The pursuit of excellence is more often seen in glimpses and flourishes. But if it were to be made obvious anywhere, where better than in the peaking athletic artistry of a world-class youth ballet?
It could seem excessive to devote a whole evening’s programme to the youth company of a national outfit, but the Finnish National Ballet's Youth Company offering at The Linbury Theatre (ROH) put any qualms about this to bed.
For a start, the choreography which the ensemble has been entrusted with feels cutting-edge, nuanced and imaginative as well as evidently challenging. In fact, the sheer athleticism of the high extensions, pirouettes and balances makes you want to run to the gym as this cohort are uniformly finely tuned, lyrical machines.
Fragments of Time
This theme of militancy is curiously explored through the bill, which starts with Julian Nicosia’s Fragments of Time. Here, the company demonstrate their technical prowess and presentation skills with Olympic aplomb as they work with classical formations stemming from two dancers rising in symbiosis from the floor. The visual design of the opening—a rig in silhouette, lowered above these figures—is a nod to the looming machinery of the theatre world they are entering.
Fragments’ score is the symmetry and pomp of J S Bach among other more contemporary names, an ideal partner to this piece of exacting structures and technically triumphant moves.
Clique
Reija Wäre’s Clique cleverly wrong-foots us into thinking we are continuing in the same modern classical vein with the company covered in gold tutu bling and puffed sleeves straight from a Hunger Games version of the Sun King’s court. These outlandish courtiers’ patterns and behaviours move more in circles and natural cliques than the rows of Fragments.
When a figure in red sweats and a t-shirt enters the milieu, played ebulliently by Werneri Voitila, the game changes. We witness the deconstruction of his movements into those of hip-hop, and the company fall into line by mirroring the staggered group implosions and atomising of the genre mixed with ballet technique.
Music by Minna Covisto supports this exciting fusion of periods in which the ensemble fully brings Wäre’s vision to life.
Blushing
Choreographed to express what happens to a person when they ‘blush’, this stunning piece by Marco Goecke has so many potential undertones that it is impossible to distinguish what is intentional.
The black-shirted dancers move in and out of passages with music by Tom Waits and Garbage as well as baring aggressive jumps, claps and motions of flagellation in silences.
But among the gestures that conjure the exercises of military service and convention are nods to moustaches and salutes reminiscent of Chaplain’s The Great Dictator. Unlike another ballet, this piece takes the audience into the training ground of captive adherents who strive and sometimes fail to perform with bravura, sometimes with comical effect.
The company take on this journey into a world of shame and compliance with all the maturity and professionalism the two previous offerings.
The Youth Company of the Finnish National Ballet is, as a platform for elite international talent, a compendium of continents, representing France, the US, Italy, South Korea, the UK (Poppy Downing) and of course Finland. As such, director Javier Torres Lopez has gathered together an A team of movers, technicians and personalities already near the top of their game. No doubt they will continue working on stages as well respected as The Linbury at the ROH.