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At The Kirov<P>July 11, 2002<P>The Kirov returned to New York, bringing another ballet reconstructed from notes on its earlier performances. Like The Sleeping Beauty, which was presented here in 1999, La Bayadere features marvelous costumes and sets, a production of great length, and a strongly developed pantomime with a rich and subtle vocabulary.<P>As Mary Bueno observed to me, the mime is striking for the degree to which it integrates with the dance. All too often, the mime serves as recitative, advancing the plot before an extended ballet aria. In this performance, the mime and dance are through-composed, and serve each other, and the larger work.<P>Diana Vishneva is Nikiya, and her performance succeeds at once. She descends the temple steps, and moves downstage center, where she stands, veiled and motionless as the Bayadere dance around her. With elbows at her sides, each arm is drawn straight up, and her palms rest upon her shoulders. Her veil, and her protective arms describe the purity of her spirit.<P>But her feet. Oh, those feet! In a demure demi-first position, a simple V, they perch so lovingly upon the ground, speaking with such force, that immediately we understand how the high priest will forsake his vows. This image of chastity and desire, which forms the central motif of ballet, is achieved in perfect stillness, in the opening moments. The greatest dancers make the world fall, with and at their feet.<P>We are fortunate to have this reconstruction, even if it does not have quite the same impact as The Sleeping Beauty, which was significant because of the particularly close relationships among its drama, music, and movement. I recall that presentation in this note, from another season:<P>June 28, 1999<P>The Kirov love the dance. They proclaim this love in the ambition and scale of their presentation of The Sleeping Beauty. While other companies may dispose of this work in two acts, at the Kirov, the program declares that the first of three intermissions will be required no later than the end of the Prologue. The musicians, stern and uncompromising in their opening bars, announce that they have turned out in numbers sufficient for the performance of the largest orchestral works. But it is only at the end of the overture, when the dancers begin to enter, that we first glimpse the depth of this love. For it is only then that we can see the costumes.<P>At a glance, it is evident that in their intricacy, in the sumptuousness of their materials, and above all, in the art and care lavished on the tiniest details of their construction, costumes of this quality rarely are seen on an American stage. Remarkably, most of this excellence must be lost to the audience. Binoculars reveal only a hint of their small details. Nor is this excellence confined to the principal dancers. In the garland scene, there are sixty one dancers on the stage, and every costume is glorious.<P>Understand these costumes, and you will understand the Kirov. You must understand why they have done as they have done, what this effort has meant, in its full human dimensions, in its cost to Elena Zaitseva and her heroic staff. <P>However much of their effort lies invisible to me, none of it is hidden from the dancers. Not a single thread, not a stitch of those millions of stitches escapes their eyes. Elsewhere, they perform in costumes. At the Kirov, they dance in gowns. This is a tangible, and, to use a term of unsurpassed historical significance for Russia, a _material_ expression of a fundamental principle. In the end, the Kirov dance and sew for the same reason: the importance of small things done perfectly. For the Kirov, this is the very breath of life.<P>As dancers, they are enigmatic and disguised. They conceal their preparations and cover their approach. They are not big, in fact, many are of short stature. They do not show off, indeed, they are defined less by their soloists than by the corps. They avoid temptation and decline the obvious, they are what they are not. They would rather leap gracefully than high. Elsewhere, dancers gather themselves up for an enormous jump. At the Kirov, they rise into the air, like birds.<P>For this production, the Kirov undertook an elaborate reconstruction of the choreography from the Stepanov notation by the regisseur Sergeyev, which he began in 1903, and which he carried to the west as he fled from the revolution. More knowledgeable writers have explained that although he preserved the steps, Sergeyev was musically inept, and that they have seen these dances better done. <P>I cannot dispute this, but one must pay close attention to the peasants. Peasants are invaluable in this work, for without them, there can be no princess. In these multitudes, one sees some of those steps which surely must have been rescued from Sergeyev’s notes, and which now are made to fit the music with a machinist’s precision. These details beguile us as they motivate the action, and emerge into the larger work. Otherwise, who could possibly care about any of this? It is because these peasant girls are so carefree, as they play with their forbidden spindle, that we are mortified when they are admonished and that we rejoice when they are forgiven. At every moment, the music and gesture support each other, as both choreographer and composer subordinate their art to the service of the libretto.<P>The corps maintains a studied perfection, not through military regimentation, but with a subtle process of mutual adjustment. In the exigency of performance, they maintain their line with an organic, fluid accommodation, the upstage dancer gently adjusting to the downstage, until the row is perfect. At the same time, each dancer remains an individual. Not all are cast from the same mold, or move in the same way, because the movement that is perfect for one body would look awkward on another.<P>Watch this with the same care with which it was made. It proceeds, by degrees, for three hours and forty minutes, to tell an old tale. Russia is very large, and very great, and very old. She has many, many, many things to tell us.<P>
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