Cartography of ballet

“Kings of the Sun” was danced at the New Opera

The evening, pompously named after Louis XIV, during whose reign ballet appeared as an art form, had nothing in common with ceremonial court dances. The choreographer Nikita Dmitrievsky who put together this concert set out to create a map of modern choreography and included in the program only works by today's choreographers (making a small exception for George Balanchine with his Apollo Musagete, but this is almost a declaration in the spirit of “Mr. B is always modern”). Forsythe and Neumayer - designation of the tops of the landscape. Then Dmitrievsky himself, Yuri Possokhov, Alexey Ratmansky, Alexey Miroshnichenko, Anastasia Kadruleva, Boris Eifman - the cartographer’s work is very thorough.

Posokhov's "Magrittomania" was presented by a central duet - one that was inspired by Magritte's painting "Lovers" (where the faces of a man and a woman are covered with fabric). This duet, full of Magritte’s hidden hysteria and obvious virtuoso skill, was danced by Ekaterina Shipulina and Dmitry Belogolovtsev. The ballerina threw her legs up like knives, like desperate phrases, the dancer reproduced purely physical male reliability - and spiritual mobility, trembling tenderness, nervous self-doubt. The ballet disappeared from the Bolshoi repertoire without any special announcements - and the current concert made me regret it.

At the same time, this already disappeared “Magrittomania” turned out to be the only envoy of the Bolshoi in the program of modern choreography. Basically, this choreography was presented by the Mariinsky Theater - which, however, is not surprising: in the St. Petersburg theater they began to understand that they were living in the twentieth century even before this century ended.

And the Forsythe duet from In the middle, somewhat elevated, in which Victoria Tereshkina unfolded in a duel-fight with the grace of the Black Mamba, and Balanchine’s “Apollo”, already appropriated, lived in so much that it became some kind of home story about the flirtatious girl Terpsichore (Eugenia Obraztsov) and a powerful guy from the neighboring yard with the proud nickname Apollo (the owner of a powerful jump, Mikhail Lobukhin, who neglects graceful manners). And Reverence by David Dawson, in which the same Lobukhin was absolutely in his place - the muscular pressure was slightly obscured by the viscous, meditative, almost nostalgic choreography. All these works created a feeling of density of space, intelligibility, fullness of it - there were no empty winds that flew between the lonely bulks of Marius Petipa’s works in the late eighties. And the creations of new domestic choreographers - quite diverse in style - looked like an organic part of the landscape.

Well, yes, here is Eifman’s inescapable swamp - again the Chekist (Yuri Ananyan) from “Red Giselle” torments the ecstatic Ballerina (Elena Kuzmina). Sadomaso, of course, - the girl still clings to his boots, and he breaks her and twists her like a hammer thrower - look, he’ll throw her now. This is the strange, unreliable ground of the works of Dmitrievsky himself - either the confident sunny track “Bitmi” (a duet to the music of Tiger lilies, where Yana Selina and Mikhail Lobukhin are exquisitely fooling around, portraying cheeky acid characters) will emerge, or you won’t be able to get through Le vide (to the music of the group “Apocalyptic”), that the same Eifman soloists are dancing, and it seems that the same Eifman created all this anguish. Miroshnichenko’s smooth “Adagio” - the text resembles a field from which three harvests in a row have been harvested, and there is nothing living left there (Andrei Merkuryev honestly depicted “the stages of a dancer’s long journey,” but the life of this hypothetical dancer was extremely dull). “Charon” by Anastasia Kadruleva, who stubbornly rowed on dry land - only, it seems, not in a boat, but overcame the Styx by swimming (the role went to Anton Pimonov). But the main event of the evening was the performance of two Hamburg soloists in a fragment from the ballet by John Neumeier.

Two songs by Simon and Gorfunkel, Old friends and Bridge over troubled water, became the basis for a sentimental dedication to Maurice Bejart. The ballet was staged several years ago, when Bejart was still alive, and there are no “funeral” intonations in the text. But there is a memory of bygone youth; general youth, despite the age difference (Neumeier is significantly younger). Purely Bezharov’s steps and memories of his “Greek Dances” are woven into the slightly broken ligature familiar to Neumeier. And two dancers - Ivan Urban and Arsen Mehrabyan - without tension convey this feeling of brotherhood, a native shoulder nearby. There is no pathos, one is in Hamburg, the other is in Brussels, both are tossed around the world, but there is always this feeling that both are nearby, hands on each other’s shoulders, like in sirtaki. Were nearby. Well, there is, as a matter of fact. The audience gave an ovation and began to whisper: how could the director put this duet at the center of the program, it’s impossible to follow him onto the stage. But the concert continued, and it turned out that Neumeier did not bother anyone after all. (And Dawson, and Dmitrievsky, and Forsythe were already there after.) That is, the peak was plotted on the map - and it was discovered that it did not block the light for anyone. Neumayer, the Sun King, does not interfere with the other kings. Even the smallest ones.

Anna GORDEEVA