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Schubert’s “Unfinished” 8th Symphony has been a puzzle and a stimulus for composers and musicologists since it first came to light in 1865. The latest treatment is by Ensemble Klang guitarist Pete Harden, who supplies the soundtrack for Maude Le Pladec’s 2018 Twenty-Seven Perspectives which had its UK premiere at Sadler’s Wells on Monday night.
Billed as a “deconstruction”, Harden’s handling of the original purports to be “built on and emerging from the wreckage of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’”, but the resulting recording is a hard listen on the Wells sound system, at times resembling the distortions of an old CD player in its death throes.
Le Pladec’s title references a series of 27 “esquisses perceptives” made between 1963 and 1968 by Swiss conceptual artist Rémy Zaugg, who deconstructed (that word again) Cézanne’s 1873 “Le Maison du pendu”, restating the painting as a few pencilled words — toit, maison, ciel — on a blank sheet.
Le Pladec’s dancers give a consciously unshowy performance on the stripped-back stage. Their moves are propelled by an outstretched arm that the body must follow, a recurring motif punctuated by ragged jumps, dizzy spins and the occasional freeze-frame in which all 10 hold a balance in unison. Dressed in grungy sportswear, they dance as if doing a run-through, scorning to polish or please.
Le Pladec, a one-time performer with “non-dance” advocate Boris Charmatz, has been director of the National Choreographic Centre of Orléans since 2017. Her Hunted played Sadler’s Wells Lilian Baylis Studio in 2017 but Twenty-Seven Perspectives marks her main stage debut.
★★☆☆☆
No one doubts the Wells’s commitment to cutting-edge dance, but earlier on Monday the Islington theatre demonstrated its stylistic range by hosting the relaunch of London City Ballet. Founded in 1978, the original LCB was the brainchild of South African-born dancer Harold King, whose energy and limitless personal charm secured funding, ballet world favours and the patronage of Diana, Princess of Wales.
King toured his popular pocket productions to small-scale regional venues but money was a constant problem and in 1996 Arts Council England withdrew its support. King saw the decision as more ideological than financial. By the end of the 1990s his company was no more.
The 21st-century London City Ballet is under the direction of seasoned dancer, teacher and choreographer, Christopher Marney. Funded by generous private donations, his 12 dancers will tour for six months each year. Marney is determined to incorporate lesser-known work by the greats (“So much history becomes lost,” he said at the relaunch) and kicks off next summer with a revival of Kenneth MacMillan’s 1972 foursome Ballade at the Theatre Royal in Bath.
As a small boy, Marney got his first taste of ballet in the Essex town of Hornchurch thanks to King’s determination to tour classical dance to places never reached by the big companies: “His commitment to his audience captured my imagination as a child,” he said. “I’ve come full circle.”
‘Twenty-Seven Perspectives’ to October 31, sadlerswells.com
London City Ballet tour begins in Bath, July 17-20, londoncityballet.com
