Plato's Cave, Ballet, Bernstein and Blogging

As I relished the pleasure of running and jumping on a sprung floor to the instructions of our esteemed teacher in the company of my dear friends and acquaintances I was reminded of a story that I first heard at the age of 8 when my father was taking a course at the LSE and using me as a sounding board.  It came from The Republic which I read for myself a few years later at St Andrews. In my day, all arts students at the ancient Scottish universities had to take a course in moral philosophy or logic and metaphysics. I chose moral phil which was easier for me than most because all students at independent London day schools had to learn some Greek.

Plato tells the story of a group of prisoners chained to a wall of a cave.  Behind them lies a flickering fire.  Occasionally things pass between the prisoners and the fire which the prisoners see as shadows projected on the cave wall.  Eventually, one of the prisoners broke free and saw the world in all its beauty.  He urged his fellows to follow him but they couldn't because the cave wall encompassed all reality.

Well, yesterday I escaped from online Zoom classes in my kitchen and pliéd (woodenly), pirouetted (scrappily) and grand jetéd (clumsily a half-second or more behind the others in my group) across Studio 2 of Yorkshire Dance. 

 "And it was good, Brother.  And it was goddam good," (per Leonard Bernstein "God said").

I am going to stick with Bernstein rather than Plato because Plato told the story to flog his theory of form which led him to despise artists as copyists of copies of reality. What he would have made of ballet dancers I shudder to think - and amateur ballet dancers like me do not bear speculation. 

Yesterday's class was one of the happiest of my life and indeed one of the happiest days of my life. Having cleared three score years and ten some time ago I had begun to see buffers and barriers which were always there but never noticed before. Having recently lost my footing to slide down a flight of stairs on my backside which was jolly painful, I seriously wondered whether I would ever be in class again.  That saddened me and it was one of the reasons why I had stopped blogging about dance for a while.

But I can still dance for now. Yesterday I was with beautiful young friends from all over England. In the studio Joanna from London and Sarah from Brum.  On the other side of the screen, Philippa from Dartmouth, Emmeline, Gerard, Anne and Mel.  All of us enjoying the music.  All of us moving.

Well, as you can see, I have started blogging again.  And what a time to begin.  My first articles will be about Carla Fracci (one of the greatest ballerinas of all time whom I was lucky enough to see in her most famous role) and the retirement of David Nixon (Northern Ballet's longest-serving director and in many ways the architect of the company's success).  The first live ballet I will actually review will be in Manchester Cathedral and the end of July.  One thing I really must do while I can still travel is to visit Moscow and St Petersburg and as many regional companies as possible.

Bernstein Centenary

Leonard Bernstein 1918-1990

Photo Jack Mitchell

Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 international

Source Wikipedia

Royal Ballet Bernstein Centenary (Yugen, The Age of Anxiety and Corybantic Games 17 March 2018, 19:30 Royal Opera House Covent Garden

This year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein, one of the most popular classical composers ever. One of the reasons for his popularity is that he did not work entirely in the classical idiom.  Consequently, many of his tunes appeal to an audience who have never entered a concert hall.  They are simple and memorable - easy to sing, hum or whistle. To celebrate the anniversary the Royal Ballet revived Liam Scarlett's The Age of Anxiety and commissioned new works form Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon, namely Yugen and the Corybantic Games.

I liked all the ballets in the programme. Yugen and The Age of Anxiety appealed immediately.  Corybantic Games was different. I admired the choreography, the geometric sets and, of course, Bernstein's music and I am an enormous fan of Lauren Cuthbertson but I think I will have to see it again and probably more than once to appreciate it properly.  Happily I will get that opportunity when the programme is streamed to cinemas on 28 March 2018.

Recently Gary Avis, the work's ballet master, tweeted that Yugen was breathtakingly beautiful. On seeing the tweet my first reaction was that he would say that - but he was right. I literally gasped for breath from the moment the stage revealed the geometric set with the dancers clad in red at first glance almost exactly alike. McGregoor had interpreted Bernstein's Chichester Psalms (extracts from the psalms including the 23rd sung in the original Hebrew) in movement and the result can only be described as sublime. I was enchanted by the whole performance.

The Age of Anxiety could not have been more of a contrast.  According to the programme notes it is based on W H Auden's poem which I have yet to read.  Wikipedia states:

"The poem deals, in eclogue form, with man's quest to find substance and identity in a shifting and increasingly industrialized world. Set in a wartime bar in New York City, Auden uses four characters – Quant, Malin, Rosetta, and Emble – to explore and develop his themes."

Well everybody must have got the New York bar bit but the coming to terms with industrialized world bit bypassed me. The ballet seemed to be about 4 people getting progressively drunk until the barman throws them out. They repair to Rosetta's flat with a magnificent view of the New York skyline. One of them passes out.  The last scene reveals Manhattan at dawn and the dancer's wonder at the sight.

Well Rosetta was  obviously Sarah Lamb and she was splendid in that role as she always is.  Luca Acri was Emble, Yorkshireman Thomas Whitehead was Qant and James Hay was Malin. I always give Whitehead an extra loud clap or cheer whenever I see him on stage because ........ well, we Northerners have to stick together, don't we.

For some reason or other the Corybantic Games reminded me of Ashton's Symphonic Variations even though Bernstein's music is so different from Cesar Franck's as is Wheeldon's choreography from Ashton's. I think it may have been because of the classical allusions. I seem to remember my old classics master telling me that the Olympic games were only one of a number of games in which the Greek city states competed. I surmised that the Corybantic Games must have been another. The dancers were clad simply as athletes and their movements were pretty extraordinary too. The work was divided into five movements with Matthew Ball, William Bracewell, Yasmine Naghdi accompanying Cuthbertson in the first. Beatrix Stix-Brunnell on her own in the second, Navarra Magri and Marcelino Sambé in the third, Cuthbertson, Naghdi, Ball, Ryoichi Hirano, Stix-Brunnell and Bracewell in the fourth and Tierney Heap leading the ensemble in the fifth.

The crowd applauded politely at the end of Corybantic Games - especially when the leading ladies received bouquets - but the applause ended before the lights came on again. Nothing like the sustained clapping and cheering for the other two works.  I think the Wheeldom will become a well loved staple of the repertoire in time but audiences need to get to know it better.  Perhaps a different title would have helped.