Thursday, October 12, 2017

Tuesday night was press night for Cockpit at the Lyceum, of which more later.

Last night, Scottish Ballet dancing to Stravinsky at the Festival Theatre. I now have fantastically high expectations of anything they do where people might be clad in a leotard rather than a tutu following their most wonderful EIF outing last year. So my hopes were brimming over when I arrived. 

In fact, they did one daft wee piece about a fairy who bumped off a mother, kissed a baby and reclaimed him a decent interval later from his then fiancée as they were about to wed. A female Harvey Weinstein with wings and a sparkly hat. It was beautifully danced and Kenneth MacMillan had choreographed some surprising moves (our young man grasped the fairy by her foot and swung her over his head which must be phenomenally difficult to do though he made it look unusually easy). But beyond feeling a mild sorrow for the thwarted young lovers and wondering why the boy demon fairies had such bad hair (long, white, straggly: you'd think demons would take better care), I was emotionally unmoved.

The second piece came from the mind of Mr Christopher Hampson who popped onto the stage before the dancing began to tell us how much effort went into creating it. Disruption, he claimed, was the theme of the night's work. His version was set to The Rite of Spring.
(I should mention that there was a full orchestra in the pit who did a stunning job. To the point where I sometimes carelessly found myself watching them rather than the dancers.)

His work featured two men wearing long black skirts dancing about on a curvy white horseshoe shaped structure. The mistake I made here was reading the programme notes which described two brothers going about their usual routines until they were interrupted by Faith in the form of woman in a little white dress who poked her head up above the white horseshoe. I'll just mention that their daily routines were nothing like any I've ever seen brothers or indeed men in general terms adopt. 

In the second portion, one brother had changed into a vest and combat trousers and was being very bad to the other brother who was now in his pants. Then the woman poked her head up, this time in black, this time apparently representing death. The pants brother rolled around on the floor for a while. Then it finished. 

BS liked their "jerky movements" and thought they matched the music very well. I suppose it was pretty much inevitable then that I would dislike it!

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