Ballet Illuminations 2014 @ KLPAC - 9 May 2014
Last Friday, I braved the floods and traffic to spend some quality time with my friends Nikki and Beatrice at KLPAC. We were there to catch the opening night of Ballet Illuminations 2014 - a production by the Singapore Dance Theatre. It was the first time watching ballet for me and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the opening night tickets were at a very reasonable price of RM18 for adults! The 'regular' tickets for adults were RM33 and the Saturday night tickets were RM43, so RM18 was such a steal.
I can't remember now how I came across the ad for the show, but here is the promo video.
The show was divided into four acts, with a 15-minute intermission after the third act. The first act was Allegro Brillante by George Balanchine, possibly the most famous choreographer of the 20th century. The second act was Don Quixote pas de deux. Both were classical style ballets, very elegant and well, classical. I've always seen ballets on TV but seeing it live was of course much more amazing. We sat in the third row from the front, so were pretty close to the dancers. I caught some amazing footwork and it was nice to see all the details.
The third act was a contemporary style choreography called Absence of Story by Toru Shimazaki. This was my favourite piece. Quite moving and inspiring, the official website of the Singapore Dance Theatre described it this way: "Toru’s initial concept for this piece was to create a visual array of movements to accompany the music of Brahms. This particular piece of music is so powerful that he simply wanted to react honestly to it. Absence of Story is danced to the music of Brahms, and is a stirring piece without story or words in hope of not causing distraction to the beauty and the power of music." And it was quite apt.
After the intermission was the final act, Lambarena, an African fusion piece. This was meant to be the highlight of the show and clearly the director's most loved piece. The website describes this piece as follows: "Val Caniparoli’s Lambarena was inspired by a score of the same name that blends traditional African rhythms and melodies with extended passages from Johann Sebastian Bach. In response to this exciting and unusual piece of music, and seeking to make a “joyous celebration of dancing,” Caniparoli choreographed an emotion-filled work in eight movements that boldly merges the vocabularies of classical ballet and African dance."
The movements were definitely African-inspired and it was a lovely blend of contemporary, ballet and African. Some movements, being African-inspired, were quite comical especially to the younger audience but I could appreciate how the the delicate and sensitive the fusion was made between modern and African styles. No jaring or abrupt movements, very smooth transitions and some bellydance-esque movements like shoulder shimmies and hip circles as well! (Not surprising, since bellydance is believed to have also derived its movements from North Africa)
It was clear that the dancers did some training of African movements in order to dance this piece, which is nice and appreciated because we all know that in order to fuse two or more styles of dance, one must firstly KNOW all the styles you are using. Too many 'fusion dancers' out there now who are simply fusing styles as they like, without any proper training and study of all the styles they are incorporating. Some don't even fuse the styles seamlessly, with abrupt changes in movements and not knowing how to properly blend the styles together. I've even seen performances labelled as 'fusion' but the only thing that was 'fusion' about it was the song! The movements were still purely oriental/raqs sharqi!
Here is their costume style for this piece:
Lambarena was really fun, but throughout the piece, I couldn't help feeling "if only I was watching some real pure African dance performance!" I don't know why. I mean, I love fusion anything and the dancers did a wonderful job that night, but nothing really beats watching the authentic, pure version of something. I hope I get the chance to see some pure African dancing one day!
Although it was generally a good show, I felt the ending was a little abrupt and anti-climatic. There was even an awkward silence among the audience when the show ended because nobdoy was sure whether it was the finale or not. No announcements given also, so everyone was a little confused for a moment. Perhaps the director did not want to give us a cliched, dramatic finale, but some sort of indication would have been nice.
Anyways, it was a nice evening and I was happy I went.
I can't remember now how I came across the ad for the show, but here is the promo video.
Click to viewThe show was divided into four acts, with a 15-minute intermission after the third act. The first act was Allegro Brillante by George Balanchine, possibly the most famous choreographer of the 20th century. The second act was Don Quixote pas de deux. Both were classical style ballets, very elegant and well, classical. I've always seen ballets on TV but seeing it live was of course much more amazing. We sat in the third row from the front, so were pretty close to the dancers. I caught some amazing footwork and it was nice to see all the details.
The third act was a contemporary style choreography called Absence of Story by Toru Shimazaki. This was my favourite piece. Quite moving and inspiring, the official website of the Singapore Dance Theatre described it this way: "Toru’s initial concept for this piece was to create a visual array of movements to accompany the music of Brahms. This particular piece of music is so powerful that he simply wanted to react honestly to it. Absence of Story is danced to the music of Brahms, and is a stirring piece without story or words in hope of not causing distraction to the beauty and the power of music." And it was quite apt.
After the intermission was the final act, Lambarena, an African fusion piece. This was meant to be the highlight of the show and clearly the director's most loved piece. The website describes this piece as follows: "Val Caniparoli’s Lambarena was inspired by a score of the same name that blends traditional African rhythms and melodies with extended passages from Johann Sebastian Bach. In response to this exciting and unusual piece of music, and seeking to make a “joyous celebration of dancing,” Caniparoli choreographed an emotion-filled work in eight movements that boldly merges the vocabularies of classical ballet and African dance."
The movements were definitely African-inspired and it was a lovely blend of contemporary, ballet and African. Some movements, being African-inspired, were quite comical especially to the younger audience but I could appreciate how the the delicate and sensitive the fusion was made between modern and African styles. No jaring or abrupt movements, very smooth transitions and some bellydance-esque movements like shoulder shimmies and hip circles as well! (Not surprising, since bellydance is believed to have also derived its movements from North Africa)
It was clear that the dancers did some training of African movements in order to dance this piece, which is nice and appreciated because we all know that in order to fuse two or more styles of dance, one must firstly KNOW all the styles you are using. Too many 'fusion dancers' out there now who are simply fusing styles as they like, without any proper training and study of all the styles they are incorporating. Some don't even fuse the styles seamlessly, with abrupt changes in movements and not knowing how to properly blend the styles together. I've even seen performances labelled as 'fusion' but the only thing that was 'fusion' about it was the song! The movements were still purely oriental/raqs sharqi!
Here is their costume style for this piece:
Lambarena was really fun, but throughout the piece, I couldn't help feeling "if only I was watching some real pure African dance performance!" I don't know why. I mean, I love fusion anything and the dancers did a wonderful job that night, but nothing really beats watching the authentic, pure version of something. I hope I get the chance to see some pure African dancing one day!
Although it was generally a good show, I felt the ending was a little abrupt and anti-climatic. There was even an awkward silence among the audience when the show ended because nobdoy was sure whether it was the finale or not. No announcements given also, so everyone was a little confused for a moment. Perhaps the director did not want to give us a cliched, dramatic finale, but some sort of indication would have been nice.
Anyways, it was a nice evening and I was happy I went.