“Forget the lightness… This ballet speaks to us of heaviness, of the strength that holds us down. Bodies bend under the weight of fatigue. Of destiny “. Bronislava Nijinska’s words for her dancers at the debut of “Les Noces” in Montecarlo in 1923 could have been spoken by her brother Vaclav too in 1913 at the premiere of the “Spring Festival”. Because both were on the same wavelength, they gave new trajectories to the dance of the 20th century, they bid farewell to the academic world, they opened up the paths of contemporary dance. After them (and some other pioneers) nothing would ever be the same again.
More than a hundred years later, and after countless versions of “Sacre” and “Noces”, the English choreographer Wayne Mcgregor lives up to Nijinska’s words and places his diptych “AfteRite + Lore”, for the dancers of La Scala in Milan and for Alessandra Ferri, in the brutal Atacama desert in Chile. A hell on earth where Pinochet had his victims buried and women went to collect the bones of their loved ones.
Just as brutal and primitive is the score of the “Sacre”, a pagan ritual, in the intentions of Stravinsky and Vaclav Nijinsky, which ends with the sacrifice of the Chosen One to propitiate the return of spring.
Is that desert landscape nature or civilization that welcomes luxuriant tropical plants on the left in a greenhouse? Is the greenhouse the civilization made by man at the expense of the desertified nature that surrounds it? A set that is already a strong element of the show, within which McGregor organizes a dance made of exasperated speed, an explosion of energy happily supported by the dancers of La Scala. The ballet does not include characters, but a group of 13 performers. But then in talking about his work McGregor identifies Ferri with her mother and in one of the two girls who accompany her, we can imagine, the victim sacrifices her. But is not so. Because the Mother (tied to a pole with a black hood on her head) is nature who takes revenge on her and leads to death the man who defaced her. It is he, the excellent Nicola del Freo, who finally collapses to the ground overwhelmed, after a two-step / clash with nature / Ferri.
Using the Slavic folk tradition of wedding rites, Stravinsky built his “Noces” for four pianos and percussion, four soloists and choir. But even here the original plot is totally omitted by McGregor who instead prepares his “Noces”, which he titles “Lore” (tradition), considers a concentration of all the rites and proposes as a sequel to the “Sacre”. The girl of the first part is now a girl who we find at the opening of the curtain and who soon becomes confused in the group. Has civilization gone her way? Do the images of architectures projected on the big screen tell us about this? The dance becomes more compact and sets predominate.
An important evening, therefore, for the music, for the coherent choreographic project and for the performance of the motivated and convinced company. Alongside Ferri and Del Freo, Arduino Faggetti, Coviello, Manni and many others. With the fundamental participation of orchestra, conducted by Koen Kessels,, soprano, mezzo-soprano, low tenor, deep bass, choir and the four soloists on the piano.
Sergio Trombetta