Hayward time: Kenneth MacMillan at the Barbican
Kenneth MacMillan: Steps Back in Time
Viviana Durante Company
Pit Theatre, Barbican
Stalls G19, £18
21 April 2018
Barbican page
Programme
House of Birds
Danses Concertantes pas de deux
Laiderette
It was interesting to see these early MacMillan, fascinating to see them performed in such an intimate venue, and just wonderful to see Francesca Hayward in Laiderette. In this year of celebration it also offered perhaps the most interesting perspective on MacMillan’s work, of remarkable consistency and continuity in both steps and drama through his career.
House of Birds is suitably bizarre, a narrative companion to Baiser de la fée in its elements of enchantment and underdrawn sinister females; but rather more striking are its anti-recollections to the use of the male corps in Requiem and Song of the Earth, less abstract and more straightforwardly creepy, admirably performed here by the men of Scottish Ballet in their too-deep pliés. Meaghan Grace Hinkis took the lead role, conscientiously but not quite able to find the heart of the inescapably flimsy story. Unlike some dancers…
But before we get to that there’s a pas de deux from Danses Concertantes, so short that I almost wonder if there was any reason to include it beyond the opportunity to delight in Akane Takada and Benjamin Ella’s silly hats. It is certainly pleasing to see these two dance together, not something there’s much of at the ROH, and fun to watch them find ways to parse choreography surely meant for a grander environment. Hopefully there are plans afoot to revive the whole of it and give some sense to this snippet.
And finally – Hayward time! In Laiderette dancer, venue and music all aligned with the choreography to bring about the effect that is what makes people care about MacMillan; it is a triumph for all involved in this revival to have demonstrated that quality, that intensity, that great unease can be found even in an early work. I emphasize the collaboration because on the face of it Laiderette is almost as ridiculous as House of Birds, and there are numerous choreographic gestures shared between them. But the music, Martin’s wonderfully gronky, unhappy, angsty Petite Symphonie concertante, is ideally suited to the particular silliness of this story; the suffocating immediacy of this tiny theatre pressurizes the already sickly invasive, abusive choreography; and Hayward is just a star, an eternal victim forever futilely striving for salvation, a vision of self-disgust so powerful as to belittle vanishingly all plot absurdity. To see Hayward dance this choreography at these close quarters is simply an honour, and for me the finest and most insightful tribute from this year.
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