Shobana Jeyasingh first came to my attention with Bayadère – The Ninth Life, which I saw just over 10 years ago. In my review, I wrote that Jeyasingh's work "compared and contrasted a modern Indian's perception of one of the classics of Western dance with Théophile Gautier's perception of Indian classical dance." I have recently received a notification from Shobana Jeyasingh Dance about another work by Jeyasingh, which explores the relationship between Europeans and the original inhabitants of the places they enter.
The work is called We Calibanand the company describes it as an "inventive, sideways look at Shakespeare’s The Tempest." The description continues:
"Shakespeare’s brilliant last play, The Tempest, written as Europe was taking its first step towards colonialism, is a tale about power – exercised weakly, usurped violently, and regained through strategy and showmanship."
It promises to tell the story of The Tempest through the eyes of Caliban, "a minor character in the play whose life is changed forever when the power games of distant lands and unknown peoples are played out in his own remote island, making him a 'monstrous' servant to a new master and his young daughter."
The show will open at Snape Maltings on 20 Sep 2025 and then tour Portsmouth, Southampton, York and Warwick. The performance at York will take place on 17 and 18 Oct 2025 at the Theatre Royal.
There were five fine young dancers: Ryan Felix, Jade Wallace, Rhys Antoni Yeomans, Uyu Hiromoto and Oscar Ward. Each of their performances thrilled me and I would have hated to have had to pick a winner. I loved Jade's typewriter dance, Oscar and Uyu's pas de deux, the solo that Natasha Watson created for Oscar but someone had to win and Rhys was indeed a worthy winner.
Rhys will compete with the winners of the contemporary, street dance and South Asian dance. If it was difficult to choose a winner from five ballet finalists I have no idea how one could possibly compare a street dancer with a South Asian dancer. Just for once I think I got some real value from my licence fee.
I first came across Shobana Jeyasingh Dance when I saw Bayadère – The Ninth Lifeat the Linbury last year (see La Bayadère - The Ninth Life29 March 2015). That was a fascinating juxtaposition of an early Western perception of Indian dance and a modern Indian perception of one of the classics of Western dance. As I remarked at the time:
"I had come to the performance expecting a transposition of the story of the ballet into bharatha natyam or some other Indian dance idiom but it was nothing like that. That would have been too easy and it is clear from the list of her works on her company's website that Jeyasingh doesn't do easy. Instead, it compared and contrasted a modern Indian's perception of one of the classics of Western dance with Théophile Gautier's perception of Indian classical dance."
Shortly after Bayadere - The Ninth Life had completed its tour, the company launched Material Menwhich it described as "a virtuoso piece for two dazzling performers of the Indian diaspora" with "contrasts in style between classical Indian dance and hip hop, as well as a shared history rooted in colonial plantations, are the starting points for this absorbing dance work."
I did not see that work when it went on tour last Autumn because it did not come to the North but it appears to have gone down well with the press and public which is not surprising if you look at the pictures of the show on the company's website.
I received a newsletter from the company yesterday which announced that Material Men will tour again. This time it will come close as it will open at the Djanogly Theatre in Nottingham on 7 Feb 2017 before visiting Ipswich, Southampton, Birmingham and Glasgow. The work will be danced as part of a double bill with Strange Bloomswhich was launched in 2013.
Judging by the trailer and the little bit of Jeyasingh's work that I have seen already it will be gripping and absorbing but not easy. However, as I said when I reviewed Bayadere - The Ninth Life that artist does not do easy.
Dark Arteries opened with a brass band on stage. I don't suppose I was the only member of the audience to expect a march or hymn but that is not what we got. The music began softly and built up steadily. Lots of percussion and staccato. Girls in long blue dresses entered followed by the men also in blue. Complex, frenetic movements accompanying Gavin Higgins's score. The bandsmen were not the Rambert's regular musicians but Carlton Main Frickley Colliery Band. There were three moods in the dancing, Two lively ones at the beginning and end with some intricate duets in the middle. Performed by figures in red the duets were soft and poignant. Only later when I read the commentary on Rambert's website did I realize that Dark Arteries had been inspired by the miners' strike. I remember the strike as though it were yesterday. It is hard to think it occurred over half a lifetime ago.
Earlier in the year I saw Shobana Jeyasingh's La Bayadère - The Ninth Lifeat the Linbury. That work blended contemporary and Indian classical dance to a score by Gabriel Prokoviev. Terra Incognita was another collaboration by the same choreographer and composer. It also seemed to include what to my untrained eye were Indian dance movements. But it had quite a different feel to La Bayadère - The Ninth Life and perhaps it was intended as an antithesis. La Bayadère - The Ninth Life focussed on the arrival of Indian dancers in Paris and the sensation that they created in Europe which led in time to the Indian themed ballet. The title Terra Incognita (unexplored territory) suggests exploration. Maybe the arrival of Europeans in Asia and the far greater and more disruptive impact that they made on the recipient culture.
Visually the work was dramatic. Both men and women were in kilts - the men in mauve and the women in orangey brown. In my notebook I wrote "cats' eyes" which I think must relate to a scene change where there were reflections in the backdrop and the reminiscently feline dancing. I also wrote down "Dane Hurst". I can't remember why he impressed me more that day than he usually does but he did. That is not to say that the other dancers were not impressive for they were. Readers can get a flavour of Terra Incognita from this YouTube clip.
The triple bill was called Rooster - the title of the last of the works - and that was the treat of the show. This is a lovely period piece full of nostalgia for people like me (and looking around the theatre the bulk of the audience who grew up in the sixties). I remember those primary coloured shirts and jackets and mini-dresses. The piece starts with Little Red Rooster with the boys moving proudly like, well, the cock of the roost. It then proceeded to Lady Jane and the other Stones classics. I last saw Rooster at The Lowry just over a year ago and loved it then (see Rooster ................ :-)4 Oct 2014). I think I enjoyed it even more last Friday. The work has been in Rambert's repertoire for over 20 years but it was not created for that company. Bruce choreographed it for the Geneva Grand Theatre Ballet which I mentioned last Sunday (see Geneva Nutcracker25 Oct 2015).
On the 7 Nov 2015 Hannah Rudd will lead a workshop on Ruby Tuesdaywhich is easily the most lyrical of the dances in the piece. Imagine dancing in that long, red dress! The workshiop takes place on the stage of Sadler's Wells Theatre between 10:00 and 12:00 and is open to intermediate to advanced dancers aged 16 or over. If only I were good enough! For those who are good enough to take part, here is the link to the booking page. The cost is £15.
One Sunday afternoon I arranged to meet Joanna at Danceworks to take a class with Franziska Rosenzweig. Joanna very sensibly took public transport and arrived on time. But we don't do that in the North because we don't have a tube except for a few stations in Liverpool and Birkenhead unless you count the Newcastle metro. We drive to class and park in Quarry Hill if we want to attend Northern Ballet or in front of the Manchester Met students union if we are going to KNT. I knew that Londoners spend large chunks of their working day in a hole in the ground but as it was a Sunday I thought street parking would be easy peasy lemon squeezy. I could not have been more wrong. It took me ages to park and by the time I arrived at Danceworks Joanna was doing ronds de jambe and grands battements and reception wouldn't let me in.
It is likely that this debacle has happened to others because Danceworks has now negotiated a deal with APCOA for up to 4 hours parking at its Oxford Street West car park for just £5. As the usual tariff for that duration is £34 that's an enormous saving. To get that discount motorists should collect a validation voucher from Danceworks and insert it into the ticket machines when they leave the car park. Four houses allows enough time for a couple of classes and a good natter in one of the many cafes and bars in that part of London.
Information about this discount arrived in Danceworks newsletter which also contained details of a new 8 weeks improvers' course for beginners between 22 Sept and 17 Nov between 19:00 and 20:30 on Tuesdays which will be taught by Christina-Maria Mittelmaier, a professional level class by David Kierce of the Queensland Ballet and the opening of the Ballet Academy for children that I mentioned in Danceworks Academy of 21 March 2015.
Danceworks are also running draws for tickets for West End Shows like Bend It Like Beckham which Gita saw in July and thoroughly enjoyed and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance's Materiall Men and Strange Blooms which is starting its nationwide tour from the Southbank on 15 June 2015. Also, if anyone is interested the studio has 20 tickets for Birchbox Beauty events at Selfridges where champagne will be served and products may be tried.
Over the last few days Dance UK has held an industry wide conference entitled "The Future: New Ideas: New Inspirations". I did not attend but I followed many of the proceedings with interest as they were streamed to the public by Dance UK TV and tweeted about on twitter. Indeed I even re-tweeted some of those tweets myself:
There were speeches by the great and the good such as Sir Peter Bazalgette, chair of the Arts Council, the educationalist Sir Ken Robinson whom I mentioned in Dance is just as important as Maths17 Aug 2014 and the great dancer and choreographer Dame Gillian Lynne whom Sir Ken mentioned in his famous TED presentation. There were also performances by great dancers such as Ed Watson to Arthur Pita's choreography for The Feeling's Boy Cried Wolf.
The speakers' list reads like a roll call of the greats of British dance with Mike Baldwin of Rambert, Christopher Hampson of Scottish Ballet, Shobana Jayasingh, David Nixon of Northern Ballet, Matthew Bourne and many more including Andrew Hochauser QC from my world.
The session that appealed most to me was Invest, Create, Innovatewhich took place at Trinity Laban onSaturday 11 April with discussions on dramaturgy by Akram Khan and David Nixon, Ballet - A Museum or a Creative Powerhouse? with Kevin O'Hare and Christopher Hampson, South Asian Dance and the debate on dancers' pay. I should also have been interested in Charlotte Sexton talk: "Why hasn't dance mastered the dark art of digital?" which took place the previous day.
In the video of the opening night, the presenters indicated that this conference was the start of a process to develop a dance strategy.
On Saturday I saw Shobana Jeyasingh's Bayadère - Ninth Lifeand you will see my report (I can't call it a review because I am still digesting it) at La Bayadère - The Ninth Life29 March 2015. Jeyasingh suggested a connection between a visit by temple dancers from Pondicherry to Paris in 1838 and Petipa's ballet in St. Petersburg in 1877. While I was sceptical at first I think there may well have been through Théophile Gautier,
The reason for my scepticism is that there was a 39 year time lapse and a thousand miles of distance between the visit of the temple dancers to Paris in 1838 and the premiere of La Bayadère in St Petersburg in 1877. But then I remembered that Gautier was the librettist of Giselle. Marius Petipa who created La Bayadère knew Giselle well and staged his own version in St Petersburg in 1884. When you compare the two ballets you notice similarities. For instance the heroine dies a pretty horrible death in both ballets. Giselle in a fit or by a heart attack upon learning of Albrecht's deception; and Nikiya by a bite from a snake concealed in a basket of flowers. Both have visions of the afterlife: the vengeful wilis on the prowl in the forests and the shades in the mountains, Both visions provide great roles for the corps.
Except for the entry of the shades which is sometimes shown at galas, La Bayadère is not well known in this country. Natalia Makarova has staged a version for the Royal Ballet which was last danced two years ago (see La Bayadèreon the Royal Opera House's website) and it has been performed by visiting companies from Russia. A performance of the whole ballet in the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg can be seen on YouTube. There is a pretty good entry on the ballet in Wikipedia. The Royal Ballet website has a great interview with Nehemiah Kish who danced Solor and an interesting article by Paul Kilbey entitled Eastern Promises: The allure of the Orient in opera and balletwith a clip of the dance of the bronze idol.
The reason I have compiled these resources is that Marion Pettet of the Chelmsford Ballet Company who tweeted yesterday
@IAmTheMann_UK@jelterps I can see that I'll have to do something about this gap in my ballet education.
— Marion Pettet (@MarionPettet) March 30, 2015
Anyone who watched her in Pineapple Poll and Carnival of the Animalstwo weeks ago will agree that Marion knows a lot about ballet. I mentioned it as a possible project for the company because they have a lot of good female dancers who could dance the shades well. I would love to see someone dance this ballet again.
I know who would be the perfect Nikiya - not because she is of South Asian heritage but because she reminds me so much of the first English dancer to dance that role. But I can imagine others such as Leebolt, Gittens and Mutso in the role. Rojo, Nixon, Bintley, Hampson - are you listening?
Post Script
10 April 2015
The Paris Opera are staging Nureyev's version of La Bayadère between 17 Nov and 31 Dec 2015 (see the Paris National Opera's website). I know what I want for an early Deepvali present.
Shobana Jeyasingh Dance's La Bayadère - The Ninth Lifeat the Linbury yesterday lasted about an hour but it was one of the most intense hours that I have ever spent in the theatre. I had come to the performance expecting a transposition of the story of the ballet into bharatha natyam or some other Indian dance idiom but it was nothing like that. That would have been too easy and it is clear from the list of her works on her company's website that Jeyasingh doesn't do easy. Instead, it compared and contrasted a modern Indian's perception of one of the classics of Western dance with Théophile Gautier's perception of Indian classical dance.
At least I think that is what it was about. My friend and colleague Gita Mistry understood it much better than I did. She has studied bharatha natyam (see Our Three Hundredth Post - Now we are a Team21 Feb 2015) and picked up on cues like the counting of time and the sharp heel movements that had passed me by. She explained her understanding of this work to me patiently over dinner (a curry as it happens) and the long drive back to Yorkshire. I admired the virtuosity of the dancers and I came reasonably prepared for the show having read everything I could about it but without Gita's commentary it would have been very much harder for me to appreciate the show.
The performance opens straightforwardly enough with a blogger and his computer. He is an Indian man in a check shirt sitting on the floor as the audience arrives and takes their places. The lights dimmed. He began to type and words appeared on the screen. On a visit to London, he explains, a friend had taken him to the ballet to see La Bayadère. He found it a remarkable experience. He set out the story noting that it set near modern Hyderabad. He listed the characters - Nikiya, Gamzatti, Solor, the holy man - each of whom appeared behind the screen. "I've never seen a holy man move like that" he mused to the audience's laughter. The plot he described as "pure Bollywood" the only authentic bit being the protracted Indian wedding. And finally the entry of the shades.
The next scene focused on the words of Gautier who saw real bayadères or temple dancers from Pondicherry when they visited Paris in 1838. At first came wonder and appreciation for the dancers - their wonderful soft skin and teeth - but then disdain - blue gums, the ears riddled with holes, the gifts of tobacco, the dancer's feet one toe separated from the others like a bird's foot - and this refrain was repeated with the temple dancer manhandled on stage.
Gita told me that much of the dancing in that scene had been bharatha natyam which I might have worked out for myself had Indian instruments been played but there were no hints of that in Gabriel Prokofiev's score. This was a combination of voice with percussion and other sound. The soundtrack from this trailer will give some idea. As I say above, Jeyasingh does not do easy.
Listening to Gauthier's words which were repeated several times, it dawned on me why India unlike China, Japan and Korea appears relatively unmoved and uninfluenced by Western ballet or for that matter classical music. I had considered that conundrum several times in this blog (see, for example, More on Ballet in India4 Sept 2014). Gauthier, the author of Giselle, never really understood or appreciated an Indian dance form that has subsisted for more than two millennia. Why should an Indian pay regard for an art form which in its modern embodiment is barely two centuries old!
As I said above I found the show intense. Gita felt it too. Both of us would have preferred a different score. I would have liked Indian instruments and rhythms. But we are both glad to have seen the show. Armed with the knowledge that I now have I should like to see it again. It is going on tour but only in places like Eastleigh, Exeter and Watford. "Why not bring it North?" I asked the choreographer whom I approached after the show. She replied that she would love to do so.
