One hundred years ago, at the apex of Modernism, Stravinsky and Nijinska put together Les Noces—a ballet about community. At least, Stravinsky heard it as the story of a young woman leaving her family for another, and Nijinska saw it as the tragedy of an arranged marriage.
Meanwhile, Stravinsky was composing The Rite of Spring, a piece so avant-garde for the time that its première featured punches thrown by members of an established theatre audience. It’s fair to say that both artists were busily creating an aesthetic of their evolving, industrial society as injected by the glamour of their peers—Coco Chanel and Nijinska’s famous brother, Nijinsky, among them.
New Movement Collective’s centennial celebration of Les Noces, in the cool, industrial refurb of Woolwich Works, was never going to incite violence. Combining the formidable talent pools of Opera Holland Park, Company Chameleon Youth and ENB Youth Company, this evening of responses to the original work is made for the arts savant rather than a populist theatre audience duped into witnessing innovation.
The craftsmanship of the three works presented is evident from the start. Appels, a sound piece by Andrea Balency-Béarn, punctuates the dim-lit catwalk environment of the auditorium with ritual bell sounds, percussive riffs and lively pauses, echoing the instrumental choices of the original. Choral sounds move in and out of awareness in precise waves. I feel that Njinska would appreciate the visual identity of this piece—Musicians stand behind two black table surfaces, their arms hanging in wait for instruction from Conductor, Yshani Perinpanayagam, carrying the hunger and energy of a night-club come jungle. The piece succeeds in claiming and holding our attention with exactness and skill until transitioning to the next offering.
Cage Letters, an operatic solo by Yshani Perinpanayagam based on the love letters of composer John Cage to choreographer Merce Cunningham, continues with Appels’ palpable tone of melancholy and is genuinely moving in its mix of colloquial phrases and romantic hyperbole. Sung by Ross Ramgobin with pristine modulation and accompanied by Perinpanayagam, this solo is a smooth preface to New Movement Collective’s Les Noces.
Dancers approach the runway / stage. They lay out clothes in a ritual that will then see them dressing and redressing each other. The ensemble move in one organic cohort of white, beige and grey that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Zara commercial but which hints at the binary dark and white peasant outfits of the original ballet.
The group’s movement upstage entails seamless and sinuous motions of contact choreography in one of the most fluid iterations of the form I’ve seen. Each dancer appears as a very well oiled machine, lost in both individual effort and that of their community. The contemporary clothing—soft trousers, T-shirts, jackets—creates an image of corporate conformity, adding a layer to the strict angles and social commentary of the Nijinska version. Primal circling and tugging on ropes made of the community’s clothes effectively binds together a moving image of social pressure and the plight of the individual within it.
A change of light signifies the beginning of a further deconstruction of group dynamics in Rhythmic Resurgence—a beatbox, breakdance fusion by MC Zani, performed by Jack Hobbs on mic and Company Chameleon. This sequencing of rocking, popping, dropping and power moves brings Gen Z buoyancy and optimism to the party. The youth company present humourful and engaging sequences that celebrate individuals and harmony within the group as well as the visual mechanics of breakdance.
In fact, it could be said that, while the formal structures and historic provenance of Appels and Cage Letters might appeal to Baby Boomers in the audience, the contemporary treatment of Les Noces might chime more with Gen Xs and Millennials, leaving beatboxing as an offering to Gen Z.
These departures from Stravinsky and Nijinska’s Les Noces all convey an essence of the original work. But it may be that the audiences they appeal to give them future lives in very different settings.