Insinuare

For solo piano
Duration: 5’
Choreography by Leanne King, after Sara Matthews
First Performed at the Platform Theatre, July 2012.
Later performed on the BBC Young Dancer of the Year 2015, and premiered at the St. James Theatre, July 2015.

The duet Insinuare, a beautifully wrought contemporary pas de deux, has a somewhat confused origin, starting life as a larger ensemble work for the Central School Show of 2012. It was later reduced and re-worked as a duet for the BBC Young Dancer of the Year 2015, where it was performed by one of the finalists, Diana Patience.

In recognition of this, it was then further revised for the Ballet Central annual tour of 2016. Through all these metamorphoses, the opening and closing images remained the same, two dancers in halflight slowly orbiting around each other, appearing from and disappearing into timelessness.

This sense of timelessness, the constant unchanging nature of the universe, is apparent in the music from the opening bars, where the solo piano oscillates very quietly between two lonely phrases. These two phrases are just repeated throughout the piece, so that, while the music has shape and grows quite substantially, underneath this continual oscillation remains constant and inviolate, like breathing.

The revised piece is a short five minute piano solo, and was played in performance live by the composer.