After receiving its World Premiere performances in 1998 at The Niederlands Dans Theater, the production then went back to it's home city of Stuttgart to perform in the Staatstheater there in 2019, and it is these performances that were filmed for the Stuttgart Ballet's archives.
I have been unable to find any programme information online about this ballet, and so I have no idea what the ballet is about. It is highly contemporary, and I assume, as most contemporary dance forms, doesn't follow a straight narrative, instead follows ideas, themes, and emotions in a non-linear fashion. The ballet is in three acts, and was performed with two 20 minute intervals. During both intervals a solo female dancer remained on stage and connected to the character and the space. The technicians and stage-hands just simply had to work around her as they changed the set. Also on both occasions, the dancers entered the stage during the break and 'warmed-up' on stage before the start of the act.
In act one we were presented with an angular and dystopian-future-style backdrop of triangular and quadrilateral design, and at the start a solo female dancer traversing a narrow and again angular pathway of white light. It seemed almost like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, if the road had been painted by someone on acid. The dancing was mostly slow and mostly quite balletic. There was ensemble, pair and solo work here with many lifts, creating interesting shapes. Dressed all in black or dark grey however it made it visually unsatisfying. The choreography was delicate, poised, deliberate. measured, and the whole had a lyrical and precise feel; quite striking in a nondescript kind of way.
Act 2 was much more upbeat. The costumes remained constant throughout sadly. However, the solo cellist had now been placed on stage, along with a large hanging corrugated diamond shape. Again modernistic, angular, but exactly what it represented or why it was there, and how it related to the dance I have no idea. The music in this second act was more jazz-based, and mostly fast. Much more reminiscent of Latin American rhythms and sounds than anything. However towards the end it changed to a slower more maudlin pace, sinister and eerie, ending on a very sinsiter and cold moment.
The third and final act sees the cellist still on stage, but the dance has now moved further away both musically and stylistically from the starting point, becoming more disjointed and less relatable. Much darker emotionally, and yet the movements are still 'beautiful' and graceful. Mostly it is quite sedate and created powerful images. The stage this time has yet another strange angular design, this time taking pride of place is a 3-piece pyramidal structure, the central piece of which has steps leading up to the top. Although we are still none the wiser to the meaning of any of this, the solo female dancer, who has been constant throughout, having started the ballet in the first act and remained on stage the whole time, now ends the whole performance by turning and walking up the pyramid steps to blackout.
The female soloist I believe was Miriam Kacekova with the solo cello being played by Francis Gouton. Both of whom are deserving high praise for their skills and commitment to a very abstract and difficult-to-engage-with piece. The set design was by Atsushi Kitagawara, with direction and choreography by Jiri Kyian. The Stuttgart Ballet corps are very talneted and showed real skill and understanding of what they had been asked to do. It was such a shame that what they were delivering wasn't translating through the ether and the lack of atnosphere of a computer screen.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 6/6/20
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