Tim Rushton:
Monolith
& The End of Loneliness
Wang Yuanyuan:
Dead Fire
Dansk Danseteater & Beijing Dance Theater
Royal Theatre, Old Stage
May 10, 2012
Tim Rushton has taken modern dance in Denmark from the entrepreneur stage to a high professional level during his 11 years leadership of Dansk Dansetater, the main and mainstream modern dance company in Denmark. And he very deservely received the highest accolade in the performance industry last week, "The Bikuben Honour Award" presented annually to a major force in the industry (Nikolaj Hübbe, Thomas Lund and Sijla Schandorff are former honorees). Rushton, who was also made an MBE in his native country Great Britain is now going international with works for companies like Rambert Ballet and an American tour next year to Washington, New York and Boston.
Unfortunately his joint venture with Bejing Dance Theate, which formed the core of this programme proved not to be a match made in heaven.
The Old Stage at the Royal Theatre is far from unknown territory for Tim Rushton who was a member of the Royal Danish Ballet and had both his debut as a choreographer as well as a number of succesfull works made for the RDB, before and simultaniously as being the leader of Dansk Danseteater. He remains a welcome guest on the Royal stage and his troupe has had seveal succesful performances here. After building DD to a high levell, Rushton is now taking on the world.
The first ballet "Monolith" was created for Ballet Rambert and is a well functioning piece, inspired by Stonehenge and tribal life. Rushton moves his dancers around in small ever changing ensembles. It is nice enough but not really that surprising. It fells like a professional oewre but not as the result of a burning need to choreograph this piece. The blandness might be the result of the fact that most choreographers does their best work on their own troupe.
This fact may also be the reasom why the two remaining pieces by Rushton and Wang Yuanyuan done on each others troupe failed to impress. But the reason might also be that what goes for modern Dance in Europe and China is very different. The Bejing troup was strong dancers with a discipline and movement pattern clearly based on the classical ballet. where as DD's dancers are grounded modern dancers.
Wang Yyanyuan choregraphed an unimpressive work for RDB "Colour of Love" some seasons back and her "Death Fire" for DD seems to focus more on stage effects like wind machines and a feather covered floor than creating something for the DD dancers.
Rushtons "Les Noces" inspired work "The End of Loneliness" for the Chinese troup was effective and highlighted the skills of the dancers but it could not be called a victory for modern dance.
The process of international cooperation is allways a worthy cause, but trying to mix different cultures and traditions do seldom lead to artistic succes and the foundations are too different. 4 years ago Rushton choregraphed a joint venture "Cinderella" for RDB and DD. It felt flat on its face as the premise of classical dancers and modern dancers doing the same steps and sharing roles made the common ground too limited.
The best advise I can give Rushton is to stop being the United Nations of the ballet world and concentrate on what he does so well, creating works for his own troupe. I would rather be wauved by strong choregraphy than part of an international dancealong. The lift Rushton has given the modern dance in Denmark is impressive and one of the reasons why RDB can leave the modern obligation to DD and concentrate on a more classical repertoire. That is the kind of peaceful co-existence that makes sense for me and the dance environment.
Photos. Dansk Danseteater
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