International Draft Works – Royal Opera House
April 11, 2024 by Fiona Maclean
Shaping the Future of Dance
Take ten emerging choreographers from around the world working with their own ballet companies to deliver short ballets and you get an intriguing mix of productions. A bit like Eurovision for Dance, most of the dance companies were from Europe with the Korean National Ballet Company taking the place of Australia for the opening number. International Draft Works is an annual series that started in 2019. The platform aims to allow new choreographic voices to showcase their ideas. A series of workshops with industry specialists follow the performances so that the choreographers get professional feedback. I for one loved the internationalism of the evening – certain performances were so idiomatic I could have guessed the country of origin without the help of the cast list and programme.
The evening opened with a trio of dancers from the Korean National Ballet. Season: Spring was a charming and evocative dance that premiered in 2019 in Seoul, Korea. With choreography by Young-cheol Lee it managed to blend classical ballet with Korean Traditional Dance and with touches of KPop in the delicate hand movements. I loved the beautiful original music by Bora Ju, playing on the gayaguem (Korean zither).
Nicola Wills and Philip Lens from Opera Ballet Flanders performed a beautiful pas de deux choreographed by Nicola called Two People in Love Never Shake Hands. With a score by Joel Beving, this contemporary dance was a fluid and continuous sensual work that subtly distorted classical dance lifts. The quirky ‘Act Naturally’ from National Theatre Bruno, with choreography from Barbara Rašková was a simple yet powerful statement about the paradox of normality. The music, from Penguin Cafe Orchestra arranged by Quinn Roy was an excellent fit for the quartet of dancers’ light-hearted interpretation of trying to look ‘normal’ all the while feeling uncomfortable.
The powerful, controlled and beautiful ‘Ignored but Not Withstood from Olmo Verbeeck Martínez was impeccably danced by Martnez and his partner Anri Sugiura, a love story in dance that was undeniably passionate and moving. Closing the first half, Joseph Toonga’s ‘New Work‘ was innovative if not entirely successful for me. Set to music by Philip Glass, his choreography merged classical ballet movements with hip-hop and street dance moves. The dance was carefully and precisely executed by Olivia Findlay and Nadia Mullova-Barley. Joseph holds the year’s Royal Ballet Choreographic Residency for the 2023-24 Season so we can expect to see more of his works on stage at the Royal Opera House.
After the interval, the opening work from the Norwegian National Ballet, Andromedae, was choreographed by Lucas Lima and danced to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Elegant and controlled, this was classical ballet at its best – a stunning pas de deux from Xander Parish and Eugenie Skilnand. Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Tetra, choreographed by Lachlan Monaghan was a subtle and complex intertwining of four dancers which perfectly set the dance movements to the musical structure of Schumann’s Piano Quintet. Detailed choreography and immaculate execution made this a fascinating short work. They say Paris is the City of Light so ‘Moonlight’ from Florent Melac set to an arrangement of the Moonlight Sonata seemed appropriate. Melac was joined by Clémence Gross for this charmingly romantic work that could only be from France.
Scottish Ballet’s ‘Liminal Goodbye’ was a fascinating work from Madeleine Squire with music and co-creative direction from Harry Yefe (Reeps100) who specialises in voice, A.I. and tech-based performance art and who produced and directed the world’s first-ever AI ballet. A poignant moment, this work explored loss and grief.
Matthew Ball, a Royal Ballet principal, choreographed and danced To and Fro with his partner Mayara Magri. Fabulous dancing to Resphigi’s Nottorno (played by Michael Pansters) made this a suitably evocative and moving end to a fascinating evening of choreography and dance.
I’m truly impressed too by the logistics backstage for this show. By chance, I bumped into Lighting Director Prema Mehta before the dancing started and her description of the effort that had gone into that part of the evening made me particularly aware of the impact of the creative and innovative lighting. It’s fair to say that we all too easily overlook the
What makes this evening of dance so special is the diversity of ideas from choreographers around the world. It’s an exciting insight into the future of dance and one that will stay in my mind going forward. Given that this is an annual event I’m diarising now to watch out for next year’s International Draft Works.
International Draft Works – Royal Opera House
April 11, 2024 by Fiona Maclean
Shaping the Future of Dance
Take ten emerging choreographers from around the world working with their own ballet companies to deliver short ballets and you get an intriguing mix of productions. A bit like Eurovision for Dance, most of the dance companies were from Europe with the Korean National Ballet Company taking the place of Australia for the opening number. International Draft Works is an annual series that started in 2019. The platform aims to allow new choreographic voices to showcase their ideas. A series of workshops with industry specialists follow the performances so that the choreographers get professional feedback. I for one loved the internationalism of the evening – certain performances were so idiomatic I could have guessed the country of origin without the help of the cast list and programme.
The evening opened with a trio of dancers from the Korean National Ballet. Season: Spring was a charming and evocative dance that premiered in 2019 in Seoul, Korea. With choreography by Young-cheol Lee it managed to blend classical ballet with Korean Traditional Dance and with touches of KPop in the delicate hand movements. I loved the beautiful original music by Bora Ju, playing on the gayaguem (Korean zither).
Nicola Wills and Philip Lens from Opera Ballet Flanders performed a beautiful pas de deux choreographed by Nicola called Two People in Love Never Shake Hands. With a score by Joel Beving, this contemporary dance was a fluid and continuous sensual work that subtly distorted classical dance lifts. The quirky ‘Act Naturally’ from National Theatre Bruno, with choreography from Barbara Rašková was a simple yet powerful statement about the paradox of normality. The music, from Penguin Cafe Orchestra arranged by Quinn Roy was an excellent fit for the quartet of dancers’ light-hearted interpretation of trying to look ‘normal’ all the while feeling uncomfortable.
The powerful, controlled and beautiful ‘Ignored but Not Withstood from Olmo Verbeeck Martínez was impeccably danced by Martnez and his partner Anri Sugiura, a love story in dance that was undeniably passionate and moving. Closing the first half, Joseph Toonga’s ‘New Work‘ was innovative if not entirely successful for me. Set to music by Philip Glass, his choreography merged classical ballet movements with hip-hop and street dance moves. The dance was carefully and precisely executed by Olivia Findlay and Nadia Mullova-Barley. Joseph holds the year’s Royal Ballet Choreographic Residency for the 2023-24 Season so we can expect to see more of his works on stage at the Royal Opera House.
After the interval, the opening work from the Norwegian National Ballet, Andromedae, was choreographed by Lucas Lima and danced to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Elegant and controlled, this was classical ballet at its best – a stunning pas de deux from Xander Parish and Eugenie Skilnand. Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Tetra, choreographed by Lachlan Monaghan was a subtle and complex intertwining of four dancers which perfectly set the dance movements to the musical structure of Schumann’s Piano Quintet. Detailed choreography and immaculate execution made this a fascinating short work. They say Paris is the City of Light so ‘Moonlight’ from Florent Melac set to an arrangement of the Moonlight Sonata seemed appropriate. Melac was joined by Clémence Gross for this charmingly romantic work that could only be from France.
Scottish Ballet’s ‘Liminal Goodbye’ was a fascinating work from Madeleine Squire with music and co-creative direction from Harry Yefe (Reeps100) who specialises in voice, A.I. and tech-based performance art and who produced and directed the world’s first-ever AI ballet. A poignant moment, this work explored loss and grief.
Matthew Ball, a Royal Ballet principal, choreographed and danced To and Fro with his partner Mayara Magri. Fabulous dancing to Resphigi’s Nottorno (played by Michael Pansters) made this a suitably evocative and moving end to a fascinating evening of choreography and dance.
I’m truly impressed too by the logistics backstage for this show. By chance, I bumped into Lighting Director Prema Mehta before the dancing started and her description of the effort that had gone into that part of the evening made me particularly aware of the impact of the creative and innovative lighting. It’s fair to say that we all too easily overlook the
What makes this evening of dance so special is the diversity of ideas from choreographers around the world. It’s an exciting insight into the future of dance and one that will stay in my mind going forward. Given that this is an annual event I’m diarising now to watch out for next year’s International Draft Works.