Good ballet is always good (even when it’s modern)
With any classical ballet company, the full-length, narrative ballets always provide the predictable framework for a season. We know that in a given year, it’s fair to expect Giselle or La Sylphide, The Nutcracker at Christmas and some version of Swan Lake. In recent years contemporary works have interspersed the classics and have, as Karen Kain says, “established themselves as irreplaceable parts of the ballet canon.”
I understand why companies seek this variety. Both existing and potential audiences want it. By virtue of its history, ballet regulars have seen the same shows repeatedly. It takes a true fan to really appreciate Swan Lake for the fourth time (I would know) and the thrill of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker loses its charge after a few Decembers. Non-ballet fans tend to dismiss the possibility of ballet altogether. They insist that ballet performances are too long and complain that the antiquated story lines are pointless. A guy who has never seen a ballet will scoff that it’s merely prancing and therefore too feminine, not athletic. Without modern works, it is thought, the ballet gets boring, for everyone.
Until last year, I would have disagreed. The neo-classical and contemporary pieces have always seemed wacky and scared me away. How am I supposed to make sense of the off-center positioning, the turned in legs and the outrageous costumes? Who decided that flexed wrists and ankles looked decent? Give me the corps and give me rigorous pointe work! Normally, I bypass the modern ballets because they’ve seemed confusing and awkward, reminiscent of overly-interpretive high school dance recitals, complete with bad music.
Late last year, my criticism dissolved when I saw the National Ballet of Canada perform Chekhov’s The Seagull. Twisting my own arm, I walked in to the Four Seasons Center with my bad attitude, wondering how I would get through a “poem-turned-ballet.” Upon entering the theater, I saw Ivan Urban sitting on the stage, in bare feet, folding a paper “seagull.” I can see him because the curtain remains lifted while the audience filters in! We don’t even get a measly curtain call? I think to myself, “I am going to hate this.”
Then the lights dim and the dancing begins. Within minutes, I was reminded that Sonia Rodriguez is a joy to watch no matter what the dance. Over the course of The Seagull, she effortlessly shifted from a needy teenager, to a brassy Vegas showgirl to a jaded, broken adult, dancing each roll flawlessly. Greta Hodgkinson played an arrogant and forgotten ex-prima ballerina in a way that was both pathetic and hilarious. The Seagull featured very revealing solos and technical pas de deux, just like the classics. I admit, the poem’s “plot” was a bit tricky and the frequent dream sequences provided an uneasy feeling of what hallucinogens might be like. But, to my humble surprise, it became easy to accept this unconventional ballet because the dancing, by itself, was just plain spectacular.
One challenge of any ballet company is to keep its repertoire enticing. That likely involves a very creative advertising campaign featuring a full season of perfectly executed ballets, both classical and contemporary. The challenge for an audience member - existing or potential - is to open that closed mind. This will likely involve showing up to the shows that you find yourself avoiding. Don’t worry, good ballet is always good no matter the story, music or costume that it comes dressed in.