From Africa, beautiful bodies update a classic
Surely the premiere of the ballet "Le Sacre du Printemps," held in Paris on May 29, 1913, is one of the juicier legends of modern times.
Commissioned by Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev, both the music by Igor Stravinsky and the choreography by Diaghilev's lover and star dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky, were groundbreaking, reportedly prompting shouting matches and fistfights to break out in the audience.
Nearly 100 years later, Stravinsky's now beloved score is sacred indeed, and notice is taken whenever a choreographer tackles "Sacre." This week, Jacob's Pillow is presenting choreographer Heddy Maalem's interpretation, the final part of a trilogy inspired by Maalem's eye-opening visit to Lagos, Nigeria. The Algerian-born Maalem has assembled 14 dancers from six African countries to perform this sometimes compelling, sometimes head-scratching, often unsettling work, and their varied and beautiful physiques and styles underscore the piece's ultimate humanity.
Which is not to suggest that there's much in the way of overt warmth in Maalem's "Sacre," though it often rages with the teeming heat of an often violent society. The lovely prologue duet, however, initially lulls: The dancers are silhouetted in front of a projection by filmmaker Benoit Dervaux, whose tropical images wave to Benoit De Clerck's soundscape of a thunderstorm. Slowly, the man reaches out to the woman and they clasp hands; he cradles her and she climbs onto his shoulders, curling up cocoon-like.
As the music begins - that wonderful, mournful yawn - dawn is suggested both in the slowly blushing light and in the line of dancers cautiously moving forward like creatures emerging at the beginning of the day. Tentatively they form groupings, touching and leaning against one another. This shyness quickly gives way as pairs form for a quick, formal tumble of a foxtrot or an absurdly mimed bump-and-grind.
Certainly sex - and the power plays that inevitably ensue - is a major theme. Dominance gets passed back and forth between the men's and women's groups, the imbalance showing in one group's hunched obsequiousness to the other.
Following Stravinsky's lead, the tension ratchets up in the first of many waves of frenzy that weave through the piece (moments that are either slyly witty in their deadpan delivery or disturbing in their maniacal writhings). Here, as in much of the piece, the movement is simple in design and tribal in feel, with lots of rhythmically stomping feet and ecstatically shuddering torsos. Though these passages are at times tedious, in these tableaux, Maalem captures a sense of the panicked individual lost in the cacophany of a poor, overpopulated city.
All the characters come across as equally strong, and equally vulnerable. Even when the men are engaged in a testosterone-fueled battle with an unseen enemy, we sense a boyish innocence. Indeed, they end the aggression by lining up, gripping one another's waists, and chugging comically around like a centipede. The women bond, too, as they snake their way across the stage, their fingertips lightly covering their breasts, neither modest nor provocative. Here, in the most overt nod to Stravinsky's libretto, based on ancient pagan myths, dancer Marie Diedhiou is "chosen." She stands still as the others scan her body curiously, skimming her belly, her breasts, her legs, her face.
Chosen or condemned, she is alternately revered and brutalized, as the piece approaches its seething, crashing end. Mirroring the quiet prologue, Dramane Diarra shivers and struggles painfully for air, accompanied by the sound of hooves increasing in speed and proximity. His breaths become convulsions that rack and lift his body upright. His spasmic fight to remain standing is pathetic, hard to watch, yet somehow triumphant. For as long as he's breathing, he's living.
