COMPOSERS: Ravel
LABELS: Image
WORKS: Nederlands Dans Theater
New technology doesn't always make for better viewing, at least not where dance is concerned. Even though DVD may produce a better class of image for the TV screen, it can't alter the fact that the screen remains a screen, rather than a three-dimensional space, and that the images we see are only miniature versions of the stage event. We still have a long way to go before the experience of watching dance in our sitting rooms is remotely comparable to seeing it live.
Even better for children is the pairing of Jiri Kylian's L'ENFANT ET LES SORTILEGES (danced by Nederlands Dans Theater) and Matthew Hart's PETER AND THE WOLF (danced by the Royal Ballet School).
Kylian's work is a choreographed staging of the magical Colette/Ravel opera which tells the story of a careless, destructive boy who is attacked by the toys and animals which he has abused during his life, but who finally, after a nightmarish series of encounters, learns to love and respect the world around him.
The ballet's cast of dancing chairs, clocks, animals and birds are costumed in surreal and colourful outfits — creating a bold and lively impact on the small 'screen.
Hart's Peter and the Wolf is mote modestly staged but is nonetheless an endearingly imagined realisation ot Prokofiev's familiar -musical tale.