New Phase

As the fight for greater visibility for women choreographers continues, it was encouraging to see Carlos Acosta, director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, commission an all-female creative team for “Luna,” the final piece in his trilogy celebrating the company’s hometown. This instalment, dedicated to the pioneering women of Birmingham, has been developed by composer Kate Whitley and choreographers Iratxe Ansa, Wubkje Kuindersma, Seeta Patel, Arielle Smith, and Thaís Suárez—an impressive ensemble in both size and diversity. Yet, ahead of “Luna’s” premiere, I couldn’t help but wonder how this large group would collaborate to create a cohesive work.

Performance

Birmingham Royal Ballet: “Luna”

Place

Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham, UK, October 3, 2024

Words

Emily May

Birmingham Royal Ballet in “Empowerment” by Arielle Smith from “Luna.” Photograph by Katja Ogrin

The answer? They didn’t. As a result, “Luna” resembles a variety showcase rather than a unified full-length ballet, with the choreographers presenting separate sections—broken up by blackouts and applause, and sometimes threaded together by a undeniably talented children's choir—inspired by the 2018 book Once Upon a Time in Birmingham: Women Who Dared to Dream.

Each artist interprets the source material in a very different way. Smith’s “Empowerment” focuses on the theme of female strength, presenting an all-woman cast that runs, slides, and leaps powerfully across the stage to a dissonant sound score. At times, they collaborate to lift each other into the air—a nice nod to how women are stronger when they work together. There’s a decidedly modern dance feel to this section, with costumes of earthy brown leotards and long, flowing skirts reminiscent of the genre’s aesthetic. A moment when the entire cast lies on the floor and jolts upwards in a unison stomach contraction is also a direct reference to “pleadings”—a key movement from modern dance pioneer Martha Graham’s eponymous technique.

Birmingham Royal Ballet in “Learning to Dream Big” by Seeta Patel from “Luna.” Photograph by Katja Ogrin

In contrast, Patel’s “Learning to Dream Big” is narrative-driven and saccharine sweet as it meditates on the importance of education and reading for women to thrive. In white nightdresses, the light-footed dancers posé and piqué playfully, holding books that illuminate when opened. Their reading material inspires them to act out their dreams and ambitions: while one dancer conducts her colleagues like an orchestra, others sword fight, watch butterflies through binoculars formed from fists, and perform body percussion in a protest scene. It would function perfectly as a children’s ballet, yet it feels a little too kitsch for an adult audience. A moment in which a ballerina dons a medical mask and switches between classical ballet steps and miming heart resuscitation before a “Thank You NHS” banner is paraded across the stage feels particularly twee.

Elsewhere, relationships between male and female dancers are at odds with “Luna’s ”mission to celebrate women’s resilience and independence. Suárez’s “Unwavering” opens with the projection of a Harriet Beecher Stowe quote stating, “there’s no force more powerful than a woman ready to rise,” yet her lead female dancer spends the majority of the time collapsing into the arms of her male partners. As she’s carried waif-like around the space, caught after she launches herself into the air in risky falls, and supported in admittedly impressive leg extensions and body contortions, a lack of awareness of the politics of classical ballet partnering becomes clear. Ansa’s “Overexposed” similarly sees its prima ballerina at the mercy of men—a whole cast, in fact, who manipulate her body.

Birmingham Royal Ballet in “Overexposed” by Iraxte Ansa from “Luna.” Photograph by Katja Ogrin

In “Luna’s” program, an introductory text by writer Louise Palfreyman highlights some remarkable women featured in Once Upon a Time in Birmingham, from PC Andrea Reynolds, who confronted institutional racism, to suffragette Bertha Ryland, who slashed a painting in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 1944. These fascinating stories are nowhere to be found in “Luna,” however, which prioritises extrapolating broad, abstract themes from the book over engaging deeply with its characters. This approach, combined with an overengineered attempt to make all sections of the ballet revolve around the moon, appears to be a well-intentioned bid for universal relevance, but it robs “Luna” of a distinct, streamlined identity. It also overlooks the fact that, as James Joyce wrote, “in the particular is contained the universal.” The stereotypically feminine trait of empathy means many women can easily connect with a multitude of stories, no matter how far removed from their own lived experience they may be.

Emily May

Emily May is a British-born, Berlin-based arts writer and editor specializing in dance and performance. An alumna of Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance and a member of the Dance Section of the U.K. Critics' Circle, she regularly contributes to publications across Europe and America including Dance Magazine, Art Review, Frieze, The Stage, Flash Art, The Brooklyn Rail, and Springback Magazine. She is currently an editor at COLORSxSTUDIOS, where she launched and continues to manage a new editorial platform.

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