Spectacle Brown - Forsythe -Lancelot

[Katharine Kanter]

Lancelot/Brown/Forsythe programme
Opéra Garnier
December 13th 2004

1/ Lancelot

Many seem to believe that music such as these Bach suites needs what our American friends call eye-candy to get through it, much as people eat sweets at the cinema - to kinda make the pain go away.

I beg to differ.

Either listen to that music, or don’t listen to it, and go home. Don’t crumple sweet-wrappers all over it.

Nicholas Paul cannot be faulted for his dancing. But why bring trivia to something that is not trivial ?

2/ Composite (have forgotten the Polish name)

The lady reciting in the Polish language does not appear to have a properly-trained and projected voice. After three minutes, one’s nerves fray.

Legris, Leriche and, most especially, Dupont, cannot be faulted for their dancing. But why dance something this trivial ?


3/ Glacial Decoy

Already seen, and slithered through, last year. What have photographs of grazing cows and industrial scrap-heaps to do with Miteki Kudo, who is neither a cow, nor an industrial scrap-heap ?

Unfortunately, Mlle. Kudo is currently on leave of absence. Without that lady, for whom the expression “could make the telephone directory sound interesting” was, no doubt, invented, this particular telephone directory should be snapped shut.

Also, could someone explain what ‘Glacial Decoy’ means ? I speak English, or at least, I think I do, and can’t figure it out.

FYI: Giving a boring work an interesting title, DOES NOT HELP.

4/ Forsythe – Pas/Parts

FYI: Giving a boring work an interesting title, DOES NOT HELP.

Anyway, the man, too, repeats himself. Although on a large scale, Pas/Parts adds nothing to what we already know of Forsythe’s enormous skill in deploying the human body from every possible angle, including from above. His eye, in this respect, is far more piercing than that of Balanchine. The problem is that geometry alone, is not art.

Now, from the standpoint of the performer....

Spent the half-hour gnawing at me fingernails, wondering who amongst the ladies might be knocked out of “Beauty” by “dancing” this, if that is the word. Because what Mr. Forsythe does to the female body, you should NOT tell your granny.

As the woman has a wider hip-joint, laxer ligaments, and therefore a greater ambitus of articulation in the hip than the man, Mr. Forsythe, like so many gentlemen today, has concluded that choreography for the woman boils down to exploiting (exploring ?) this ambitus. My most sincere apologies for being so graphic, but...

Be that as it may, it does seem that the past three or four centuries of rich and varied choreographic invention, may point elsewhere.

By the bye, cannot recall the score. In one ear, and out the other. Vaguely, something resembling loud bruitages. However, were it not that loud, both dancers and public might wonder why so needless an expenditure of raw energy over a full thirty-minute span ?

For the man, Forsythe is more fun. The man gets to do a bit more than picking up the leg and pressing out the articulation to the max. He gets to bounce round like India rubber. It’s a little more natural - although natural, in this context, is probably 'un bien gros mot'.