DANCE/THEATRE LONDON'S SEASON BEST
LA
BAYADERE. Rating:
At
The Royal Opera House, London
Generically,
La Bayadère ranks alongside the great moonlit tragedies of the repertory. Like
Swan Lake and Giselle, the ballet's poetry is consummated at night, its heroine
is exquisitely marked for death and its hero torn haplessly between two loves.
Yet, on this occasion, the ballet's casting gave Bayadère an unusually robust
spin.
Coincidentally,
the three main characters were all danced by Latinos - and their chemistry
turned the familiarly fatal love triangle into a spirited power struggle.
Nikiya, the low-caste temple dancer may be doomed from her first entrance, but
Tamara Rojo has her fighting every inch of the way. Even in appearance Rojo is
more credibly feisty than the average Nikiya. Her rounded limbs bring an
opulent seductiveness to Petipa's faux oriental choreography and, when she's
forced to perform at Gamzatti and Solor's betrothal party, her wilful, sexy
dancing shows that Nikiya is as pissed as hell.The
love duets that she has previously danced with Solor (Carlos Acosta) have told
us why. Rojo and Acosta are always good together but, in Bayadère, they dance
with a risk-taking rush of adrenaline that joyously declares their status as
lovers. In dramatic contrast Acosta's dancing with the steely-hearted Gamzatti
(Marianela Nunez) is a baiting competition. Acosta will seize any chance to
show off his fabulous tricks, but his virtuosity in the betrothal pas de deux
serves as a chilling foil to Nunez's own. Nunez can confidently hold her own
against Acosta, and slaps down each perfectly timed fouette, each flaunting
extension as a promise that Gamzatti will be taming her reluctant fiance. The
defiantly earthy register of the principals' dancing could pose a risk to the
stylistic balance of Bayadere, but Rojo in particular ensures that its
classicism gets due weight. In the Shades act, her dancing becomes, visibly
more abstract but shaped with a pure academic logic. And here she was
pleasingly framed by the chorus of ghostly bayadères. -Judith Makrell
Rambert. Rating:
At
The Lowry, Salford
By Stephannie Ferguson
It is not often you see buttocks rhythmically groped to the strains of Cole Porter, but with Venezuelan choreographer Javier De Frutos, anything goes, especially below the belt. Inspired by an obsessive, repetitive section of Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - where Honey paces the stairs nearing hysteria - his new piece Elsa Canasta has more sexual tweaking, crotch-grabbing and pelvic-thrusting than your average lap-dancing club.
Continues on the following pages.