28 Sept 2016
At the boundary of ballet and sport is athleticism - and David Bintley's Faster has it to burn. The choreography is pitched high, the pace is hot, and the dancers at their sleekest. Here's Ismene Brown of The Arts Desk on the subject: "Faster fields dancers very fetchingly clothed in skin-tight sports outfits by the new young designer Becs Andrews, attractive takes on gymwear, swimwear, cycling bodysuits, basketball sweats and track athletes’ two-pieces, with a lot of long beautiful legs and washboard stomachs on view."
Artists of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Photography Roy Smiljanic.
Artists of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Photography Roy Smiljanic.
Artists of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Photography Roy Smiljanic.
How do you portray fencing in dance? How about wrestling, or archery, or synchronised swimming? Bintley's ingenious solutions to these conundrums will wow you.
Artists of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Photography Roy Smiljanic.
Artists of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Photography Roy Smiljanic.
The Australian composer Matthew Hindson created a score for David Bintley's Faster that matches the drive and verve of the choreography. On Bachtrack, Naomi Mori described it: "20 different percussions playing complicated rhythms, creating a thrilling and edgy sense of athleticism with a mixture of medieval ceremonial music and heavy metal." Steve Reich will be composing the score for Wayne McGregor's new work; although he's a very different composer to Hindson, he also favours layerings of unusual percussion instruments and surprising elements, so we can expect a high level of audio-stimulation.
Artists of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Photography Roy Smiljanic.
The wunderkind of British dance is now also an establishment power - celebrating ten years as resident choreographer of The Royal Ballet. His incisive eye for hyperbolic, ultra-modern movement (as seen by The Australian Ballet's audiences in works like Chroma and Dyad 1929) is as sharp as ever, and his new one-act work, commissioned to celebrate his anniversary, will show this epoch-shaping choreographer at the top of his form.
Robyn Hendricks and Chengwu Guo. Photo Lynette Wills.
Adam Bull and Amber Scott. Photo Jess Bialek.
Going up against works by heavyweights George Balanchine and Twyla Tharp, Tim Harbour's Filigree and Shadow was the sleeper hit of our 2015 contemporary program 20:21. The edgy, kinetic ballet was housed in a aerodynamically sleek design by architect Kelvin Ho, and washed with stark shadows and emergency greens by designer Benjamin Cisterne. Harbour, our resident choreographer, will team up with once more with Ho and Cisterne to create a one-act companion piece to Filigree and Shadow.
Artists of the Australian Ballet. Photo Kate Longley/Jeff Busby.
