Rambert – Ghost Dances, Frames and Tomorrow

Feature by Stephanie Green | 26 Nov 2016

The iconic Ghost Dances, [★★★★★] visceral, sinister and melancholic, with its meld of skeletal Ghosts and folk dancing Dead, still in its 36th year, holds its power. Inspired by the military takeover of Chile, this is a non-polemical, imagistic piece, sadly still with universal relevance. In Rambert’s 90th year, what better than to revive one of their most popular pieces, choreographed by their former Artistic Director, Christopher Bruce?  

The sound of the wind, and the arid Andean backdrop give this an elemental atmosphere. The three skeletal Ghosts wear terrifying skull-masks influenced by the Mexican holiday, The Day of the Dead. Their movements are reptilian, lithe with sudden stops, eyes probing the audience in a chilling way. We are implicated in the universal fact of death. The Ghosts jump in off-balance barrel turns, or pose with arms swinging to suggest their provisional nature in contrast to the zombie-like approach of the Dead, dressed in colourful, tatty clothes. 

A live band performs the melancholic Latin American music with its distinctive breathy flute, inspired by the Chilean folk group Inti-Illimani.  A curiously defiant gaiety is mirrored in the folkloric dance steps as the Dead relive the past in striking duets: a girl in red, and a man with tie pulled playfully by his partner. The Ghosts weave amongst them then suddenly claim them – a particularly striking image is women raised aloft as if hanged. Death is brutal, unexpected. A brilliant, must-see production.

 Frames [★★★☆☆] choreographed by Alexander Whitley is interesting, but one waited with bated breath for the steel rods to come tumbling down. There is a startling image when the ensemble creates unfolding shapes with the rods like wings but overall, despite impressive dancers, there was no sense of relationship between dance moves and rods.  

As for Tomorrow [★★☆☆☆], this piece does Lucy Guerin’s career no favours. A split stage shows dancers in white rags twitching with spasmodic gestures symbolizing the psychic turmoil in ‘Macbeth’, the charismatic Miguel Altunaga drawing one’s eye. But on the other side, dancers in black suits mime like actors in an embarrassing am-dram production. The plot is run backwards. Why? Not a clever piece of deconstructivist post-modernism, just banal. 

http://edtheatres.com/rambert