Program 6 -- San Francisco Ballet Performance -- Review
Program 6
San
Francisco Ballet Performance
April
15, 2014
Program
6
is three distinct ballets: Maelstrom, Caprice, and The Rite of
Spring. Maelstrom was conceived and choreographed by Mark Morris, a
sometime collaborator with the San Francisco Ballet, to Beethoven's
"Ghost" Trio, Op. 70, No. 1. I
don't know why they called this "Maelstrom." There is nothing of a maelstrom in it. It is a rather tame ballet. The most interesting movement was the second,
to the "Ghost" movement of the Beethoven Trio. The name "Ghost" doesn't apply very
well to this music either. The music is
somber, even melancholy, but I don't know what that has to do with a ghost. My experience with ghosts is limited, but
encountering a ghost is almost always a disturbing experience, or at best,
enigmatic. A ghost is usually sinister,
foreboding, even malevolent. But the
music in Beethoven's trio does not feel that way, nor does Morris's dance. I got the feeling that this Beethoven Trio
does not lend itself well to dance, and maybe that is why this ballet never got
off the ground. The third movement is
energetic and relatively light hearted.
The dance throughout this movement consisted of brief segments of
dancers in twos and threes. They would
make a very brief appearance on stage, dance a brief vignette, and then exit to
be replaced by another small group for another very short interlude, then
exiting similarly, and so forth, through the entire movement. This structure of brief episodes strung
together gave the movement a very choppy feel.
It must have been intended for people with short attention spans. The dance was furthermore not very
interesting. It had a sameness to it
that became monotonous after a while.
The dancers did the best they could with it, but I didn't think it was a
very good concept.
Caprice
is
a world premier by San Francisco Ballet director Helgi Tomasson, set to music
by Camille Saint-Seans. This ballet was
very well conceived, beautifully executed, imaginatively staged, and very
interesting to watch. I had the feeling
that I was watching a master craftsman showing us what he's got. The movements were strong and decisive
showing a lot of variety and imagination.
The highlight was the second of two adagio movements with two long male-female
duets followed by the two couples sharing the stage. The music was adagio, that is, a rather slow
tempo, but it was not sad, somber, melancholy, or nostalgic. It had a rather positive spirit, and
underlying sense of well being and optimism.
The dance reflected that, which I was very pleased to see. It was a male-female duet that was close, if
not intimate, but at the same time, not overly emotional. It was not restrained either; it was stalwart and sedate. Tomasson hit it just
right. He had superb dancers to work
with. Luke Ingham is a magnificent
specimen of masculine humanity who performed several impressive solos as well
as the duets. Caprice is an excellent ballet, and a pleasure to watch.
The
Rite of Spring, set to music by Igor Stravinsky and
choreographed by Yuri Possokhov, was the dramatic climax to the evening. This ballet is visually captivating against a
rich and varied musical score. The dance
perfectly mirrored the mood and temper of the music. When a dance performance does this, it
intensifies the emotional impact on the viewer.
The dancing underlines the emotional tone set by the music and realizes the
musical mood in a visual experience. But
the dance also interprets the music and imparts a sense and a meaning to it that
it might not have simply as a listening experience. This ballet makes that point to the
hilt.
There is a strong erotic feeling throughout the ballet that
at times becomes downright lewd.
Movements are bold and forceful.
There is strong connection between the sexes. Males and females strongly interact with one
another with clear erotic intent. But
what happens? The strong eroticism is
decisively repudiated, in a similar vein to Wagner's opera, Tannhäuser. In Tannhäuser, after a brazenly erotic
opening where Venus is unabashedly worshipped, Tannhäuser decides to forsake
her for Mary, the mother of God. The
rest of the opera is the unfolding of this conflict in Tannhäuser, and in the
end Venus and erotic love is spurned. In
this ballet one of the girls in the group of dancers is singled out and
ritualistically killed as a sacrifice. And
that is how the ballet ends, with a girl being executed for reasons we are not
given. It is bleak and rather abrupt and
comes across as a negative judgment on the manifested eroticism of the girls throughout
the ballet.
What is the nature of this sacrifice and why was it
done? In the program we are told that
the ballet reflects a practice of "primitive" people. "Primitive" people kill one of
their daughters as a ritual sacrifice. Oh,
really? It's too bad the primitive
people are not here to mock and deride this ridiculous depiction of themselves. Possokhov says that he believes it is
abnormal people among the primitives who decide who should be killed. That is why we have the two males with their
bodies painted to represent a sort of shaman, who dance in a shared skirt
throughout the ballet. I guess that passes
for abnormality. But in a primitive
tribe leaders are chosen by consensus.
One becomes a leader naturally by strength of personality and by displaying
leadership skills that are crucial to survival of the entire group. A leader cannot effect anything without the
backing of many if not most of the group.
So an action of this magnitude that would deeply affect the entire group
must be the responsibility of the entire group and not just a few aberrant
leaders. In other words, Possokhov's
conception of this ballet is based on nonsense.
The oldest man-made figures are nude females. They go back some 25-30,000 years. Primitive people worshipped females. They exalted female sexuality. In the Old Testament one of the greatest
disgraces for a woman was to be barren.
Women were brought up to have sex and to have babies. It was necessary. It was vital to the survival of the
tribe. Fertility of the flocks, the game
animals, and especially fertility of the young girls, were the highest values
in primitive societies. As Robert Graves observed in his study of Greek mythology,1
The whole of neolithic Europe,
to judge from surviving artifacts and myths, had a remarkably homogenous system
of religious ideas, based on the worship of the many-titled Mother-goddess . .
. Ancient Europe had no gods. The Great
Goddess was regarded as immortal, changeless, and omnipotent; and the concept
of fatherhood had not been introduced into religious thought. She took lovers, but for pleasure, not to
provide her children with a father. (p.
13)
It is civilization that seeks to kill the sexuality of
women. Once it began to matter who the
father of a child was, then necessarily female sexual behavior had to be
curtailed. This began with the
development of private property and inheritance. Once there was an estate to divide up after a
man died, it became imperative to know which kids belonged to which man. In a society that lived off the land by
hunting and gathering this was not necessary.
The invention of private property and the acquisition of durable wealth
meant that females had to become monogamous -- which they had never been prior.
So this ritual sacrifice that we see in The Rite of Spring is a sacrifice demanded of young women by civilization, not by so-called
"primitive" people. There is a
lie being told here, an arrogant misconception, that we, the civilized ones, are superior to the "primitive"
people of long ago who supposedly sacrificed their young women -- for
what? It doesn't make any sense. It is we
who sacrifice young women; it is we
who crucify them; we destroy them in
order to maintain a society based on wealth, inequality, and inheritance. That is why their natural eroticism has to be
stifled. We modern people are the
abnormal ones, not the primitive tribes who are no longer here to answer for
themselves.
The
Rite of Spring is a bold, imaginative ballet with a confused,
distorted message, but it is nevertheless a mesmerizing spectacle. I would say it is one of the best ballets I
have seen, really a masterpiece. Unfortunately,
it displaces the carnage that we wreak upon the psyches of women, and blames it
on a false conception of the long lost past, when the real villains are here
and now.
1. Robert Graves
(1955 [1992]) The Greek Myths: Complete
Edition. London: Penguin Books.