Ballett am Rhein presents its last mixed programme of the season, Sacre, at Düsseldorf Opera House featuring two premieres and a revisit to a classic.
Jerome Robbins’ 1951 work, The Cage, widely known but not so frequently performed now, is a brief hit of power from an animalistic female corps. Its components will be familiar, the nude bodysuits with swirling black patterns, the wide spanning net that runs across the stage and Stravinsky’s dramatic strings.
Women of similar stature with wild eyes and hair to match dance as a pack, it’s all spiky pointe work and cat-like stretches as they exert their authority over any males who dare to enter their lair. Futaba Ishizaki’s petite frame punches above its weight as the feisty Novice, her limbs are articulate and beautifully placed in her various encounters with male suitors. Her animated face leaves the audience in no doubt of the story, in which any intruding males must be swiftly disposed of.
Sara Giovanelli’s Queen is the overseer of the proceedings, she has a brutish overconfidence that borders on the obnoxious, her movements are a little more chaotic and less controlled than the rest of her cohort, a nice stylistic choice if deliberate.
The highlight comes when Ishizaki’s Novice meets a second male intruder, Gustavo Carvalho, and instead of setting about ensuring his demise, they perform a heartfelt pas de deux, their feelings clear. In the high-intensity world of the cage, they dance with serenity and calm. Ishizaki’s neat, compact frame again producing beautiful lines and flowing quality. It’s over all too quickly before the Queen returns, instructing her, with added pressure from her peers, to end him too, which she clinically does.
At sub 20 minutes, there’s a lot to digest, but the brevity of The Cage means it is all the more memorable for it.
The programme’s middle work sees a detour from Stravinsky, to the music of Richard Strauss, lending itself to more lyrical work and a little respite from the drama it is sandwiched between. Demis Volpi’s The Thing with Feathers is a far more gentle watch. It is loosely about loss and the transience of relationships but also works as a palette cleanser between the two more distinctive pieces.
A cluster of dancers rush back and forth across the stage in swinging movements before dispersing into couples. They are dressed in curiously contemporary, mismatched outfits (Thomas Lempertz) the logic of which was not clear. The pas de deux come and go, some featuring more classical partnering and pointe shoes, others more athletic and contemporary. There is an understated beauty and playfulness to them that charms, while the solo choreography is more rigid and structured. It concludes with two males sharing an intense connection before one is removed in a way that suggests death, the remaining male is left alone in darkness. It’s quietly moving.
The true “event” of the evening is Spanish choreographer Marcos Morau’s reimagining of Le Sacre du printemps. The themes of sacrifice and loss that run through the programme are clear, but Morau’s choreography sees a detour from the typical emerging of a “chosen one” and a group who make collective choices with interwoven tensions between them which come and go throughout.
This Sacre has the look and feel of a military exercise; dark, dank lighting, big sweeping aggressive movements low to the ground, relentless physicality and the mottled grey costumes (Silvia Delagneau) that later give way to flamboyant colourful jerseys. Indeed, the group begin with bulky backpacks strapped to them and their weighty overcoats mean they look ready for combat. What follows is a choreographic slog, intricate yet demanding with small details like the twitching heads and synchronised hands.
Stravinsky’s well known score is unmistakable and never fails to add drama, played with enthusiasm by the Düsseldorf Symphoniker, however the high octane action begins to lose momentum. Focus shifts to alternating corps members who potentially emerge as the sacrifice but it never comes to fruition. The audience is restless, and as the heavier clothing is discarded, the group seem to decide on a sort of collective suicide, some requiring more coercing than others. Max Glaenzel’s staging is a dark slope, volcanic in its look and texture, stray stones and other apocalyptic material litter the stage. The final moments in which the group scrambles to the top, is a welcome relief in this dense viewing.
