The power of dance to inspire and console has been the theme this past week. It was the explicit intention of Rhiannon Faith’s community-style piece Lay Down Your Burdens. But it’s also the effect of Wayne McGregor’s dazzling The Dante Project, a work that is breathtaking and uplifting in almost equal measure.
Part of the pleasure of this musing journey on Dante’s The Divine Comedy comes from seeing a highly skilled company of dancers give it their all. Most of the first cast were returning to roles they created in 2021, and you can see their commitment and involvement as they dive into new discoveries.
Everything feels etched in sharper lines, whether it’s the vignettes of Inferno, where sins are replayed with hellish intensity, or the culminatory glory of Paradiso, with dancers like spinning spheres of being, illuminated in Lucy Carter’s otherworldly lighting.
Individual moments stand out: Francesca Hayward and Matthew Ball’s Paolo and Francesca folding over one another in uncontrollable yet anguished lust; Calvin Richardson’s Ulysses stretching into agonised adventuring; the sharp feet of the suicides, the leaps of the thieves, the glory of the celestial bodies pirouetting at such speed they seem to blur.
Yet it’s the collective achievement that is so glorious. This is a ballet where you feel everything coming together, whether it is Tacita Dean’s designs, so different in each act – a drawing, a painting, a film – or Thomas Adès’s masterpiece of a score, propulsively played under Jonathan Lo’s conducting. McGregor’s choreography binds it together, responsive to his collaborators yet full of his own invention.
At the heart of it all is William Bracewell’s Dante, taking over from Edward Watson, who created the role and then retired. Bracewell’s different qualities uncover new beats and feelings; in the central Purgatorio, the most emotionally charged of the acts, defined by delicate gestures of love, he moves from dancing with the penitents, their movement whipped and fierce to coincide with the downbeats of the music, to a rapturous duet with Fumi Kaneko’s Beatrice that is both full of joy and a sense of impending loss. The whole production makes me want to sing.
In the past, I have admired Rhiannon Faith. She’s a choreographer who takes new paths, seeking to entwine real people into the heart of her work, winding their emotions and thoughts into expressive dance. The idea behind Lay Down Your Burdens is a good one: she invites an audience into a communal act of connection, where they share their cares and difficulties and are given, in return, the gift of art – a poem, a dance, some music.
To allow this sharing, designer Noemi Daboczi has transformed the Barbican Pit into a pub-like space, with a central bar and tables and chairs around the carpeted performing area. Six dancers, led by Sara Turner’s landlady, and accompanied by Anna Clock and India Merrett on cello and violin, tell stories, share secrets and coax the audience into revelation.
It’s well-meaning, and the danced sections are sharp and expressive, yet the language is clunky and the piece is massively extended. Its good heart is overwhelmed by its overemphatic execution.
Star ratings (out of five)
The Dante Project ★★★★★
Lay Down Your Burdens ★★
The Dante Project is at the Royal Opera House, London, until 2 December
