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Spectrum: Triple Bill
Ballet Theatre Malaysia
Damansara Performing Arts Centre
17-26 December 2021
by Bilqis Hijjas
To get a ballet company on stage in this era so many things must go right, and so few may go wrong.
For its maiden performance, the fledgling Ballet Theatre Malaysia (BTM) not only had to contend with the chronic challenges of starting a professional dance company in Malaysia — lack of support from the government, small audiences, downward pressure on ticket prices, widespread social disapproval of dance as a professional career — it also had to combat the immediate challenges of Covid. 24 dancers trained and rehearsed under strict distanced and masked measures, coming together on stage without masks only at the last minute, and then undertook 5 performances over 10 days without a single person testing positive for Covid.
BTM achieved this herculean task with great luck and a propitious combination of the right format, experience, skills and resources. BTM artistic director Choong Wan Chin had previously trialled the combination of international ballet stars in lead roles with locally-trained dancers in supporting roles via her pickup company KL Danceworks and its many glittering galas at Istana Budaya. Datin Jane Lew, BTM chair, brings decades of experience as a ballet teacher and studio owner, as well as the crown jewel of Damansara Performing Arts Centre, which she owns and which has been a favourite venue for dance since its opening in 2013. Together they attracted international professional dancers Yui Kyotani and Ben Cook to provide some duet dazzle and to raise the barre in terms of technique. And finally they managed to garner the finest dancers from Malaysia’s current crop of ballet hopefuls.
With all the accompanying risks and unknowns, BTM rightly stuck to safe programming choices for its premiere season. It opened with Act 1 of Don Quixote, a colourful story ballet with plenty of scope for the corps de ballet as happy villagers and for Kyotani and Cook to perform some technical fireworks. For added audience satisfaction, local ballet veteransJames Quah hammed it up as Sancho Panza, and Choo Tee Kuang featured as the innkeeper Lorenzo. James Kan was magnificent as the moustache-twirling villain Gamache — the casting felt so perfect, he should never dance anything else.
But Yui Kyotani stole the show as the coquette Kitri, as Kitri always should. With her beautiful leg extensions, and charming epaulement — batting her eyelashes over her shoulder, shrugging nonchalantly when her lover ignores her — you can’t help having fun when Kyotani’s working so hard to make sure that you do.
The second work in the show — Impromptu, a contemporary ballet choreographed by Choong Wan Chin — was delicately designed to highlight the strengths of its featured dancers. Four women in soft shoes and dove grey shifts spun, rolled, wafted and receded like waves across the shadowy stage. Guest artist Chang Huey Sze, a local ballet competition star in the mid 2000s, brought gravitas and dramatic sensitivity to the work, and provided a good model for young Ashley Kook, who has the technique (including some neat batterie) but doesn’t quite grasp the soul of the dance yet.
One of the great joys of watching a new ballet company is encountering talented dancers for the first time. Perhaps more than in any other dance form, a ballet company sinks or swims on the strength of its soloists. I admit I had great expectations for Emer Leyla Ridzuan, one of BTM’s three apprentices and the only Malay dancer in the entire show. For a Muslim woman to excel in ballet in Malaysia — to have the drive and the fortitude to withstand the negative peer pressure, and the good fortune to have a family that supports her emotionally and financially in this most expensive of hobbies — is akin to how difficult it is for men to excel in ballet in the West. It is a cause for celebration in itself.
Leyla did not disappoint. She has strong technique and neat feet, secure on her pointes and in total control. While she shows maturity and steadiness, she also has surprising speed and a spunky energy. In Impromptu, her legs proved beautifully expressive instruments of accent and attack.
But apprentice Chen Jia Yin was one of the greatest discoveries of the show. Wonderfully musical, she understands exactly what each beat of the music is for. She knows how to use her head, quite spectacularly on renversé turns in Don Quixote, and she simply radiates energy. Also a convincing actress who is not afraid to use her face, her natural comic chemistry with James Kan almost stole Kyotani’s thunder in Don Q.
The final work, choreographed by Wan Chin to a Bruch violin concerto, opted for a grand pas classique: a suite of dances often showcasing standard academic moves in solos, duets, and group dances, and concluding with a triumphal group coda. Artistically this is a safe preference, but technically it can be risky. In short tutus and without storyline characters, there is nowhere for dancers to hide in a grand pas, and certain limitations of technique and rehearsal became evident (a synchronous dance for three couples was particularly precarious). But there were many moments of pure pleasure too, including Leyla making the most of a musical climax with a series of huge jeté leaps, and some trusting and attuned partnering between Ben Cook and Yui Kyotani.
With Spectrum, BTM has made a brave start, and in the context of the pandemic their debut is nothing short of a triumph. But the road to starting a professional ballet company in Malaysia is littered with the fallen. Many have tried, none have succeeded. For the sake of ballet in Malaysia, I pray that BTM has indeed hit upon the perfect formula, that they will provide a platform for the best ballet talent in Malaysia for years to come, and that Malaysian audiences will continue to be enchanted and delighted by its judicious mix of ballet favourites and new works.
Personally, I can’t wait to see Jia Yin and Leyla spur each other on to greater heights in future BTM productions.
The highlight of Spectrum for me was a moment during the grand pas when a group of corps girls ran around in a circle like swans, their pointe shoes going clack-clack-clack on the stage floor. In ballet, this is an unwanted effect — it reminds the audience that they are watching flesh and blood creatures wearing canvas shoes stiffened with glue, not ethereal spirits slippered with moonlight. It’s generally the first thing to get edited out in any video version of a ballet, creating the friction-free version of dance that we view on our screens. So to be able to hear it live and unmediated, while sitting in a darkened theatre surrounded by friends of the dance, made me feel like the luckiest person alive. And if this is the only time I ever get to see Ballet Theatre Malaysia perform, I am still truly grateful.
All photos courtesy of Ballet Theatre Malaysia, photography by Chew Seng Cheong and Joie Koo.
Bilqis Hijjas is the founding editor of Critics Republic. A producer, lecturer and community organizer in contemporary dance, she believes the main purpose of criticism is to enhance the audience’s appreciation of art.