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Dir: Monica Mason.
Cast: The Royal Ballet
Description: A one-act production of MacMillan's ballet Isadora, devised by Deborah MacMillan, performed along with Jerome Robbins's musical-infused Dances At A Gathering.
Trains: Tube: Covent Garden 
Phone: 0207304 4000
Website: www.roh.org.uk
Email: onlinebooking@roh.org.uk
Extra info: Air Conditioning, Food
Dance of death: Tamara Rojo as Isadora Duncan, a charismatic dancer best remembered for being strangled by her own scarf
Isadora Duncan was a very famous lady, and she still is, only for all the wrong reasons.
The American dancer was a charismatic innovator, changing the way we think about ballet long before anyone had an inkling.
However, it’s her being strangled by her own scarf that you remember, and her unconventional life, the free living as it’s politely known, which means sex and sauce and her careering across continents with an energy that makes today’s rock ’n’ rollers look feeble.
There have been umpteen accounts of her life, including plays, recitals and ballets, two of which are danced by The Royal Ballet. The first is Sir Frederick Ashton’s 1976 miniature which evoked her style with a few simple steps.
The second is by Kenneth MacMillan, a much longer and more detailed dance-drama that was dropped soon after its debut in 1981.
Unexpectedly it has been revived by the Royal Ballet with the help of Sir Kenneth’s widow, who has cut it from two acts to one, and trimmed some of the characters and some of the action. It is classily danced and expensively designed, with Tamara Rojo pulling out stops as the troubled Isadora. Despite this, you get little sense of Duncan’s artistic seriousness or her stage magic, which according to Ashton, who saw her dance, was mesmerising.
Indeed, you almost forget she was a dancer, while her wild ways seem absent-minded. Part of the problem is that the piece is too detailed, and its means too various — the film, voice and dance overload your attention.
Moreover, while the chronological is interesting, it doesn’t shape the choreography. Apart from a potent duet with Paris Singer, the father of her dead child, we don’t see Duncan’s life evolve in steps. Nor do we see her paradox of being both ahead of her times and behind them almost immediately.
With so few new productions at The Royal Ballet, Isadora feels like a missed opportunity. No such thought with Jerome Robbins’s Dances At A Gathering, the second item on this double bill.
It’s a wonderful, pure-dance piece with 10 dancers evoking romance or possibly one of them remembering lost love. Some of the 10 looked stretched — it’s a difficult ballet, and the continued absence of Alina Cojocaru and Sarah Lamb is difficult to replace. Still, Leanne Benjamin shone, as did Laura Morera, and the young Sergei Polunin continues to dazzle.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Almost 30 years after MacMillan conceived its ambitious original full-evening antecedent, one gets occasional glimpses into why the Royal might want to present this revised version today. Tamara Rojo inhabits the title role with spectacular élan and dances each episodic sequence (her Isadora-esque solos in particular) with remarkable assurance - even the most taxing floor-based pas never faze her.
But, despite its linking voiceover, the evening never really gels, although some of the set pieces marshal impressive numbers on stage - presumably to fulfil MacMillan’s stated intention to create a ‘company’ ballet? - but the Mayerling-style funeral gathering after the death of her children is particularly profligate in its use of (non-dancing) dancers. And surely a dramatic chance was missed when it was decided that the agony of Isadora’s loss be best conveyed by a silent scream. Yes, this is ballet, but MacMillan was a great innovator and the effect of a natural scream searing the auditorium in amplified form would have been particularly heart-rending.
There is no doubting the fluent and impressive employment of the many technical elements during the performance: the seamless integration of video projections with the orchestra, narrative voiceover and reactions by an off-stage audience all add to the ambience of this magpie piece. Only time will tell if Isadora’s comeback will be permanent or whether she willl again fade swiftly from the ROH limelight.
- Clive Burton, London
