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Natasha Rogai

All Bach
Hong Kong Ballet
Lyric Theatre, HK Academy  for Performing Arts
Reviewed: Feb 13
Hong Kong Ballet returned to  the  Hong Kong Arts Festival after  14 years with a mixed bill titled  All Bach.  Originally,  the programme was to  have consisted of works by choreographers George  Balanchine, William  Forsythe and Stanton  Welch, but  it was flawed by the  ill-judged addition of a fourth piece, Wang Xinpeng's Mein Bach.
Balanchine's masterly Concerto Barocco  places demands on the eight female corps de ballet, but  the dancers coped with the technical difficulties and conveyed the lightness of mood and femininity the work requires. Chantel Elizabeth  Roulston's exceptional performance  as the second female lead showed exemplary phrasing and understanding of Balanchine's style.
The whole cast of Welch's male-dominated Clear  gave a strong performance, led by the superb musical pairing of Kyoko  Tomimura and Carlo  Pacis. There was outstanding work by Yuh  Egami in the pas de trois and a promising solo debut by Ricky Hu  in the duet.
Clear and Concerto Barocco  were enhanced by live accompaniment from the  Hong Kong Sinfonietta under Andrew  Mogrelia, with fine playing from soloists Sylvia Chow,  Cai  Yingqiong, Joseph  Vickers, Huang  Zheng and Matama Takahashi.
Steptext, for three men and one woman, is  the Ballet's first piece by Forsythe.  There is nothing easy about  this work for either dancers or audiences - it is as demanding intellectually as it is technically - and the dancers and guest repetiteurs  are to be congratulated on a stunning performance. Brett  Simon and Li  Jiabo, in particular, captured Forsythe's style,  and Jin Yao in the female lead was a revelation. Overly classical in Balanchine earlier, here she captured the essence of Forsythe - the reaching of physical extremes, the underlying anger and sexual tension, captured by the insolent, flat-footed walk.
The programme should have ended there. Wang's overly long Mein Bach had its moments, but  looked like two ballets spliced together, one modelled on Forsythe, the other a contemporary piece.  The excellence of the dancing could not prevent it suffering by comparison  to the preceding works.



All Bach