Barbican,London
Cira Robinson and Mthuthuzeli November enact courtship to music by Steve Reich in Pita’s ambitious original work CristauxFew choreographers other than Arthur Pita would attempt to combine the spare, musical rigour of Steve Reich with the expensive glitter of Swarovski crystals. Yet in Cristaux, or his original work for Ballet Black,Pita uses the exquisitely glassy glockenspiel music from Reich’s Drumming to choreograph a fantasy of light-reflecting brilliance, at the centre of which is Cira Robinson – magnificently sparking in a crystal-studded tutu.
The duet seems to follows a standard classical format, and as ballerina Robinson draws her partner Mthuthuzeli November into a dazzled dance of courtship. Their vocabulary of skimming bourrées and floating lifts appears equally classical in style. But Pita is doing something very distinctive here,using the “phasing” techniques of Reich’s score to build up layers of expressive richness. Exhilaration and tension build as the dancers’ rhythms move in and out of sync, creating a charged sense of intimacy as their wide cursive patterns scale down to a duet of gestures, or a delicate interlacing of arms in space. Even though there are moments where Robinson and November can’t sustain the flawless assurance the concept demands,there’s an ambitious reach to Cristaux that exemplifies the best of Ballet Black’s bold and often surprising commissioning choices.
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Source: theguardian.com