November 7, 2009
Dance Dance Revolution
Old WT regular Max was sitting right behind me at the Barbican tonight, as a tap on the shoulder in the interval revealed. What are the odds?
Um, anyway.
Dyed in the wool dance enfant terrible Michael Clark puts on a good show, but when it comes right down to it he hasn't had a new idea in the last two decades. This was thrown into stark relief by tonight's Barbican programme, which presented material old and new side by side in a kind of highbrow game of spot the difference.
I turned out to be not quite as au fait with the older work as I thought, needing Ian's ex Euan (pictured somewhere hereabouts if you know where to look) to point out that the first act was not merely in the Clark house style almost to the point of parody, but actually authentically ancient, first choreographed for Rambert back in the 1980s. This blast from the past served mainly to demonstrate how little Michael's product has changed in all that time.
(Euan and I had several minutes talking at cross purposes in the first interval with me saying, basically, "haven't we seen this all before?" and him agreeing. It took awhile for me to understand that he actually had seen this exact piece back when he was a teenager.)
It has to be said that some parts of tonight's show were familiar to the point of hilarity. Act 3's opening, for instance, seemed to reprise almost exactly a big chunk of Mmm with only a change of music. But since that chunk is the best thing Clark has ever done, it's hard to begrudge the recycling.
There was a lot of familiar material in last week's Mark Morris programmes as well -- and again the new work didn't represent much of a departure. But the oldies were mostly goodies, particularly V and the brilliant finale of Grand Duo, and it was all wonderfully performed by both dancers and musicians. Thankfully, there was little sign of the useless tat that's marred several recent Morris visits (some of which I've whined about here in the past). And in the spring he's bringing back his masterpiece L'Allegro -- hurrah!
To come in the next few weeks are new pieces by Shunt and (as a work in progress) The Featherstonehaughs, along with another viewing of Jasmin Vardimon's great self mash-up Yesterday. Which should help relieve the autumnal gloom and severe lack of work progress. I shall report, perhaps.
Posted by matt at November 7, 2009 1:02 AM