Review: BALLET BC DOUBLE BILL, Sadler’s Wells

Ballet BC present a double bill at Sadler’s Wells with work by heavyweight contemporary dancemakers of the present day. 

Frontier by Crystal Pite is as you'd expect. Highly produced, contemporary dance with a dark feel. Pite is looking at dark matter and the personification of shadows and she succeeds in the sense that the majority of the work is barely visible to the naked eye. The larger proportion of dancers wear totally black outfits (faces covered and heads hooded) and flit around with articulate precision in near darkness.

There's a handful of performers dressed in off white, and this allows for the movement to be savoured. I connected with this Pite choreography more than usual as it felt large, expansive and full of intelligible line. The duos also work well allowing for some serious off balance exploration and play.

As is often the case (for me) Pite’s work is skilled and tasteful but somehow leaves me cold, and feeling I need an eye test and depression medication ASAP. 

PASSING by Johan Inger is a different kettle of fish, and the right work to close the evening. The blurb mentions climate crisis and the human experience, and it's the latter that speaks more throughout the piece.

Inger is Swedish and PASSING feels like very Swedish contemporary choreography. What's that? In my limited experience it's a language that reads like hyper-realised pedestrian movement, verging on the cartoonish - think comedy runs and gurning faces. And often costumed in a wool cardigan.

Inger is definitely a dancer's choreographer though, providing innately musical work full of travel and dynamic. And the cast evidently relish it. Absurdity isn't my thing, so I could easily pass on the extreme human emotions on display - uncontrollable laughter and crying - but I very much enjoy the folk feel in both music and the presence of ancient, group dance patternings.

The final scene in PASSING is the one for me. Where the cast strip down to flesh tone underwear (predictable) and move around the space like lost earthlings controlled by a form of magnetic power, with both pull and repel in full flow, as well as the now, verging on obligatory snowfall in contemporary dance. Inger's overall message feels confused, but human at the same time.

The stars of the night are indisputably the dancers. What a cohort. Everywhere you look one sees the ideal combination of technical prowess and artistic integrity, and this shouldn't be underestimated. With this level of human component, Ballet BC looks in very good form for the foreseeable future. Lucky Vancouver.

Ballet BC Double Bill runs at Sadler's Well until 21 May

To post a comment, you must register and login.