Translated material
Hot soup
The Golden Mask off-program continues
The educational fervor of the national theater award and festival is enough not only to demonstrate in Moscow the achievements of years long past. Having gained considerable experience with “legendary names,” the organizers of the 2010 festival brought to Moscow a dance team that here, and in Europe, for that matter, also has almost no “name” at all.Uncomplicatedly named after the organizer and choreographer Aszure Barton & Artists, it has only existed since 2002. At the same time, having received a classical choreographic education in Toronto and having trained at several other ballet schools, Ms. Barton gathered her artists at the almost infantile age of 25. The company is still in that adolescence when in its advertising materials it punctually lists all the different-quality achievements of all the different (or even small) people with whom it has collaborated, all the festivals in which it has participated, and all the “numerous awards and grants.”
Ms. Barton also compiled the program for the first Moscow performance with the straightforwardness of presenting a new project, including the 2009 performance Busk in the first part, and a medley of old numbers called Blue Soup in the second. And one could only be glad when this marketing clumsiness suddenly turned into exceptionally competent choreography performed by superbly trained dancers on the stage of Pyotr Fomenko’s studio theater.
Blue Soup indeed, despite the same blue suits and boots for all the dancers, left the impression of some confusion, similar to the blue asparagus soup that the immortal Bridget Jones treated her guests to. However, it allowed us to demonstrate the qualities and temperaments of Ms. Barton’s dancers, among whom was a sort of Ostap Bender with a flying forelock and an inviting smile and hips, and a sad gutta-percha clown with stretched knees, and a muscular African tiger with sudden jumps... In general, Ms. Barton is clearly much more inspired by the male dance, which, fortunately, is not flat, accentuated by the most charming weakness and a fair amount of humor.
The Busk shown before is also built on the divertissement principle, in which the soloists’ numbers are united not so much by the logic of development, but by external attributes, costumes and accessories. Fortunately, the theme of entertainment, set by the title (in English - “to give a performance”, “street performance”), left the choreographer a fairly wide field for maneuver.
And it allowed us to bring on stage charming mimes like Marcel Marceau, blowing kisses in flying jetés, distributing real blows and freezing in a swan pose, and showing on it folklore Balkan pickers, and the white gloves of Mickey Mouse, dancing a cartoon Boston with an exaggerated swing of his hips , and the synchronized swaying of the Gospel Choir or the Muppets. The musical basis of the performance is the gypsy violin of Mr. Lev Ljova Zhurbin, which instantly sends the viewer either to the Parisian embankments or to New York Russian restaurants.
The choreographer emphasizes the theatricality of the action with a very cunning game with the appearance and disappearance of the bodies of the dancers, who are able to instantly merge with the darkness of the backdrop in order to light up at the next point with a naked torso or a white glove.
All this stage riot ends on a very pathetic note of a sad duet, but remains in the memory as a perky mess with rich vocabulary, professional performance, concentrated emotionality and an intelligent sense of humor. Something hot and very tasty.