To be honest, I would have fallen off my chair if the elegant prose of Mr Crisp had been expressing positive comments about this performance:

Spain's Euro Glums come to London
By Clement Crisp for The Financial Times


Not a single Ole{'}. Not a dusty flounce, nor an affronted stare - well, not from the stage, anyway. Spain has sent the Compañia Nacional de Danza to the Wells this week, but I suspect that the troupe's real title is Nederlands Dans Theater Four. Here are all those drear procedures of the Euroglum manner: the wormy contortions and the aggressively flexed feet, the dismal costumes, the dank air and the dark motives, and the general feeling that costive emotions bring no less clogged movement. The reason for all this, I venture, is that the company is directed by Nacho Duato, alumnus of the Cullberg and Nederlands Dans ensembles, and a dedicated apostle of their neurotic and doom-laden aesthetic.

The programme offers three of Duato's choreographies. I suppose you could tell one from another, if you wanted to, but it was hard to want to. When sprightly and athletic, as in Txalaparta, the dance looked like a meeting of St Vitus-Watchers Anonymous. When laying into the music of Corelli and Scarlatti, in Arcangelo, it was blank and trod heavily on the scores.

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<small>[ 27 March 2003, 05:36 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

I feel so proud of myself! I didn't bother to look at the byline for the review above, but I immediately recognized Clement Crisp's style.

Yes, it is a fine style and to be honest djb, you might have lost points if you didn't recognise it.

The thing is that from where i sat, (not far from Mr Crisp), I saw beautiful dancers performing well-crafted dance, most easily decribed as of the NDT school, which is applauded in most parts of the world, except in the UK newspapers. I had a good time, particularly with the final work, "White Darkness".

Mr Crisp is an important dance historian and archivist and those who have attended his dance history lectures enthuse greatly over his wit and erudition.

However as a critic who dislikes among others the Kylian School, Christopher Bruce, Matthew Bourne and William Forsythe, I take his judgements, outside of the work of the major world ballet companies, with a pinch of salt.

<small>[ 27 March 2003, 05:46 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

I should have elaborated - I recognized his caustic style.

I wish they had presented "Castratti" instead -- Crisp's reaction would have been priceless.

And doesn't the FT have any stringers to relieve Crisp of the agony of reviewing all the companies he clearly doesn't like?

<small>[ 27 March 2003, 01:40 PM: Message edited by: Malcolm Tay ]</small>

Your point about back-up is well taken Malcolm, but the answer is - no. It would be a good idea to have someone like Luke Jennings or Keith Watson, who both enjoy a wide range of recent modern dance, to cover that aspect of the London season.

Now I'm beginning to suspect that having Crisp review everyone just keeps things interesting for FT readers :p

Yes, but there are lots of things, especially by the smaller companies, that he will not go to see.

<small>[ 27 March 2003, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

This is not the first time that it has occured to me that Sadler's Wells must be even more of a brilliant dance venue than I thought. I sat not very far from Mr. Crisp on Tuesday night but he clearly cannot have watched the same performance I saw. Maybe there is another stage there not visible to everybody?
I saw a company of beautifully musical dancers perform fluently elegant choreography. I will post more comments later but for now I would recommend to people to go and judge for themselves. This evening of dance is well worth seeing.

I would actually find Crisp's writing entertaining if it were, for instance, in a movie or a book, but not when he's writing about real people.

Compania Nacional de Danza
Judith Mackrell
Friday March 28, 2003

When George Balanchine compared himself to a cook he meant to demystify the extraordinary artfulness with which he made his ballets. But a chef can work with the finest ingredients and still bungle a meal - and so can choreographers.
As director of Spain's leading dance company, Nacho Duato has superb forces at his disposal. His dancers possess exquisite musical reflexes, their bodies display that mix of extravagant talent and hardworking modesty that makes for a perfectly unified, responsive troupe.

The designs are executed on a spectacular scale and the costume are beautifully styled and cut. And Duato himself has talent. His combination of glowing, stretchy moves and rhythmic deformations, his ability to freeze quirky human sculpture out of a burst of speed, all add up to real style, and his eye is extraordinary.

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Spain falls mainly on the plain
By Debra Craine for The Times


THE Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato was responsible for one of the lowest points in Ross Stretton’s brief directorship of the Royal Ballet. His tedious Por vos muero, acquired by Stretton in an effort to modernise the Covent Garden ballet, made one’s heart sink and one’s soul despair for the future.

Duato is back in London to try again, this time with his own Madrid-based company, Compañía Nacional de Danza. For their week-long season at Sadler’s Wells the Spaniards are showcasing three of Duato’s most recent creations. None, I’m happy to report, is as bad as Por vos muero.

The choreographer spent years dancing with Jirí Kylián’s Netherlands Dance Theatre, and Kylián’s influence is everywhere to be felt in Duato’s liquid-pure dances.

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Compañía Nacional de Danza
Reviewed by Jann Parry for The Observer.

No such relief from Nacho Duato, whose choreography for his Madrid-based Compañía Nacional de Danza is in a constant state of tension. For White Darkness, to doom-laden music by Karl Jenkins, he surrounds a suffering senior couple with hyperactive youngsters. Death claims the central pair in Arcangelo, a series of anguished encounters to airs by Corelli and Scarlatti. The duets are emotional macramé, tying the dancers in knots.

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Compania Nacional de Danza
By Jenny Gilbert for The Independent on Sunday

Too bad the dancers of the Compania Nacional de Danza, "Spain's foremost modern dance company", couldn't nip over to South Bank for a look. They are marvellous technicians, schooled – like Nunn and Trevitt – in the precision of classical style but intent – again like Nunn and Trevitt – on applying that technique to other ends. The trouble is that their material isn't half as good as they are.

Nacho Duato – the company's artistic director – is a great one for theatrical effects. At Sadler's Wells his dancers got hoisted to the ceiling, showered on by rice, upstaged by free-floating giant mobiles and walled up in gold leaf. They also gave their hearts and souls to do their best for Duato's choreography – all to very little effect.

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