WITHIN THE GOLDEN HOUR / MEDUSA / FLIGHT PATTERN at Covent Garden

Royal Ballet mixed programmes can be a curate's egg at times: it all depends on the arranging of the ballets - is it better to have three pieces that are all the same tone or if you have a mixture, where do you put the downbeat ones - does the audience leave moved to euphoria or sadness?  It's a tricky balancing act.

The latest mixed bill celebrated new choreographers and was an impressive evening, again showing the range and versatility of the Royal Ballet company.  First out of the gate was Christopher Wheeldon's WITHIN THE GOLDEN HOUR which we saw twice three years ago.  Since then, the late Martin Pakledinaz' costumes have made way for sparkly gold ones by Jasper Conran which are actually a bit distracting - the only ersatz moment in an otherwise wonderful piece.

It premiered for San Francisco Ballet in 2008 and features a score by Ezio Bosso - incorporating a section of Vivaldi - to which fourteen dancers twirl, slide and undulate through pas de deux and ensemble movements in a constantly evolving, surprising, thrilling production; it's final moments are extraordinary.  Our ensemble was wonderful with great contributions from Sarah Lamb, Lauren Cuthbertson and Alexander Campbell.

The next one was the new production MEDUSA choreographed by the 'hot' Belgian Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui - remarkable what a job with Beyoncé can do for your profile.  He has used a score drawn from the music by Henry Purcell, augmented by electro beats.  Cherkaoui was also responsible for the deceptively simple but effective stage design.  Oddly topical, Cherkaoui tells the tale of Medusa, a devoted priestess of the goddess Athene, who attracts both the human Perseus and the god Poseidon.  Poseidon traps her and rapes her but as the angry Athene cannot punish a fellow god, she punishes the victim.  Medusa is turned into a Gorgon whose mere glance can turn men to stone - and yes, her lovely hair is turned into a nest of venomous snakes.

She kills all men who cross her path but when faced with Perseus she allows herself to be killed.  Freed from the goddess' curse, the ghostly Medusa dances alone in the temple...  With a running time of only 40 minutes, it managed to be engrossing and a little anti-climactic at the same time.  Natalia Osipova was a magnificent Medusa, danced with a committed fervour and passion.  I also liked the imperious Athene of Olivia Cowley, prowling the stage with a vengeful fury.  It just felt a little dull, maybe with a couple of years under it's belt it will loosen up.

Finally it was time to see again Crystal Pite's intense and powerful FLIGHT PATTERN, vividly depicting an eternal flight of a column of refugees.  It is an extraordinary piece which seems to exist in a single moment in time and truly stands out as an artistic response to this shifting recurring tragedy of displaced people that we see across the world.

Pite's wonderful choreography moves in waves across the stage illustrating the flight, in all senses of the word, but also in tiny moments of a couple's experience of migration which were exceptionally danced again by Kristen McNally and Marcellino Sambé.  Jay Gower Taylor's monumental design and Tom Visser's exceptional lighting made it, again, a thrillingly memorable experience.

 

Congratulations to Kevin O'Hare's Royal Ballet for again providing such an enjoyable but thought-provoking evening of dance.