'Elite Syncopations' reviews 'La Fin du Jour' reviews 'Concerto' reviews 'Requiem' reviews Wildor in reviews Cooper in reviews recent Star Dancers reviews

As written by Ms. Monica Parker* in program, the performance contains many MacMillan's pieces which are not popular and rarely performed.

STAR DANCERS BALLET company is one of the Japanese ballet companies, quite young but active (founded 35 years ago) And this time they invited Sarah Wildor and Adam Cooper as guest artist for this exciting programme.

The performance was divided by 2 main parts: Elite Syncopations and Solitaire, completely different style and atmosphere..

ES was a ragtime ballet with pop colour costume, chearful and comical dancing in many spot lightings and chairs set. Solitaire, on the other hand, classical and calm in simple set.

Since I know only popular works of MacMillan such as R&J, Manon, Winter Dreams, and Mayerling (all on video only!), I found ES very interesting and enjoyed. I felt like finding many different attractive sides of MacMillan as choreographer which must be one of Ms. Parker's purposes of this programme.

For Elite Syncopations, some other pieces were put in between: Lescaut's solo in Act 2 Manon(Cooper)
La Fin du Jour
The Four Seasons
The Seven Deadly Sins "Stripper"(Wildor) and pdd "Desire" (Wildor and Cooper)

The Japanese dancers in ES, I felt the lack of acting skills, I wanted them each showing strong personality which could have made more live atmosphere on stage, especially for male dancers.

I was so sorry that K.Nishijima, main male dancer for "The Four Seasons" has been injured and replaced by (same for the part 2, pdd in Solitaire). We saw the difficulty of partnering, especially for the lifting. Adam's sudden appearance on stage, drunk Lescaut, was quite a surprise. His presence on stage is quite something.

Since I have always innocent and sweet images in Sarah (only on video again in "Mayerling"), I couldn't recognize her as stripper when she appeared. She was sexy in black tights with dark bobbed hair. The dance "Desire" with Adam was so sensual that the audience missed the timing to applaud. Still, personally I prefer Sarah in the classical role like Giselle, Juliet...

During ES, the cigarettes are used quite a lot. I don't know if it was originally like this but.. if not, who's idea of this ? Cigarettes, Sarah in fan dancer costume, Adam in black trousers... It reminded me of SOMETHING!

For Solitaire, these pieces were put in between:
Concerto Isadora (Wildor)
Winter Dreams (W and C)
Requiem (Cooper)

I would like to say that Mia Atsugi and Li Bo who danced "Concerto" were very impressive. Every movement, line, lifting, pose was so beautiful. Bravo !

As for "Isadora", I didn't like the piece itself so much but I understood why some people here talked about Sarah's high acting skill.

"Winter Dreams" was very successful and popular among the programme for the audience.

"Requiem" was performed with a baritone, Adam in classical tight costume. Since I have a strong impression of "Stranger" of Swan Lake in Adam, I was quite surprised that I enjoyed a lot his dance in this quiet and peaceful piece. I noticed that he has lost his weight a lot compared with last year when he came to Japan for K-Ballet, which gave him the sharpness in his dancing.

I enjoyed all the performance not only to discover many different aspects of MacMillan but those of Sarah and Adam. Fortunately I could see this program twice and I have to confess that I enjoyed more on the 2nd day after reading some descriptions in a program.

The seats were occupied by 90% for 2 days, which is, I think, quite surprising for the local Japanese company's performance. This explains Sarah Wildor and Adam Cooper are becoming now very popular in Japan ???

N.B. Choreography: Sir Kenneth MacMillan Supervised by Deborah MacMillan Reproduced by Monica Parker*

Thank you ! Junko