Whose sister is brevity?

Performances by Marie Chouinard at the Chekhov Festival

Canadian choreographer Marie Chouinard brought two programs to Moscow: one, combining “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” and “The Rite of Spring,” has just been performed, the second (“Chorale” and “Chopin’s 24 Preludes”) will be shown from Sunday to Tuesday. It is still unknown whether the performances of the second program will have any merits. There is only one good word to say about the first one: it was not long.

Ten minutes of “Faun”, fifty minutes of “Spring”. In just over an hour (there was a technical break between one-act acts), Marie Chouinard was able to fully present her view of the history of ballet and demonstrate her own composing talents.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, “Faun” and “Spring” were staged by Vaslav Nijinsky, then small ballets created a sensation. They still appear from time to time in the repertoire of various Western troupes - the texts have been fully preserved. Marie Chouinard argues with these surviving texts.

Instead of a faun pining for a carnal longing for a nymph, there is a sexless creature on stage, dressed in tights with thick padding that enlarges the hips. The arms are put forward, like a “real” faun, the legs are bent at the knees, but that’s where the similarity ends. On the head of the character (his role went to Carole Prieur) there are two twisted horns; the chest moves back and forth, and for the entire ten minutes the hero (heroine?) minces around the stage in a state of painful excitement, not directed at anyone. He moves jerkily, breathes hoarsely, a red spotlight illuminates his (her?) crotch, and the character does not receive release even when he tears off one of the horns from his head and places it below his stomach: this does not make the creature a man or a faun. Marie Chouinard probably had in mind the creation of a feminist manifesto; It turned out to be a parable about a woman who absurdly took up a man’s business. (Choreographer, after all, is a male profession; and brilliant exceptions, like Pina Bausch, who will come to us on tour in early July, only emphasize the rule).

In the second part of the evening, “horns” (phalluses? claws?) when the curtain opened, stuck up from the stage, as if they had just sprouted from the ground. In the midst of these shoots, a small crowd writhed in the cones of light, either parodying a faun in the same way, or quite physiologically accurately depicting the movements of people affected by cerebral palsy. Men and women were equal both in plastic and in costumes: everyone had the same cramps, and the black panties were no different (everyone’s top was naked; this must be why, for reasons of modesty and shyness, photographers were not allowed into the performance, suggesting that publications only of photographs provided by the company itself). As the performance progressed, people looked less and less like people and more and more like some kind of mutants: long shoots appeared on their hips, wrists and fingers, turning the dancers into either corals or cacti. However, they shuddered and breathed heavily in the same way - like human beings. We'll see whether Chouinard will humanize Chopin in the same way. But in any case, she certainly couldn’t create a more boring performance.

Anna GORDEEVA