Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring has a long history of restaging and reimagining. In this version, Irish company Fabulous Beast, led by Michael Keegan-Dolan, smash together the socio-political and the primal as they come to grips with Stravinsky’s wild composition.
Stravinsky’s collaboration with choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky and designer Nicholas Roerich was an exploration of pagan ritual full of dark themes: animalism, sexuality and death. Fabulous Beast certainly stays true to this lineage with their repetitive, sometimes savage movements, their animal masks and various sexual encounters. However, Rae Smith’s design pulls these themes out of the Russian wilderness and into a much more current socio-political landscape.
This ritual is presided over by a black clad widow/witch who begins the show by hocking up a glob of phlegm down-stage centre and lighting up a cigarette. This action, along with the suggestion of rape, the ‘ugliness’ of some of the choreography, and the nudity, seem to aim at the kind of shock value that the premier production had but it’s hard to imagine anyone being really put out by this production, and this is where it seems to snag.
It is incredibly difficult to deal with these kinds of themes in the confines of a venue like The Playhouse and the demands of an international tour. I can see that they were speaking eloquently about our primal energies but I was left outside. For all the repetition and roughness of the choreography it never approaches the kind of ecstasy and abandon of real ritual and it felt like the performers were not able to loose themselves in their actions. Consequently we saw people with masks on rather than dark gods and the danger never crossed the footlights.
Perhaps I am asking too much of this performance but this bacchanalian energy is at the heart of live performance and I know it can be harnessed in far more direct and confronting ways than it was here.
The companion piece/second act is Stravinski’s Petrushka. Here the energetic exchange is lighter and therefore more reproducible on stage. The performers laugh and smile at each and at us as they bounce their way through the choreography. The light, white design sweeps away the oppressive feel of The Rite of Spring, indeed, the action begins with the performers casting aside their old costumes to put on their airy whites. The witch has now ascended to a place of power and contentedly eats eggs while determining who should be in a relationship with whom.
There are some beautiful sequences in this piece, broken up by some surprisingly quirky interruptions. However, despite my reservations about The Rite of Spring, it seems the more meaty source material. Here the story of two puppets falling in love doesn’t quite stretch to fit the kind of grand imagery that Keegan-Dolan creates. The finale certainly offers a beautiful picture but the lead up has not done enough to really make it hit me in the heart.
These are good works, well constructed and well performed and those used to more mannered styles of dance may well find them confronting and strange. But for me they do not quite live up to their promise. If we are talking about the big themes of sexuality, animal versus spiritual being, love and death then I do not want to see them. I want to feel them.
Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
The Rite of Spring / Petrushka
Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre
Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre
25-28 September
Brisbane Festival 2013
www.brisbanefestival.com.au
7-28 September
Photo: Ros Kavanagh
