On February 10, the premiere of the modern ballet “Chekhov. Reflections” by choreographer Konstantin Uralsky.
There were a lot of spectators. Some of the Voronezh residents could have seen the sketch of the production before – at the RE: Form of Dance festival at the end of 2022. Someone plunged into the backwoods world of the reflected Chekhov for the first time.
Declared “Chekhov. Reflections” as a performance-choreographic reflection on female images in the works of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. However, judging by what happened on the stage, the world of each Chekhov heroine revolved exclusively around men dancing around.
All experiences are twisted either in the presence of a gentleman, or in his absence. There is no talk of deep feelings at all. At a certain stage, all Chekhov’s young ladies take off their floor-length dresses (amazing costumes, it should be noted) and continue suffering and joy without them. When the men finally disperse, the ladies dress up again and freeze in sadness. “For all the dissimilarity of his literary heroines, they are connected by invisible threads of the fate of women in society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” the description of the production says. Well, if these are reflections, then in a crooked mirror. Not a single character of the heroine could be considered, so there was a feeling that this was not so important. If Anton Palych portrayed the heroines in this way, then it would be a mystery of the century, why did he become popular all over the world? ..
It was not an easy task to discover at least some logic of what was happening on the stage. The audience clapped incessantly.
As for the choreography, there were good moments, but the production brought nostalgic pictures to mind. These are memories of the good old student theater. Is it really that important whether you get in time with the music, whether you move in sync with other dancers, why is this and not otherwise? After all, you tried. The aftertaste upon leaving the auditorium is like after a cheap wine.
The plot flashed … The plot for a short story: a young girl, just like you, has been living on the shore of the lake since childhood. Loves the lake like a seagull, free like a seagull. By chance, a man came – from nothing to do, he ruined, that’s how this seagull.
Chekhov is immortal, he can’t be killed by a bad staging. Especially if Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is trying his best to add emotionality and meaning to what is happening in the orchestra pit.
Text: Maria Bakhtina