Only girls in the garden

Natalya Fiksel directs Chekhov

The theater people are starting to celebrate the anniversary that will break out in January next year ahead of time, and one of the first to decide to congratulate the classic was choreographer Natalya Fiksel. On the stage of the School of Dramatic Art theater she presented to the public her essay “Garden-Kindergarten, or the Art of Decoupage.” The genre is designated as “fantasy performance based on Chekhov’s play.”

Fixel belongs to the older generation of contemporary dance writers in Russia - she first worked in Novosibirsk for almost two decades, then moved to Moscow at the beginning of the new century. Here she staged “The Justification of Don Juan” at Ballet Moscow, here in 2005 her duet “Dancing on the Runway” was nominated for the Golden Mask. Her stories are always stories about women; the summary of almost every performance of hers is “all men are bastards.” Now Fixel has come to a logical conclusion: in her new play there are no men at all.

There are only four women on stage. Fifteen years ago, probably, a colleague from Kommersant noticed that persistent lesbian motifs in the work of our modern “choreographers” arise not from the latter’s natural inclinations, but due to a shortage of dancers. The situation as a whole has not changed much since then (although a number of great performers still appeared), but Fixel’s decision was clearly dictated not only by technical circumstances (lack of artists). This is a strong-willed decision: to do without the capricious stronger sex. To prove that women can tell any story themselves.

Decoupage is a type of applique, declared decorative. “Garden-Garden” is most reminiscent of silent cinema, but not the films themselves of the 1900s, but their stylizations, popular already in the second half of the 20th century. Ladies wear veils on their hats and throw out their arms ecstatically; they freeze in poses copied from photographs of Vera Caralli, and so diligently depict broken lilies that impolite laughter can be heard. Yes, the main thing that the choreographer saw in Chekhov was the simultaneity of his existence with the modernists, and the fact that the writer did not really respect the curls and frills of modernity does not seem important to her.

“The Cherry Orchard” is not retold verbatim - Fixel stages “variations on a theme” and suggests scenes that could have happened. Arriving at the estate is an exaltation, such an embrace that it’s as if we haven’t arrived home, but are saying goodbye before execution (one dancer drags another on her back, a third presses her cheek to the belly of the one being dragged). The tea party is languid, melancholy, with the measured movements of the heroine, grinding something in a tiny decorative bowl. Long walks among some dried reeds (unexpectedly replaced by cherry trees). Ritual casting of fishing rods.

At the same time, the choreographer periodically tries to distance himself from the game of belle qpoque, to convey that we have postmodernism in our yard. Before the performance, two dancers perform something like the demonstration of emergency equipment that flight attendants always perform before every flight, only in French and with gestures indicating that a working mobile phone should be thrown to the floor and crushed under your heel. And closer to the finale, they peer into the hall and count the audience: “54? No, 53. One left?!” I really wanted to tell them that if it weren’t for the design of the Tau Hall in the “School of Dramatic Art”, which did not allow leaving the room without raising the entire row, there would have been much more escapees from the “Garden-Kindergarten”.

Anna GORDEEVA