Wandering about dance

Backlog - The Journal of the Dance Master

So lets get back to business.

More than two months ago I attended performance called The Journal of the Dance Master. Danced and choreographed by Gudrun Skamletz (who danced in Que ma joie demeure by Béatrice Massin and in Le Burgeois Gentilhomme by Moliére) and directed by Jean-Denis Monory who also played the title role, this performance seemed promising. Accompanied by Collegium Marianum (which means that music will be outstanding, full stop) it was a must.

But I was a little bit disappointed.

I mean dancer was great, music was great, acting was great, costumes were OK, but… it was not baroque enough. It ought to be about dancing, yes? About baroque dancing, la belle dance, you know? It was not. In the whole performance which lasted about one hour there were only two recognisable baroque dances - Lully’s Chacone de Phaeton pour une femme from 1704 and Passacaile de Armide also by Lully.

First is quite easy nice dance apart from its lenght (132 bars). Director apparently thought that such a long dance (almost without leaps) will be boring so it was in the very begining and constantly interrupted by comments and remarks from the “dancing master”. If I remember well poor dancer not even finished it.

Second dance was virtuoso solo - Francine Lancelot called this dance “one of the most beautifull solo female dances of all time”. I have no objections here, it was very good. It came at the very end.

So, what was in between those two dances? Uhm, pretty much nothing to be frank. Some tarantella, some fandango, some commedia del’arte (I did not get it sorry), Folies d’Espagne was played but not danced (what a shame) all wrapped into vague love story between dancing master and his pupil.

By the way one should never perform contemporary dance in baroque costume. One should never perform contemporary dance in baroque costume. One should never perform contemporary dance in baroque costume. That one hurt.

And it was in French. I mean this was French actors so it kind of should be in French but something was translated, something was not. Please give us whole translation next time at least on paper, we can read. It was no big deal though, it was just annoying.

Once again - music and everything about musicians was great, great. They were outstanding in whatever they were playing.

So to sum up. I got to the conclusion that the whole thing was put together ad hoc and underline was that uneducated Czech audience will buy it anyway, and they did. But I am not. This was not a proper job. Kinda fastfood feel.

As this was performed so long ago there are some more reflection on the web (in Czech):

http://rwrana.blogspot.com/2008/07/cestopis-tanenho-mistra-letn-slavnosti.html

http://salon.tillwoman.net/akce/17245/;jsessionid=49CBD6CF66E3938B3A118138C13FF330