Ballet
Persian blues
Robin Young
Maurice Mart is reckoned to be the great showman among the present-day ballet impresarios. His sense of theatre exerts a strong appeal to the young and impressionable. His dance company, the Ballet of the 20th Century, is one of the strongest, and best-looking, of all the international groups. Golestan, at the Coliseum, had a rapturous reception and even got an encore. Indeed, if it hadn't got an encore some of the costumes would have been brought over from Belgium unnecessarily, because the girls had not worn them before.
I am sorry to say, therefore, that I found Golestan heavily overladen with longueurs. No doubt it does not help that I am not deeply versed in Iranian poetry. The ballet was created for the Shah of Iran, and is based apparently on an ancient Iranian myth embodied in a poem by Saadi. But then I cannot believe that Mart is very deeply versed in Iranian poetry either. To say, as the programme does, that Bejart has "embodied" Iran's "dance traditions and philosophy" in Golestan is immodestly overstating the case. He has been commissioned by Iran, has used an Iranian subject and music, and has been superficially influenced in his dance patterns by some gleanings from Iranian folklore.
The ballet "explores the mystic and divine significance of the Rose." Well, nobody will end up much wiser about that.
The entry of The Men, all in white, was a tour de force. Sad that their flowing white sleeves and flowing trousers were so ambitiously designed that no fewer than three of them tripped on their own or their neighbours' clothes.
The girls were not shown to quite such advantage. They, too, were almost uniform — stem green costumes and pink topknots for the roses. Suzanne Farrell's entry as The Rose (as distinct from your common or garden rose) was kept till late, but she was distinguished only by being vermilion all over and having a bit of vermilion gauze over when she first comes on. When the gauze was got rid of. her introductory dance became a rather jazzy number, with a bit of bump and grind about the hips. Still, I expect Iranians go for that, too.
The significance of the events on stage became cloudier as the ballet proceeded. The whole thing is built around a traveller (Alain Louafi) who comes on like Robinson Crusoe and then gets the visions which involve everybody else. There were some unconvincing high winds, which disperse his dreams, an overdone climax when the traveller gets a rose, and some business with the veil and a mirror.
It seemed over-ambitious to extend this thin and rather repetitive material over two hours without an interval, but Bejart probably got his reputation by deciding long ago to think big.
The nine Iranian musicians, set at the back of the stage, gave an interesting accompaniment — but oddly the most effective bits of all were taped.
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