The ballet premiere of “Everything After” by Olga Labovkina took place at the New Opera

A ballet premiere took place at the New Opera: the two-act play “Everything That After” was staged by Olga Labovkina. Tells Tatiana Kuznetsova.

The New Opera, of which Ballet Moscow became a part after the “optimization” of Moscow theaters, is actively working to replenish its repertoire, which is not at all easy in the conditions of import substitution – there are too few worthy choreographers in the country. A native of Belarus, Olga Labovkina, the head of her own company and a master of the Vaganova Academy in “composition of modern dance forms,” is one of the few “lifesavers.” She has been known in Moscow since 2017: she won the competition for young choreographers at the Context festival and became a regular at its programs. Over the years of acquaintance, Olga Labovkina managed to demonstrate her versatility and ability to read the tastes of customers. And since Ballet Moscow is headed by former Context curator Anastasia Yatsenko, Labovkina’s appearance in this troupe was a matter of time.

The theme of “Everything That Comes After” – human relationships – stated in the program program is formulated differently by the authors of the play. The choreographer talks about the movement “from a state of brokenness to gaining strength,” composer Ilya Dyagel says that “in the process of living the gap between people, one thing remains – what is truly important.” Scenographer Galya Solodovnikova tells a story “about us and our world, which is constantly changing, and we often do not have time to adapt to it.” Variations in interpretation did not prevent the co-authors from creating a surprisingly solid performance. Its first act is a grotesque everyday life, fraught with infernal cataclysms, the second act, metaphorical, grows on the soil of an altered but recognizable reality.

The space, enclosed by two walls and thoroughly furnished (a rough table, stools, a large sofa, a floor lamp, a window, a shower), deceives with its deceptive realism. Some heads are climbing out of the window; in the shower stall, instead of a naked person, a whole crowd of dressed people appears; Characters dressed with demonstrative absurdity (costume designer – Olga Nikitina) tumble in from the doors – entrance and interior – in a row. All are exaggeratedly flawed: some caricature mince on their toes, some stick out their hips, some drag their inflexible legs, some cower in nervous itch. Everyone is exaggeratedly active: they crowd together, scurry around corners, make fun of someone, bully someone. And each, judging by the speed of disintegration of the ensembles, is irreparably lonely; in the bustle of the mise-en-scène, you can only discern the fragments of a love triangle. On the proscenium, this flickering is observed by a motionless figure in a chair, noticed only by those who have escaped the bustle of the “human being”. An attempt to look the observer in the face turns into embarrassment, if not disaster: the head falls off the body along with the hat, the light in the “apartment” begins to dim, the light bulb above the door begins to blink incessantly, bloody cracks crawl along the walls – the grotesque life before our eyes turns into ruins.

The tangle of events in the first act does not unravel into a thread of dance description. Olga Labovkina, having had 20 well-trained artists at her disposal, tried to show everything at once: facial expressions, pantomime, elements of “physical theater”, the basics of contact improvisation, the wealth of dance acrobatics, as well as personal achievements – the ability to build a simultaneous action and work with group dance . Moreover, in the first act the choreographer fundamentally avoids synchronization, leaving each character with his own plastic voice. The physical remarks of the characters, complemented by off-screen laughter, babble, sighs and parodic directions from a road navigator predicting “a sharp turn after 700 suspicions,” merge into a persistent polyphony, balancing on the brink of chaos, however carefully calculated.

The second act, in which the “apartment”, which has fallen into pieces, gradually disappears into the gray haze, leaving only a pitiful pocket of normal life – the floor lamp, glowing with warm light, looks slimmer. Beginning with an idiotically optimistic proscenium procession of “swimmers” in red swimming trunks and bathing caps, the action flows into ruins, where the characters, losing the remnants of their personal (in the form of jackets and blouses), turn into a teeming mass, bloody, like minced meat. Human “meat” is trying to squeeze out of the destroyed walls; then, divided into even ranks, he marches with feigned enthusiasm, crouching in a wide second position and throwing batmans in different directions. Artificial cheerfulness gives way to long, sad embraces of private farewells and forgiveness.

Olga Labovkina’s extraordinary ability to transform the corps de ballet into a single multi-figured body, breathing and feeling, brings to mind the best choreographic examples – in particular, the famous crowd scenes of Crystal Pite’s ballets. In the final, inhibited duet of heroes, who separated from the mass drowned in darkness and exchanged red trousers and shirt for clothes of a soothing flesh color, lexical inventiveness is clearly sacrificed to lyricism. The careful mutual support of two immensely exhausted people, of course, does not indicate “gaining strength,” but it clearly demonstrates what “is truly important.” Even in the formal aspect: too rarely our authors manage to speak clearly.