On the ropes

‘Aerial’ ballets were all the rage in late-Victorian London. It mattered little that they were more circus acts than actual ballets; their female stars, swinging from either a trapeze or sturdy ropes, were worshipped on a par with the greatest ballerinas — as in Angela Carter’s novel Nights at the Circus. I often wonder what those people would think of their postmodern successors, as performing with ropes seems to be a growing trend within contemporary dance-making.

Take Ilona’s Jäntti’s Handspun, which opened the Exposure: Dance programme at the Linbury Studio Theatre last week. Jäntti combines unique rope-climbing and choreographic skills in a work that makes viewers forget technical bravura and focus, instead, on a well-designed game of dramatic tensions. Her interaction with the ropes turns those implements into co-protagonists, with whom she engages in a silent, though theatrically expressive dialogue. And, as in every conversation with the most trusted of friends, tones vary considerably, shifting from the affectionate to the confrontational, from the teasing to the coquettish.