Is the exbailarín and choreographer French (ancestors of the albanians) Angelin Preljocaj (Suzy-en-Brie, 1957), the artist of the dance of the golden generation of the current so-called “Nouvelle Danse Française” (to horse between the first and second promotion) which has been stabilized with successful undisputed a career, a style and a repertoire; in the beginning, was not as considerate as others, but his perseverance has borne fruit accurate.

it is Not trivial that it is also the most has kept the formal channels of operation of the technical apparatus of the ballet academic and reveling in the shifting terrain of the contemporary ballet. With a training spot, eclectic and peppered with short experiments, his restlessness took him a year to New York, where he was marked by the work at the school of Merce Cunningham and the insistence analytical Zena Rommett-Buttignol (Venice, 1920 – New York, 2010). When Marcelle Michel mentions Preljocaj in 1986, what does it say that, with Michel Kelemenis, are the two young talents to be more affected by Bagouet and his obsessive attempts of notation, systematic coreológica and signs. Not mistaken the great critic and analyst of “Le Monde”.

But already before Rommett had planted in the reserved and even shy student a seed important: squeeze out the sequence of the movement of ballet, and to analyze it on the same body, organize the regulated and seek to balance. It is clearly seen from always in their building materials. Ago has been a time of misunderstandings when the whole atmosphere of the dance in France made jokes with her strange and unpronounceable last name. In 1987, following the premiere of “Hallali Romée” at the Avignon Festival (a play for seven women inspired by Joan of Arc), Angelin told this newspaper that she kept jealously a list of the many ways in which his name appeared in the press. I was working then on the representation of sexuality through dance, a concern visible even today.

the Possessor of a lyric contained and has a remarkable intuition for the synthesis of the exhibition that has become part of the rigor of style, Preljocaj gives a patina of seriousness and it seemed to stress a moral to everything that he does: there are no excesses, nor improvisations and much less hollow in the drama. In 2010 Preljocaj was in Gran Canaria with his “snow White” and in 2013 in Madrid with his “rite of spring”. Now has brought to the Channel from madrid a program exquisite camera, as limpid as refined in its intentions and presentation.

A moment of the performance of the Ballet Preljocaj. Javier Mantrana / Madrid Dance 2019

The first work is a custom built on the imagination of the inspiration of the choreographer (the 200 years of Marius Petipa and has been premiered in St. Petersburg). It is not who kept the memorials or literal, but rather seeks a vision on its own and as well make a dance variation of “black Swan” to a man, and the body of the female dance is a kind of gear only, and stimulated by the rhythm that emerges from the inspiration of the male character, a dancer-creator who feels on itself the influence of the romanesque theme of the swan malefic.

GHOST / STILL LIFE

Ballet Preljocaj. Choreography by Angelin Preljocaj; music: P. I. Chaicovski, Alva Noto, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and others; lighting: Eric Soyer; coreólogo: Dany Lévêque; designs: Lorris Dumeille. Festival Madrid en Danza. Teatros del Canal. Until the 21st of December.

The second piece, “Still Life”, is more complex. Speaking of Vanitas (just think of Valdés Leal, in the Ribera) as a point of reflection and mirror. It is a ballet of maturity achieved and stimulating, capable of capping the viewer with their plastic full of shades and ritual. Soberly wrapped in an atmosphere that is almost gothic, the dancers form the interior (or mental, brain) of some symbols that do not pass and are somehow remaining in its multiple interpretations.

The objects are also in this case part of the vocabulary. The figures dissolve gently in the own shadows of the stage, which in this case is a Theater of the World where they meet and collide a few messages with no time, as eternal as human anxiety of disentangle them. The audience applauded warmly to the artists and the choreographer.