Lauren Anderson in Houston's 'Cleopatra'. Photo by Drew Donovan
Judith Mackrell discusses the state of narrative ballet, using various examples including the above and William Tuckett's soon to be unveiled 'The Crucible' for the Royal Ballet. She makes the memorable comment at the end, 'Perhaps if the public stopped looking for novels or plays on pointe then choreographers would be freer to do their job. The story ballet may not be dead, just waiting for its audience to catch up.'
Story ballets are by far the most popular here in the UK, which may explain that some 75-80% of dance audiences for the subsidised companies are for ballet and what ballet audiences want is full length story ballets. You can get last minute seats for the RB Triples; the full-lengthers have 2x the number of performances and are always sold out. It's enough to make you despair sometimes. As the rest of world arts enters the 21st Century, I sometimes wish that the UK would enter the 20th.
http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/Print/0,3858,3980834,00.html [This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited 04-01-2000).]
<small>[ 20 December 2002, 09:47 PM: Message edited by: Azlan ]</small>