The Ballet Broillards was choreographed by John Cranko and was first performed by the Stuttgart Ballet on the 8th of March 1970.
The music was by Claude Debussy – Piano Preludes.
I unfortunately could not find this ballet, apart from one excerpt on a Facebook page of a company in rehearsal. I did however find these pictures if you want to take a look.
Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet also performed it on the 3rd of May 1978.
“Mist, snow, heather and sails are passing pictures in Debussy’s music; the mist dissolves, the snow melts, the heather blooms and the sails flutter, leaving behind no more than sadness and memories of transient beauty. Each day disappears into the past like all human endeavour.”
John Cranko
Brouillards is set against plain black curtains with his dancers wearing simple white leotards.
About Brouillards
Cranko brings on his ensemble of eighteen dancers to Brouillards, the first which comprise the musical set for this sensitive, simple-seeming but potent work.
The dancers enter in a chain which breaks up into wisps and curls of activity.
Then in La Puerta del Vino a very Spanish lady is courted by three men; Voiles is the duet for a man and woman.
General Lavine-Eccentric is a trio for three boys, doll-like figures who caper, collapse and display a typically Crankoesque muscular humor.
Bruyeres is an incident in which a young man disports himself while trying to impress a girl on a park bench. At the end she walks off, disregarding him totally.
Les Fees sont d’exquises danseuses offers a pair of long-limbed girls dancing, suddenly bumping into each other, and momentarily seized with fatigue.
Feuilles Mortes is an intense and passionate interlude for a man and a woman.
Homage a S. Pickwick hymn the indomitable Englishman with bowler hat and rolled umbrella (which provides his gravestone).
The trio of Des pas Sur la neige is a minuscule but potent drama of a woman torn between two men.
Finally Brouillards is played again and the cast curl and curve over the stage. For all its brevity and brief incidents, Brouillards says much about Cranko’s gifts, his sensitivity to human emotion, his fluent dance-making, his humor and it is a small but enduring work.
