Elements of an Adult Nature: British Ballet Feat. Boy George

Before The Royal Ballet premiered Polyphonia / Sweet Violets / Carbon Life, ‘ballet’ and ‘Boy George’ were unlikely to have been uttered in the same sentence, but the company’s springtime triple bill is riddled with the unexpected. Nonetheless, the tickets did set up something of a surprise, featuring the small print: ‘contains elements of an adult nature’, an unlikely disclaimer to any Royal Opera House occasion.

With intermittent murmurs of ‘Mark Ronson’ drifting across the auditorium throughout the evening, I felt that appreciation for Polyphonia and Sweet Violets was distracted somewhat by the resounding anticipation for the closing act. Purely from having scanned the twitter trends, all I knew of Carbon Life was that Mr.Ronson would be playing bass to orchestration by Rufus Wainwright, and that it was probably going to be #cool. In an interview with choreographer Wayne McGregor, he described the ballet’s underling premise as an exploration into “what the potential of a body is”, whilst also divulging his hopes that the production would attract a younger crowd. During the interval, Kate Moss was washing her hands at the sink opposite, and when she later joined DJ and television presenter Nick Grimshaw over at the Champagne bar, I knew that McGregor would be sleeping soundly that night. The gentleman seated next to me seemed to have been awoken from his interval slumber by the stentorian sounds of Ronson’s band, which featured other big names such as Alison Mosshart, Boy George, and Jonathan Pierce from The Drums. As this audience member gaped at the eighteen dancers’ sexual, sculptural performances in what can only be described as undergarments, I still remain unsure as to whether his stupefied expression was one of marvel or horror. Carbon Life begins in calm, with the dancers moving languidly behind iridescent gauze, illuminated by Lucy Carter’s gorgeous, buttery lighting-effects. They then transform from foetal beginnings into more physically demanding formations: the gauze is lifted, and the cast become progressively carbonized by Gareth Pugh’s Lady-Gaga-esque costume designs; never before have I seen electric, effortless flexibility in such seemingly constricting garments. Edward Watson and Olivia Cowley are paired in an aggressive wrestle scene, and the melting of échappés into hip-hop gyrations typifies the production’s hybrid choreography. Whether Carbon Life incites raving or revulsion, McGregor must surely be merited for teasing the limits of what will and will not be called ballet.

Out of the three productions, Liam Scarlett’s Sweet Violets is the most traditional. It has the strongest narrative roots, centring on the brutal Camden Town murders of the early 1900s, with Johan Kobborg taking on the role of the illustrious painter Walter Sickert, and Leanne Cope as the prostitute victim Emily Dimmock. The set-design was a masterwork of mirroring, with the bravura show of translucent paint clearly echoing Sickert’s own gritty painterly style. I found that the set redeemed the forgettable Rachmaninoff score, and I applaud Scarlett’s accommodation of the performance space. In the small seedy bed-sit for example, the brass headboard functioned perfectly for polished barre work, and in the final scene, in which room was limited, Steve McRae (as Jack the Ripper) defied gravity by prancing manically across the walls. Unsettlingly, Scarlett makes murder a graceful affair through the erotically charged duets, but their effect is let down by a convoluted plot, as elusive and perplexing as Sickert’s own shady life.

Olivier Award-winning Polyphonia delights from the outset with a performance by the full cast to ‘Désordre’ from Etudes I, No.1. Christopher Wheeldon’s choreography refreshingly re-imagines the language of classical ballet, as innovative dance sequences are set like an animation reel to the staccato piano pieces of contemporary Hungarian composer György Ligeti. Concomitantly chaotic and sleek, the opening number prepares for the style of orderly disorder maintained throughout – a cast of eight dancers clad in plum slip in and out of crisp synchronization, complementing the fugue aspects of Ligeti’s score. Beatriz Stix-Brunell, Yuhui Chloe, and Itziar Mendizabal are particularly mesmerizing in their tongue-in-cheek clockwork movements to Invention (1948). Aside from the swearing in Black Cobain’s rap lyric backing to Carbon Life, an obvious ‘adult’ element in this triple bill is the nudity scene in Sweet Violets; unlike McGregor and Scarlett’s productions, which respectively host a striking visual programme and an exquisite set design, the strength of Polyphonia is derived purely from its playful choreography. The beautifully minimalistic production may be devoid of a sensational plot or any nudity, but in stripping the focus down to the essence of dance itself, Wheeldon’s simulation of polyphony en pointe is a triumph.