Fumbling Towards Ecstasy - Incongruous Elements

Sarah McLachlan was in attendance at the opening night of Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, produced by Ballet BC and performed by Alberta Ballet. I think most of the audience was there for her more than the ballet and McLachlan’s music was certainly the predominant element of the performance. Unfortunately the result was more like a live balletic music video than a cohesive production.

The music IS beautiful. McLachlan’s hauntingly clear voice soared around the dancers and bounced off the walls: a sophisticated, poignant and stirring melody. Compared to that, the visual design felt clumsy. The animated graphics did not at all match the subtlety and beauty of McLachlan’s voice and the storyline was too literal and too broad so much more could have been done given the rich imagery of McLachlan’s lyrics. 

I understand what they were going for, an everyman type story based loosely on the life of the artist, but instead of grand and accessible, it felt non-committal. Not specific enough to really paint a picture, not abstract enough to invoke true emotion. The more abstract images worked better. I liked the water images, and the city scape. The shadow dancers behind the scrim were a great touch, but then they were real, not projected. The manufactured imagery had a video game quality to it. I get that the set design was meant to be exotic but it was more a jumble of brightly coloured symbols, than a sensual, evocative journey. It was distracting. A projection should never take focus away from the live and highly talented human beings on stage. If there had been perhaps one abstract setting per song (an ocean, a park, a fire) the whole thing may have worked better.

The dancers of Alberta Ballet are technically brilliant and the skimpy costumes certainly highlighted the amazing control they have over their bodies. I loved the tumbling, twirling sensation that such a large group of dancers can create, it worked with the ebb and swell  in McLachlan’s score. And there was a moment of pulsing backs in the dim light that was so much more primal, more sensual than the projection of the naked male chest on the screen. Still, there was something lacking for me. It’s a contemporary ballet but the bare feet and modern dress clothed a very precise but not passionate body of dancers. I’m not into plastered smiles and impersonal presentational performance, no matter how masterfully executed it may be.

I think the core of my dissatisfsction lies in that this music was not created with a ballet in mind. It is beautiful, evocative and even swooping, but it doesn’t lend itself to choreography. Even though each flourish and swell was reflected physically, the music didn’t move the dancers to organic expression. The choreography was structured as a seperate layer, based on a thin plot and then the visual design was plastered on top of that.creating a mishmash of styles and visions that failed to come together as one.