Carlos Acosta, A Celebration of Thirty Years In Dance

Posted: October 4th, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Performance | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Carlos Acosta, A Celebration of Thirty Years In Dance

Carlos Acosta: A Celebration of Thirty Years in Dance, Royal Albert Hall, October 2

Acosta

Carlos Acosta with Acosta Danza (photo: Manuel Vasson)

There’s a lot to celebrate in what Carlos Acosta has to show for his 30 years in dance, not least his ploughing of the benefits he received as a young dancer back into the rich soil of Cuba in the form of a company, Acosta Danza, and a dance academy in Havana that opened last year. For those who want to see Acosta himself in action he is still in fine and seemingly effortless form and worth watching. It is the package in which this 30-year celebration is presented at the Royal Albert Hall that leaves something to be desired and a few questions. The celebration has the feel of a public relations event in the form of a performance rather than the other way round; Acosta is essentially a guest artist in his own company and is the focus of the evening.

One of the valuable decisions is to present Acosta Danza on its own merits in Alrededor no hay nada with choreography by Goyo Montero to recorded poems by Joaquin Sabina and Vinicius de Moraes. Although there is no printed translation of the poems, their rhythmic structure and the sound of the syllables are beautifully embodied in the choreography and in the elegant, pliant athleticism of the dancers. Each poem is treated as a separate movement within the whole, generating cohesive, often humorous choreographic miniatures in which the contrasts of everyday life in Havana find their expression; they seem to breathe with the sound and colour, exuberance and violence, joy and sadness of the city.

The evening opens with a Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui duet, Mermaid, to a score by Cherkaoui and Woojae Park played live on bells, geomungo and piano. The association of Acosta and Cherkaoui is not immediately evident; there is a connection through the Sadler’s Wells roster of associates but watching Acosta dance this duet is to sense a fish out of water, whereas the fluid Marta Ortega as the mermaid, even on pointe, is much more within her realm.

The final work on the first part of the program is Christopher Bruce’s Rooster choreographed on iconic songs of the Rolling Stones. Bruce writes, ‘In my teens I lived with these songs. I have taken eight tracks and linked them with themes present in the lyrics.’ As with Alrededor no hay nada, there are no printed lyrics but the punchy rhythms and inspired instrumentation (this was before the death of Brian Jones) are all you need to conjure up the cocky chauvinism of the greased-back rockers who strut their stuff in front of an acquiescent female gaze. And yet in this performance, with Acosta as chief rooster, something has got lost in translation. It starts with Tina MacHugh’s lighting whose original intensity and colour seems to have been filtered through a kind of purple haze which also affects the appearance of Marian Bruce’s costumes: they lose their punch. And for a choreographic treatment that bounces off the walls, there aren’t any walls to bounce off in the airy space of the Royal Albert Hall stage so the energy dissipates. That leaves the best efforts of the dancers to rescue Rooster but here again the accuracy of Bruce’s playful, extrovert gestures and attitudes is little more than an approximation; the men are cocks but not cocky and even the charisma of Acosta becomes an apology for self-assertion. Rooster deserves better.

The second half of the program is the complete Carmen as conceived and choreographed by Acosta to the arrangement by Rodion Shchedrin of Bizet’s score with additional music by Martin Yates. The orchestra under the baton of Paul Murphy is perched high above and to the left of the stage. Although the choreography is uneven in its disparate influences, it suits the company well. With Laura Rodriguez as Carmen and Javier Rojas as Don José the narrative line never falters and Acosta’s presence as Escamillio does not overshadow them. Rodriguez moulds her prodigious technique to express the willfulness, seduction and scorn in the choreography, while Rojas maintains a youthful naivety whose burgeoning passion is drawn to his murderous solution by forces he cannot control. Acosta’s suave Escamillio borrows more from the Royal Ballet than from the bullring, but in Carlos Luis Blanco as the embodiment of a bull the raw, earthy masculinity of Carmen’s macho narrative is complete. In its strong, percussive ensemble work and convincing characters Carmen gives the company a chance to cut their technical teeth on a dramatic narrative, a process Acosta can pass on to his dancers with the authority of experience. That is worth celebrating.

Rambert at Theatre Royal Brighton

Posted: February 28th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Performance | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Rambert at Theatre Royal Brighton

Rambert Dance Company, Theatre Royal Brighton, February 26

Miguel Altunaga in Christopher Bruce's Rooster (photo © Hugo Glendnning)

Miguel Altunaga in Christopher Bruce’s Rooster (photo © Hugo Glendinning)

‘Twelve dancers trapped in a hell of their own making’ is how Barak Marshall describes his work for Rambert, The Castaways. They are certainly trapped, in an intriguing design by Jon Bausor that recreates a sub basement where refuse ends up after falling from a shoot that features prominently out of reach on one of the walls. At first sight the dancers lie on the floor as if they have just been emptied out. Jon Savage is the first to stir and introduces the cast like a compere in an underground cabaret. It is a catchy beginning, the archetypes expressed effectively in Bausor’s costumes and in the believable mix of characters among the dozen Rambert dancers. Then the first track of an eclectic playlist ‘taking in Balkan folk, Yiddish pop and Soviet pomp’ (arranged by Robert Millett and played live in the orchestra pit) starts and a dance begins, formed, shaped and cropped out of nowhere. From here to the end there is a sense of pastiche choreography, episodes of gratuitous violence and argument interspersed with group dances that resemble each other too closely with their flair for flamboyant despair. The only sparks fly from Estella Merlos and Miguel Altunaga who could be playing Anita and Bernardo in a Yiddish version of West Side Story. Intriguingly, there are similar character traits between The Castaways and Christopher Bruce’s Rooster: Vanessa Kang comes in for bullying in both, which is a bit worrying, and the men are unashamedly macho.

Richard Alston’s Dutiful Ducks, taken from the title of the sound score by Charles Amirkhanian, is a solo for Dane Hurst that begins in full flood and ends all too abruptly a few minutes later. Hurst is completely at home in this sinuous, fluid work and dances it to perfection, every little inflection and change of direction clearly and cleanly depicted. It may be short but the memory lingers.

There is a connection between Alston and Merce Cunningham that goes some way to introducing the latter’s Sounddance, though it is by no means a natural segue. Cunningham is an acquired taste and, I imagine, an acquired style that is uncompromisingly modern with a classical base. Sounddance is, according to Nancy Dalva, ‘a dance about dance, and about dancing.’ What marks it is the apparent lack of motivation, or linear construction, and there is an absence of any conceit or ego even if the presence of Cunningham the creator (with a wry sense of humour) is ever present. It is thus an opportunity to observe each dancer in the act of dancing, which is a treat (Adam Blyde and newcomer Carolyn Bolton stand out in this work). To a score by David Tudor (played with deafening enthusiasm by Robert Millett), Sounddance unfolds from a velvet-draped rococo screen through which Blyde swirls into being like the creator himself (this was a role Cunningham danced). His physical control and smooth dynamic contains the seed of the whole piece. The other dancers appear from the same velvet drapes one by one, increasing the complexity of the spatial and sexual interactions until the stage is close to controlled chaos before the dancers split off, one by one in a reversal of their entrances, passing back through the same curtained womb from which they had emerged. Blyde winds up the proceedings by whirling off at high speed.

There is one more work: Christopher Bruce’s Rooster, which has remained out of the company’s repertoire for thirteen years. The eight songs of the Rolling Stones to which Bruce created the work date it back even further to the 60s and 70s. Rooster is, Bruce writes, ‘a celebration of the music and of the times these tracks were recorded.’ It is also a celebration particularly of the men in the cast: Miguel Altunaga, Mbulelo Ndabeni, Adam Blyde, Dane Hurst and Stephen Wright who strut and soar with all the cockiness and virtuosity of the music, which is where Bruce uncovers the keys of his choreography, from the more obvious jutting thrust and pumping wings of the rooster that appear throughout as a leitmotif to the the more subtle courtly flourish suggested by the harpsichord in Lady Jane. You don’t see gratuitous steps in his work. The same sensitivity drives the choice of vivid costumes by Marian Bruce and the superb lighting by Tina MacHugh. All these elements come together to create moments of pure magic: Altunaga as the prancing dandy in Little Red Rooster, light fading on Patricia Okenwa as Not Fade Away begins, Hurst’s non-stop twisted and contorted aerial solo in Paint it Black, and Merlos hurling herself into the arms of four men who throw her high into the air, long red dress flying, at the end of Ruby Tuesday. And while Wright has a fling with Kang in Play with Fire, a feather from her red boa lodges in his hair like a lick of flame or a devil’s horn for the start of Sympathy with the Devil. You couldn’t ask for better.

Bruce not only develops his own language and ideas, but he develops his dancers both technically and expressively. The excitement is palpable on both sides of the curtain.