Darcey Bussell And Igor Zelensky
Artistic Director Alistair Spalding, who is shaping a new dance policy for the Sadler’s Wells theater in London, generated considerable excitement when he announced that Darcey Bussell and Igor Zelensky, whom some have dubbed the greatest duo since Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell, would appear there for one week in December.
Hopes rose high for this independent venture, especially in view of Zelensky’s recent appointment as artistic director of the Siberian National Ballet. But these expectations deflated like a punctured tire, when it became obvious that, outside her Royal Ballet orbit, Bussell needs to do more than just appear as her wonderful self to satisfy dancegoers. If it wasn’t for the novelty of seeing her in a Louise Brooks wig, playing Death as a slinky seductress to Zelensky’s suicidal young painter in Roland Petit’s Le jeune homme et la mort, the evening would have been a washout.
Production values were dismal, and taped music accompanied all except Jeune homme, the only piece in which the stars actually appeared together.
Kiss, choreographed by Alistair Marriot, one of the rising Royal Ballet–trained choreographers, was the best of the new offerings. For Kiss, set to a movement of Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Bussell had William Trevitt, another RB alumnus, as her attentive partner. The theme is based vaguely on Auguste Rodin’s famous statue “The Kiss.” Looking svelte in a belted pink leotard, Bussell was captured in the spotlight while Trevitt circled around as if drawing inspiration. They entwined, she showed off her high, arcing ronds de jambe, and then off went Trevitt, leaving her to look longingly after him.
Concerto Grosso, Zelensky’s 18-minute solo choreographed by Alla Sigalova to George Friedrich Handel’s Concerto Grosso, Opus 10 No. 6, consisted of fast chainés, hops, runs, jogging and slapping himself around, all in a deeply brooding Russian mood. Costumed in black with a beanie pulled down around his ears, Zelensky danced against a dark background where lighting equipment went up and down (on purpose?). It was extremely tiresome.
Choreographer Edwaard Liang’s nondescript Whispers In the Dark followed, involving three couples from Zelensky’s Siberian company who flitted around endlessly to Philip Glass. The somewhat sturdy women in costumes as dreary as a winter’s night were partnered by more streamlined, bare-chested men. All crisscrossed the stage in puffs of smoke and stabs of white light, but this, too, was mostly dancing in the dark.
Considered something of a shocker when first seen in 1946, Jeune homme alleviated some of the evening’s woes. The Georges Wakhevitch set depicting a Paris garret looked right, and Zelensky did his Brando best as the sexually driven young man who literally dances with Death in the form of his dominatrix girlfriend. Not a natural femme fatale, Bussell didn’t quite make her character believable, but at least she enlivened this disappointing evening.
Hilary Ostlere writes about dance for The Financial Times and many other publications.
