Rites Draws Raves And Repugnance
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday October 10, 2008
DANCE critics have either loved or loathed this week's London season of Rites, performed by artists of The Australian Ballet and Bangarra Dance Theatre.
Just as the opening-night audience roared its approval of the 11-year-old work by Stephen Page, The Times's critic, Debra Craine, praised Rites as "a work of resonant power and adventurous stylistic contrasts" and the troupes' performances as "outstanding". The Guardian's Judith Mackrell thought there were so many ways in which Page's work could look fake. "Yet to an exemplary degree, the choreography feels shaped from the inside out - its massed organic forms, swarming couplings, and flickering shaman figure charged with true imaginative logic. "This may not be one of the great versions of Rite, largely because it opts to sidestep the drama of the lone sacrificial victim, but it is extraordinarily powerful, and one no other ballet company could offer."In contrast, The Daily Telegraph's Ismene Brown found the choreography "indolently cliched" and the dancers from both companies left a "depressingly mimsy impression". While Craine recognised the Aboriginal dancers' animalistic movement, "crawling, lizard-like in the desert", Brown wondered why they rolled on the ground "in brown loincloths, cocking their bottoms and heads up like eager dogs, spraying water and red dust".There was no mistaking Brown's bad night out at the Sadler's Wells theatre as she also slated Rites as "a paltry, over-promoted use of the Stravinsky" score Rite of Spring. As Page "identifies his style as drawing on 40,000 years of Australian indigenous culture, it's best to conclude that over 40,000 years dance has moved on a great deal".Sarah Frater of the Evening Standard could not discern "a sense of nature's power and mystery. There is a lot of rolling around. Excepting the opening scene, the ballet dancers are ill served. The dancers of Bangara fare little better."
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
Share This