English National Ballet’s “She Said,” at Sadler’s Wells featured world premieres from Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Yabin Wang and Aszure Barton. An all-female choreographed triple bill asked what “she’s” got to say, supplying an answer to recent debates on the lack of female choreographers which constitute the dance scene. But was Akram Khan right to say that “we do not need female choreographers for the sake of it”?Whilst waiting for the show to begin, a full house deciphered the iconography of the curtain that the ENB’s artistic director, Tamara Rojo, commissioned Grayson Perry to design. Depicting Perry’s reflections on the trilogy at hand, the giant drawing recalls Outsider Art – as he intended. A giant Frida Kahlo is surrounded by three figurines: on the left, an allusion to Kahlo’s self-portrait as human-animal hybrid from her “The Wounded Deer” (1946), a hairy being on the right, and completing a pyramidal trio is Medea, holding a knife with which she means to murder her own child.But has she - or perhaps all three women, collectively - castrated all men, creating what seems to be a matriarchal hierarchy set within a phallic landscape? Comprised of what Deleuze and Guattari referred to as “organs without bodies,” phalluses are morphed into airplanes, cars, chapels, swords, and guns, portraying men as inventors of military devices, technology, and agriculture, and women as beasts, witches and saints populating a kind of wartime setting – a metaphor for gender-based power relations and stereotypes.The curtain lifted on Ochoa’s narrative, “Broken Wings.” Set to Peter Salem’s score, with dramaturgy by Nancy Meckler, it unraveled the life, work and imagination of artist Frida Kahlo. From start to finish, Rojo’s Frida was frail, weak, scared and lost, glaringly omitting the artist’s power and strength. From schoolgirl through to adulthood, Rojo did not dance, but instead was danced by eight male skeletons, or by Irek Mukhamedov as Diego Riviera, in what seemed to be a choreography based on lifts, pulls and basic steps. The Day of the Dead is a recurring motif, the chorus of skeletons foreshadowing a tumultuous future. After a bus accident which would afflict Kahlo with serious, lifelong physical suffering, Rojo was costumed in resemblance to the “Broken Column” (1944), lying in her bed from where she starts painting via her reflection in a mirror.The palette’s colors, recurrent elements and significant costumes that appear in Frida’s paintings spring into life, with ten cross-dressed male dancers personifying Frida’s range of self-portraits. Furthermore, symbols representing her vulnerability, both her physical and psychological torment, are interpreted vigorously by the company’s female dancers. This jolly piece, with its marvelous sets and costumes designed by Dieuweke van Reij, charmed children and adults alike, and will retain a timeless freshness, not because of its choreography but because Frida’s iconic world won’t fade away.“M-Dao”, Wang’s take on the Greek mythical figure of Medea who murders her children, was hard to read. The atmosphere was frozen stiff, pretentiously dramatic, and the flowing silk for a backdrop with mirrored black floor didn’t seem to coalesce. Laurretta Summerscales appeared as Medea, in the look of Cinderella, with a point shoe on one foot, and none on the other; an interesting idea, but would have fit Frida’s foot more aptly. Her dramatic interpretation attempting to project on sacrilege was bereft of human emotion, and Jocelyn Pook’s score made it even worse - a mash up of Strauss’ Salome and something akin to an Enya record - oh, the horror! Barton’s minimalist, non-narrative “Fantastic Beings” was mesmerizing, with a Tobin Del Cuore’s video projection of streaming particles evoking fireflies or meteorites. Michelle Jank’s sheeny unitards, inspired by the oily black feathers of black cockatoos, beautifully refined the curves and lines of 20 dancers, who had more the likeness of outer space buzzards than birds. Here, the choreographer’s diligence to create the dance sequences in collaboration with the dancers, indeed, as she aspired, brought forth their individuality during solos and an enchanting synchronicity, with visually stunning results, during ensembles, writhing and leaping across the stage.All of the sudden, the extraterrestrial beings transformed; now resembling primitive, ape-like creature, in hairy costume - an exact replica of those designed by capillary sculptor Charlie Le Mindu - however, here they were animated with terrific movement that embraced their uncanniness. Mason Bates’ striking score, “Anthology of Fantastic Zoology,” which he described as “a kind of psychedelic Carnival of the Animals,” was the best music of the evening, albeit Barton didn’t seem to be provoked enough by musicality.‘She Said’ is at Sadler’s Wells
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