Millepied’s Romeo and Juliet Suite – REVIEW
Image: Source: Daniel Bond, Supplied.
Benjamin Millepied and his dance company the LA Dance Project are offering Australian audiences a rare opportunity to see the work of a renowned French choreographer which combines dance with theatre and film.
Millepied (which literally means “mille” one thousand, and “pied” feet – how appropriate for the director of a dance troupe!) expands the arena of performance into the audience space and other areas of the Opera House.
For example, we view the famous pas-de-deux via the immediacy of film as it takes place on the open concours beneath the opera house sails under the night sky.
A large screen above the stage at various times reveals the patterns of the dancers from above, or, for example, when a man with a handheld camera, Sebastien Marcovici, follows the fight between Tybalt and Romeo down into the bowels of the theatre itself and it is projected onto the screen above.
This expansionist use of theatre space lends an immediacy to Shakespeare’s tragic story, removing the dancers from the protective constraints of the stage.
Romeo and Juliet Suite is “a real pleasure to watch”
Millepied further challenges our expectations by varying the principals’ gender parings, so on opening night it was Romeo and Romeo, while on another night it will be Juliet and Juliet. There’s something for everyone here, literally.
Millepied’s choreography was a thrill to watch as his dancers moved in quite unexpected ways, and yet there was a realism in the performance in the way the dancers walked on and off to the wardrobe section lining one edge of the stage, or drifted away casually after fulfilling a particular set.
The ensemble work of the dance troupe was a real pleasure to watch, and the minimal costumes were perfect for the production.
If I had to criticise anything, it was that the most dramatic section of the score – the Dance of the Knights – lost the drama of Prokofiev’s wildly oscillating violins by being performed backstage on film where the dancers appeared to be squashed together in a nightclub that was far too small for the grand demands of the music.
Unfortunately, only excerpts of Prokofiev’s beautiful suite were used in this production, so it lacked the emotional build-up of Shakespeare’s tragic story which Prokofiev followed so carefully.
On opening night, David Adrian Freeland Jr and Mario Gonzalez danced Romeo and Juliet respectively and there was not a dry eye in the house by the end of the fateful final scene.
Go and see this ballet by Millepied and his LA Dance Project. You’ll never see another ballet like it ever again.
Romeo and Juliet Suite
Joan Sutherland Hall, Sydney Opera House
Closes Sunday June 9th, tickets here
You May Also Like
