Yang Liping is a Chinese dancer, famous for her rendition of the Peacock dance. We took in a performance of the Rite of Spring, as reimagined and choreographed by her. It was a nice experience, very contemporary, and reminded me of my love for the Rite of Spring.

Liping herself did not dance but was in attendance (and received plenty of applause at the end). The show itself is very abstract. The beginning 30 minutes or so did not use the Rite of Spring music, or really much of any music at all. It was very slow movements, and establishments of scene and mood. The costuming in general was fantastic, with vibrant colors and distinct design.

Then, the music kicks in, and the performance picked up. They ran through pretty much the entire Rite of Spring ballet, and there was a little extra coda at the end, again with more minimal music. The story is generally the same - we have a pagan ritual, and one girl is selected to be sacrificed. One distinct change is that the performance has a very literal representation of death, played by the only male dancer in the performance. At the end, the sacrificed girl is consumed by death.

The dancing itself was very artistic and mesmerizing. However, the star of the show absolutely was Stravinksy’s ballet. I don’t listen to the Rite of Spring regularly, but as soon as the music started, it just felt so familiar. I was reminded again of how much ground Stravinsky spanned with this ballet, both in pushing the limits of the new (with arrhythmic percussion and highly dissonant chords) and in reveling in the classic (with gorgeous luscious melodies that felt like they could’ve been written by Tchaikovsky).

Topics: MusicMusic:Concerts

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