Review of one-act ballets by Jiri Kylian at the Paris Opera Garnier

Opera Garnier hosts an evening of one-act ballets by the living classic Jiri Kylian. Three masterpieces of the Czech choreographer, which are performed all over the world – Gods and Dogs (2008), The Little Death (1991) and Six Dances (1991) – have just now joined the repertoire of the Paris Opera, and Stepping stones ( 1991) the Parisians did not take it out of storage for exactly 20 years. I admired Maria Sidelnikova.

But first, according to tradition, about strikes. The ballet dancers of the Paris Opera, with many abstaining and a minority, nevertheless voted to cancel the strike, which threatened to disrupt all holiday performances (see Kommersant on December 21). However, no agreements were reached: they parted ways on a promise to return to the negotiating table with specific proposals from the leadership next spring. Fortunately, there are also plenty of potential hostage blockbusters – “A Vain Precaution”, and “Don Quixote”, and “Giselle”.

Jiri Kylian was invited to Paris in 1989 by Rudolf Nureyev, his idol. It was because of him that, at the age of 28, the ambitious Czech finally left his career as a dancer. A perfectionist, he wanted to be a star, no less than a Soviet fugitive. But he realized that he was not Nureyev. And thank God: this is how the ballet world received one of the most musical, subtle and profound choreographers in its history. Regular collaboration with the Opera developed later, from the mid-1990s, already under Brigitte Lefebvre.

The current program is impeccably compiled: for the audience it is an opportunity to discover in one evening the poetic world of Jiri Kylian with all its indescribable metaphors, sensuality, sincerity and humor; for the artistic director of the ballet, Jose Martinez, to submit a proposal for the future of the troupe. It was Kilian who he chose as his guiding light – a choreographer who invented the modern language of dance based on classical pointe technique, and a visionary leader who created a separate youth company NDT2 to keep talent “at home”. Martinez has both in his immediate plans. But the unplanned “Kilian effect” was already visible: his ballets united “classics” and “contemporaries” on the stage of Opera Garnier, artists who have recently gone into different camps, forming a noticeable crack in the troupe.

The mystical world of the ballet “Gods and Dogs” (“Gods and Dogs”, 2008) exists on the edge: between the norm and deviation, health and illness, being and non-existence, in it there are gods and dogs (“god” and “dog” are English words -shifters) can change places in a moment, poetic streams of rain can turn out to be prison bars, the horizon line can turn out to be a sentence, a bright candle can turn out to be a fading life, and the harmonious flow of Beethoven’s string quartet is constantly interrupted by terrible blows of whips, the grinding of sharp knives, the hiss of blades. The central role (although Kilian completely denies characters in his ballets) is given to the “first dancer” Francesco Mura. This nimble artist, the cheerful Mercutio and the stately Monsieur Renal are unrecognizable in Kilian’s frank soul-searching. There was nothing ostentatious in his flagellations, whirlwind tours, numbness, mouth torn with horror, in his struggle with himself (and there is nothing to do here in stupid pathos). In the male duet, Takeru Costa, who always stands out in the modern repertoire, and the charismatic Andrea Sarri, who does not often get the chance to perform solo variations, merged into a single, viscous, strong body, which is a pity. Of the girls, Nina Seropyan, a tall dancer with a beautiful ballet form and a “modern” nerve, announced herself as the “story”. She pronounced Kilian’s trademark breaks in trajectories, his favorite lizard plasticity, stylishly and very naturally.

And she consolidated the impression in “Stepping stones” (1991). Jiri Kylian staged this ballet to a rough mix of music by John Cage and Anton Webern as an homage to the entire history of dance. She passes in front of three Egyptian cats – motionless observers located closer to the left wings. The dancers’ main props are bricks in which golden miniature sculptures are mounted – from prehistoric artifacts to Brancusi’s “heads”. They are both the past and material for the future. They can hinder movement (the choreographer places them either in the feet or in the hands of the performers), or they can serve as a springboard. Even artists look at these treasures differently. The company’s most stylish ballerina, Hannah O’Neill, is flirtatious. The Eternal Prince Mathio Gagno, who is not so often seen stripped down to his underpants and in the neoclassical repertoire, is with caution. Vulnerable rebel Hugo Marchand – with a challenge. The Kilian frontality, which creates additional emotional tension, is perfectly maintained by the Parisian artists. Stop this dance at any moment, and you will get a picture that is perfect in terms of completeness, alignment of poses, relationships, emotions, light, and mise-en-scene. It is no coincidence that Kilian today loves photography no less than choreography.

In the second part of the evening they performed the intoxicatingly sensual “Little Death” and the hilariously funny “Six Dances” – lovebird masterpieces by Jiri Kylian, connected by the music of Mozart. Who else but the French should dance about the “little death” – a euphemistic name for orgasm that arose in their native language? Their bodies, trained from school to avoid any extremes and shun the ostentatious, approach this physical climax not too quickly, not too brightly, but inevitably. No words are enough to describe the duet of Blouin Batistoni with Alexandre Grasse or Sylvie Saint-Martin with Pablo Legasso. And Jiri Kylian, like no one, knows the helplessness of words before the ephemeral art of dance, which he admitted in his manifesto “On Dance, Choreography and Performance”: “I understand that I am spending too much time sitting and writing this article, instead of just moving and dancing – like we should all be doing!” They don’t argue with masters.