Magia De La Danza

Ballet Nacional De Cuba

The Coliseum, London

April 8, 2010

What is the problem with ballet? Why do so many people get so agitated by it? Why does it polarise us so? Whichever way you slice it, ballet has some stonking image issues. Generally, the charges flung its way can be summed up thus: the tickets are too steeply priced; it’s too pretentious; it’s too snobby; it’s too snobby; it’s too snobby. That’s the big pink elephant pirouetting in the room.

And it’s true. I’ve been to ballets where the audience, because I don’t look like the average aficionado (think middle-aged man channelling pretend trendy teenager), has treated me as if I’m about to happy-slap them. That may sound unbearably chippy, prejudiced and narrow-brained, but it’s truthful.

What is also truthful is anyone, anyone, who comes from a complete non-arts background thinks ballet is riven with noses-in-the-air hoity-toitiness. I realise people in the arts don’t get this, primarily because they’re in the thick of it, but they need to get over themselves to an extent because it needs the doubters, the first-timers in order to survive and thrive. Ballet needs fresh blood. If anything is going to recruit newbies, then it’s Ballet Nacional De Cuba’s latest programme, Magia De La Danza, because if you need convincing of the rigour, discipline, artistry and beauty of ballet, this is it.

OK, sitting in London’s Coliseum about to watch said ballet, it’s fairly futile to refute the élitist charge. I have never seen so much Chanel, real Chanel, and Nancy Reagan hairdos in my life. And that’s just the men. Boom! Boom! As for the men – aside from looking like they’ve been frogmarched there by their partners – are Saville-Row-suited and look like they do something important in the city that pays far too much for far too little. But, still, more than any other ballet I’ve been to, there is a touch more diversity than usual in the crowd, fans who maybe haven’t come to the party via the traditional old-moneyed route.

Part of the reason for this is Carlos Acosta, aka the world’s most famous ballet dancer now Darcey Bussell has hung up her tutu, who guests in the programme. He is a real rags-to-riches success story, someone who has become arguably the greatest ballet dancer of his generation through sheer grit and determination. Born into a poor Cuban family, Acosta first thought that football was his passport out of that life, but his father, Pedro, had other ideas. After creeping into a cinema, Pedro became enthralled by a ballet in a silent film and thought it would be perfect for his energetic son so pushed him in that direction. And the rest, as they say, is hysteria, but more on that later.

First, the programme, which, if you want a crude description, is a kind of greatest hits of the classical ballet canon. It kicks off with Giselle. Impossibly romantic and enchanting, it’s an ode to love and loss. What strikes you straight off is the precision of the dancing. Their limbs cut through the air like knives through warm butter; the soft floatiness of the hands and the taut darting of the feet are truly extraordinary. Viengsay Valdés looks every inch the prima ballerina as she regally commands the stage and drills the audience’s attention utterly. With Elier Bourzac as her Albrecht, they make for an impressive duet as they convincingly convey the depth of feeling between the doomed pair with rare subtlety.

The scenes from Sleeping Beauty are danced with hypnotic somnambulance as Sadaise Arencibia gives her Princess Aurora a wafty softness in keeping with some of the best classical portrayals. Alejandro Virelles dances Prince Desiré with a confident, easy grace that never overpowers his partner. The Nutcracker sequence is danced with suitable exuberance, showcased to great effect during the ‘Waltz Of The Flowers’ when the corps really comes into its own, making sharp lines and moving like elegant shoals of fish.

It’s after the intermission, though, that things really ignite. The second ‘act’ opens full-throttle with Coppéllia and Latin-flavoured thrust and swagger burst onto the stage. This is where the company truly excels. There’s a real carnival feel as toreadors take their territory and the temperature rises to that of the troupe’s native Cuba. There’s a passion, a beating heart, that hasn’t exactly been MIA so far but has definitely sprung to life now. And then it happens…

Yes, in the Don Quixote sequence, Mr Acosta makes an appearance. I’ve never seen him live and have no yardstick to measure him against, so, initially, I said to the person next to me, “Oh, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about”. At which point, he turbo-launches into superhero leaps and dynamo turns that make gravity look less like a troubling fact of life and more like a trifling stumbling-block on the road to weightlessness. Truly, he looks like he’s on wires. He has something other performers would kill for: charisma. It’s very different to charm. Charm is something people do to you; charisma is something people have. And he has it in spades. Is Acosta deserving of all the hype? You betcha.

Inevitably, there’s a bit of a come-down post star turn. The rest of the programme (Swan Lake and Gottschalk Symphony) is perfectly well-danced and commendable, but there’s a definite lack of oomph, if not on stage but in the audience. That’s not a criticism, but simply a statement of fact that it’s hard to curtain-call a superstar. If Acosta had come at the end, I think the atmosphere of the evening would have been very different.

OK, there are flaws. Some of the extentions of the hands and the legs aren’t quite in the classical technique mould, but, to me, that just gives it personality as opposed to madly adhering to the cult of perfection. For example, there was a moment when the boning from one of the ballerinas tutus broke off into a dangerous spike, but I loved the way it was coped with. Her partner just ignored it, despite a danger to his tights and his manhood, and simply span her like a top. The spinning, by the way, is extraordinary, to the point where you think the dancers are about to drill into the ground.

Unsurprisingly, the hardcore ballet criterati have snobbishly savaged this show because “metropolitan” audiences would find it too pedestrian. But judging by the applause – it could just have been the noise of jewels jangling, to be fair – and healthy cries of “Bravo!” I don’t think anyone felt short-changed. By the looks on their chops, they all had a jolly good time, perhaps despite themselves.

Ultimately, if you’re scared of ballet or if you’re part of the balletocrasy this is a massively enjoyable show that has a few misfires, but also makes you feel massively alive. And you can’t ask more from an evening out than that.

The Ballet Nacional De Cuba is touring at The Lowry (www.thelowry.com), Birmingham Hippodrome (www.birminghamhippodrome.com) and Wales Millennium Centre (www.wmc.org.uk)

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