t become a co-dependence. There will be ups and downs, but this is groundbreaking, as in laying the foundations for a new structure. What is built on this new structure will be the fruit of not just the initial meeting but of all the interactions and activities created for the purpose of nurturing the dance community in Cardiff and in all of Wales.

The Groundwork Pro team is Joanna Young, Chloe Loftus, Jessie Brett, Beth Powlesland and Deborah Light. For more information on activities and schedules, visit www.groundworkpro.com.