Carlos Cortes What to look for in William Forsythe - a companion piece RB 'Middle' reviews all 'Middle' reviews RB 'Remanso' reviews Rojo in reviews Putrov in reviews recent RB reviews

Tamara Rojo, for instance, is simultaneously rehearsing Mats Ek's Carmen, Nacho Duato's Por Vos Muero, and Forsythe's The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, while also performing in La Bayadere. At another Friends' event earlier in the week, the Events Manager of the Friends of Covent Garden told her audience that a previous week's performance of Beyond Bach had almost been "pulled". The guest that day, Johan Kobborg, was clearly unhappy at the lack of rehearsal time. He suggested the company needed "either more dancers, or fewer ballets".

Enduring Images: Music

Introducing Saturday's study day, Henry Roche of the Music Staff said that he would normally be unhappy at a mixed bill in which two out of four pieces were performed to taped music. But orchestral schedules had been very tight for several months; they would have been hard pressed if all the music had been live. Tape reduces the pressure. The two pieces danced to live music are Duato's Remanso to a piano suite by Granados, while Forsythe's 'Vertiginous' is danced to the finale of Schubert's Symphony No. 9.

The score for Remanso was not, to Roche's ears, obviously Spanish. When he had asked Duato if he should attempt to perform it with a more obviously Spanish twist, Duato advised not. The structure is of 6 waltzes with solos each for Jonathan Cope, Inaki Urlezaga and Roberto Bolle, two trios and a pas-de-deux for Cope and Urlezaga.

William Forsythe has set 'Vertiginous' to the finale of Schubert's Symphony No 9 in C major. It is the only ballet in this programme that will be performed to music by a full orchestra. Normally Ballett Frankfurt performs it to a CD accompaniment. The Royal Ballet has a piano transcription of the score, while Frankfurt does not. This is already giving a slightly different characteristic to the Royal Ballet's interpretation, because there is a degree of 'play' in the relationship between the music and the dancers. Structurally the piece includes solos for Alina Cojocaru and Leanne Benjamin, and - intriguingly - a pas-de-deux for Cojocaru and Edward Watson. "Forsythe's idea of music structure is rather new to us", Roche went on. Although the ballet breaks new technical ground, the musical structure is quite traditional, based on '4 square 8 bar phrases'. This kind of music, the common coin of ballet class accompaniment, is, Roche noted "what choreographers are brought up on, as dancers are used to hearing it in class."

It was Roche who said that there would be a new Sleeping Beauty next season. But the new Beauty, which he had been discussing with the conductor Charles Barker, would probably leave out La Fee Saphir, the only part of the score in 5/4 time.

Remanso/Nacho Duato

Setting Remanso on the Royal Ballet is the very personable Kim McCarthy. He is a former soloist with the Hamburg Ballet and was later a principal at Duato's own company, the Compania Nacional de Danza in Madrid. Because of the time pressures, his session in the Linbury yesterday took on the characteristic of a real rehearsal rather than merely that of a lecture demonstration. To his great credit he engaged strongly with the audience, while simultaneously working with Jonathan Cope and one of the understudies, Johannes Stepanek.

Duato's 'Remanso'
Photograph by Guillermo Mendo and courtesy of Compañía Nacional de Danza

The word 'remanso' means backwater or quiet of the storm. Remanso (part of a larger ballet, 'Remansos') was originally set on ABT principals. Duato has a specific musicality. For every note there is a step. While his movement grammar derives from classical technique, he takes considerable liberties with it. In particular, he is insistent on a "turned in" body - he rejects the "turned out" aesthetic. A classical manege is broken up with pirouettes.

The movement is very angular. A leg may go into plie while the foot is in tendu, and then that foot is dragged along the floor. McCarthy and Duato use a rather interesting shorthand to describe their steps, with particular movement chains being known by such names as 'Chug', 'Rag-doll', 'Indian Swing' 'Throw up step' and 'Walk in Central Park' 'Chug', for instance, is a loose variant of the temps leve. Much of the movement is off balance. Shoulders are often hunched in a most unclassical way. Disguising preparation was important, as was keeping the movement continuous, with no heavy punctuation.

The ballet, performed against a blank wall (for images see the Royal Ballet web-pages), is colour coded with a colour associated with each of the men, Cope, Bolle and Urlezaga. Jonathan Cope, whose solo is the most difficult coming as it does off the back of a pas-de-deux with Urlezaga, said "it was great to do something like this at my age. Now I am beginning to get it in my body". A complicating factor is that Cope has danced in an earlier version of Remanso, and since then Duato has significantly varied the piece.

Duato's 'Remanso'
Photograph by Guillermo Mendo and courtesy of Compañía Nacional de Danza

McCarthy suggested that Duato's work could only be seen in its pristine state when performed by his company in Madrid. For newcomers to Duato's company, McCarthy said, adapting to the style was difficult. It typically took a full year for a dancer to be at ease with it.

While the style does travel, it inevitably takes on the 'local accent' of the company performing it. This is true even of NDT, whose repertory is heavily contemporary, and where Duato worked with Kylian. Duato is phlegmatic about this. He would prefer that his style seem natural for the dancer in question and is willing to adapt the steps to the person. Duato will be in London in the week before Remanso goes on stage. McCarthy warned the dancers to expect him to be very exacting.

The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude/ Forsythe

According to Noah Gelber, who danced in the premiere of 'Vertiginous', and who is now setting it on the Royal Ballet, 'Vertiginous' is about "reinstating every bit of expertise and differentiation in classical ballet that has been lost over the years - all the niceties and eccentricities, and shedding the restrictions that have been imposed on ballet over the years". Asked if Forsythe intended the piece as his homage to classical ballet, Gilbert answered "it is what you want it to be".

In this early afternoon session Gelber was rehearsing Tamara Rojo, Ivan Putrov, Natasha Oughtred and Hubert Essakow. Rojo arrived late, and literally hotfoot from a rehearsal room upstairs, while Essakow was learning the ballet for the very first time.

While Vertiginous is more obviously anchored on classical ballet's home ground than is Remanso, the grammar is subtly modified with, for instance, pirouettes done on a bent supporting leg. Tamara Rojo said she found the steps technically hard, very concentrated and allowing for little breathing space.

Vertiginous is the closing section from Forsythe's Six Counterpoints, but is more usually given on its own. The entire ballet was made in 10 days, with work on this section beginning only at 5.00 pm on the day of its premiere. It was clearly not a finished piece then, and was refined considerably after the first production. The women in the cast wear green tutus in velvet and Lycra stretched to look like a dish.

Answering questions from the audience Gelbert said that Forsythe was an incredibly prolific choreographer. He might create a 30 minute pas de deux in one day, which he would then edit. Because this ballet was made in such a hurry, many of its transitions were not defined. There were many contrapuntal sections, and Forsythe would move rapidly on leaving some discretion to the dancers to tidy up the loose ends. Vertiginous was, however, a very 'prescribed' section, with Forsythe leaving nothing to chance.

In the middle, somewhat elevated/Forsythe

Next on the stage of the Linbury were Laura Morera and Sian Murphy being rehearsed by the redoubtable Kathryn Bennetts. Bennetts became ballet mistress in Frankfurt in 1989 and since then has set Forsythe's ballets all over the world. It is danced to a specially commissioned electronic score by Thom Williams, which is on tape. In Bennetts' words, it is "dancers' music" with "fabulous rhythms". Bennetts explained that the work had been first set on a star cast at the Paris Opera Ballet that had included Isabelle Guerin, Fanny Gaida, Laurent Hilaire and Sylvie Guillem. "Bill Forsythe used the opportunity", Bennetts said, "to extend the technique and to push these people." Whenever he rehearsed the work on other companies, Forsythe would always say, "Think Paris Opera Ballet!" In the Middle has two long combinations of steps, which are the key building blocks. Everything else varies around them. The ballet was made 20 years ago, and it is not characteristic of Forsythe's work today, which tends to be slow and minimalist. What connects all his work is the degree of risk taking.

Asked about Forsythe's interview with Ismene Brown in which he declared that his will would provide that none of his work should be performed after his death, Bennetts replied: "He means it. I often go back to re-rehearse a ballet after several years and I do not recognise it anymore. I imagine this is what it is like with all dance. Bill is trying to preserve his integrity. He thinks that after 50 years, his work will not be timely anymore".

Asked whether notation could preserve a work with any degree of authenticity, she replied that a score could only note the right steps on the right count. It didn't mean a work was danced well. She did concede that the Royal Ballet notation, made when the company first performed 'In the Middle', had been very helpful.

Por Vos Muero/Duato

Por Vos Muero is danced to the poem of the same name by Garcilaso de la Vega: "For you I was born, for you I am alive, for you I have to die, and for you I die".

Despite the apparent sombreness of the words, Kim McCarthy the repetiteur described Pos Vos Muero as a "happy feel-good ballet". It has two main sections. In the first, the women in flesh-coloured leotards and the men in shorts, dance to a score for violins and cellos. The second section is performed in period costume. While Duato wished to convey a sense of the dance of the period and its meaning to the people of the time, the steps are not exact copies. They are derived from gestures based on period paintings and sculptures. McCarthy explained that Duato had grown up in the Valencia region and that this might have been an influence.

Duato's 'Por Vos Muero'
Carlos Cortes and courtessy of Compañía Nacional de Danza

Brian Maloney, Tamara Rojo and Johannes Stepanek were working on this closing section. With Duato's high musicality, the challenge is to integrate dancers' slightly differing senses of personal time.

In the closing question and answer session McCarthy accepted that the Royal Ballet's performance could not be a carbon copy of Duato's own company. It would not capture each detail of the work, but the essential musicality and physicality would be there. As the dancers performed the piece more often, they would, he said, begin to absorb it in their bodies. Asked if Duato might ever create a work especially for the Royal Ballet, McCarthy doubted it. He created two pieces a year for his own company. Although he had in the past created two works for ABT, these were very much the exception.

He fielded a final question on the issue of the lack of rehearsal time, mentioned earlier by Henry Roche and Kathryn Bennetts. He said that the lack of rehearsal time was common to most companies. Despite the shortage of money, companies needed to show different work to keep their public and their dancers interested. The need to have two casts for every work had inevitable subsequent pressures.

Intriguingly, Tamara Rojo added that she always advised her friends to stay away from a premiere. The first night before an audience was always to some extent a rehearsal. It was only on subsequent nights that a performance would settle down and be best appreciated.

There will be four opportunities to see Enduring Images, on March 4th, 6th, 18th and 20th at 7.30.