In the Spirit of Diaghilev
Sadler’s Wells
Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company: Hydra
Queen Elizabeth Hall
In a dance world asphyxiated by a lack of inventiveness, it is refreshing to be confronted by creations that can still provoke, shock and amuse. This is the case with Javier De Frutos’s Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez, premièred last week at Sadler’s Wells amid audible and visible signs of disapproval and approval. Regarded by some as a gratuitously offensive publicity-seeking stunt, the work is more than a mere succès de scandale. The graphic sex, the near-blasphemous use of religious motifs, the phallic-centered iconography of Katrina Lindsay’s sets, and the in-your-face violence are but developments of thematic features that have always been part of De Frutos’s aesthetic. Think, for instance, of the memorably gut-wrenching, dramatically powerful, blood-soaked naked male duet at the end of Grass. De Frutos is a politically angry performance-maker, who knows how to make bold statements through an art form that has long lost any boldness. His critique of a religious establishment that imposes absurd and socially maiming moral principles while indulging in all sorts of sleaze, together with his intentionally in-your-face portrayal of violence, are ways to expose and comment on issues we hear of and read about every day, but do little or nothing about. What truly disturbs the viewer, though, is that the horror of a pregnant woman garroted by a rosary after having her faced smashed on the papal throne and the electrocution of the lecherous and deformed pope are combined with unsettling humorous ideas — see, for instance, the ‘amuse me’ neon sign that descends like a divine message from the sky, or the final, village-fair-like fireworks that accompany the death of the pope. Yet it is by combining such humorous exaggerations with a striking choreographic layout and breathtaking use of Ravel’s music that De Frutos achieves, rather ingeniously, the atmosphere necessary to provoke the viewer.
Rather appropriately, the work concluded with a superb dance programme devoted to Diaghilev. After all, he promoted and thrived on ‘scandalous’ creations. The literally explosive content of Eternal Damnation provided an ideal contrast with Wayne McGregor’s rarified atmospheres and geometries in Dyad 1909. Despite being visually enticing, and in spite of Ólafur Arnalds’s magically haunting score, this work did not stand out as one of McGregor’s best creations, mainly because it replicates too much of his now far too well-established choreographic canon.
Luckily, things improved in the central section of the three-part programme, thanks to Russell Maliphant’s AfterLight and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Faun. The former is a dazzling tribute to Nijinsky — the Ballets Russes’s superstar — in the form of a solo to Satie’s Gnossiennes and is one of the most captivating pieces by Maliphant I have seen. The fluid, spiralling and concentric choreography seems to have been derived from the drawings Nijinsky executed during his long mental illness. Helped by Michael Hulls’s mesmerising lighting, dancer Daniel Proietto hypnotised the audience with his breathtaking technique and stage charisma.
In Faun, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has drawn upon the famous/notorious 1912 ballet L’après-midi d’un faune, choreographed by Nijinsky. Stripped of any classical/mythological connotation, this Faun remains a sylvan creature, but more of the kind found in a Victorian fairy painting than in the classical antiquity revisited by Debussy and Bakst. There is still plenty of eroticism, though, highlighted by the sensational use of entwining bodies and by equally outstanding movement for each individual. There is no doubt that In the Spirit of Diaghilev is, to date, the best tribute to Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes in the centenary since the company’s inception.
Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company has long been a Dance Umbrella favourite. Not unlike other works presented in past seasons, Hydra, a 2008 creation, draws upon a number of ideas stemming from different sources. In the programme note, the creators make reference to the Japanese author Kenji Miyazawa, but also warn the viewer that, in line with their canons, the performance is neither based on his works nor should its title be taken as a ‘definitive road map to specific destinations’. The series of now lyrical, now strong, but never too emotional images that the astonishingly talented dancers of the company create in a seamless continuum can thus be read in myriad ways. Compared with other works seen previously in London, this is, arguably, the one that stands out most for the beauty of the movement layout and the incessant, constantly surprising outpouring of unpredictable ideas and choreographic images. As such, it restores one’s faith in the current state of dance theatre.
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