Scottish Ballet Autumn Season

This double bill from Scottish Ballet - one new commission from Jorma Elo and a revival from artistic director Ashley Page - meditates on the question of contemporary ballet. What does it mean to update the classical technique, and can ballet be a genuinely modern dance form?

Pennies From Heaven sees Ashley Page's adapt traditional ballet to the beat of the 1930s: a narrative links between the series of dances, and the romantic yearning present in the classics spills over into uncomfortable ménages. Aside from a few crowd-pleasing, humorous interludes Pennies shares the love with an old fashioned elegance. Perhaps because of its sentimental nostalgia, Pennies comfortably charms the audience while showcasing the solo and duet skills of the company.

Elo's Kings To Ends is a stunning exercise in mathematics as movement, undermined in places by the company's lack of precision and frequent failures to move as a unit. Elo picks up on the baroque elegance of Mozart and the lineal precision of Reich, moulding the dancers into awkward, abstract shapes. A minimal set and subtle lighting frames the dancers, as they play around the possibilities of a trained physique with vigorous urgency, especially during Reich’s Double Sextet. When this intensity gives way to a more humorous set of interactions, Elo’s choreography steps back from the intensity and weaves baroque patterns around Mozart’s Violin Concerto. 

Where Page aims to use the techique in new contexts, Elo is pulling ballet through distortions and alternative systems - there is a hint of Cunningham in the flexed feet and juxtapositions. It's a strong statement of intent, again, from the company, even if it panders a little too far to the crowd's expectations. And certainly, a spot of discipline in the corps de ballet is increasingly needed.