Exciting, jarring lines and fluidly moving bodies contrast the traditional perpendicular of classical ballet in Windows, choreographed by Martin Schönberg and Adele Blank of Ballet Theatre Afrikan and Free Flight Dance Company respectively. But how much ballet is left in ballet anymore?
In an attempt seemingly to “jazz up” the days of tights and La Pebra’s, the combined efforts of the companies have filled every nook of the ballet production with an exciting tone of contemporariness. The costumes are clear PVC. The dancers’ hair hangs loose down their backs. The music ranges from the baroque Rachmaninov to the contemporary jazz of Benguela and the funky electronica of the Buddha Lounge and Café Saint Germain. The scenes cover the rat race, some schoolgirls sneaking a cigarette, gossiping housewives and a pumping nightclub. Props include exercise bikes and dancers sport fluorescent tattoos.
Where in all this do you find the squeaking of leather toes on powdered floors? Well, the principal female dancer, Tanya Graafland, still has her toes pointed and her lithe, heroin-anorexic body flapping classically in the breeze. Other members of the production also display the occasional toe-point but there’s also a lot of herding of elephants around the stage. The most exciting dance comes from the moments of fusion, of contorted bodies and sassy hips, the sensitive intimacy of the sex scene, and the theatrical characterisation, rather than the abject geometry of classical ballet.
Instead, overwhelmingly, the strongest ballet trait left in the production was the narrative structure of the dance. That ballet requires a plot has always confused me. Very rarely does it bring anything more to the story, nor does the story inform the dance form on any deeper level than giving direction to costumes and sets. Nonetheless a naïve human continuity is always written into a production. You can always read the blurb in the programme, and wonder if it has any relation to what you’re seeing on stage.
Windows‘ plot bills it as revealing a series of incidents in a day in the life of a couple. The incidents are the aforementioned, with some illicit sex thrown in. The cheating couple’s partners discover them, there is a short scene of anger and then everyone goes to a party. Then there is a thunderstorm and they all dance in the rain. It’s terribly existential, but these daily events that run like water from a duck’s back fits the ballet fairy tale. But perhaps this ballet has a slightly deeper meaning – we all wear see-through raincoats all day to protect us from whatever life deals us. It’s all just water under the bridge.
On that reading, however, it absconds from even its ballet narrative structure. Do some enjoyable modern dance bits and a few pointy toes make a ballet?