Blog - American Ballet Praised in Britain

2008-05-13 05:17:36

Is ballet's future in America?
by Judith Mackrell
San Francisco Ballet's New Works
Festival has been warmly received by an eager public. It makes English
ballet look secretive and cautious.



Making bold strides ... Dancers from the San Francisco Ballet perform in 2005 in Paris. Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty I was in San Francisco last week for the launch of San Francisco Ballet Company's New Works Festival . The levels of adrenaline and enthusiasm that were buzzing around put British ballet culture to shame.
It wasn't just that SFB were premiering an astonishing 10 new ballets over three successive days (compared to the two being offered by the
Royal Ballet during their entire next season). It was that the city as
a whole appeared to embrace ballet so energetically. This ambitious and
expansive festival included choreography by Mark Morris , Paul Taylor and Christopher Wheeldon and a newly commissioned score from John Adams - yet most of the funding had been raised from local sponsors.
If there was huge support from audiences for the performances (the
two I saw were packed), there was also a big turnout for the two-day
symposium attached to the festival, for which several hundred
curious-minded punters turned up to hear panellists debate issues
relating to the future of ballet - the role of new technology, the
relationship between classical tradition and innovation, and so on.
Where are these conversations happening in Britain? Mostly behind closed doors. The dance profession's annual Rural Retreats ,
organised by Dance East, have orchestrated some genuinely
groundbreaking discussion about the future of ballet, but they've not
been accessible to the public.
So while the report of the latest Retreat contains an inspirational
statement from ballerina Tamara Rojo: "There is vision, there are the
people to take it forward and there are the minds to challenge it, make
it relevant to society...", none of the British ballet public were
present to hear her say this live. This is symptomatic of a wider
failure to get audiences as well as professionals engaged and excited
about where ballet is heading in the 21st century.
According to box office lore, it is still the case that the majority
of balletgoers prefer to see a Swan Lake or a Romeo and Juliet rather
than take their chances with a programme of new choreography. And while
smaller companies like Scottish Ballet are trying to break this
culture, the big, state-funded machinery of Royal Ballet seems to find
it an absurdly frightening challenge. In 2006, when the company
premiered Wayne McGregor's Chroma and Christopher Wheeldon's DGV in the same triple bill it turned out to be one of their most exciting
programmes in years. Punters were clamouring for extra tickets. Yet the
Royal had only dared to schedule five performances because they
couldn't be sure that the new work would sell.
If ballet dancers say they are desperate to perform new
choreography, and ballet directors say they would love to give it to
them, can it really just be the public's lack of imagination that keeps
our companies confined to such cautious repertoires?
Or is it that we need to look to America for better ways of marketing the art form?
From The Guardian Unlimited



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