 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 September 1999 Issue No. 445 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 September 1999 Issue No. 445
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Focus Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Bloody bucolic
By David BlakeAnd the opening music rolls on, gradually unfolding like a majestic symphony, though where we are is a land as well as music. The two, indeed, are indivisible, certainly where the northern part of the great plains of Hungary roll past Romania, lapping the edges of the Ukraine until they reach the very edge of Russia. Like the dance we will see the plains go on forever. And like the dance they can be measured by music, a music that is the heartbeat of the Hajduk race -- a people who dance simply, and who are, when they do, simply unforgettable.
A small orchestra, which plays with an insistent zigeuner beat, unceasingly marks the character and the place of the dancers, the most striking thing about whom is their height. They seem gigantically tall and willowy as they sway gently like poplar trees in the wind. The next most striking thing is their musicality -- they are lofty beings from a far country, giving off their best. Sometimes the effort shows, but it only enhances the beauty of their performance. Their honesty is their appeal. None are professional entertainers, so they magnify their excellence by their naiveté.
The costumes they wear form a part of the continuing delight of this troupe. There is no sense of show about them. They dig into the routines and complexities of their very ancient steps, too direct and folkloric to be called choreography. And when the individual sections finish they don't stop. They just walk off the stage while the band plays on, most of it violin jiggle but evocative nonetheless. Sometimes a girl begins to sing, nothing operatic or harsh, but with a powerful voice -- low, then a sweep-up to a high soprano. After the song a new group materialises from the wings of the stage, a stage which can barely contain the majestic movements of these exquisitely dressed people, the boys in black velvet and wide-brimmed hats, the girls in watermelon pink.
There is no characterisation about them. They are themselves, fresh, athletic and timeless, a dazzling display of waistcoats. The colours flash like kaleidoscopic dragonflies. There is an awful lot of thigh-slapping and bounce from the men -- it is rather like a Hungarian operetta though without professional varnish.
As for the dance, it is just that and no more. Flat, but complicated footwork as they move diagonally and interweave with each other, its repetitions have a touch of the east about them. Sometimes it is men only, when the boys begin a rough-house, round-about dance, with yells and shouts. And one can only wonder where are the horses? The answer, of course, is that they are everywhere.
Everyone loves a cowboy, those shadow males in their magnificent laconic outfits. The last authentic hero of the mystical male ego is neither soldier nor lover. He is a man of passage and mystery, a man from a far-away plain, on a horse, staring into a future that does not exist. And the plains are Hungarian.
After this disturbingly beautiful display by Hungary, it was too odd, almost, to have the Chinese offering.
On the last visit of the Chinese to this festival, their show was war-like, stirring and political, very alive. This time the show was not quite cabaret, it was circus. Lovely girls in lovely clothes, and huge dragons with magicians and jugglers. The Chinese theatre is full of such things, carried to a fine art, but this was more relaxed after-dinner stuff. The girls did everything with anything -- goldfish bowls were juggled, domestic poultry disappeared, cards were tricked and everything was just plain fun. It was accompanied by a band of varying size, sometimes two, sometimes six. The sounds were far out -- Eliot Carter, Conlon, Nancarro, Liget, wood-bashing, tin-whistle blowing and honks from motorcar horns, all blended into a mishmash which did make music.
The show was brief but ended with high-spirits. A China not easily recognised.
Music begins Croatia's offering. It sounds very ancient -- the kind of sounds probably made in Trajanic times. Its melodies and metaphors are pre-Baroque, with a wash of the Greek folkloric. Croatia's tunes seem to flow sadly, seductively, from some place without name or date, possessed of an erotic allure related to no place at all.
When sung these simple airs are ravishing -- whispers of whatever Yugoslavia was once called. They vibrate like stars and project a strong musical identity, a way of sounding that is inimitable. Not even Slav voices have that particular float.
In this programme, it is the Croatian part that assaults the imagination. Once again the dancers are as tall as trees. They move with a measured tempo, neither fast nor slow, perfect emanations of place, though quite which place is questionable. Croatia now, in any case, is more than a place. It is half dream, half nightmare.
The dance routines are very like the Hungarian ones, but without the extra elements of gaucho and campfire romance. Croatia made its dancers demigods. The programme is long, the colours stunning. Sophistication can go no further. One sequence has the girls doing their elegant patter-patter steps in flowing black dresses, slashed by stoles of colour, flame emerald hidden by smoky gauze. They invoke Velasquez, and the romanticism of the 1930s films of Irving Thalberg. As pairs, they do the most complex patterns without flaw. Their elevated intensity is never heavy.
The Estonian part of the show does not attempt such heights but has its own fun and simplicity. One male dancer, throughout the evening, danced with his glasses on. The glasses are very visibly there, and it adds something homely and bucolic to the general atmosphere of Olympia. Everyone again tall, the stage hardly supporting them as they almost flow over into the audience. These two programmes were a delight -- the most beautiful stage pictures seen in Cairo since the Harlem City Ballet brought its production of Firebird years ago.
Behind honey and flowers lay the shadow which lent power and depth to the show.
