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Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 July 1999 Issue No. 437 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 July 1999 Issue No. 437
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Focus Books Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Drumming. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Cairo Opera House, Main Hall. 30 June. Anyone for tennis?
By David Blake
Glimpses from DrummingWhen Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham all broke away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the classic ballet, they destroyed one world and made another -- dancing in theatres, opera houses and places of amusement all changed their direction.
The old and the new all have their passionate disciples. Nothing, not even the classics, lasts forever. So eventually "dance theatre" was born. Unfortunate name since all dance is theatre, but the name stuck. Gradually street chic, couture, sport and pop gave dance theatre its special quality.
Dance theatre started left of centre so scooping up the anti-establishment feeling, which made most of the art of the 20th century, gave dance theatre an exalted position.
Now all the walls of Ilium are toppled and dance theatre stands alone but still surviving in the same burial ground as Swan Lake and The Sno Fairies.
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's ballet Drumming has travelled far and wide over the dance world. Her work has made dance theatre an artistic statement strongly original with hope for the future of the dance which, with the classical ballet in these times, is sorely beset from all sides.
Does Drumming and its background have the guts, like the Sleeping Beauty, to face a future which promises battle?
It is showing its age. It has about it some of the great truculent and insolent attitudes of the past age. It is no use wading through platitudinous and pretentious sheaves of writing which is supposed to protect it from criticism because dance theatre has produced no true icons. It merely stands there, like the dances in Drumming and says, "this is it, mate, you've had it" and so proceeds to walk off stage like the girl who opens the show. At the end she rips off her short red jacket, flings it down behind her centre stage, turns her back and walks away. Lights out -- stop. We've had it, after over one long hour of watching the same leaps, struts, jumps and darting ones around the stage.
The show is nice but this is post-Kosovo age. This is an age of gathering mysteries without explanations. Neither dance theatre nor Drumming has found a technique of showing the dance form capable of presenting the sinister formulas of unease of the times. What is to come is really worth waiting for.
Fortunately, De Keersmaekers's choreography avoids the shoulder slouch and buttock thrust and mixed sexual penetration which disfigures so much of dance theatre, turning it into an unintentional comedy. Her art is fresh and suggests lightness, a sort of sportive battleground, the atmosphere of a Wimbledon finals tennis match. Soon, however, yesterday's dead will be delivered and what then will Drumming do?
Turn to Steve Reich's music? A rather vapid bucolics, charming but far from brief -- oh what a bore, even when Gamelan metal sounds thread their way through the empty spaces. De Keersmaeker has enough strength and inspiration to know this particular ball is over.
Keep going, lady, and help dance theatre find a way out of the coming apocalypse. The ballet needs you.
Last concert of this season, Music for All IX. Cairo Opera Orchestra. Soloist (violin) Khaled El-Shweikh. Conductor Dominique Rouits. Cairo Opera House, Main Hall. 2 July.
Musical seasons seldom end better than they begin. This 1999 has succeeded in this last concert of the year.
Sherif Mohieddin's Music for All series has set a standard from its inception. It is practical, well set out, neither humble nor pushy. It is just good music for nothing. A positive revolution and it has paid off because it has formed an audience of its own.
Now it has become a sort of club with an interesting audience who make genuine response. The repertoire from the beginning has always been off beat. Now and in all cases from Bach to the 20th century, and all extremely well played. One cannot ask for more. The public enjoys the results -- it is a pleasure trip.
This last concert brought Dominique Rouits back on a second visit. Here is a warm, concentrated conductor who allows an orchestra its head, yet keeps the music exactly where he wants it to be. He is not a show off or a conventional maestro of the middle-of-the-road type.
First piece, the Shostakovitch Festive Overture, op. 96. As time recedes from him, Shostakovitch looks completely pedagogical -- school mastery and not very warm. Some festival is this -- more like a Naval review with Tzar Nicholas in his little cap looking completely out of place, watching the Russian navy stream past as it goes to the bottom of the sea.
Next item was of much interest, the Katchaturian Violin Concerto played by Khaled El-Shweikh. With this violinist you first have to cope with his appearance. Startlingly tall, perfectly formed from foot to skull, like a great powerful crane bending in the wind -- but steely. Always El-Shweikh makes this impression. He is casual about the concert and himself but joyful at what is going on around him. And then, highly tuned, he begins to play the violin which he also treats casually. You think he is not going to do anything, he looks too beautiful. Immediately the crane is poised, the feet grip the floor, all the inches of his height are bent to action, honed and high strung. His playing is Augustan; in Bach he awes, in anything else he is cool but with a sudden release of passion. He is one of the most thrilling players to appear on the Cairo scene. He never releases an ordinary moment, all is unique. The Katchaturian suited him, giving long extended periods of solo playing with moments of extreme climax as the orchestra rushes in upon him.
Rouits did not spare the player, nor did the violin submit to sheer orchestral fortissimo. So these two made a very exciting confrontation with the Katchaturian concerto. El-Shweikh looked like Titian's painting of Apollo flaying Marsyius, the impudent fawn who thought he was as good as the god.
The concert ended with Rimsky's battle piece Scheherazade, the full suite in four pieces op. 23 with the violin solo beautifully played by Mahmoud Osman. This piece depends on how much ballet you've seen when you hear the piece. It is the greatest single visual onslaught Russia ever made on the west: Diagheliev brought the decor of Bakst, and the dancers Nijinski and Karsevina.
Rouits gave it as a symphony, not as a visual reminder of Immortal Nights at the ballet, and of course it sounded correct. Except that the mega thrills, the sinister strumming, when the orgy begins, did not freeze the blood. The narrative had been left out. But it was a very lively, uncorsetted version, majestic and grand. More than enough to hope the next year will be as good as this one for the Cairo Opera Orchestra.
