Northern Ballet, Three Short Ballets Review 4*
Northern Ballet brings a rare but hugely enjoyable triple bill, Three Short Ballets, to the ROH Linbury Theatre
The dancers of Northern Ballet are a pleasure to watch and this wide-ranging triple bill, Three Short Ballets, which had its London premiere at the Linbury, shows them at their versatile best.
Whether in the transcendental neo-classical dances of Rudi van Danzig’s Four Last Songs, in Kristen McNally’s whimsical Victory Dance, or in Mthuthuzeli November’s muscular riff on the tale of star-crossed lovers, Fools, they dance with gorgeous technique and total emotional commitment.
Ex-Royal Ballet principal dancer Federico Bonelli, director since 2022, is clearly doing a good job.
Leeds-based Northern Ballet is known for its full-evening narrative works; and there are elements of story-telling in all three shorter pieces.
The influential Dutch choreographer Rudi van Danzig created Four Last Songs in 1977 to Richard Strauss’s celebrated final work for soprano and orchestra, widely seen as a wistful meditation on the inexorable approach of death.
Four couples take one song each, ranging from the carefree joy of ‘Spring’ ‘through the progressively broodier stages of ‘September’, ‘Going to Sleep’ and ‘At Sunset’, with an angel (Bruno Serraclara), gently but surely leading them towards the end – the final words of the song ask: “is this perhaps death?”
All four couples are superb, each embodying the subtle mood of each song, illustrated by the gradual darkening colours of a projected skyscape and the orange, ochre and brown tones of their costumes (designs by Toer van Schayk)
Northern Ballet: Dominique Larose and George Liang in Four Last Songs. Photo: Robert David Pearson
One beef: lack of financing has pushed Northern Ballet to tour with recorded, rather than live, music – and if a ballet needs live music and clearly articulated singing it’s Four Last Songs. At the Linbury, though, the combination of a bad sound system and a mushy recording meant that the words sung by the great Gundula Janowitz were completely lost.
The Royal Ballet dancer and choreographer Kristen McNally describes her five minute Victory Dance as “a moment of celebration”. Danced by Archie Sherman, Yu Wakizuka with guest Joseph Powell-Main, who uses a wheelchair, to a jazzy score by Ezra Collective, it put me in mind of the Rio carnival – a thoroughly enjoyable hymn to life and fun.
Northern Ballet: Kevin Poeung, Yu Wakizuka and Joseph Powell-Main in Victory Dance. Photo: Emily Nuttall
I’m not sure there is much left to be said about Romeo and Juliet; but by transposing the tale of the young lovers belonging to rival tribes to a township in his native South Africa (as depicted in R.L. Peteni’s novel Hill of Fools) Mthuthuzeli November adds engaging vigour to the fight scenes in Fools.
Dancers of Northern Ballet in Fools. Photo: Robert David Pearson
After eye-catching turns in Four Last Songs Harris Beattie and Sarah Chun are paired here as the Romeo figure from the tribe of Thembu and Juliet from the enemy Hlubi tribe.
A couple of corrugated iron façades, which dancers are periodically required to shift (dancers moving scenery is one of my pet hates) and a washing line create the setting. The early love duet between the two leads, is touching but overlong; the dances of the two tribes mingle African movement into choreography more than a little reminiscent of Jerome Robbins’s for West Side Story.
Structurally there’s a quite a bit of dead air between the opening duet and the ultimate confrontation; but the final image of Chun cradling a dying Beattie is touching and memorable .
Northern Ballet: Sarah Chun and Harries Beattie in Fools. Photo: Emily Nuttall
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image credit: dancers of Northern Ballet in Four Last Songs. Photo: Emily Nuttall)
Northern Ballet dance Four Last Songs at the ROH Linbury Theatre 29 – 31 January 2025. Full info and tickets here