Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet, with a repertory until recently dominated by 20th-century classics, has now decided to water it down somewhat by adding unconventional productions by choreographers such as George Balanchine, Roland Petit, John Neumeyer, and Alexei Ratmansky.
Ratmansky, the incumbent Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Ballet, has just come out with a new production of Dmitry Shostakovich's "Bolt" (1931), a grotesque on the Soviet Union's industrial community.
The list of characters is unusually long and diverse, and includes not just human personages-such as executives, workers, janitors, Communist activists, pub regulars, hooligans, spy divers, sailors, and pilots-but also cavalry horses and men-of-war. So in the cast, the focus is shifted from soloists onto corps-de-ballet dancers.
Although composed by 25-year-old Shostakovich in the stern 1930s, "Bolt" is a flashback to the previous decade, when free-thinking was still not frowned upon and there were no constraints on the use of grotesque.
The experimental Russian choreographer Fyodor Lopukhov was the first to stage "Bolt," but had his production closed after the very first showing.
Ratmansky has brought the ballet back to stage in the lead-up to Shostakovich's birth centenary (to be marked in 2006). Before that, he staged Shostakovich's "The Limpid Brook," a comic ballet about a theatrical company touring the countryside. That work received wide acclaim both at home and abroad, winning four national Golden Mask awards.
In reviving Shostakovich's ballets, barred from stage by Soviet culture authorities, Ratmansky pursues three objectives: updating the Bolshoi's repertory, enriching the company's choreographic language, and bringing spotlight on talented dancers undeservedly eclipsed by principals.
As a dancer, Ratmansky has appeared at some of the world's major music theaters. A Principal with the Royal Danish Ballet, he has 160 ballet parts behind his belt-ten times as many as his peers at the Bolshoi do.
In Ratmansky's "Bolt," humans dance alongside machines. The stage set, by New York-based Russian designer Semyon Pastukh, centers on huge bolts, shaped as the sickle-and-hammer (a symbol of Soviet Russia). Six-meter-tall welder dolls, activated through remote control, dance around, their eyes flashing brightly.
Ratmansky's "The Limpid Brook" is light, airy and sparkling, like champagne. "Bolt" is more complex and cumbersome, but the intricate interrelationships between its many characters add an element of entertainment to this intellectually demanding show.
The message Ratmansky is trying to get across through his work is that the Bolshoi Theater is still alive and kicking. "We are planning to invite instructors who could teach our performers to use a different, non-conventional dancing language," he says. "Our Choreographic Workshops project seems very promising to me. Last fall, a number of guest choreographers came along to show productions they had put on especially for the Bolshoi company. And Bolshoi ballet masters will be presenting their newest works next season."
The current crisis in choreography can be overcome by letting dance professionals explore and experiment freely, believes Ratmansky. And he is doing just that. The path of experimentation will hopefully lead the Bolshoi to many innovative ideas, something of a rarity in its post-Soviet 20th-century history.
