Fearful Symmetries

When Ashley Page choreographed Fearful Symmetries in the 1990s, it became an instant hit. Distorted bodies, the pulse of Adam’s angry minimalism, the dark eroticism of the pas de deux captured a neurotic vision of a society in break-down. Like coke-addled insects, the dancers scuttle and twist, burning in invisible fire and scorching the stage through their relentless movement.

Undoubtedly, Fearful Symmetries is the piece that the current Scottish Ballet has been designed to perform. Eric Cavelleri – who has been a consistently weak romantic lead – is here transformed into a demonic prince. Lending his pas de deux a pornographic intensity, he prowls the stage, possessed and brutal. The corps des ballet, sometimes ragged in the company's staging of more traditional ballets, are tight and harsh, splitting and scattering across the geometrically dissonant set and acting out Page’s monstrous vision of a society gone mad. It is difficult to understand why a company capable of such immediate, visceral power should consider Scenes De Ballet, the evening’s opening, as an appropriate addition to the repertoire. Regardless of Ashton’s worth as a choreography, it lacks the edge to be anything other than a stark contrast to Symmetry, and feels out-dated and pedestrian.

Symmetries is a dramatic reminder of dance’s ability to express truth. Like a mirror held up to the audience, it reflects the discordant group desperately trying to hold a line in a constantly shifting environment. Emotional connection is exchanged for a merry-go-round of partners, intimacy is abandoned for display and the corps de ballet is transformed into an army of rattling horrors.

Where Scenes de Ballet is a courteous reminder of a genteel past, Symmetry is sadly immediate: the pace, the tangles, the abandonment of grace all reflect the terrors of a society about to melt down. The question remains whether this vision is honest or a mere nightmare: either way, Page’s vision is terrific as it terrifies.