May 17, 2009
Decline
I would have assumed that the current Rambert show is their worst ever, but Ian tells me that Constant Speed, artistic director Mark Baldwin's piece about high energy physics from a year or two back, was even fucking worse. Baldwin should be profoundly ashamed of what he's done to one of the country's great dance companies. I shudder to think what depths his forthcoming Darwin show might plumb.
In the meantime, though, let's consider the material at hand. Baldwin's predecessor Christopher Bruce contributes Hush, an emetically sentimental kiddie ballet for a pretend family of pirouetting Pierrots that could stand as a performative definition of the word "twee". I can't begin to express how much I hated this unmitigated tripe, but it was made even more unbearable by the occasional fleeting reminder of the choreographic excellence of other Bruce pieces like Ghost Dances and the ever-popular Rooster. In the context of Hush those glimpses were positively insulting. It may be the single worst piece of choreography I've seen this century.
Next up was Doug Varone's Scribblings, a dismal catalogue of every last cliche of American contemporary dance set to an unlistenable score by John Adams. I dimly remember seeing Varone's own company in the Dance Umbrella ten-or-so years back. That was merely unremarkable. He has made progress since: this was truly dire. Well before the end of its not especially long running time I was feeling the urge to self-harm. Even then, it was still significantly better than Hush.
The evening was barely redeemed by Itzik Galili's crowd-pleasing romp of a finale, A Linha Curva, a Brazilian-inflected carnival which was still rubbish but at least quite fun to watch. This is the sort of thing that could be crowbarred into any number of West End musicals, chock full of cheesy verve and youthful exuberance, but with absolutely fuck all to say. I was grateful for it, as the only piece of the evening that didn't inspire thoughts of suicide, but really, who cares?
The tragedy is, Rambert is still a company of fantastic dancers, and the poor dears danced their hearts out for this. They deserve much better, and so do we. Mark, you should be composing your fucking resignation letter even now.
Posted by matt at May 17, 2009 11:58 PM