Those Dogs Want More

Once I gave up on completing my article on Pavlova's Dogs - I like to think that sudden endings are charmingly reticent, rather than betraying my lack of motivation - I decided to find a few images to illustrate the piece. Unfortunately, I chanced about a few reviews of Pavlova's Dogs which were not exactly in disagreement with me, but seemed to think that giving the work a rating - or using phrases like "it's quite a lively ride" - is still the best way to write a critique. Puzzling over a choreography, poking around at the ideas, or having some smart-arse interpretation, is oddly unfashionable.

It only took a paragraph of venting for me to feel better. I accept that those reviews have a right to exist, and are probably quite helpful as part of the general discussion around dance.

No, no they are not. If Pavlova's Dogs has any worth, apart from keeping a dozen people off the streets and giving audiences cheap laughs at bunny ears, the critique has to engage with the ideas that the choreographer was addressing. So, rather than name and shame the reviewer who has so displeased me, I had better get back to writing.

Rachel Lopez de la Nieta is fascinated by the undercurrent of cruelty that exists in ballet. Her fairy tale - told by a man who might represent the patriarchy, or just be a rather bitchy type - echoes the romance of classical ballet's stories, but is explicitly unpleasant towards the heroines. Then the dancers are accused of being fat. They are dressed simply, and their dances are increasingly contorted as the fairy tale gets more vicious. One of them argues with the man who might represent the patriarchy. She is placated.

Add to this the brief programme notes that claim that it "is partly inspired by some of the early experiments in psychology" where certain ethics were questionable". Lopez de la Nieta is drawing a direct analogy between the torture of dogs to find out how instinct could be manipulated, and the training of ballet dancers.

Nipping back to my thoughts on Streetcar, which included an unease about the physical state of some dancers, I am inclined to think that the playful veneer of PDs is less interesting than the implied attack on ballet's ability to ruin lives and turn women into mere bodies. This is a long way from the post-modern dance of Trisha Brown, which focusses on breaking down existing possibilities of choreographic movement.