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Topic: A hint of sexy Mick Jagger swagger (National Ballet of Canada) Return to archive
6th March 2008 07:21 AM
moy A hint of sexy Mick Jagger swagger
Christopher Bruce sets his battle of the sexes to music from the Rolling Stones
PAULA CITRON
March 6, 2008

REHEARSALS AND INTERVIEW (check it out)
http://www.national.ballet.ca/swf/videoplayer.swf?videoBuffer=15&videoURL=/videofiles/performances/Rooster_interview.flv&videoWidth=480&videoHeight=320

When choreographer Christopher Bruce was coming of age in the British Midlands, he belonged to a tight society of male friends who were escaping their parents' domination by celebrating their sexuality openly. He was also a chauvinist who was totally lacking in his understanding of what and who women were. "The ballet Rooster, set to early Rolling Stones songs, is a reflection of memories of myself as a young man," Bruce says.

Bruce conceived the work as a tongue-in-cheek look at the battle of the sexes from the viewpoint of the 1960s. "Rooster is not just a string of songs," he says of the work, which will make its debut this Saturday as part of the National Ballet of Canada's winter mixed program. "I constructed a thematic arc whose droll surface is underlain by serious issues."

Performed by 10 dancers, it comprises eight Rolling Stones songs and, for Bruce, the early incarnation of Mick Jagger and friends represents all the dangerous notions he entertained when he was growing up.

As Bruce describes each section, one can hear the 62-year-old's memories of his misbegotten youth come flooding back.



Little Red Rooster, which opens the ballet, presents a preening cockerel ready to go out for a great night on the town, and Jagger himself is certainly the subtext here.

Lady Jane hints at the breakdown of the British class structure with the Sloan Ranger debutantes playing risky sexual games with working-class boys. Not Fade Away is a dance about dancing. As Tears Go By is the heart of the ballet. Set in a playground and using the metaphor of children, their cruel behaviour to each other is a harbinger of the adults they will become.

Paint It Black encompasses all of the hearts Bruce has broken, danced by a single man surrounded by beautiful women. Ruby Tuesday depicts a tragic flower child. In Play With Fire, the battle of the sexes comes to a boiling point, while the Sympathy For The Devil finale sums up the political rebellion and changing attitudes of the Sixties.

Says Bruce, who was born in 1945 in Leicester: "I think I achieved wisdom when I was in my 20s because of women's liberation and other iconoclast movements of the era. The ending of Rooster hints at that sociopolitical upheaval."

For feminists thinking that Rooster is a male chauvinist paradise, Bruce has words of encouragement. "The women give as good as they get," he says. "They may be ironic and suffering, but they also laugh at the men as conceited cocks."

(Bruce has had a long and happy marriage, and his wife, Marian, did the costume design for Rooster; Bruce works sparingly these days so he can spend more time with his family and indulge his passion for gardening.)

The piece is the first of Bruce's works to enter the repertoire of the National Ballet. Originally created in 1991 for Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Rooster is one of the British choreographer's most popular works; the National is only the fifth company to which the very selective Bruce has given this ballet.

National artistic director Karen Kain considers this weekend's entire mixed program (which also includes Jiri Kylian's Soldiers' Mass and Marie Chouinard's 24 Preludes) to be daring because there is not a pointe shoe to be seen.

Principal Xiao Nan Yu performs Ruby Tuesday. "Classical ballet rises in a crisp attack upward from the top of the body, and the feet begin in turn-out positions," she explains. "Rooster's choreography is straight, sharp, jerky and soft. Being barefoot is very hard on me because you turn and twist using different muscles. As a result, my turn-in quads are fighting with my turn-out ones and it hurts. This style is totally opposite to my classical training, but I love doing it."

When principal Aleksandar Antonijevic first saw a video of the ballet, he knew he wanted to be Rooster Man. "People think of me as a prince in white tights, but they'll see me in a different light in this ballet. It's a blast dancing it. The movement is cheeky and modern, but there's a lot going on underneath. This is not a piece about technique. It is about humanity and reality."

Of course, the work is not without its controversies; some dance purists regard a ballet set to Rolling Stones music as part of a dumbing-down process. But both Bruce and Kain bristle at the thought. "If Rooster weren't a worthy ballet, it would have sunk like a stone," Bruce says.

Says Kain: "The Rolling Stones may be part of my personal history, which is why I love the ballet, but I know that young people today can connect to the thoughtful piece that Christopher has created. ... Ballet today can't survive in the ivory tower of the classics. A dancer needs to be stimulated by many styles because we are naturally curious. We are artists, not snobs."

The National's mixed program runs at Toronto's Four Seasons Centre March 8 to 16.
6th March 2008 08:23 AM
Mr Jurkka That
should
be
interesting.

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