FOUR STARS

What is visible music? At it’s worst it’s the ludicrous man who stood at the side of the stage during a Rambert performance, and waved his arms about to “interpret” the music for those in the audience who were deaf. But if the aim is to bring the music into equal partnership with the dancer, and for the dancer to almost become the music, then that was successfully achieved by Susie Crow, a former Royal Ballet soloist, and the cellist Jonathan Rees, in Two Old Instruments.

The music was a charming suite by the now little-known Carl Friedrich Abel, a renowned German viola da gamba player and composer in his day, who achieved great success in England. Some of the pieces have titles: Stong Women, Lambranzi’s Jig, Two pints of Claret and Jane Poitier - throughout his life Abel enjoyed excessive living.

Crow responds to the changing moods of the music and its subjects with a series of dances – self choreographed – which remind us that ballet originated in the court dances of Louis XIV, who died just before Abel was born. There is a certain formality, but at the same time a lightness of spirit. The work also demonstrates that a ballerina does not have to stop dancing just because she can no longer knock off a double fouette.

After the interval came Dances, Oracles, Mystery, performed to a series of pieces by Debussy, ravishingly played by Julian Jacobson and Mariko Brown.

Dancers Chiara Vinci and Francesco Mangiacasale were joined by mezzo soprano Jenny Miller. In an intended blurring of the boundaries between disciplines, Miller at times moved into some dance, while the dancers at times were more or less ‘straight acting’ This was a well thought out and well performed work during which it was difficult to connect much of the action to the rather complex subject matter. I enjoyed this collaboration, but it was without a doubt Debussy’s glorious piano that shone the brightest.