Peter Frost On show in Cape Town
They’re celebrating. The State Theatre Ballet and Cape Town City Ballet’s (CTCB) inaugural joint venture has succeeded. In an evening characterised by energy and verve, the combined companies took on two “imported” works and one home-grown piece, each quite different from the other. Few people held out much hope for CTCB director Veronica Paeper’s Work in Progress.
With a blurb which informed that it was a “gentle send up on the classical art form” they couldn’t be blamed. Nothing is more embarrassing than ballet dancers acting the goat. Her work however, turned out to be an eye-opener; genuinely funny in parts, extremely well executed and, on another level, a clear middle finger to her many critics who say she is a stick-in-the-mud.
To Tchaikovsky’s Mozartiana the CTCB took full advantage of the situations in ballet ripe for comedy; lifts, intricate spacing, line manipulation. It was a formalised version of what must go on in some rehearsals and the highlight was undoubtedly Leanne Voysey’s performance in Tough Work for the Feet. Truly hilarious – Margot Fonteyn with bunions.
The success of the whole lay in the dancers taking it all seriously, rarely over- playing the comedy and remaining disciplined throughout. Good fun. On the back of the very popular Work in Progress, The State had to pull something special out of the bag, and did so with Choo-San Goh’s 1986 work Unknown Territory. The Singaporean choreographer’s piece deals with a ritual coming together of bride and groom witnessed by a traditional community.
The work, to United States composer Jim
Jacobsen’s clangy, gamelan-meets- synthesiser taped score, has strong eastern influences, and CTCB’s Tracey Li – excellent – in the principal role lent it an air of added authenticity.
Invented ritual always teeters on the edge of the ridiculous, and the slightly gauche costumes lean that way in Unknown Territory. But Goh’s choreography transcends kitsch. It has moments of real beauty, notably the slow unwinding of the golden gown from the bride (Li).
It also possesses a charged atmosphere of powerful urges, so typically Goh. He is a master of mood, less inclined to tell stories than create an atmosphere in which an audience can create, and indulge in, their own fantasies. The central duet says even more about Goh’s earned status as choreographer extraodinaire.
Instead of the expected raunch, the dance delivers tender courtesies. Subtle, delicate, sublime and the highlight of the evening Goh’s “Baryshnikov Ballet”, Configurations, by contrast was harder work, but possibly the one of the three that will stand up best to a second viewing.
The evening seemed charged with an electricity rare for the Cape Town ballet stage. It will be interesting to see if the same is evident when the whole road-show moves to Pretoria for the reciprocal season. Certainly the coupling has lifted the performance of individual members, a very welcome development.
The Triple Bill is at the Nico Opera House until September 26 and at the State Theatre Pretoria from September 30 to October 3