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Goldberg Variations

Published Tuesday 22 September 2009 at 11:25 by Gavin Roebuck

This collaboration between Tamara Rojo and Kim Brandstrup is ROH2’s first commission this season and it’s disappointing that the management did this rather than support some of the aspiring choreographers from the Royal Ballet.

Set in a tall grey rehearsal studio with a long ladder up to a window (designed by Richard Hudson) and featuring seven dancers dressed in muted colours, this is supposed to offer an intriguing insight into the nature of dance rehearsal and the intense, intimate relationships dancers have with each other. It is unfortunately a self-regarding and indulgent piece of choreography. There is a limit to the number of times one can bear to watch a dancer walk on stage, take a swig out of a water bottle then lie down and stretch, or view cartwheels. It could have been fascinating to see the street dancers working with ballet and contemporary dancers, especially as they all had a high standard. Maybe this was an interesting experience for the performers to undergo, though hardly a revelatory one, and perhaps it appeals to the voyeurism of some of the public, who like to watch rehearsals more than performances but this hotch-potch stew didn’t have an attractive flavour of its own. It was a wasted opportunity as the scrappy movement fragments were dull, save for a solo by Thomas Whithead and a duet with Steven McRae and Tamara Rojo. However, it was a delight to hear Bach’s Goldberg Variations with Philip Gammon at the piano.

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