Is it possible for classic concertos such as Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons to inspire a truly original choreography? Angelin Preljocaj and his ballet tackled this question last week at Place-des-Arts with fleeting success in Les 4 saisons…
The curtains open to reveal an eclectic assemblage of objects suspended from the ceiling: a cardboard cloud, a set of feathered wings, a thick rope, a plastic plant. As if the randomness of this sky was not enough, two men walk on stage wearing transparent bear costumes.
Finally, a human presence: dancers come on stage wrapped in a large piece of cloth, like a blanket. They look like religious figures participating in a ritualistic ceremony as they move across the stage and kneel. The objects floating above them move in a circular motion.
The performers begin to dance, but the cloth hides their bodies and their movements. Anticipation builds up in the audience.
As the cloth swirls and floats around them, glimpses of their naked flesh reveal that nothing stands between their skin and the material.
Suddenly, a plastic plant falls from the ceiling with a startling thud. The dancers remove their cloth and move to the back of the stage to put on some clothes. Two dancers come back wearing colourful underpants and a tank top. Their interaction is playful. It is reminiscent of sports, pop music video choreography, or aerobics.
Then a woman appears wearing a black one-piece swimsuit. Black shoes fall from the sky to complete her costume.
She puts them on and proceeds to perform movements of exaggerated femininity for the men that surround her.
The shaking of her hips, along with her arm movements, is excessive. This “femme fatale” sticks out her tongue to further emphasize her sexuality.
She teases the men, pretending she will kiss them, but ends up literally walking over their bodies. A second woman, dressed in apparel proper for physical exercise, comes back and dances with tremendous energy. A man begs her to stop, but she ignores him until she throws herself into his arms, exhausted. This is repeated three times, until the woman lies, almost dead, on the floor.
Many unidentifiable creatures appear throughout the show. Men come out wearing green spandex costumes covering them from head to toe. They look like worm suits with porcupine-like spikes. When a woman wearing a bikini encounters one of them, she also becomes beast-like.
While the apparent randomness of such an offering engenders amusement in the audience at the beginning, the laughter quickly gives way to silence. The problem with constant unpredictability is that the audience then comes to expect it and the effect is trivialized.
Even though Ballet Preljocaj is charming in its refusal to take itself seriously, it soon becomes obvious that the reason for this is there is, indeed, little to take seriously. Les 4 saisons.gets lost in its own theatricality and artifice, and ends up offering very little substance to its audience.
