Why I Love Ballet

Apart from an annual boxing day trip to see The Nutcracker on the South Bank, my earliest memory of ballet is the finale to The Bolshoi’s Spartacus. Struggling to contain an urgent political message within a form defined by lush romanticism, the choreography stutters between masculine prowess and sensual pas de deux, finally arriving at Spartacus’ capture and death at the hands of the Roman legions. A sudden rush, and he is lifted up on the spears of the soldiers, dangling in mid-air, like a Soviet Christ on the bloody tips of capitalism. It is strongest argument for Marxism I have ever experienced.
In the twilight years before I discovered Live Art, this early, visceral hit kept me in the theatre. I was excited by Northern Ballet, under Christopher Gable, who took the dramatic characterisation of Russian ballet and applied to an almost musical theatre sensibility. I watched Matthew Bourne surprise the mainstream with an updating of Swan Lake. I’d even sit in the upper tiers for The English National Ballet and The Royal Ballet, wondering about the effete male dancers and longing for some of that Bolshoi brutality or, later, Kirov grace.
It’s easy to forget how important Ashley Page has been in rejuvenating Scottish Ballet: until his arrival, the company was slipping into a moribund compromise between popular outreach and mediocre technique. A piece like The Snowman seems to sum up my problems: aimed at children, it reduces ballet to a series of trite routines, afraid to embracing either its glorious past or moving into an experimental future. Once I’d seen Michael Clarke, I felt that ballet was a cage, trapping expressiveness in a maze of respectability and convention.
Page’s revolution at Scottish ballet, heralded by a triple-bill at my beloved Tramway, marked a new impetus across British ballet. While my preference for MacMillan over Ashton has led to abuse from balletomanes, I am thrilled by the influx of contemporary sensibilities into ballet. The interpretations of Petrushka, Romeo and Juliet, even The Nutcracker , may have been uneven: they revealed a company, however, ready to acknowledge the modern world.
At the same time, a new commonplace appeared in interviews with contemporary choreographers. After Martha Graham had boasted that her dance was an escape from the strictures of tradition, dancers outside ballet were acknowledging that its discipline provided a powerful foundation. Perhaps this is most clearly seen in the RSAMD’s course in “Contemporary Ballet”, a training that catches both freedom and restraint. Ballet Rambert, who had shocked the scene in the 1960s by converting to contemporary, have become a by-word for this fusion. Christopher Bruce’ Rooster is an icon of how ballet and contemporary, and rock’n’roll, can be fused. The recent Rambert bill in Scotland continued their journey in ballet’s turned out footsteps.
Part of the reason that I turned against ballet- apart from years of irritation at the English companies failure to be more Russian- was that it represented a polite and conventional appreciation. Frederick Ashton, one of Britain’s greats, was fascinated by geometry and my tastes, built on punk irreverence and cybernetic speed, is naturally suspicious of cerebral choreography. Ashton also demands a very high standard of technique, something achievable only for the most financially comfortable outfits.
I am still not sold on some contemporary ballet, but I have found that my tastes can happily accommodate the classics, and those works which appeal to ballet’s capacity to articulate deep passions. Northern Ballet are hitting the Edinburgh Festival Theatre with Wuthering Heights, a murderous maelstrom of thwarted desire that easily connects to erotic pas de deux and massive symbolism. I even find The Russian Ballet of Siberia gripping, since they act as a sort of museum for the classic choreographies: the finale of Swan Lake is breath-taking, even when the technique is less than perfect.
I’ve made my peace with ballet. Like opera, it has an iconic force and juggles beauty and awe. I have stopped blaming it for not being avant-garde, and appreciate how Balanchine and his heirs introduced a sparkling modernity without loosing grip of the past. It still spills the blood onto the stage and burns as brightly as my rough Belgian heroes, albeit in different shades of flame.