(Photo by Richard Avedon who has taken stunning photographs of many dancers and other artists.)I went to see Sacred Monsters by Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan last night. After the performance my head was bursting with ideas while another part of me just wanted to revel in what I'd just experienced.
Guillem is a stunning dancer. She is the sort of dancer that makes you question what is the point in anyone else even trying: 99 per cent of professional dancers can never achieve what she can. I have no doubt her body is protesting to years of abuse - she is, after all, in her fourties and way past the average retiment age for dancers - but on stage she moves so child-like, so naturally, it really makes you believe doing a 175-degree develope to front and holding it is nothing to her. Her movement is almost paradoxical. She has such perfect control over every fibre of her body that she can move with fluidity and ease; I remember seeing a video where her hands shook, and you could see the perfect isolation of each joint even in that tiny movement. This makes her fascinating to watch.
Of the two dancers, Akram Khan was doomed to come second from the beginning. There were moments when the two connected in a beautiful way, for example a number done entirely with Guillem dangling from Khan's hips, forming a perfect Vishnu shadow with one head and four arms. Khan's solos were in places wonderfully expressive: he did a marvellous job imaging and he has gorgeous hand movements. In places, however, perhaps because of cultural conditioning, his parts paled in comparison to Guillem. (Khan is a classical Indian dancer; Guillem has her background in classical ballet, although she has done a lot of contemporary.) At worst, he seemed amateurish.
The live music as well as offering the audience a glimpse into the "backstage" life of dancers made the performance seem almost intimate despite the big opera house. There was no intermission. The dancers had developed monologues and dialogues to give them a chance to catch their breath between numbers. While I'm fascinated by dancers' thought processes and their attitudes to their bodies - utilitarian tools on one hand, something to obsess over and scrutinize endlessly on the other - some of the chatter was too much. I did enjoy the humour, though.
The performance ended on a lovely note. Guillem was explaining the term émerveillé - "insprired and excited but so much more" - and the last number was filled with skipping ropes and swings. To me, it was a reminder of why there is a point: dance can bring endless joy in the midst of all the aches and the fight against gravity.
