Such helpful sheep: She Persisted by ENB
She Persisted
English National Ballet
Sadler’s Wells
Second Circle A1, £12
11 April 2019
Sadler’s Wells page
Programme
Broken Wings
Nora
Le Sacre du printemps
I missed ENB’s She Said back in 2016 so I was eager for the opportunity to see the strikingly photogenic Broken Wings in the flesh, or perhaps more saliently in time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is not quite as good as it looks, nor quite as worthwhile as it is well-meant. Fortunately the same shouldn’t be said of the programme as a whole
Oddly credited as Broken Wing’s scenographer, Dieuweke van Reij produces designs that draw closely on Frida Kahlo (which, let’s face it, is a pretty generous palette box) and which are a delight to behold. Maybe, given their subject matter, they shouldn’t be such a delight. This is part of what I think is the core weakness of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s ballet, and perhaps all art works that seek to interpret Kahlo. On the one hand it is an excuse to replicate some very pretty designs, à la Pixar’s film Coco. On the other it tries to tell a tragic life story without having much more to say than that it was sad, à la Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Lacuna. Peter Salem’s generic score doesn’t help tighten the ballet into something more than these constituent parts. None of it is a fair representation of how it feels to look at Kahlo’s best works, despite a very fine turn from Begoña Cao in the title role.
Nora is an enjoyable early work by present dancer Stina Quagebeur based on A Doll’s House – although maybe I should more properly say ‘inspired by’, as the source material is present but open to numerous interpretations. The consistency from play to ballet, in my eyes, was of a women who transfers respect from her condescending partner to herself. The clarity with which this transformation is conveyed is thanks in no small part to the eloquence of Crystal Costa in the title role, whose movement unambiguously portrays this loss of innocence and painful growth into self-knowledge.
Her essential partner in this narrative is Jeffrey Cirio as husband Torvald, whose self-important rage triggers Nora’s transition. Less essential is Junor Souza as Krogstad – while some external figure is needed to kick things off, Souza and Quagebeur struggle to convey what exactly he is doing other than handing over letters, which in itself feels a sad misuse of a dancer. I was also unconvinced by the ‘5 Voices’, castaways from Crystal Pite’s Betroffenheit who provide unneeded amplification to Costa’s motives. Finally, I’d had more than enough of Glass’s Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by the end of the ballet, but I guess Quagebeur wasn’t to know that I have sworn off Glass for good.
What is one to say about Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring? No dance, I would venture, can ever adequately manifest Stravinsky’s music, but Bausch comes closest. She is so responsive to its insanity and violence, its measured dread, its simultaneous reduction of humanity to its primal origins and elevation through great art. The peat staging helps. This is only the second time I’ve seen the Bausch live, each time by ENB – wonderful before, they inhabit it even more fully now.
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