The Human Seasons, David Dawson's new work for the Royal Ballet, is almost as demanding of its audience's attention as it is of its cast's stamina and technique. Notionally taking its lead from Keats's poem of the same name, the ballet veers at times into an exploration of recent evolutions in classical dance, a subject on which Dawson, whose performing career included a two-year stint with William Forsythe's Frankfurt Ballet, is well qualified to pronounce.
He's not afraid to gild the lily. Dancers rush about, carried on a flood-tide of lyricism, carving decorative flourishes as they go. At moments, the influence of Frederick Ashton is detectable, both structurally – ghostly traces of Symphonic Variations – and in the swooping lushness of the upper body work. But The Human Seasons is not pastoral in the Keatsian sense, nor does it strive for the emotional reverberation of Symphonic Variations. What engages the choreographer here is form. Rigorously adhering to Greg Haines's orchestral score, Dawson creates a succession of fast-evolving, fast-dissolving sculptural moments. There's a fine, clear duet for Edward Watson and Lauren Cuthbertson and another for Eric Underwood and Melissa Hamilton.
But Haines's score is overlong, and its cascading brightness fades. The seasons blur and the architecture of Dawson's choreography begins to lose definition. There are ravishing and poignant late moments, particularly for Federico Bonelli and Marianela Nuñez, but the work as a whole is compromised by the way the women are manipulated and manhandled. A scene in which Melissa Hamilton is passed around six men is particularly bemusing. At other moments, women are swung around in circles with their faces inches above the stage, or pushed, pulled and dragged along. How this relates to the ballet's seasonal theme, or to the main thrust of its choreography, is unclear.
Clearly, it is not Dawson's intention to objectify his female cast. But in his desire for effect there are times when he draws an inescapable distinction between men who handle and women who are handled. Recent work by Christopher Wheeldon displays similarly tendencies, and in Wayne McGregor's Chroma, which precedes The Human Seasons in the Royal Ballet's current triple bill, the women are split and splayed to an eye-watering degree. On Tuesday, the dance writer (and former Observer critic) Jann Parry tweeted: "Ballet lifts in Chroma & Human Seasons bring out the Joyce Grenfell in me: Don't do that. Put her down at once. Leave her alone."
It's a live issue. These choreographers and their muses, male and female, are united in their desire to push back the boundaries of their art form. But in so doing they're adopting a physical language and a set of creative assumptions framed almost exclusively by men. Female choreographers do not, by and large, present women spatchcocked and inverted, genitals to the fore. But then female choreographers are not much in evidence at Covent Garden.
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It's often said that Kenneth MacMillan, whose The Rite of Spring completes the triple bill, was the first of the "hyper-physical" choreographers. And so, in a sense, he was. But there is never a moment when his characters cease to be themselves in the interests of spectacle. On Thursday night, Steven McRae and Evgenia Obraztsova (guesting from the Bolshoi) took the title roles in MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet. She's petite and passionate, her desire for Romeo expressed in her rapt gaze, quicksilver phrasing and exquisitely eloquent arms; when McRae first kisses her they unfurl in a shiver of ecstasy. McRae, in response, is electrifying: at once the volatile young blade and the thrilled, awestruck lover. The production resounds with tragedy. Romeo's dance with Juliet's lifeless form, desperately manipulating her into a ghastly simulacrum of a duet, has inspired horror and pity since MacMillan created it almost 50 years ago. Part of that horror lies in the violation, even after death, of her physical autonomy. It's a scene today's choreographers might take to heart.
Star ratings (out of 5):
Triple bill ★★★
Romeo and Juliet ★★★★
