Luna

Birmingham Royal Ballet - Sadlers Wells

Female empowerment is the main theme of this production. Five female choreographers have collaborated to piece together a solar system of a show displaying the journey of women from the beginning of time.

The Birmingham Royal Ballet have made a return to Sadlers Wells this autumn and are showing: La Fille Mal Gardée and Luna. This review is focusing on Luna: A ballet in two acts and six scenes.

This show is a solar system and each scene is like another planet. There is so much to analyse. Five choreographers: Iratxe Ansa, Wubkje Kuindersma, Seeta Patel, Arielle Smith and Thais Suarez have come together to build this piece. They all have different backgrounds, but are all powerful women with the aim to empower women through their choreography. That being said, each scene of the dance lacked structure and consistency. Hence, each scene being like a different planet. Repetitive moments, development and incorporating moments from earlier scenes would tie this together and fuse the choreographers work together. There's so many ideas and visions that the message behind the piece seems to blur. The piece is titled 'Luna' and the moment you are taken to the moon is in the last scene, the moon is not a prominent element of the piece.

The uses of production elements beamed brightly in this ballet, there were many beautiful moments where the use of lighting, props, staging etc embellished the action on the stage. At the end of Act 1 Scene 3 smoke fills the floor of the stage and you see it fall off the edge. The dancer moves within the smoke. Smoke shadows and follows her movements, creating an image of power of the woman dancing and inspiration surrounding her. The use of projection onto the backdrop to introduce the scenes and new sections gave the piece smooth transitions between the dances. It set up the new setting and clean slate for each section, showing each choreographers section of the piece. Projection on to the back drop was used throughout, such as in Act 2 scene 2 it is used to project more men on the stage to show how the dancer is crowded by so many forces trying to control her. It is also used in Act 1 scene 2 to show a cartoon/drawn background to give the idea of young women building their dreams in their minds. There are so many more amazing production elements.

There is a wide range of characters in this ballet. A mass of Children dancers/vocalists are present at the start of a few of the scenes to open them by singing lines such as; 'I am the sea' they seem to give a message to the audience to look after the planet. This element blurs the message of feminine empowerment, as they seem to symbolise looking after the planet, which is a side theme. The switch from message to message makes the piece somewhat confusing. In act 1 scene 1 it opens with the children and then act 1 scene 2 opens with young teens learning building their dreams and growing up. Then, act 1 scene 3 is women facing challenges and finding strength. This element of following women as they grow is s great idea, however the execution is lacking. We start at the beginning of time, but why is there no end of time, in a sense of aging. If there was an older age range it would give a moment of appreciation to what those in the past have achieved. Great idea, but just take it further to make it more powerful and consistent.

The ballet touched on some important themes and engraved many beautiful moments by the use of production tools. Five choreographers collaborating is a brilliant way to give the piece many perspectives, but a closer look at bringing all of their styles togethers and adding repetitive moments would have increased the gravity of the piece. The different textures of the sound was interesting, particularly the live singing and it gave the ballet it's own style and this was a strong choice. Overall, empowering women and inspiring people to make change is a great message from the show. However, the ballet has so many different avenues and ideas that the message gets lost, thus decreasing the strength of the piece. From the title you expect more moon orientated content and it was not what you expect from the piece.