dirac Posted October 24, 2021 Share Posted October 24, 2021 Reviews of the Royal Ballet in "The Dante Project." The Economist Quote Artists have been reimagining the “Divine Comedy” for most of the 700 years since Dante Alighieri’s death. A silent-movie version of 1911 was the first of many attempts to adapt his masterpiece of temptation and redemption for the screen. It has inspired comics, manga series, death-metal albums and a video game. Now, seven years after the British composer Thomas Adès first mooted the idea to Wayne McGregor, an acclaimed choreographer, comes the first full-length Dante ballet. The Arts Desk Quote Choreographically, MacGregor clearly had fun depicting Hell’s swarms of sinners: adulterous lovers, gluttons, hypocrites and thieves, plus a brief cameo for Satan himself (pictured with Dante above), interestingly cast as female. Alluring Fumi Kaneko is clad – like all the other damned souls – in chalk-sprayed black Lycra. But while I would like to be able to report on the ingenious solutions MacGregor finds to the challenges of, say, depicting lovers buffeted by wind, or a body with two heads, these details passed me by. The hellish murk made it hard to distinguish the features of even half the 13 vignettes listed in the programme. The idea of chalking the body parts that actioned the sin (the thieves’ hands, the adulterers’ loins) is clever in principle, but across the great distances of the Opera House didn’t register strongly enough. That can be fixed. Link to comment
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