Diaghilev Unbound
A hundred years on, the riotous commotion that the Ballets Russes’ first performance of the Rite of Spring caused at the Champs Elysées Theatre still resounds. Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography challenged audiences’ perceptions of ballet.
A triumvirate celebration of Sergei Diaghilev
Joining this year’s worldwide commemorations of the seminal work’s centenary, the Royal Ballet of Flanders opens its new season with a thematic programme called Diaghilev Unbound, celebrating the artistic genius and creative daring of the notorious impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev. The triple bill opens with Glen Tetley’s version of the Rite of Spring, originally staged for the Munich Ballet in 1974. Tetley, born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1926, was destined for a career in medicine before he attended a performance of the American Ballet Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet, which jolted him into realising his true vocation was dance.
He became an avid student of modern dance pioneer Hanya Holm, assisting her with staging Broadway musicals. He then worked with the Joffrey Ballet and later for Martha Graham’s company.
Tetley’s artful fusing of his multiple influences brought him much acclaim, as did his capacity to give emotional and physiological complexity to classical ballet characters. Tetley’s Rite of Spring is set apart from most other versions, including the original, because a man dances the leading role of the sacrificial victim of the rite. The choreography remains one of the most thrilling and physically demanding pieces for male dancers. Next comes Faun by Antwerp choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. The choreography focuses on the Faun’s half-man-half-animal duality and the sensual dynamic between male and female. Although highly charged erotically, with some of the movements directly inspired by the Kama Sutra, Cherkaoui explains that he “wanted to reveal the innocence and beauty inherent in the duo’s encounter and the positive, powerful aspects of sexuality that are so often either vilified or portrayed vulgarly in our culture”.
As Faun was originally created for two outstanding dancers of Cherkaoui’s own company, conveying this very contemporary work to ballet dancers has, according to Cherkaoui, involved stressing the “essence of the piece so that the dancers, who are used to working in a different language, lose none of the meaning in translation.”
Indeed, the musicality and finesse of the animal-like, undulating movements and the organic nature of the dancers’ first coming together are more essential to the work than technical prowess. Cherkaoui’s Faun also intersperses a specially commissioned score by Nitin Sawhney with that of Debussy. Cherkaoui’s intention is that we listen in a new way to Dubussy’s very familiar music and that the Faun takes on a more universal identity.
Last on the programme is the world premiere of a work created especially for the ballet by Romanian choreographer Edward Clug. His version of Les Noces has taken inspiration from the not-so-longobsolete Russian practice of arranged marriages between teenagers and their anxiety at having to undergo a public ritual while silently experiencing inner emotional turmoil.
3-16 October Vlaamse Opera Ghent | Schouwburgstraat 3
10-16 October Vlaamse Opera Antwerp | Frankrijklei 1
www.balletvlaanderen.be
