A place of constant experience – Newspaper Kommersant No. 222 (7423) dated 11/30/2022

On the stage of the Russian Academic Youth Theater there was an evening of choreographer Andrey Merkuriev called “Recognition”, in which the premieres of the Bolshoi Theater, the Stanislavsky Museum and the Opera and Ballet Theater of the Komi Republic took part. “Recognition” listened Tatyana Kuznetsova.

Calling the evening “Recognition”, 45-year-old Andrei Merkuriev, now the ballet artistic director of the Opera and Ballet Theater of the Komi Republic, hardly implied recognition of himself as a choreographer. Rather, it meant a declaration of love or its loss – this plot became the core of a two-part program. Perhaps also a declaration of love for ballet and choreographers, in whose productions he happened to dance. There were many. A capable, easy-going soloist was occupied in his ballets by Forsyth and Ratmansky, Wheeldon and Neumeier, Lacotte and Duato. During his work at the Mikhailovsky, Mariinsky and Bolshoi Theaters, Andrei Merkuriev danced everything possible – from counts and princes to an embryo in Mats Ek’s “Apartment”.

This does not mean that choreographers-luminaries can be seen in “Confession” with all distinctness. There is only one direct quote: the finale of the Adagio Carmen and José from Roland Petit’s ballet. However, it is easy to recognize Grigorovich’s acrobatic, shoulder-supported support; and “talking with hands”, invented by Alexei Ratmansky for “Cinderella”; and Forsyth’s “draws” by the hand, but with a small amplitude; and eco-work with furniture; and combinations of classical adagios. Everything is there and a little bit of everything: jumps, spins, batmans, pas de bourre. The soothing obliteration of the choreographic language is painted with desperate sentimentality. In Andrei Merkuriev’s love miniatures, everyone experiences: those who quarrel, and those who remember the past, and those who have just met – in anticipation of the inevitable separation. And even those who are just flirting tend to suffer a little from a moment of misunderstanding.

Perhaps, in the predilection for affectation, the author’s own style is manifested. The most common gesture is an outstretched hand to heaven (an option is a hand drooping after a prayer). A clenched fist, trustingly opened on the forefront – as proof of spiritual openness. Head clenched with hands (with unbearable pain) or a slight touch of the temple (with bitter memories of the past). Clenching yourself in an embrace (a visible metaphor for the expression “keep yourself in control”), multidirectional stretch marks are a sign of tearing feelings. The ultimate expression of the latter is a silent scream or sonorous demonic laughter. The Beyond – poems about unrequited love, read in a sobbing girlish voice: in “Breaking” under the lines “… I will guide the ship of love …” the prima of the Bolshoi Ekaterina Shipulina, tragically rounding her eyes, lifted the scarlet hem of her tunic with batmans and, sweeping her loose hair, twisted the chain – in while black people sitting around on chairs laughed contemptuously at her misfortune, which led to fainting, and possibly death – in the finale, the lifeless heroine was carried backstage by a gentleman in a dark one, who stood the whole number in the background.

All these “last conversations”, “I can’t be without you”, “in resistance”, “for and against”, “withdrawals”, composed to the music of Philip Glass, Max Richter, Johann Sebastian Bach, Edvard Grieg and other respected authors, world-famous premieres and soloists from Syktyvkar danced with surprising dedication and faith in the proposed circumstances. The provincials, perhaps, overacted with facial expressions and gestures, the capitals worked more gracefully – with a mean tear in their eyes and subtle mood swings. However, the genuine pleasure that the artists experienced from banal combinations and no less banal reactions was universal, shared by them with the audience.

Nevertheless, in the flood of common places, an unexpected “Remark” sounded: it was set to the music of Glass by the classical premiere of the Bolshoi Semyon Chudin, who has become more adept in the modern repertoire of the theater. Restrained in outward expression of emotions, but extremely expressive in body, he danced such a laconic and accurate monologue in terms of reactions, which by no means speculated on his academic talents (although a couple of exemplary big jumps adorned this solo), that even the hero’s inappropriate laughter in the finale did not blur the overall correctness of the production. . The second unexpected joy was “The Retreating” to the music of Fromm performed by Anastasia Stashkevich and Vyacheslav Lopatin. The best interpreters of modern choreography in the Bolshoi Theater troupe danced this motor dance skirmish with magnificent technical freedom, adding to it an intoxicating bodily gesture, which was not in any of the program numbers. These two unforeseen discoveries again made us think about the role of personality in ballet: does the artist improve the mediocre choreography with his performance, or does the choreographer jump above his head, having got a talented performer? Be that as it may, you will not refuse worthy artists in “Recognition”.