Northern Ballet Casanova
The Northern Ballet's production of Casanova is awe inspiring. As I continue my research into the world of dance, I'm beginning to understand that Creative Practice runs through all the Arts. This performance stimulates all your senses from the classical lines that the dancers create through to the brilliant live music performed by the Northern Ballet Sinfonia. Choreographer Kenneth Tindall, took inspiration from the 18th century and added a modern twist. In an interview for the production programme, Tindall explains why he choose Casanova. "On the surface Casanova is all sexual adventure, theatrics and lavish lifestyle but digging deeper and peeling back the layers of this complex man you understand him as someone looking to experience the pleasures of life through cultivating his senses and his unquenchable thirst for knowledge".
As my own work has developed through research in archives, I totally understand Tindall's comment's on 'digging deeper and peeling back the layer'. Working in an archive feels like you are hunting for information that has gone unnoticed, you are a detective searching for the truth. What Tindall has unveiled in this performance is that Casanova was known differently during his own lifetime, in his own day he was known as a writer, polymath, adventurer and aspiring philosopher.
During this mesmerising performance I could not help but to think of Rudolf Laban and his study of movement. How many dancers has he influenced? The performers created so many identifiable shapes that could be made within the Plato solids that inspired Laban's work.
The lesson that I came away with, is to leave your audience wanting more and to inspire them to look again.
