Lyon Opera Ballet, Cunningham Forever bill + Soa Ratsifandrihana’s g r oo v e
Lyon Opera Ballet and Soa Ratsifandrihana performances at the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival in London.
Lyon Opera Ballet in Merce Cunningham’s ‘Beach Birds’, part of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival in London. © Agathe Poupeney
Lyon Opera Ballet
Cunningham Forever: Beach Birds, BIPED
★★★★✰
London, Sadler’s Wells
www.opera-lyon.com
Soa Ratsifandrihana
g r oo v e
★★✰✰✰
London, Sadler’s Wells Lilian Baylis Studio
@soa_ratsifa
19 March 2025
www.sadlerswells.com
Part of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival
My first night at the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival proved more apt than I ever imagined — the repertoire really made me reflect on where we are in dance.
Like many, I am interested in the new, but the new inevitably comes at the cost of the old being displaced and, ultimately, lost. And it happens all too easily and almost unknowingly.
Back in the 90s (and earlier), Merce Cunningham’s work was regularly seen in London (the same goes for Balanchine, a bill of which is about to be danced by The Royal Ballet as part of the same festival). But for the most part, it has all silently slipped away from us in the hail of the new. Well last night Lyon Opera Ballet, in their punchily-titled double bill Cunningham Forever, made us sit up and realise it is still too soon for the art to wave goodbye to Merce. But before that, some of us had an early start in the smallest Wells theatre — the Lillian Baylis — looking at some of that new.
Soa Ratsifandrihana’s g r oo v e is a 45-minute solo drawing on her Malagasy roots and her work as a contemporary dancer with the likes of Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. The pre-show publicity plays up the piece’s references to styles of dance she admires: “In short, g r oo v e takes the form of a collage of references quoted and then transformed.” And when Ratsifandrihana actually dances to music, it is a powerful sight — exciting even — as she prowls the stage and looks us all in the eye. She defies you not to look away. At other times, as the beat demands, she gently and hypnotically moves her legs in oh-so-simple steps, yet so deliciously in time with the music. All this makes it sound like a great work, which alas it is not. The proviso on the above was dancing to music, but well over half of g r oo v e was performed in silence or to barely audible electronic tinkles, and the movement was very slow, including a lot of gym lunges, very slow turns, and very slow stretches. Ratsifandrihana seemed lost in her own world, and it didn’t draw me in at all, and in turn I retreated to my own thoughts about my to-do list and how better I could be spending the time. Thankfully, we eventually get music and dance, but sadly it doesn’t fully compensate for the tedious and self-indulgent start.
As a way of grabbing your attention from the very start, Merce Cunningham got it spot on with Beach Birds — his 1991 work for eleven dancers. The Lyon Opera Ballet dancers stand, almost in silhouette, in striking yet economical poses — there is nothing flashy or clever-clever here. Slowly, they flicker into life — an arm changes angle, a slow turn, as John Cage’s stark piano notes emerge seconds apart. You feel the weight of each note and the weight of each movement in response. Marsha Skinner’s costumes of white leotards with jet black hands, arms and shoulders accentuate the line and make the arms look impossibly long and interesting. The stage becomes full of order and chaos — there are movement contradictions as bodies flow and then become staccato robots, some limbs frozen. And then we get disarmingly simple little hops. So much complexity, so much simplicity.
There is no discernible arc to Beach Birds; you just concentrate on what you see each second and enjoy the action over its half-hour duration. And yes, they do look like birds at times, the movement neatly rippling across dancers rather than it all happening in fixed unison. Although I say there is no arc, the piece does explore dancers working together in twos and threes, the austere choreography overlapping to deliver pleasingly complex animated sculptures. Overall, my hit of the night. Birds is nominally in the repertoire of Rambert, and they could usefully give it another outing before too long.
“BIPED references that humans are two footed creatures. The choreography focusses on movement restricted to motion supported by the feet.” This seems a simple premise. But even at 80, Cunningham was still interested in pushing boundaries and technology; here digitised versions of dancers are projected on a front scrim while the live dance happens behind. After the austerity of Birds, BIPED, with its dense and shimmering Gavin Bryars score and sense of pace, is an easier work to admire, especially in Suzanne Gallo’s glowing costumes. An extra theatrical dash comes from a set where the dancers just appear from nowhere at the back of the stage. Given its age (it was created in 1999) the projections still hold good, mainly because the dancers are often abstracted to movement dots and lines, if occasionally we see the rippling muscles of a real body as if rapidly sketched in pencil. Goodness knows what Merce would be doing with AI if he were still alive. BIPED zooms by in 45 minutes before the curtain slowly descends on its world. Impeccably danced by Lyon Opera Ballet, it’s a world you want more of.