"Live" - Van Manen's Narrative Ballet?

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inplayer Dutch National Ballet Live  10 Oct to 7 Nov 2020

Hans van Manen made it very clear that he does not do story ballets in a discussion that followed the first screening of the latest filming of Live.   To emphasize the point he added that that was why he had never created a full-length ballet.  It is true that there is no synopsis or libretto but you don't need a plot for a narrative ballet.  That was about the only point upon which a panel of experts on narrative dance was agreed when I asked that question at the "State of the Art Panel Discussion: Narrative Dance in Ballet" in Leeds some years ago.   For me, Live tells the story of a relationship at least as eloquently as any ballet.

It is also much more real and immediate.  Unlike the storybook ballets, Live is not confined to the stage.  It starts there bit spills into the audience's world.   It proceeds into the lobby of the Music Theatre and finally the streets.  The last scene shows the woman in red walking slowly along the banks of the Amstel towards the Waterlooplein underground station.  

Van Manen's Live is therefore just as much a work of cinema as it is of ballet.  On his foundation's website, van Manen lists Live as a "video ballet" rather than simply as a ballet.  He gives the cameraman equal billing with the dancers. That is likely to be because the cameraman is very much part of the action.  The interplay between dancer and cameraman is best appreciated in Altin Kaftira's film Diana Vishneva in 'LIVE' of Hans van Manen.  The cameraman is in the dancers' faces, particularly the woman's. At one point, she repels him by pressing her palm against the camera lens.  The other important element of the film is the music. Van Manen chose the following pieces by Liszt:  Sospiri, Bagatelle sans tonalité, Wiegenlied,  Vier kleine Klavierstücke and Abschied.

Live was filmed for the first time in 1979  Colleen Davis and Henny Jurriëns were the original dancers and Henk van was the cameraman.  It was filmed in the Carré because the Music Theatre had not been constructed at that time. The video has been remade several times with different dancers including, of course, Vishneva.  The film that has been released between the 10 Oct and 7 Nov 2020 casts  Maia Makhateli as the woman in red and Artur Shesterikov as her partner. 

I have long admired Shesterikov and Makhateli for their virtuosity but in the film I also saw superb acting.  There were moments when sparks seemed to fly.  The drama was heightened by the accompaniment of Olga Khoziainova.  After the screening, there was a short conversation about the film between van Manen, Rachel Beaujean and Davis.  Clips from the 1979 film were shown.  I was amazed to learn that Davis was only 19 when she danced the lady in red. Particularly as her successors in the role have included Vishneva and Makhateli.

Though he was much younger than the other choreographers and his work was very different, van Manen was one of the recurring names in the 1960s when I first started to follow ballet.  His works were reviewed in almost every issue of Dance and Dancers and The Dancing Times which I devoured when I was at university. His name was mentioned as frequently as those of Ashton, Balanchine, Cranko, Darrell, MacMillan and van Dantzig.  All those great choreographers have gone.  Only van Manen is left.  He must be well into his 80s but he still knows how to excite, surprise and delight.

The film may be viewed on the Dutch National Ballet's website until 7 Nov 2020.  The access charge is €2.95. 

Jewels - The Royal Ballet at its best

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The Royal Ballet, Jewels, transmitted live to cinemas, 11 April 2017, 19:39


I once asked a distinguished panel of dance critics, dancers and the artistic director of Scottish Ballet whether a narrative ballet needed a plot (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015). All said no except Tobias Batley who was then a premier dancer at Northern Batley and seemed to have an interesting point to make but did not get the chance to develop it. When I asked that question I had Balanchine's Jewels in mind which actually tells a lot of stories from the history of ballet to the choreographer's life history without actually having a libretto.

Jewels is like a denial of service attack on the senses. Each of the three ballets is a feast in itself. You feel you can only take so much colour, and movement, and music in one evening - but after each act, there is more.  The only experience with which I can compare this ballet is, in fact, my first sight of real jewels. The Crown Jewels on my first trip to London. The impression that the dazzling display of light and colour made on a little five-year-old from the North in post-war Britain was very much the same as the concatenation of dancers in green, red and white create whenever I see Balanchine's masterpiece.

On Sunday I remarked that I had seen the Bolshoi at its best (see A Hero of our Time 10 April 2017). Yesterday, audiences around the world saw the Royal Ballet at its best. The company fielded Beatriz Stix-Brunell, Valeri Hristov, Laura Morera, Ryoichi Hirano, Emma Maguire, Helen Crawford and James Hay in Emeralds.  As readers know, I am one humongous fan of Morera whose hand I once had the good fortune to shake (see Laura Morera  25 Aug 2015). She always delights me but yesterday she raised my admiration to a new level.

More favourites in Rubies - Sarah Lamb, Steven McRae and Melissa Hamilton. If Emeralds was lyrical, Rubies was spectacular. One gorgeous explosion of movement after another culminating in McRae's exit in chaînés. A dynamo harnessed to McRae at that moment could have powered a fair size town. Rubies is the shortest work in the three ballets but it is the one I like best, possibly because of Stravinsky's Capriccio possibly just the New World razmataz. The energy. The fun.

Diamonds, the white act, is sublime. An homage to Petipa. Marianela Nuñez and Thiago Soares were majestic. Stix-Brunnell and Hay returned to join them together with Claire Calvert, Tierney Heap, Yasmine Naghdi, Nicol Edmonds, Fernando Montaño and Valentino Zucchetti. Not all Petipa's ballets end well but some of them do. Think of The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker and all your other favourites rolled into one and combine it with Tchaikowsky's Polish symphony and you understand why I compared the overpowering of the senses to the overwhelming of a website by millions of messages.

I should also say something about the presentation. I was very impressed with Kristen McNally. I warmed to her the moment she opened her mouth. Proud, elegant, knowledgeable, amusing and above all, Northern. I do hope the Royal Opera House enlists her services again. It was also good to see Darcey Bussell as it always is but this time she was there in her capacity as a great ballerina escorting a member of the original cast to the jeweller's shop that inspired Balanchine. A beautiful dancer surrounded by beautiful things. That is how I like to think of her. It would be good to see more of her in scenes like that.

Christopher Marney

I have seen quite a lot of Christopher Marney since I started this blog and I have reviewed his work in several articles. The quality of his work that I most admire, both as a dancer and as a choreographer, is his sensitivity to music. He is as sensitive to sound and as accurate as an oscilloscope but unlike that lifeless instrument he translates sound into the most beautiful movement. It was Marney's dancing as Count Lilac - powerful and vital - that saved Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty for me last year. It was his choreography that I admired so much in Ballet Black and Ballet Central's mixed bills.

Though still a young man Marney has packed a lot of experience into his career - Balletboyz, Gothenberg, Biaritz, Berne, Japan to list just a few of his engagements.  As Jessica Wilson observed in "Christopher Marney: Dancer, Choreographer, Dance Extraordinaire!" 8 July 2013 Dance Direct he is a "man of many talents."  According to that article Marney he started to choreograph in Gothenberg.  In an interview that he gave for Ballet Central's blog ("Backstage with choreographer Christopher Marney" 26 Feb 2013) he explained how he was encouraged by the keen dancers and great theatre.

Ballet Central asked Marney to describe his style. He replied that it was "narrative" explaining how he loves to create a piece around a strong plot, particularly with a contemporary theme so that the audience can be drawn in emotionally.  He added:

"A narrative also gives an awful lot of scope for different movement and opportunities to play with the audience’s humour. Even without an obvious storyline, there has to be an intention, an emotive purpose to every movement."

That is certainly true and it came out particularly well in War Letters where Marney explored every emotion that emerges in war anchoring his work to readings from contemporary letters to and from the front and the voice of Alvar Lidell. Incidentally, in this 100th anniversary year of the start of the First World War, Marney's ballet remembers the contribution of the millions of servicemen from Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia in both world wars that is not yet properly acknowledged (see "Africa's forgotten wartime heroes"  14 Aug 2009).

However. as I said before it is his interpretation of music which is the quality that I most admire. Some call that musicality. Others lyricism.  For me, without the benefit of a thorough education in music or dance, I would say that Marney brings out in the movements of his dancers -particularly Kanika Carr Sayaka Ichikawa of Ballet Black - the several qualities of the music. I noted that particularly in Two of a Kind set to Tchaikovsky and Ravel - the last of Marney's works that I have seen and the one I like best so far.

In her interview with Marney, Jessica Wilson asked "What is the best part about dance?" He replied:

"I think the best part is when it touches someone and a person can be moved or made to feel something by what they are witnessing. It is amazing how that cycle continues to inspire generations."

Well with Two of a Kind and War Letters Marney has certainly touched me. I could tell from the reaction of the audiences in London and Leeds that I was not the only one.