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Maillot is back with another Bard’s classic
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THE Monte-Carlo Ballet is hoping to mesmerize audiences again when it revisits Shanghai with its own innovative interpretation of classic.
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is choreographed by Jean-Christophe Maillot, who is on his sixth visit to China since 2000.
He will lead his troupe out at the Shanghai Culture Square on October 20-22 during the 18th Shanghai International Arts Festival.
Maillot stunned his audiences when he first came to China with “Romeo and Juliet.” For some, it was completely incomprehensible at the time, but his unconstrained imagination has been gradually accepted, and even appreciated, with his later works such as “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Swain Lake” and “Faust,” says Ou Jianping, president of the Chinese National Academy of Arts Dance Institute.
As a researcher who has the habit of taking down notes while watching dance performances, Ou failed to write down notes while watching Maillot’s “Romeo and Juliet,” but fell in love with his works ever since. “His creation is totally out of the inertia ... and plays up romance to the extreme,” says Ou.
Monte-Carlo Ballet, whose predecessor was the Ballets Russes, was founded by Serge Pavlovitch Diaghilev, who earned fame with Fokine, Balanchine and Nijinsky. As the artistic director of Monte-Carlo Ballet since 1993, Maillot created about 50 works with his distinctive choreographic features which started a new era in the ballet world.
Having danced and fallen in love with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” since 1977, it was not until 2005 that Maillot created his own version of the classic.
Maillot said he refused to touch the work until he felt all the conditions were right. When he did eventually complete “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” it was the pinnacle of his career.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is Maillot’s first creation based on comic work. And as Ou sees it, it is probably Maillot’s most loyal work to the original text.
Though most dance theaters prefer a relatively simple-structured story with one principal line and one subordinate line, Maillot keeps all the major clues of Shakespeare’s work in his creation, including the marriage of the Duke of Athens, the four young Athenian lovers whose romance is transplaced, the sulk between the King and Queen of the Fairies, and the six mechanicals, who are amateur actors controlled and manipulated by the fairies in the forest.
“It is a challenge to stage such a complicated story with so many characters without telling a word,” says Ou. “But Maillot made it in his own way.”
The three couples — Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, the King and Queen of the Fairies — will dance their romance out on the stage, while the mechanicals and the naughty fairies will deliver all the quips and jokes.
Puck, the servant to the Fairy King, will come on the stage on electric scooters on which a huge magic flower grows and sprays magic smoke. Whoever breathes the smoke, will be cursed for loving the first one who comes to sight.
To help audiences distinguish the characters, striking “labels” are designed in the costumes, such as a huge triangular ruler as hat for the carpenter and colorful threads decorating the tailor all over. The original couples are dressed in the same color, and the leading roles’ names are even put on their costumes, lest they confuse the audience.
The music has been given by different composers for the three different worlds in the story — Felix Mendelssohn’s work for the Anthem’s territory, Daniel Teruggi’s music for the fairy’s world and Bertrand Maillot’s music for the mechanicals’ theater.
Maillot keeps his minimalist feature for the stage settings. Three white square columns create the Athens palace, while two curved metal hillsides make up the fairy world in the forest. Huge floating clouds are placed above the stage, creating the impression of magic power.
“The very simple geometric figures amazingly bring audiences into the situation, while taking their attention more to the dance and characters,” says Ou, “Clever designs always outweigh unnecessary pile up.”
Date: October 20-22, 7:15pm
Venue: Shanghai Culture Square, 597 Fuxing Rd M.
Tickets: 80-980 yuan
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