Le Corsaire; Resolution review – ridiculously entertaining

Le Corsaire is a 19th-century fever dream based on a Byron poem, in which Conrad the lovestruck pirate saves a girl, Medora, from a leering pasha and various pimps and traffickers. Inspired by Victorian orientalist oil paintings, the setting is knowingly overblown: no minaret, souk, bazaar, temple, grotto, nomad’s tent or Taj Mahal-style palace goes unreferenced.

English National Ballet’s revival succeeds through sheer choreographic bravura. This is not dance as story or psychology, but dance as feat, as endurance, as a throwing down of the gauntlet. The men are more airborne than earthbound, the Olympian height of their leaps and turns augmented by astounding flourishes and combative kicks. And the women’s choreography is no less demanding.

It takes a strong performer to carve themselves out of this spectacle. Francesco Gabriele Frola as Conrad, though technically adept, is somehow too fine and prissy, too effortful and conscientious to really nail it as a pirate hero. The steely Erina Takahashi invests Medora with wonderful tonality: from a fearful victim to a tender and delighted lover in the second act’s famous pas d’action – a curious balletic threesome between Conrad, his servant and Medora – which segues into a lovely, prolonged pre-coital duet.

While the fierce pageantry defies belief, flouts gravity and laughs at fatigue, it’s also a lonely business. The principals perform to the audience, not to each other, and much character and psychology get shucked off in the process. Overall it was three American dancers who stamped their mark: Brooklyn Mack, swaggering and frightening as the slave trader Lankendem, Jeffrey Cirio as Conrad’s lithe, puckish servant Ali, and the hugely charismatic Precious Adams, seen only briefly, her feet delicately flickering and weightless.

Despite being rooted in the ethnocentric fantasies of the 19th century, the production carries a pleasing whiff of the baroque era, cut through with sweat and rot, sexploitation and corruption. No single part of the choreography, costuming, set or score (by Adolphe Adam, with additional music by nine other composers) is without embellishment. It couldn’t have been more full-on if they had actually pumped incense into the theatre. Yet, perhaps through sheer audacity, it’s a ridiculously entertaining spectacle.

Resolution, the Place’s exciting festival of cutting-edge choreography, showcases a different roster each night. The Journey was performed solo by Renee Stewart, although originally conceived as a duet by Stewart, Jevan Howard-Jones and Anders Hayward. It exhibited an excellent mastery of narrative, tone and pace as its softly pulsating meditation, soundtracked by raindrops and tweeting birds, quickly gathered pace. Flowing, circular movements were interrupted by the jitters and anxious repetitions of city life, relieved by moments of loose Saturday-night dancing.

Wildflowers, by dancers-cum-choreographers Veronika Coufalová and Lauren Waller, is a euphoric clubland love story peppered through with originality and playfulness, though in need of tightening up. Two souls find each other, preening and reaching for the dawn, their costumes connecting together, before being snatched apart when things go wrong. Ultimately, the pair are reunited in a happy, rolling, baby-like tangle of legs.

Nebuchadnezzar from the Kennedy Muntanga Dance Theatre was an impressive closer, composed by Muntanga and Emily Izen Row. In a cold white mist, the large company of dynamic young dancers express the tortures of love and the depredations of millennial life. The movements combine abjection, alienation and combat: thigh-slapping, stamping, floor-beating hakas, repulsed contortions, face-down reptilian crawling and sweaty, roiling flips. The occasional fragments of depressing spoken word are unnecessary: this company’s whirling, ferocious physicality and finesse are already hugely eloquent.

Star ratings (out of five)
Le Corsaire ★★★★
Resolution ★★★★

• Resolution continues at the Place, London, until 19 February