Richmond Ballet: Love Songs

Love lingers. Long after the curtain closes on the Richmond Ballet’s production of “Liebeslieder Waltzer,” images of the dancing fill heart and mind. The company seldom has performed better.

George Balanchine choreographed the ballet to love songs composed by Johannes Brahms. Pianists and singers share the stage with dancers. The sets project the elegance of a palace. The performers depict courtly manners as well as the ordered passion of the waltz. Balanchine interpreted a dance associated with ballrooms through the prism of classical technique.

The Richmond Ballet captures the essence. Its Studio Theatre offers appropriate intimacy. The larger spaces of New York’s Lincoln Center swallow the piece. The Richmond stage invites the audience to a private evening scented, it seems, by Bal a Versailles.

Waltzes convey the romance of yesteryear. The dance once was considered decadent, perhaps because men and women move while embraced, or because, while couples dance in regal settings, enemy armies always seem to be massing along the river’s opposite bank. Tanks strike at dawn. Waltzes evoke images of Warsaw, Prague, Budapest or Vienna on the eve of cataclysm.

The waltz proved nostalgic even at its birth. It reflects human potential and the tragic sense of life. If love songs break the heart, then it is because they understand humanity’s center. “Liebeslieder Waltzer” counters the vulgarity evident in every age. The Richmond Ballet’s performances continue this weekend.

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Star-crossed love story

The 10 minutes following storyteller Jay O’Callahan’s
performance of Forged in the Stars told far more about
its success last night than the length or intensity of the
applause it garnered, and there was no lack of applause.

One of the opening speakers of the University of Otago’s
inaugural Scienceteller Festival, Mr O’Callahan had to wait a
good 10 minutes before answering media questions, as a stream
of people shook his hand, hugged him, and used expressions
like “an unforgettable experience”.

One man, a graphic designer, stopped to discuss aspects of
communicating science, which might also suggest the story hit
the nail right on the head.

The convention this week, held to celebrate the 10th
anniversary of the university’s Centre for Science
Communication, is attracting film-makers, writers,
playwrights and scientists for a five-day gathering. It
features writing workshops, documentary and film-making,
exhibitions and lectures from several guest speakers, all to
celebrate storytelling and science.

Mr O’Callahan is a prominent United States storyteller who
last night at the university stood with only a red table, a
white stool, and a glass and jug of water to deliver Forged
in the Stars, a story he said the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (Nasa) had commissioned him to create
about three years ago.

That story, which he said was “a love story to Nasa”, was
also a love story in itself; a number of stories within a
story, told with humour and a quiet passion.

It involved the romance of Kate and Jack, the story of the
moon landing, the stories of those who made it happen, the
tragedy of the Challenger space shuttle explosion, and the
ongoing journey of the Voyager space probes. And Kate and
Jack lived happily ever after.

Mr O’Callahan, who has performed Forged in the Stars
everywhere from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the the
Johnson Space Centre, said he would be working in Dunedin for
the next few days, before travelling up the West Coast.

He said last night’s audience showed a warmth that impressed
him, and which he had seen throughout the city, from the
university to bus drivers he had met.

“It’s wonderful,” he said.

david.loughrey@odt.co.nz

 

 

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