Foot philosophy – Newspaper Kommersant No. 195 (7396) of 10/20/2022

At the Russian Youth Theater, the Context Festival presented its second evening (about the first “Kommersant” wrote on September 26): “The Singularity” was composed by Kirill Radev for the artists of the project group of the festival, “Form Zero” by Pavel Glukhov for the ballet troupe of the Musical Theater of the Republic of Karelia. Tells Tatyana Kuznetsova.

The tenth Context, which was forced to lose its “internationality” (both in the title and in the program), relied on new productions by domestic authors. The festival did not conduct any special research: all the choreographers participated in the previous “Contexts”, many of them are in demand, well-known in the circles of domestic lovers of modern dance. So the “Evening of Modern Dance” did not portend any special surprises.

Kirill Radev, a graduate of the Vaganov Academy who has been working in Spain since 2007, usually strings combination upon combination using wide, excited, pathetic movements, supported by a ruthless suggestive rhythm, often smoothed out by something uplifting baroque. The pandemic has taught the choreographer to stage remotely, and the inclusion of his 13-minute Pilgrim in this year’s Golden Mask competition shows that this method works. It seems that with “Singularity” Kirill Radev decided to multiply his success by doubling the composition of the participants and the timing. This circumstance turned out to be fatal: half an hour of rave electronic swotting by composer Andrey Chaporov, aggravated by tiring choreographic motorism, turned out to be a test of endurance not only for the artists, but also for the audience.

With all the energy of Kirill Radev, his choreographic language is monotonous, like a tongue twister: common to all six participants, regardless of gender (they are also dressed the same – in dark pants and tops imitating nudity) circular leg throws, sharp stretches to the floor, parterre rolls and transfers of partners over the shoulder and torso. Foot activity was aggravated by the affected – and also circular – movements of the arms and body, the same in any circumstances and in any combination of dancers: in a combat entre, duets (opposite-sex and same-sex), a female power trio, in trick solos, even in a fading finale. And although the choreographer, in his words, “adheres to the philosophical meaning of the concept of “singularity””, in this opus, based on the old ballet desire to demonstrate bodily prowess, there was not a grain of “single”, let alone “unique”. And only Aleksey Efarinov’s “laser content” in the form of cones with something splashing or walls of light separating the dancing androgynes made it possible to slightly digress from the choreographic secondary nature of the “final product”.

The stage director Pavel Glukhov also adhered to philosophy: in his “Form Zero” to the music of Handel’s “Messiah”, supplemented by fragments of Solomon Gray and Max Richter, he, with touching innocence, was looking for “points of contact between Tao and the Christian worldview of eternal life.” First, he illustrated the concept of “path”: 18 artists of the Musical Theater of Karelia, dressed in black suit pairs and black turtlenecks, with calculated randomness walked along the walkways of the grate, along the stage, through the passages in the auditorium, then finding themselves in oblivion (that is, in the orchestra pit), then “reborn” – again coming out into the light of the ramp. Then the “chaos” was structured: the artists, lined up in even rows, performed quite academic pas like sissons and arabesques. And this episode, coupled with the citation of the procession from Forsyth’s “Artifact Suite”, turned out to be the most encouraging in terms of choreography. Because then the “contact” began. The girl in a light chiton with a long train probably portrayed the Madonna: they kissed her hands, bowed in prayer in picturesque groups, and carried her in her arms like a statue during a religious procession. However, towards the end, having lost her attire and remained in wide trousers, she seemed to personify the concept of “yin”, curling up with a character in black trousers in an elegiac parterre duet, the details of which were difficult to see due to the thick smoke that covered the stage.

The hero in black trousers also did not immediately turn into a “yang”. For most of the performance, he was exhausted in the moral struggle: on the one hand, he was attracted to the Madonna, on the other, he continually accepted the help of a fallen angel, who pulled the sufferer from under the barrow from the bodies of the black corps de ballet and kept him on the edge of the orchestra pit. Lucifer, it must be said, fell from heaven in the most literal sense: a giant block “fell off” from the grate, from under which a character with white hair strewn with dust crawled out. For the dull ones, the “prince of darkness” during the climactic monologue, suspiciously reminiscent of the famous final solo from “Kaash” by Akram Khan, took off his T-shirt and revealed two deep wounds on his back in place of the lost wings.

Stage designer Pavel Glukhov assisted Glukhov the choreographer to the best of his ability: the gigantic circle suspended from the grate either served as a Christian halo, or symbolized the vicious circle of being. Stepladders rode around the stage on wheels, personifying life’s ups and downs – and here we must pay tribute to the women of the museum theater, who bravely threw themselves backwards from the upper crossbar into the arms of their male colleagues. The behind-the-scenes wind blower, brought onto the stage by Lucifer and knocking the heroes off their feet with gusts of wind, depicted the storms of life in the most obvious way. In a word, the hourly “contact” of Taoism with Christianity abounded in both events and metaphors. In general, it is understandable why domestic choreographers are eager to speak about lofty matters: they were brought up in the belief that the theater is a department. The only pity is that the specialists in body movement chose the Department of Philosophy.