KVT – Contemporary Ballet “Minus”

MINUS A BIG PLUS

The National Ballet is making great progress.

In 2010/11 its dancers have been able to work with some outstanding contemporary choreographers and whenever a contemporary dance company is ever established in Hanoi (the sooner the better) there will be a lot of good dancers to choose from.

Thursday night at Nha Hat Lon saw young dancers from the VNBO (Vietnam National Opera and Ballet) in Minus, a 50 minute piece choreographed for them by Nguyen Ngoc Anh, a very talented Vietnamese dancer and choreographer who is mainly based in England.

Ngoc Anh has danced with Wayne Mcgregor’s very brilliant Random Dance Company, a company that is resident at Sadler’s Wells Theater in London, and he has obviously learned much from McGregor who has choreographed and created dances for a host of the world’s most prestigious dance companies including the Royal Ballet and the New York City Ballet.

Ngoc Anh adopts McGregor’s very physically testing style of choreography using a minimal stage setting and video graphics that enhance the mood of the piece. I really liked the way in which the large, portable sheets of perspex plastic were used as frames, lens, reflectors, stage props and screens.

Metal type music has to be used wisely in contemporary dance so that it doesn’t subsume the movement and though, at times, Minus was almost swamped, it managed to draw back in like an ebbing tide and flow the viewer into a calmer space. Sometimes those spaces were exceptionally beautiful – like in the very grounded pas de deux. A great soundtrack throughout!

It was an exciting night of dance, very raw at times, a little callow, but energisingly physical. For the relatively young choreographer it is a necessary work in progress that can be refined and transposed according to dancers’ abilities and companies’ monetary constraints. Hopefully it remains a part of the VNOB repertoire. The VNOB dancers are developing a lovely dramatic stage presence and when cultural mores allow, this will include eros and passion. At times, during Minus, we almost got there.

Minus is a very necessary and timely dance piece for the young, athletic and lithe dancers of the company…and the women are suddenly pushing their way into the spotlight that was once the domain of the male dancers.

Minus was not brilliant but it was stimulating and if it had a longer season I’d definitely go more than once more.

Congrats to the company and many, many thanks Ngoc Anh for sharing your creative talent. And, please, MORE! Much more.