Feeling Hopeless at the Ballet – Maguy Marin – Monday, 2 May

OK, that was strange.  I knew that this dance piece by Maguy Marin called “Les applaudissements ne se mangent pas” was going to be in a serious piece in a contemporary language/style, but hey, it was being performed at the Opera Garnier and it’s always fun to sit in those stalls.

the view from my seat

16 dancers (both men and women) wearing street-clothing-type costumes entered and exited and collapsed and were dragged through “walls” made of about 50-foot-long vinyl strips hanging from frames on three sides of the stage.  Sometimes they ran, sometimes they walked slowly, sometimes solo, sometimes in groups – so sometimes entrances and exits were quite quiet and other times the strips made interesting noises flapping against each other (and interesting patterns oscillating as they were hit).  Dancers sometimes bolted across the stage, sometimes encountered each other with hostility, sometimes helped each other, sometimes provided climbing ramps for each other, sometimes "vanished" through the vinyl strips.  A couple times they “logrolled” across the stage, varying their speed as they rolled, again creating interesting sounds.  There really wasn’t a musical accompaniment – instead, a soundscape that was at times like static, at times extended tones, at times loud and dissonant.

a page from the program

This went on for about an hour without a discernible (to me) progression of the story, with the same movements and interactions recurring multiple times.  And there were only a handful of spots where dancers executed what I would normally think of as beautiful movements.

About 2/3 of the full house didn’t applaud at all at the end.  There were some boos.  Maybe 1 or 2 bravos.

The program says, “An allegory for despotic societies, and, in particular, South American dictatorships, the work explores the strategies of power and the dynamics of authority that forge the relationships between men.  The dancers switch from oppressor to oppressed, embodying both the persecutor/executioner and the ‘missing’ victims of the dictatorship.”

Hmmm.  OK, I guess I saw some of that.  Perhaps the piece was intended to make me feel hopeless about or to fear despots.  Or to rise up against them.  Pondering….