recent Ballet Ireland reviews more Trog reviews

Following on was Cage to music by Bruckner (the name of the piece escapes me). This is second of several works choreographed by Gunther Falusy, one of the founders of the company. To me, this looks like it draws inspiration from "Sacre du Pritemps" or possibly "The Cage" by Robbins. To quote from the program "a group of androgynous people exist in a wilderness. One person, a female, tries to establish herself away from the group, when the attempt at independence fails, she is no longer accepted and remains ostracised". This is danced in marbled leotards with short black straggly wigs. The break for freedom is expressed when the leading lady lets her hair down (literally). The image of the circle of dancers, standing in a deep second, and jumping up and down while retaining the position looks very familiar. I have seen the company before, so perhaps I have seen this dance before. I must check back through my diary.

Next, came a pdd to Morning by Grieg. Think of a typical spring pdd (tutu with flowers and ribbons in her hair for the girl, and a green and white tunic for the boy) and you've got it. It was very similar to the very next work, the Flower Festival in Genzano. I have only ever read about this famous Bournonville work, and I have long wanted to see it. I didn't really get much impression of "they play and tantalize, but are throughout tempered by the sweetness of falling in love" to quote one source. Perhaps I was expecting too much; while the couple were capable they weren't very spectacular.

The next piece Mutation (again by Falusy) to The Great Gate of Kiev is an extremely clever pd3. It opens with a solitary chap in a very long and wide flowing robe, moving about menacingly. From beneath his robe emerges a girl in a red unitard. This effect is stunning; she appear from nowhere. She escapes but is recaptured. Her young suitor arrives but he is prevented from reaching her by the robed figure. He too is captured, and engulfed by the robe. He escapes a few seconds later, wearing a different outfit. This effect is repeated several times with both dancers. The final white outfits are extremely sexy and (presumably) love has triumphed over evil. I would certainly like to see this piece again.

Next we had two Ivanov pieces, that so familiar in the gala repertoire, the Cygnets from Swan Lake and the Mirlitons from The Nutcracker. I actually quite like both of these pieces, but I don't really like to see them out of context. It is like when I read an anthology of poetry, and the compiler has decided a particular poem is too long, so we get "from 'Insert name of long poem here'". I simply skip that bit. The compiler has no right to decide that a work is too long. They should either include the whole work or not bother. Mind you it would have been a long night had the whole of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker been included!

Following this, was a fairly contemporary pd4, but done to music by Albinoni. Albinoni was a baroque composer; I wonder if that is Falusy's little joke or if he just liked the music. It created a fairly sombre mood in the audience (or perhaps they didn't like it). Anyway, that all evaporated by Clown Dance to a piece by Tchaikovsky (don't know which). This was a pd4, three chaps and one girl, each in checked leotard. There was a bit of hamming it up; going wide on the wheels, tongues sticking out, a few silly faces, but generally the only clown reference being the costumes. The audience liked this one.

Back to the classics for The Lilac Fairy from Sleeping Beauty. Makes a nice change from the Rose Adagio. The final piece in the first half was Bravura to music by John Philip Sousa. I forget the proper name of the music; I've always known it as "Hooray for the red, white & blue", just as I know the "Liberty Bell March" as "Monty Python's Flying Circus". The six girls were in tutu and the two boys in tunics. This featured lots of chorus line style high kicks but there wasn't a star or stripe in sight.

The second half opened with Les Sylphides. Not 100% true to the Fokine choreography, they have redone it. It looked quite good, although the sylphs weren't very ethereal. It is extremely difficult to glide on point shoes; few of today's rather tall dancers can do it. The poet had plenty of elevation when he wasn't airborne, he was hidden by the corps. He isn't a very tall chap. I've always liked this particular ballet. It is from a more gentle era, which I am always drawn to. The Buxton Opera House stage is an ideal one for this work. It doesn't have a lot of stage area, but there is some height and the proscenium arch frames the work well.

The second piece was a pdd called Kuss to an uninspiring Schubert piece. There was some interesting ground-work, but overall this piece was quite weak in layout.

Finally came Irish Rhapsody to music by Charles Villiers Stanford. This was danced against a projected Celtic design in green costumes. There was no hint of Riverdance in this work. Very classical movements performed to perfection. This choreography was very simple and apart from the music (snatches of Londonderry Air, etc), there seemed little of Ireland in this. Mind you, Irish traditional dance and life is not my strong point. I was enjoyable to watch, which is all that is important.

There were a couple of minor slips during the night. No one actually fell over but there were a couple of instances the girls fell off pointe. Skillwise, some of the dancing is very good and some very average. Overall it is a good program and this company deserve your support. Check elsewhere on this website ( http://www.danze.co.uk/dcforum/news/1459.html ) for tour dates. See them if you can.