- Mahler and Dance
Poetic Song and Dance
Back to the Playhouse for another superb evening of dance with the world renowned Rambert Dance Company and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. In a specially conceived programme by the Festival, Mahler and Dance, three song cycles by Mahler are the starting point for three works, Dark Elegies, Five Rucker Songs and Songs of a Wayfarer. This latter piece is a world premiere by Kim Brandstrup and set to the four poems of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, which relate the sadness of unrequited love. To the rich tones of baritone Gerald Finley, an ensemble of seven dancers dressed in pale blue and grey T shirts and trousers presented a series of encounters, duets, solo work, with exquisite sense of time, tempo and precise effortless movement. It was beautiful to watch and listen.
Five Ruckert Songs was choreographed by Peter Darrell, the founder of Scottish Ballet, in 1978 and immediately received great critical attention. As Geoffrey Baskerville described it "a masterpiece - some of the most searching and emotionally demanding sequences of solo dancing written in recent years." Today it is seen as one of Darrell's signature works.
Ruckert's five poetic songs, set to Mahler's haunting music, provides the perfect narrative. A woman dances as in a dream, her long skirt swirling, reminiscing on youth and lost romance. She appears fragile yet her thoughts expressed through song show courage. "If you love youth, don't love me, love the spring which is young every year." Enhanced by beautiful costumes by Yolanda Sonnabend, Angela Towler is an exquisite, watchable dancer - she moves from moments of carefree abandon to thoughtful cool, serenity, each scene matched by the clarity of voice of singer Jane Irwin. The final scene as the woman decides her fate, turns and walks away, is a theatrical gem.
Antony Tudor's Dark Elegies, created in 1937 is now a classic work from the original Ballet Rambert repertoire. Mahler's song cycle Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the death of children), provides the storyline in which a small rural village has experienced tragedy with the death of their children. While perhaps initially referring to the Spanish Civil war, today it can reflect on all wars and a community disaster. The backdrop of mountains, distant seashore and country fields where the peasants are working provides a bleak landscape. The villagers come together in grief, joining in a ritualistic country dance to release the tension of their dark feelings. The words of the song voice their disbelief at the death of their loved ones. "Soon they will come home.... we will catch up with them on those hills in the sunshine".
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