Content area
Full Text
Dance Fizzy cocktail Royal Ballet: Mixed Bill Royal Opera House
In a world dominated by predictably safe artistic policies, daring choices are as welcome as fresh springs in the desert. And the new fizzy, thought-provoking Royal Ballet quadruple bill is a daring choice indeed. At the beginning of the 21st century, the number of non-ballet dance-makers who get a kick out of tackling the classical vocabulary is on the increase. Whether their radical contributions will ever spark the long-sought renewal of an art form that has become more and more stale is yet to be seen. What is certain, though, is that their mix of classical and modernist/postmodernist principles prompts at least some healthy interest in that art form, thus blowing away few cobwebs.
The bill kicks off with Gong, a multi-coloured, eye-teasing, now wacky, now refined work by Mark Morris, the man who has effectively abolished any conventional cultural, stylistic and artistic boundaries between different choreographic genres. Set to a captivating gamelan-inspired score by Colin McPhce, the work is an engaging incursion into non-narrative choreography, originating from a highly individual approach to what is...