Sophie Laplane (If At First); Mthuthuzeli November (The Waiting Game)
Ballet Black
Lowry, Salford
November 20-21, 2024: 1 hr 45 mins
Ballet Black returned to Salford with every bit of the style and panache they showed on their visit a year ago.
The company is now a National Portfolio Organisation with Arts Council England, and there have been some changes in personnel – including the addition of Elijah Peterkin from English National Ballet as an apprentice artist, which enables them to put 10 dancers on stage.
They presented a double bill, with a show title of Heroes: that refers clearly enough to the first piece of the evening, If At First, by Sophie Laplane, which is explicitly based on the idea of what heroism really is and uses bits of Beethoven ‘s Eroica symphony and other recorded tracks (some specially composed by Tom Harrold).
There’s a quality in Ballet Black’s ethos which, if not always creating directly narrative dance, tends to tell a story much of the time – something that audiences (including me) find attractive. Sophie Laplane’s piece is about our human struggles and the quiet heroism of those who suffer in silence. Its structure is one of brief stories (she calls them “vignettes”), fast-cut into by blasts of “chaos” – with a crown, symbolising power over others, grabbed, seized, stolen, competed for and passed from one to another. The vignettes may be pas de deux, showing competition, support and self-sacrifice (an ingenious reworking of the traditional format, where this time the woman supports the man), and also in solos and ensemble. Beethoven’s vision of triumph is immediately followed by the funeral march from the symphony, and what seems like a egalitarian solution (everyone has won, and all shall have crowns) is not the finale, but succeeded by a tender duo for two female dancers, to I’ll be your woman by Michelle Gurevich. So conventional ideas about heroes and super-heroes are upturned and questioned: the dance language is clear and the message simple, and BB’s Isabela Coracy plays a leading and moving role.
The second piece, The Waiting Game, by former Ballet Black dancer Mthuthuzeli November, is in its second incarnation, having originally been launched briefly in 2021 after being becalmed by Covid the year before.
November’s choreography attracted attention then, but the piece now has a new score, written by him and Alex Wilson, and a lot of new material in it – and it ends with a real audience-rouser of a final number, with showy moves, sparkly jackets and jazzy music.
There’s a reference to Beckett in the choreographer’s note (presumably Waiting for Godot was in mind), but in this, something does actually happen. There’s a clear story, too: a dancer – who is “alone with questions” and subject to “endless loops”, as the storyline suggests – has lost his bottle and can’t face going on. Others rally round, with stage-filling action and energy, and at the end we see placards saying “A long, long time later” and telling him “This is your five minute call” as he and a supportive colleague turn briefly into actors in a brief, live playlet. And then the show really does go on...
It's all wonderfully optimistic stuff, and perhaps carries the ultimate message that we can all be heroes, too.
More information on Ballet Black here
