Using a choir and dancers to underpin Maurice Duruffle’s little-known Requiem certainly underlines this burgeoning dance festival’s modernist credentials, but whether everything was made as clear as it might have been was another matter.
Symphony Hall possesses a mighty stage which opened up (sans orchestral seating, of course) to reveal a superb playing space capable of taking a huge company of singers and dancers without overcrowding.
High above the stage, rather like a contemporary minstrels’ gallery, Alexander Mason (organ) and Andrew Skidmore (cello) drew out the gossamer-textured heart of Saint-Saens hauntingly beautiful Priere which fitted seamlessly with Massenet’s Pie Jesu.
Incidentally, a few announcements would have helped us to identify what exactly was being played; since not everybody wishes to purchase a programme.
As Ex Cathedra flooded onto this vast playing space to sing Durufle’s lovely Requiem, I took a second or two to reflect on this transformation of the stage with its wonderful wings which went up into darkness.
Certainly Ex Cathedra (under the superb Jeffrey Skidmore) needed this generous space since they shared it with Cas Public Dancers, UK dancers and artists brought in from Birmingham Royal Ballet in an uneasy and often mystifying fusion of choral music and contemporary dance. If the attempt was to provide an enthusiastic audience with something visceral, then it frequently went wide of the mark.
The greatest problem was focus.
If you present an admirable choir such as Ex Cathedra with a large company of dancers, it is a foregone conclusion that you will lose concentration in the onstage melee. Should I have been concentrating on the girl dancers in black hot pants and clumping noisy high heels and their bare-chested partners, or listening to Durufle’s masterwork which, in this particular concept appeared to be merely an appendage. Apart from one or two moments when dance partnering touched the choreographic heights, the spiky, jerky movement which made up most of the evening was frequently completely at odds with what Ex Cathedra were accomplishing up-stage with Durufle’s haunting score.
In the end it was like trying to follow two speakers at a seminar where both were speaking at once but in different languages.
