Fellow Phrases, Fellow Points

Fellow Phrases, Fellow Points
Contemporary Choreographers’’ Night X.

In case a “contemporary choreographer” is a choreographer who is still alive, we can truly say that we are entertained by contemporary pieces at the jubilee performance by the Workshop of the Hungarian National Ballet Foundation. But (and this is not a cry for bluish haze or abstract pieces metacommunicating in ways alien to the audience) in case we intend to use the attribute „contemporary” to mean creative work sensitive to the present age breaking new paths or striving towards that, the choreographic summary of the performance with its modernizing classicism that would not exchange the broken path for new ways setting on stage earlier pieces that were given just a new dash of soda, the jubilee occasion, is a sheer disappointment. The company of artists from the previous years has not grown to include new names nor has it adopted a revolutionary approach bringing forth something impressively original. Although the strict fences of classical ballet have long been pulled down the majority of our these choreographers – holding on to their ’letters patent’ can’t help keeping their steps close to Martha Graham. What remains, however, beyond explanation is the ’modern’ dramatic motive behind some choreographers' choice to suddenly cut out music and close their scenic expression with an accordingly strikingly fast full stop.

The above-mentioned sudden cut is perhaps best understood in Way of Words, the piece by Levente Bajári: it does create new meaning there. Dario Marionelli’s clumsy music echoing the knock of a typewriter, the purple costumes reminiscent of Austin Power movies along with Krisztina Pazár’s bob haircut, the two dancers’ puppet-like movements as if they were moved by someone else when they perform their pas de deux in the central, common square of light all create the idiosyncratic dance thriller atmosphere further supported by the title (Way of words – with special emphasis on modality). Then the invisible fingers beating the invisible typewriter abruptly stop telling their story while the silence that is set leaves an unquestionable excitement and tension, the applause is due for technical excellence, the brilliant postures and the feet brought up in ballet shoes rather than for the experience conveyed by the artistic composition.

Just the same point goes for Andrea Paolini Merlo’s Uncertain Harmony which featured on the night Új utakon (New Roads) by the Ballet Workshop earlier. The eight dancers standing in a straight line depart from the strict order and start their identical series of movements made wave-like by the difference in timing to uncertainly shrieking, harassing musical harmony in reddish light. Merlo delicately develops the order of chaos from the chaos of order and arranges his dancers in newer and newer formations finally returning to the
initial straight line and reddish lights when he silences the music as if all were well done. A point marks the end of the line of movements and the musical tune ends in uncertain harmony…

Startling enough, but for unjustifiable clumsiness rather than for thoughtful consideration. The first part of the other Merlo choreography, Métamorphoses Nocturnes (Night Metamorphoses) was seen in the 2006 performance but now the piece have developed further to present the artist’s whole arsenal of expression where the foolproof charm is spatial sensibility. In the opening scene six dancers arranged in pairs are lying on the ground and later joined by a fourth couple. Parts making the whole group move alternate with micro-happenings built on two or three dancers, which seem to draw images of changing parts of the day in allegorical dance. The seemingly classical lines of movements enriched with some modernity are sometimes broken by tableaux of bodies imitating running when lifted by their partners. Just like in Uncertain Harmony near the end of the piece the dancers assume their initial position, but now four couples are lying on the ground and the tune closes at a comforting resting point.

This classic frame-like structure, this well worn grammar is apparent to a much greater extent in Elégia (Elegy) a choreography by András Lukács from 2000, which is definitely old-fashioned and romantic in tone in spite of the often used flexes as well as non-vertical body axes. His three female dancers play about like nymphs to ballet music by Delibes. They start from a common focal point and finally return to it in a nice over-lyricized image the charm of which is somewhat aged (the last of the dancers retracting to the back of the stage wraps the light in her palm and „takes it away”. The other piece by Lukács, Levél Martha Grahamnek (Letter to Martha Graham) is not a brand new product either. Mauve costumes and graceful dancers miming the shapes of Greek amphorae…
– Lukács, like a true apt pupil, lists everything that is ’Graham’ in his tribute to the American pioneer of modern dance. His nicely dynamic composition generously looks down on the present day: He does not place his work in context, he does not interpret, just estheticizes in a pathetic-sentimental lilaccoloured backlight. This classic romantic way of composition is not left behind by Marianna Venekei either in her Eternal Memory (where the title might suggest an everlasting experience or the act of remembering forever) created to the memory of Zoltán Nagy, Jr. although her choreography eclectically mixes role concepts reminding us of the age of great Ballets (Dancer: Levente Bajári, Death: Ildikó Bacskai) and the more modern, film-like narrative playing with a double time plane created by a difference in lighting. Bajári’s great human presence is excitingly counterpointed by Bacskai’s relentless naked squareness.

It is a Hollywood proverb that a film is half success if it features a child or a dog. Roland Csonka considered seriously the advice and brought together an ’earthly' and a ’heavenly’ child in his choreography Contact – not with E.T. but with each-other and their adult images. The makeshift disco lights representing a spaceship or the starry sky that flash up for a few seconds when we are about halfway through the piece, the shiny tape stuck on the spine of the ’heavenly creature’ or the stone medals around the neck create the illusion of a bizarre Walt Disney afternoon tale rather than that of a ripe choreography that can be taken seriously.

The single piece that can be deemed searching, pondering over the relationship between music and movements and playing with that relationship so the one we might call a ’contemporary’ piece in both senses is Long (with both its verbal and adjectival meaning in play) by Attila Kun. ’Ugly hands', ’ugly feet’, squareness, limping in a piece which – in contrast to its title is extremely brief, which although fits in the line of abruptly ending choreographies lined up but can become an attractive, manifestation of the straightforward creative and searching mind with its freshness, personal touch and openness that does not want to hide its unfinished quality. His young dancer, József Medvecz uses sign language. As if he did not have words or phrases for what he wants to say, -not even coherent movements that could be fit in one line. It is only clumsy halftones that appear closed with a hyphen referring to a broken heart.

The programme, made up of well swotted lines, in the tenth Contemporary Choreographers’ Night features conscientious pieces of work which are in lack of spirit. These choreographers – whether part of a contemporary workshop or not – stay within the dialect learnt at the Opera House polishing not-quite-new rhymes and testifying allegoric scenic contents on well-trained dancer bodies while they seem to shrink from the real examination of this body as well as that of the dance itself or from novel ways of expression. Half (!) of the choreographies presented were no new-born babes at all. Are not there any new pieces that could be taken on? Question mark and…Point, point, point.


Contemporary Choreographers’ Night X. (Studio Company of the Hungarian National Ballet Foundation, National Dance Theatre)
Elegy – Music: L. Delibes. Choreography: András Lukács. Way of Words – Music: Dario Marionelli. Choreography: Levente Bajári. Uncertain Harmony – Music: György Ligeti. Choreography: Andrea Paolini Merlo. Contact – Music: Nándor Weisz. Make-up: Szilvi Ipacs. Choreography: Roland Csonka. Letter to Martha Graham – Music: Michael Nyman. Choreography: András Lukács. Eternal Memory (In Memoriam Zoltán Nagy, the younger) – Music: John Tavener. Choreography: Marianna Venekei. Long – Music: Shigeru Umebayashi. Choreography: Attila Kun.
Méthamorphoses Nocturnes I–II. – Music: György Ligeti. Costume: Mónika Herwerth. Choreography, Lighting: Andrea Paolini Merlo.
Dancers: Ildikó Bacskai, Orsolya Gáspár, Zsófia Gyarmati, Krisztina Pazár, Levente Bajári, Alexandra Kozmér, Dóra Deák, Alexander Komarov, György Szirb, Dániel Fodor, Roland Csonka, Zoltán Feicht, Patrik Szala, Márton Szücs, Ildikó Boros, Adrienn Horváth, Adrienn Szekeres, Sznezsana Gikovszki, József Medvecz, Ágnes Riedl, Adrienn Pap, Bálint Katona.