Chroma and DGV on tour
4th June 2009
Chroma was Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor’s first ballet for the Royal Opera House main stage. The piece made a huge impact at its premiere in November 2007 and went on to win virtually all the dance awards that year including the 2007 South Bank Show Award for Dance and the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for best dance production. Chroma pushes the dancers to their physical limits through McGregor’s astonishing and demanding choreography and is set to music by Joby Talbot. The score comprises seven works woven together to form an unbroken sequence, bringing together Talbot’s orchestral arrangements of three White Stripes songs including Aluminium and four of his own original compositions.
To watch a video of Wayne McGregor and Joby Talbot discussing the creative process behind Chroma please click here
Christopher Wheeldon’s pulsing, energetic DGV: Danse à grande vitesse animates the score of Michael Nyman’s MGV; musique à grande vitesse written to celebrate the French high-speed train the TGV. This is a large-scale piece for 26 dancers providing sheer energy and the thrill of vibrant dance. DGV is dark-toned. Jean-Marc Puissant’s decor is black and metallic, the centre taken up by a shattered structure. The music runs continuously but was conceived as an abstract, imaginary journey; or rather five inter-connected journeys, each ending with a slow, mainly stepwise melody which is only heard in its 'genuine' form when the piece reaches its destination. The thematic 'transformation' is a key to MGV as a whole, where musical ideas- rhythmic, melodic, harmonic, motivic, textural - constantly change their identity as they pass through different musical 'environments'.
DGV rounds off the evening perfectly. The vigorous choreography, linear precision, clarity and images of flight are infused with a positive energy. The progressive rhythm sounds out possibility and hope, with Michael Nyman’s uplifting score speeding the company into the future.
Katie Colombus, The Stage, 02/02/2009
