Thursday 9th March was the date of my latest event, this one once more at Sadlers Wells in London. The home of Dance, a fitting venue to see one of the most famous international stars perform. The show was ‘Turn it Out’ featuring Tiler Peck & Friends.
Peck – ‘The Great American Ballerina’ was to make her London debut on the stage at Sadlers Wells. It was a premier to be a part of that is for sure. Tiler has long been a leading light of the New York City Ballet where she is celebrated for her musicality and dynamism. An evening of Dance guided by Tiler’s irrepressible curiosity for movement featuring Tiler Peck herself alongside a diverse range of creators including Tap Virtuoso Michelle Dorrance. Contemporary classical choreographer Alonzo King and musical artist Caroline Shaw to name but a few of her Friends.
Backtracking to the journey for a moment.. First thing to say is, overnight, it had snowed. Typical. Not too much but enough to make everything wet and slippy. I was heading into town anyway today first thing so once that was taken care of I walked up to Moorfields and jumped the train one stop to Lime Street – Saving the walk up hill to the station. I boarded the train from Lime Street just fine and arrived at Crewe. Then things fell apart. The 13:13 connection I was waiting on was cancelled due to a shortage of train crew, with the next one another hour later at 14:13. This got me into Euston for 16:34 and I finally reached the Hotel at 17:30. A short 30 minutes later I would have to be back out again and on the DLR / Tube in order to get to Angel and Sadlers Wells. Thankfully I arrived with plenty of time to grab a programme, get a drink and take my seat.
The Premier night was ‘sold-out’ but the house wasn’t full.. I guess some people were put off by the weather, although in London, I haven’t seen any snow on the ground. My mistake this time around was buying an alcoholic drink from Sadlers Wells.. I forgot the extreme pricing… A Jack Daniels (single) and coke… £10! So I took my expensive drink and found my seat. Here’s a view from it. Q31 again.
The evening’s entertainment consisted of four pieces: Thousandth Orange (choreography by Tiler Peck), Swift Arrow (choreography by Alonzo King), Time Spell (choreography by Michelle Dorrance, Jillian Meyers and Tiler Peck, in collaboration with and improvisation by the dancers) and The Barre Project, Blake Works II (choreography by William Forsythe).
Ok so before I start.. I have to say I don’t have the greatest understand of Ballet. It’s not what I’d consider my favourite type of dance, but I can appreciate talent when I get to see it. If the pieces we got to see tonight were run in the order in which they were published in the programme (as above) then here goes…
Thousandth Orange.. This was a very slow ballet. It featured six dancers alongside live music played on-stage by a Violin, Viola, Cello and a Piano. To me.. the music sounded extremely disjointed, out of tune and a whole lot of noise. It didn’t really have much of a rhythm that I heard. It was composed by Caroline Shaw and Tiler Peck did the choreography for this piece but she did not perform it it. I have to be completely honest.. It didn’t light a fight up inside me nor did it seem to push the talented dancers to their limits. I was actually a little disappointed in this one.
Swift Arrow was the second piece in the evening’s entertainment. It started after a short fade to black and curtain drop. Choreographed by Alonzo King with Music by Jason Moran, Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia performed this duet together. The Piano was again on the stage and played again by Shu-Wei Tseng. There were some mistakes in the performance from the Piano but they were masked a lot better by the nature of the music being much more coherent. The dance itself was a little faster paced, still very much ballet but as a duet it worked and this being the first time I got to see Tiler Peck perform on stage.. I felt the bar was raised significantly with this piece. It was on the short side and finished with a curtain call as before.
This time however there was a good 10-15 minute break in proceedings as the stage was stripped and reset for the third piece of the night. I am not sure why there was such a delay. It seemed at some points like there could have been a problem back stage, but really that’s just wild speculation at this point. It seemed a long time to keep the house in semi-darkness with nothing happening on stage. – It gave me time only to notice that the Sadlers Wells curtains could use a good dusting. Finally ‘Time Spell’ started. This was mostly a Tap Dance performance with Choreography by Michelle Dorrance on the tap side of things, with later involvement of more ballet which was co-created by Jillian Meyers and Tiler Peck. Tap – not really my type of dance either but it was interesting to see how the different forms of dance came together on the stage and how everything worked together.
The music for this piece was different. Aaron Marcellus Sanders and Penelope Wendlandt both performed live and Penelope was using live-looping and triggering to layer the sounds they were creating together. This worked incredibly well and together with some of the Tap sounds being used as percussion throughout a good beat was developed to dance to. The stage started with a single tap platform towards the rear of the stage where Michelle Dorrance started to dance. The audio from the tap she was performing was used to gather the other dancers on to the stage. Later on a three-tiered platform is revealed at down stage left, this is where the Musicians were stood for most of the time. Later the musicians started to dance too which I found interesting, as their movements added to the Tap dance elements at play. Another tap surface was slid on to stage later on in the piece allowing for a line of four dancers to tap together. Finally the tap dancers were joined on stage by the rest of the dancers including Tiler Peck and Tap & Ballet co-existed together in harmony. This piece was so much faster in every sense. The music drove the motion and towards the end a party-esk style of composition was created allowing for some improvisation by the dancers. Several different styles and genre of Dance were collaborated together on the stage. This deserved and got a huge round of applause from the audience.
Then came the interval. But something strange happened. Half the audience seemed confused as to if the event was over or if it was the interval. At least half of the audience left, thinking it was the end. Some came back, but not all. There was confusion as to what was going on, as between Swift Arrow and Time Spell there was an unofficial interval too.
When the dancers returned to the stage following this 20 minute break, they did so performing ‘The Barre Project, Blake Works II’ which was choreographed by the one and only William Forsythe. Music was by James Blake and four dancers (including Peck) performed the piece on the Barre which was positioned at the back of the stage in the centre. There was space behind it, no mirror and a lot of space from the bar to the edge of the stage. The choreography in this piece was simply outstanding. This was worth the wait. Showing that ballet itself and ballet on the barre can be more than what the name suggests. It can be exhilarating, fresh, innovative and inspiring.
The dancers in turn worked on and off the barre with Peck starting off proceedings before venturing towards the centre of the stage but all returning back to the barre throughout their own choreography. This piece featured a part where video was projected on to a curtain place in front of the dancers, and it was of hands on the barre, as if it was being played as a piano. The final piece was.. a little on the sort side. Especially considering that there was a 20 minute interval to sit through before this final piece played out. ‘Time Spell’ seemed longer and would have in my opinion have been a better way to close the show. A rapturous round of applause and holla’s from the crowd followed the conclusion of this piece and the end of the night. Tiler was as impressive as a dancer as her billing suggested she would be. But I think the telling indication of audience satisfaction was in the fact that although the applause was great, loud and long, nobody stood up. No standing ovation.
Why this was the case.. I don’t know. I cannot speak for anybody else but myself and the reason I didn’t stand was I thought that Tiler Peck was an outstanding dancer, she really did perform to the standard that one should expect of a leading NYC Ballet dancer, and she is known for Performing, Choreographing and Curating Dance, but this was to be her Directorial debut. While each individual piece was interesting and entertaining, I am not sure about their juxtaposition alongside each other. I am wondering if the audience thought along the same lines as me.
I wonder if this has been an opportunity to bring some kind of performance to the UK and it has been a case of selecting a variety of work to showcase together… I’ve seen it before where dancers who are outstanding performers or choreographers in their own right do themselves a mis-service when it comes to combining everything together. I wonder if the show as a whole would have been better received if for example Tiler was simply performing other people’s choreography in each of the pieces selected for the show tonight.. Rather than try to dabble at every role rather than to utilise the talent of those around you.
I don’t know.. Perhaps I am completely wrong, but I’ve seen many a performance at Sadlers Wells now and this was the first one where I’ve not seen the audience clambering to get on their feet at the end of the show. There’s got to be some reason for that not being the case this time out. To summarise.. Tiler Peck.. fantastic dancer, choreographer and curator. Will be interesting to see what she comes up with next.
