Ashton - on further viewing. . . (8/2/97)

I went again to the Royal Ballet and saw Cinderella (Benjamin/Sansom in the leads, Sarah Wildor did a particularly lovely Fairy of Spring).

I don't get to see the Royal in process, unlike NYCB, so in talking about them, I feel like the blind man who grasped the trunk of an elephant, and deduced that an elephant is long and thin, like a snake. I've only seen a sliver of their repertory, and as a one shot deal.

However, I'm recording some random thoughts, and it would be interesting to see how they alter on further viewing.

I find it interesting that I've actually preferred the American productions I've seen of Ashton and Macmillan to the British ones. The reason is the tendency of American dancers to dance the phrase as well as the steps. What I saw during the Royal's visit this week was more steps (and very difficult, awkward ones) than phrases. And one of the reasons I felt Sarah Wildor's Spring worth mentioning was that quality of a fully danced phrase - where the transitions are danced and the body seems to flow - was there. Wildor managed it in a variation that is very twittery and active in its port-de-bras, but because she did the activity with a very calm center, one sensed the twitteriness as a stylistic element.

The MacMillan we see here most often seems to be Romeo and Juliet - which has very little dance in it, and the Prokofiev score helps MacMillan musically. Its heaviness and broad arching phrases make him avoid fussy dance phrasing - and he's especially good about that in his pas de deux. Where Prokofiev lightens the score, or adds pizzicato detailing MacMillan again succumbs (i.e. the brief friend's dance in Act III in Juliet's bedchamber.) Britten's score for Prince of the Pagodas is not a dance score to begin with, and Ravel's concerto for Fin du Jour seems to play into MacMillan's worst traits rather than his best. If one is to use the Concerto in G for a dance, one should take the tone from the adagio, not the outer allegros. Robbins had the same difficulty with In G Major, but he still managed a very lovely central pas. Sadly, MacMillan didn't even give us that. We got a Jazz Age gang bang. MacMillan seems to often choreograph gang bangs. Fin du Jour, Manon - and finally in The Judas Tree he just does it literally.

Ashton is still very curious to my ears musically, but I don't think the music is an impulse for the choreography. When I looked at his Cinderella (which I liked) I saw choreography motivated not by the score so much as by abstractions. Rather than seeing dances impelled by music, I saw dances depicting "Femininity" "Tenderness" "Innocence" "Youth" in great detail, sometimes with little reference to musical detail. An example: In the Act I, sc. ii Waltz, Ashton brings out 12 corps dancers, who dance to the big tune of the act, a broad waltz in the low strings. Rather than seeing choreography to the music's legato breadth, we saw an excited corps doing choreography reminiscent of Balanchine's Snow from Nutcracker. Both wanted to convey excitement, but Balanchine's was the excitement of the score, of the twittering runs of the flutes and piccolos, Ashton's was to mirror the excitement of Cinderella as she prepares to depart for her first ball. It's not really in the score, but it's in the story.

As I said, I hope I get to see more of the Royal - even at some point on a day to day basis. I think it's the only way to fully "get" the choreography.

LAW

©1997 Leigh Witchel. All rights reserved.