'Midsummer' reviews Amanda Miller reviews more Rachael Jefferson-Buchanan reviews

The sordid and ugly side of Shakespeare’s fairies was made apparent throughout the work. No pretty ballet dancers in pointe shoes did we ever see. Instead, Miller often showed us awkward ballet bodies, forced into strange inelegant shapes; hips twisting, bottoms sticking out, and tongues lolling out of open mouths. Perhaps considered crude and offensive by some of the audience, this disfigured body vocabulary enabled dancers to share with us a whole new movement repertoire.

The style of the piece was very much a mixture of classical ballet and postmodern dance (although the programme incorrectly referred to Miller’s style as "Contemporary"). Indeed, Miller danced with (and later choreographed for) William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet Company over a number of years. Her ‘Forsythian’ deconstructionist influences were certainly evident in this piece. Miller seemed to pull apart traditional assumptions about classical ballet, simultaneously overturning theatrical and narrative premises. She focused on fragmentation of the body, and deliberately intermingled pedestrian-like gestures and actions with more balletic positions and steps. This did not irritate me - unlike some other spectators - even though I have had a very traditional dance background myself, having trained in classical ballet for many years. Conversely, this ‘style experimentation’ was refreshing for me to see; Miller is merely pushing the boundaries of dance forward and outward, and thereby paralleling changes in the contemporary art world.

Miller seemed to be investigating the formal elements of dance and theatre in this piece, and was also - like her mentor Forsythe - preoccupied with stagecraft. The opening scenes of the work involved the midsummer fairies literally dissolving into the set design at the front of the stage, as they dropped into sleepy positions hidden by large tufts of fake grass positioned at arm’s length away from the audience. These grass tufts were used throughout the piece, to help create a rustic environment, alter the space on the bare proscenium stage, and camouflage various dancers. At several points in the piece Oberon viewed the goings on from an elevated position in a tree-like sculpture, which was essentially a huge moveable spiral contraption. Later in the piece, a massive cone with an open top was rolled onto the stage, from which dancers’ limbs and voices emerged. The six canvas flats positioned upstage also helped create atmosphere (various light patterns were projected onto them), and concurrently offered partial concealment for the dancers, whose sporadic movements behind the flats enabled further bodily fragmentation to occur. The entire set design had a futuristic feel to it, as the dominating colours were silver, whites, and greys, and the conscious integration of dancers with this set was an exciting holistic approach.

This was apparently Miller’s first attempt at a narrative work, and due to the intentionally disordered approach to the piece, it was sometimes difficult to follow the plot. Principal characters were introduced from the outset, and as long as you remembered their names (who does remember anyone’s name at an initial introduction?), the story unfolded quite logically. I must admit to being a little lost at times, but the atmosphere of the piece and the beautifully choreographed lover duos quelled my intermittent confusion.

Exploring narrative in a postmodern context is quite a challenge. Miller certainly achieved her desires, through an extremely original, powerful and harmonious whole - along with the help of a ballet troupe whose technique was absolutely stunning. Let’s hope that in the near future the Grand Théâtre de Geneve will open its doors and our hearts to another delightful and invigorating Miller interpretation of a classical ballet.