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Flash Review 1, 4-1: The Story (Ballet) So Far
Eifman's 'Karamazovs': Straight to the Solar Plexus
By Aimee Ts'ao
Copyright 2002 Aimee Ts'ao
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg presented five
performances of "The Karamazovs" at San Francisco's Palace of Fine
Arts Theater, March 22-24,
to sold-out houses. The company's local publicist, Brenda Hughes of Encore
Communications, told me how impressed she was that to stretch its
marketing budget, the company only advertises in Russian language
newspapers and
through direct mail to the Russian community. The pity is that the
non-Russian dance community and audience doesn't have a chance to see
this company because they don't hear about it, if at all, until it's
difficult to get tickets. As in the previous two years, the lobby
this season
was filled with Russian conversation, with only a rare tidbit of
English.
First I will confess that I had never read Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers
Karamazov"(and certainly didn't have time for the 800-plus pages
before seeing the performance reviewed here), though in my youth I was
obsessed with "Crime and Punishment" and also read "House of the Dead"
and "Notes from the Underground." Perhaps my lack of intimacy with the
Russian literary giant's masterpiece made me less critical of Boris
Eifman's choreographic interpretation of the same, but I also feel that
a ballet should stand on its own, irrespective of the spectator's having
read the source material or not. How many of you have actually read
E.T.A. Hoffman's "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" or "The Nutcracker
of Nuremberg" by Alexandre Dumas, pere? Or Shakespeare's "Romeo and
Juliet" for that matter? Even without actually reading these works one
already knows a lot about these stories, as they have become part of our
culture through dance, theater, and film.
Since seeing "The Karamazovs" I was inspired to start the novel, and even
after only reading the first section, 'The History of the Family,'
it is clear to me that almost all details are undoubtedly lost in the
translation from word to movement. Eifman still manages to communicate
some of the larger themes, albeit without the complexity, though
perhaps the streamlining works in his favor to appeal to a more general
audience. I had invited a Russian ballet class pianist to go with me,
but she declined saying that she had seen a video excerpt and didn't
feel it dealt with the issue of spirituality and religion deeply
enough. And, in any case, in his other works Eifman uses literature as a
springboard to his own larger vision. "Hamlet" is the vehicle for the
story of Catherine the Great and "Giselle" takes on the life of the
great Russian ballerina Olga Spessivtzeva. I am not about to
intellectually dissect "The Karamazovs" and analyze it in excruciating
detail. Instead I want to convey the emotional impact of the
production as a whole.
Reading the synopsis is essential unless you are Russian and know the
story through genetic memory, or at the very least, from high school.
(The education system in the former Soviet Union was far superior to
what passes for learning in most of this country.) Had I not, I would
have found it difficult to understand that the four men on stage were a
father and his three sons, though it is immediately apparent that they
are connected, even tightly bound together, despite how they may
actually feel about each other due to their radically different
personalities. Eifman cleverly turns part of a costume into a prop to
illustrate this relationship. Fyodor Pavlovich, the Karamazov father,
wears a shirt that is little more than shredded strips of cloth and
which also echoes his disgusting state of debauchery. The three sons
rip sections of it from him and become desperately trapped in the
tangles they create as they dance around each other and their father.
This theme emerges again toward the end of the first act when after
being captured for the suspected murder of his father, Dmitri has his
limbs tied with ropes and he is hoisted up by a rope center stage. In a
frenzied "Maypole" dance weaving in and out and around he is wound up
like an insect trapped in a spider's web, then released into a dizzying
spin. While the impact of seeing an idea rendered visually is
significant, the more intense reaction comes on the visceral level. The
designs formed by the movement through space and the shapes of the
bodies themselves combined with the dancers' absolute commitment to
every gesture and step sets up a kinesthetic resonance in my body, and I
suspect in many others as well. Forget about processing with your gray
matter, the punch goes straight to your solar plexus.
Among the highlights are a number of pas de deux, trois and quatre
between various combinations of Ivan, Dmitri, Alexei, Fyodor Pavlovich,
Katerina Ivanovna(who loves both Ivan and Dmitri) and Grushenka (the
cause of rivalry between Dmitri and his father). The unusual lifts and
seamless partnering reveal the artistry of the dancers, who hide their
technical prowess under effortless execution. Several other
scenes that impressed me utilized the full corps de ballet.
One, to Mussorgsky's 'Gnomes' from "Pictures at an Exhibition," evoked
the surreality of a Hieronymous Bosch painting, the dancers still
somewhat human but with unsettling distortions. The fight between
Dmitri and his father which ends in the latter's murder uses a table
that is lifted, up-ended, tilted and which finally carries off Fyodor
Pavlovich's body, limbs straddling the table legs with the top
perpendicular to the ground. The split second timing, acrobatic
precision and the drunken madness of the whole crowd together make for a
powerful theatrical picture, as did the previously mentioned rope scene.
One of Eifman's undeniable strengths is his deft hand in choreographing
for large groups of dancers. They enter and exit so smoothly you often
suddenly realize that the stage, a moment before teeming with bodies,
has become nearly empty with only two dancers intimately engaged in a
tender
duet. Of his three ballets that I have seen (the others being
"Tchaikovsky" with music by the same and "Hamlet" to selections of
Beethoven and Mahler), with
"the Karamazovs" I found the combination of music to be distracting.
The pastiche of Rachmaninov, Wagner, Mussorgsky and Russian Gypsy folk
songs lacks cohesiveness, and the badly read and recorded section of
text that begins the second act feels out of place and far too
didactic. Unfortunately, the poor sound system doesn't help matters
either. I find "Karamazovs" much darker and starker than the other two
works I've seen. In "Tchaikovsky" and "Hamlet" the sets and costumes
were richer and more elaborate. The women in the corps de ballet wear
beautiful gowns and the general opulence of the royal court pervades.
"Karamazovs" has a more Germanic expressionist look to it. The women
often wear the same costumes as the men when they're prisoners and part of the
masses, and the set is a wall of platforms and bars with a spiral
staircase that acts as the backdrop to Fyodor Pavlovich's orgies and
also becomes the prison.
On the positive side are the dancers. All dance with such physicality,
sensuality and passion that I would go to see the company regardless of
the ballet they are performing. Igor Markov's portrayal of Alexey(a novice
monk) beautifully balances spiritual ardor with human feeling. As the
sultry, and then loving Grushenka, Vera Arbuzova is fabulous. Despite
some shortcomings of the production, I would still see it again, though
I want to finish the book first.
For me the most important question to ponder here is who else in the
world today is
successfully choreographing full-company evening-length ballets? I
don't travel much these days, but of all that passes through here (and
it's not much considering the astronomical cost of touring with dozens
of dancers, costumes and sets) Eifman is at the top, despite his
shortcomings. The rest of the meager offerings include a few bloated
productions. In recent memory there are Lar Lubovitch's "Othello"
(jointly commissioned by San Francisco Ballet and American
Ballet Theater) and Angelin Preljocaj's "Le Parc" for the Paris Opera
Ballet. Both are visually stunning, yet lack the choreographic splendor
to match. "Le Parc" had sections I loved, particularly the three pas de
deux, but the overall structure wasn't all that compelling. Smaller
companies present evening-length pieces but in smaller spaces. I have
noticed that most choreographers these days don't really know how to
fill up an opera house stage because they rarely have the opportunity to
work at that scale. Studio workshop showings and four hundred seat
houses are hardly the fields to grow potentially large ballets, though
are necessary steps in developing an artistic voice and movement
vocabulary. Of the new choreographers the San Francisco Ballet has been
promoting, only Yuri Possokhov actually knows how to create a huge
picture visually and kinetically. His "Magrittomania" is a short piece,
but has the elements necessary to paint the big canvass of the War
Memorial Opera House stage. Is it any surprise that Possokhov trained and
danced at the Bolshoi Ballet? When considering that culture's music,
literature and dance, I can only imagine the vastness of the land and
the intensity of the Russian character reflected in the arts. A
generalization to be sure, but the scale of evening-length ballet on a
large stage demands it be larger than life at times, while also allowing
for contrasting moments of distillation and intimacy.
Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg performs Eifman's "The Karamazovs"
April 10 and 11 at New York's City Center, followed by his
"Pinocchio" through April 14. This week in the same venue, the
company performs the choreographer's "Red Giselle" and "Don Juan and
Moliere."
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