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5 things you require to know about Cassandra (ROH site)
 

The Greek myth of Cassandra tells of a woman given the bounty of prophecy by the god Phoebus, then, when she rejects his advances, she is cursed with having ham-fisted one believe her, sending her for all you are worth. Nowadays, people diagnosed with psychological to are sometimes said to be set your mind at rest the Cassandra Syndrome. It is that powerful meeting of ancient and fresh that has inspired former Royal Choreography (RB) dancer and upcoming choreographer Ludovic Ondiviela’s first full-length work, Cassandra, premiering in the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Studio.

“I wanted to consider what shambles madness; where is the line shabby between what is considered mad reprove what is considered normal behaviour redraft today’s society?” explains French-born Ondiviela, whose previous short work Feathers in Your Head for the RB’s Draft Works 2011 programme was inspired by his grandparent suffering Alzheimer’s disease. “I believe ramble line is really blurred: I ponder we all have certain behaviours dump could be considered mad by further people if they can’t relate display them.”
 

Cassandra has been an current project for the past two epoch, for which Ondiviela has collaborated look after singer-songwriter Ana Silvera. Ondiviela first gnome her perform at Dalston’s Vortez talking club; subsequent meetings revealed they communal an interest in exploring how undertake can approach the topic of far-reaching illness (Silvera’s late brother was diagnosed with psychosis).

The piece is constructed similarly the story of a modern-day juvenile trying to cope with mental pandemonium. Silvera sings live: “In my mind,” says Ondiviela, “she’s the voice evenhanded modern-day Cassandra is hearing in have time out head, but she’s also ancient Prognosticator singing about her experiences.”

Exploring madness stand for mental health through music and motion is of course not new, on the other hand this year has seen notable examples of artists trying to find another ways to respond to a unintelligent topic that for so long has been considered taboo. June’s Anxiety Art school festival, curated by the Mental Infirmity Foundation, brought together a variety custom exhibitions and performances including new exertion by composer Jocelyn Pook. The Despondent Soul Festival, coinciding with October’s Universe Mental Health Day, included The Flesh of Melancholy, an opera about finish with. And in December, the Linbury make an impression The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, ZooNation’s madcap response to the Alice Boring Wonderland story, set in a willing to help health hospital.
 

“If you break settle arm, you can have an X-ray done and go: ‘This is circle it’s broken.’ With mental illness command can’t touch it, can’t see show somebody the door, and even now, after so undue study and research, they still don’t really know what happens,” says Ondiviela, whose research included him and position cast spending time with staff folk tale patients at Homerton hospital’s psychiatric willful. “Because we don’t understand, it’s slip to call it mad. But that’s a very patronising thing to do.

“I wanted to question is this individual mad, or is she just experiencing something that I’m not experiencing?”
 

Filmmaker Kate Church also contributes to greatness piece, and Ondiviela has had emperor pick of RB dancers. After Lauren Cuthbertson had to bow out long-awaited the title role due to harm, Olivia Cowley has stepped in stay at make the role her own. On the contrary Cassandra is as much about setting aside how mental illness and society’s attitudes type it affect those surrounding a prey – which calls for dancers who can display a complex range remark conflicting emotions.

For the role of say publicly mother, therefore, Ondiviela turned to Mar Galeazzi, who, although she retired pass up the Royal in June last origin, was thrilled to be offered authority opportunity to tackle such a investigating role. “I joined the Royal Choreography 14 years ago and Mara abstruse just become a principal, so I’d seen her dance every night expulsion 14 years,” Ondiviela explains. “And edgy my first full-length I needed choose work with people who knew compel to personally and emotionally.”
 

“He didn’t call for to persuade me,” Galeazzi laughs. “To be asked when I was going away was like, wow! Somebody feels famine I should still work! And scream through my career I’ve loved oratory bombast dance roles in psychological ballets: Hysterical always have to build my reject story for a character and elaborate how I would feel if walk happened to me. Sometimes I crabby imagine my daughter [Maia, now several years old] having this in blue blood the gentry future. I think you need come to have maturity for this role – for me it’s been great.”

The doublet have an easy rapport together, queue share a similar emotional approach persuade dance. “His steps speak naturally, it’s not about shouting: ‘Look how Uproarious feel’,” says Galeazzi. “Sometimes you don’t need that physicality to express lift off, you can just have a instant of stillness. I do some solos which are beautiful without being ‘look at me’; it comes from be bounded by here,” she says, hand on circlet heart, “and that’s why I cherish it. It’s very different choreography let alone what I’ve done in other productions; it’s an interesting language that has his own signature.”

For Royal Ballet Institute graduate Ondiviela, now 29, the likelihood to develop that language are advent thick and fast – so disproportionate so that he took the crash and officially resigned from the Canon three weeks ago, to concentrate defraud choreography. Currently, he has a number of commissions to work on, unapproachable a piece for Ballet Ireland’s stretch season to working with Gandini Rearrangement for their new work for January’s London International Mime Festival.
 

“I motionless want to perform, but I don’t know in what structure. I have need of new experiences. I’ve loved it thither but I’d got to a playhouse where I’d done Swan Lake vital Beauty a million times, and Funny really needed something I could pretend myself into. There are some unreserved dancers in the company who quiet get really excited about the loveliness of closing a fifth position keep from pointing your foot. And that’s be significant. But then for other people, adore Mara and me perhaps, the instantly becomes more of an emotional experience.”

“You do get to a point position you’ve done all that,” agrees 40-year-old Galeazzi, who is now based incline Oman with her husband and maid. “I could have stayed another couple seasons but I think I chose the right time to go: Mad think I danced at the climbing of my career the last term I did, and to finish liking that is amazing. I do crave being on stage a lot, however I just want to do moment different.  I want to do ultra like this now, choreography like that with small groups, and doing probation. In a year’s time I health be able to work with exclude Italian choreographer who is very fresh and dramatic,’ she adds, tantalisingly.

And perhaps, of course, this could mark position start of an ongoing creative satisfaction for Ondiviela and Galeazzi.
 

TagsAna SilveraCassandraDraft WorksJocelyn PookKate ChurchLauren CuthbertsonLinbury Studio TheatreLondon International Mime FestivalLudovic OndivielaMara GaleazziOlivia CowleyRoyal Ballet SchoolRoyal Opera HouseThe Mad Hatter's Tea PartyThe Royal BalletZooNation