'Sea of Troubles' reviews 'MacMillan' programme reviews Wildor in reviews Cooper in reviews more AnnaM reviews

Exeter was such a great opportunity to see so many different aspects of MacMillan's work. I thoroughly enjoyed myself ! The one piece that impressed me the most from that whole Exeter weekend was Sea of Troubles. I was moved so much by it, it still haunts me but I fail to put into words what impression it made on me. The deeper I am moved by a piece the more I struggle to express it with words, but I'll try.

I know MacMillan from what I've seen at the Royal Ballet, he is my favorite choreographer and I love his work. But watching Sea of Troubles was an entirely new experience, not just in the context of his other choreography but as a piece in itself. Somehow the language of movement seemed totally different from any other form of a MacMillan three-act ballet, so contemporary, so strong, so beautiful, so relevant... The movements were almost geometric, very contained and defined; the set was sparse, and the whole reminded me of Japanese aesthetics. It is the minimalism that makes it more powerful.

The whole piece consists of different scenes, loosely based on scenes from Hamlet, which happens to be one of my favorite plays and one that I am very familiar with. I was ever so delighted to realize that MacMillan and especially the present dancers managed to translate a concept so abstract into a different medium, but with an equally powerful effect. The dramatic effect it had on me were equal to listening to the theatre piece, yet at the same time the dance stands in its own right, entirely independent of the play. The dance is inspired by the play but it is no mere illustration, no sophisticated "charade" in that sense. It catches a mood very special to the whole Hamlet sphere and that is the striking effect!

I loved the details, the ideas. How the Queen puts the royal cloak on the King's Brother and it keeps slipping off, how poignant! How distressed Sarah looked when it kept happening; her tiny, tiny delay in staring at the cloak before picking it up, so taken aback by the event. Or the fluidity in Ophelia's movements; how she is manipulated and floated around by her two partners in the drowning scene. What an amazing dancer to appear so relaxed as to slip through their hands and yet staying so graceful and fragile. The scene how Hamlet watches and approaches the Queen and his Uncle - now King - on his knees; the deep stretch in his legs and his stride across the floor, the intensity it contained, the anger, the threat, the need to approach, to almost creep towards the couple, what a hunger it expressed! How the cast change personas, how the whole group seem to blend to a nightmarish vision of multiple characters towards the end! The whole piece had so many powerful images, so many nuances and details. It seemed to me as if MacMillan was exploring a new style, pushing his dance in a new direction.

The music from Sea of Troubles took me some getting used to, though. The first time I heard it all seemed jumbled together, a very disjointed piano score, random strands of chords, but I could detect no melody and no harmonic consistency. It annoyed me and I focused even more on the dance. Until I realized: "Hold on! This is EXACTLY what it is about ! Exactly what is supposed to be happening" - I was indeed "lost" in the flow of the music, tossed around and couldn't find an stable mark, had no idea where the melody was going, what rhythm patterns to follow; it was indeed a "sea": stormtossed in a sea of troubles. Brilliant - what a revelation that was!

And then suddenly the phrases of the dance clicked into place! I love the long phrases that MacMillan usually finds in a music and the phrases he creates for the dancers. I've noticed in R&J as in Manon, that certain scenes when performed by certain dancers have an entirely different arc than expected. Some dancers are gifted enough - and musical enough - to use a swing from the individual movements that tie smaller phrases together to a much larger, sweeping arc and you realize what phrase MacMillan has really intended. Well, in the Sea of Troubles, once I accepted the music, I discovered that every scene is its one phrase, has a consistent logic, a single force that holds it together. Such a clear dynamic that drives the scene and keeps the dance buoyant. That legato is breathtaking !

I watched both performances on the weekend and I was looking forward especially to seeing Sea of Troubles again. I enjoyed the second time even more, it made more sense to me, I enjoyed the details and the overall journey much, much more! In fact I would love to see this piece again soon. I hope it will be included in some celebration program this Winter.

One thing I noticed particular to Adam is a small trick he also used to a very powerfully dramatic effect in his last scene of Swanlake when he is on the bed surrounded by all the swans. The moment when he lets out a final scream before he is pushed down by the other swans. It is similar to the last act of Manon that he danced with Sarah, in the end when he realizes Manon is dead he holds her in his arms and raises his face to the audience in - also - a final cry of pain. Well, what Adam does (and what others don't do), is that he prepares the scream before lifting his face! So when he does raise his head and the audience sees the expression, the scream, the pain is already there and it hits the audience in its unbearable grief. Other dancers I've seen raise their heads and THEN form the "scream". Nice, but not effective... far too tame! Witnessing the face change never has that hard and shocking effect on an audience. You join the dancer or actor in the expression of grief, but it doesn't hit you with the same violence. If you see the last Manon scene with him leaning over her, her lying dead in his arms and then suddenly he snaps his face towards you with THAT pain, it rips your heart apart ! But that's because Adam is a talented actor and as well as a fantastic dancer.