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The Royal Ballet Dances La Fille mal gardée

April 30, 2015 by 4dancers

14FEMK233_14_15_ROH_La_Fille_900x900

Frederick Ashton’s ballet La Fille mal gardée (The Wayward Daughter) is based on an 1828 French ballet, but was inspired by the Suffolk countryside. This is a ballet with both wonderful choreography and a delightful sense of humor. Where else can you see dancing chickens, folk dance, clogging and maypole dancing–all in one performance?

Ballet fans across the country will be able to take in this well-known ballet on May 5th as it shows on the big screen. Find a cinema near you to get a ticket for this classic, danced live by The Royal Ballet.

The Royal Ballet's Steven McRae. Photo ROH, by Tristram Kenton
The Royal Ballet’s Steven McRae. Photo ROH, by Tristram Kenton
Philip Mosley as Widow Simone and Francesca Filpi, Samantha Raine, Vanessa Fenton and Kristen McNally as Clog dancers in The Royal Ballet production of La Fille mal gardÈe. Photo ROH, Tristram Kenton
Philip Mosley as Widow Simone and Francesca Filpi, Samantha Raine, Vanessa Fenton and Kristen McNally as Clog dancers in The Royal Ballet production of La Fille mal gardee. Photo ROH, by Tristram Kenton
Steven McRae. ROH, by Tristram Kenton
Steven McRae. ROH, by Tristram Kenton

Here’s a sneak peek for you as well:

Disclosure: 4dancers accepts compensation for promoting this series

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With: frederick ashton, La Fille Mal Gardee, steven mcrae, the royal ballet

Book Review: Frederick Ashton’s Ballets: Style, Performance, Choreography

March 6, 2013 by 4dancers

by Emily Kate Long

My most recent paper-bound treasure is Geraldine Morris’s Frederick Ashton’s Ballets: Style, Performance, Choreography, an analysis and discussion of six of Ashton’s works. Having limited exposure to Ashton’s ballets, I approached it as a primer on his work—characteristics, influences, and their place in the repertories of companies today. I came away with much more information and many more questions than I had bargained for. Morris professes one of her goals to be “to promote greater understanding of both dance movement style and choreographic style, so that the book is not only interesting and useful for performers but also for dance academics and committed dance audiences.”  I consider myself belonging to all three categories, and though I haven’t reached understanding yet, Ashton’s Ballets has provoked my interest intensely.

The ballets themselves Morris considers in pairs: A Wedding Bouquet (1937) and Illuminations (1950), two ballets featuring spoken words; Birthday Offering (1956) and Jazz Calendar (1968), non-narrative works; and Daphnis and Chloe (1951) and A Month in the Country (1976), two narrative ballets.  By comparing works made on dancers of different backgrounds and at points throughout Ashton’s career, Morris determines that some of the defining characteristics of Ashton’s style are the use of what are typically transition or minor steps as major motifs, complex epaulement including the invisible pathways drawn by the limbs in space, unexpected changes of direction and dynamic, and different rhythms occurring simultaneously in the upper and lower body.

In addition to providing detailed descriptions and comparisons of the six ballets, Morris offers background concerning Ashton’s influences: Petipa, Duncan, Nijinska, Pavlova, the stage dancing of the 1920s and ‘30s, and the dancers of his ballets. In other words, he made use of what came before him, what was in front of him, and what was within him. (Morris states that Ashton was “concerned to understand temperament and sensibility.”)

Tracing chains of influence through time and changes in the treatment of a static entity (in this case, codified ballet technique) over time are central to Morris’s arguments. Repeatedly, she emphasizes the extent to which much of today’s dancing favors line and shape over motion. She maintains that such emphasis is stylistically detrimental to Ashton’s works, which depend on movement and dynamic over shape or position.

Morris’s discussion of influences on Ashton extends both inward to the analysis of each ballet she addresses and outward, beyond Ashton’s work. For example, in her breakdown of Daphnis and Chloe, Ashton’s, Ravel’s, and Fokine’s treatment of the Greek myth are acknowledged. Where Jazz Calendar is analyzed, Morris highlights the contrast between Balanchine’s and Ashton’s treatment of similar influences: stage dancing and African-American movement. Similarly, each of these two choreographers were strongly influenced by Petipa, yet each paid tribute in decidedly different ways. I find this quality of her book tantalizing—it invites endless exploration of the interconnected web of dance history and the present day. As an audience member, to be conscious of references and allusions in choreography enriches my viewing experience. As a performer, knowledge of influences and stylistic traits enhances my ability to interpret style with more integrity, in turn allowing the audience to view work as the choreographer intended it.

At its heart, this book poses questions of relevance, reverence and preservation. To what extent must ballets evolve to stay relevant? To what extent must dancers adapt their own movement style to suit choreography? Ballet is a live art whose present is better understood and enjoyed by examining its past, and whose future is being shaped by past and present. Morris sums herself up best:

“To survive, past works need to respond to the changing world and this is particularly difficult in dance: both aesthetic values and dancers’ bodies alter and sources for reviving past works are limited…So how can movement, which was made during an earlier era and was embodied by dancers with very different training, be revived or even reconstructed, whilst keeping faith with the spirit of the work? …My suggestions will inevitably be challenged and contested but I hope they will add to that debate which centres on choreographic style and its survival.”

Useful links:

The Ballets of Frederick Ashton 

“Celebrating Ashton”

A Month in the Country full version 

A Month in the Country pas de deux

Step-by-step guide to dance: Frederick Ashton

Another discussion of Ashton’s Ballets on DanceTabs

Filed Under: Books & Magazines Tagged With: choreographer, choreography, dance book, frederick ashton

DVD Review: An Evening With The Royal Ballet

February 1, 2013 by 4dancers

by Emily Kate Long

Royal Opera House and Opus Arte’s An Evening with the Royal Ballet presents excerpts from nineteenth- and twentieth-century classics. Beloved works by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, Kenneth MacMillan, and Frederick Ashton will delight ballet lovers. The disc runs about 90 minutes, slightly shorter than a typical two-act evening of dance. Among the principal dancers featured are Leanne Benjamin, Darcey Bussell, Alina Cojocaru, Marianela Nunez, Tamara Rojo, Carlos Acosta, Johan Kobborg, and Steven McRae.

Part One opens with the imposing ballroom scene from MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, followed by Ashton’s Voices of Spring pas de deux—a true gem on this DVD. Benjamin and Acosta exude simple joy in the daring but never garish virtuoso duet. Also a treat are Nunez and Acosta’s sweetness and technical fireworks in Ashton’s La Fille Mal Gardee. The closing selection of Part One alone, Cojocaru and Kobborg in a moving and sensitive pas de deux from Act II of Giselle, makes this disc one well worth having. That this particular pas de deux is excerpted as part of the full staging complete with willis, rather than a gala-type presentation, is of tremendous value.

Part Two includes an exemplary Rojo and Acosta in MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet balcony pas de deux, followed by selections from Sylvia, Swan Lake, Coppelia, and The Nutcracker.  Here, in addition to polished, generous dancing by principals and corps alike, the lush sets and costumes of the Royal Ballet full-lengths are shown off to great advantage. Sylvia looks like a rococo oil painting, and the mighty pas de trios and glittering apotheosis of Swan Lake are an impressive close to this program.

An Evening with the Royal Ballet would make a rich addition to any dance lover’s video library.

Filed Under: DVDs, Reviews Tagged With: carlos acosta, darcey bussell, frederick ashton, giselle, kenneth macmillan, nutcracker, romeo and juliet, swan lake, the royal ballet

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