Dance isn’t good at putting strong women centre stage. There are a lot of shrinking violets, visiting princesses and doomed sylphs in ballet. That’s probably why Carmen, heroine of Mérimée’s novel and Bizet’s opera, has appealed to many choreographers. At least she has a bit of agency on the way to her untimely death.
Swedish choreographer Johan Inger’s version of events, created in 2015 but being performed in the UK for the first time by English National Ballet, uses her as an enigmatic force of sexual energy at the heart of what is effectively both a telling of the story and a meditation on the lasting effects of domestic violence.
It opens with a lone figure (Francesca Velicu) playing with a ball on an empty stage, defined by designers Curt Allen Wilmer and Leticia Gañán with a moving wall of metal panels that at various moments flip to reveal their mirrored backs or are grouped to create hidden spaces from which characters appear. Evocatively lit by Tom Visser, the set creates an arena where Don José’s obsession with a woman he cannot possess leads to murder.
All of this is told in the most expressionistic manner, with black-covered bodies of dancers rolling across the stage perhaps representing shadows or death, and the innocent child of the opening being corrupted by the violence around them. The music is a mixture of Rodion Shchedrin’s 1960s adaptation of Bizet and a modern-day score by Marc Álvarez (played live by the ENB Philharmonic), and the costumes – short flouncy skirts and tight dresses for the women; black trousers and white shirts for the men – deliberately timeless.
The movement is an alluring mixture of sharp, classical shapes and melting, fluent falls. It owes a debt to the style of Mats Ek, but has a cool quality all of its own as it marshals groups of dancers who seem to flow across the space. The leading roles have been mainly entrusted to younger soloists – Minju Kang as Carmen, Rentaro Nakaaki as Don José and Erik Woolhouse, shimmering and preening as the torero. The result is sophisticated rather than fiery.
At the Linbury theatre, the excellent Yorke Dance Project also threw the focus on powerful females in a 25th anniversary programme, California Connections, designed to celebrate the company’s west coast origins and a trio of pioneering women who also worked there. The most exceptional piece is a revival of Martha Graham’s Errand Into the Maze, created in 1947 and still extraordinary in its inventive movement and raw terror as Ariadne confronts the Minotaur in the shapes of dancers Abigail Attard Montalto and Edd Mitton.
A new chamber version of Kenneth MacMillan’s Isadora, starring Amy Thake, also impresses, with each duet revealing a different aspect of Duncan’s tragic life and immense influence. Only Richard Rodney Bennett’s score (over-insistent and recorded) holds it to its time. The formal rigour of Meta 4 by the avant garde Bella Lewitzky makes the case for a more extensive examination of her work. Company director Yolande Yorke-Edgell’s A Point of Balance, a gentle dance for three contrasting women, completes the bill. It adds up to a stimulating night.
Star ratings (out of five)
Carmen ★★★
California Connections: Three Pioneering Women ★★★★
