The Stage

Scottish Ballet - Scenes de ballet, Workwithinwork, Petrushka

Published Monday 7 September 2009 at 10:20 by Thom Dibdin

Celebrating its first 40 years in considerable style, Scottish Ballet brings a triple bill of works to the EIF that show off the company’s formality, movement and story-telling prowess.

The formal rigour of Ashton’s Scenes de ballet, set to Stravinsky’s complex rhythms, gives the corps de ballet an intense, geometric background to create. There is no hiding place for individual error here, particularly for the 12 female dancers in their stiff tutus. With the male dancers providing catalyst points this is very much the ballerina’s piece, however, and Claire Robertson proved a graceful equal to its demands.

Movement, seemingly random and with intense concentration on the upper body, provides the hallmark of William Forsythe’s Workwithinwork, danced to excerpts from the short educational violin duets written by Luciano Berio. It is an utterly bewildering, life-affirming piece of choreography, and the company succeeds in bringing all the fluidity and precision needed to ensure its success.

Story is at the heart of Ian Spink’s new choreography for Stravinsky’s music in Petrushka. Updated to the nineties in Yannis Thavoris’ well-executed design, this is the Russia of black-market TVs, backhanders and illicit vodka, where everything, including life, is for sale on the street. With Erik Cavallari an imposing magician figure, Daniel Davidson is a seriously deranged Petrushka, Tama Barry a muscle-bound strongman and Victoria Willard a long-legged showgirl as his captive entertainers.

If the narrative is action-packed, the street dance-orientated choreography - which features strong elements of break dance, but a rather slight nod in the direction of pole dancing - is not quite as satisfying. There’s no disputing that this is triple bill which sees the company in great heart.