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On the cutting edge of the game. The Magnificent Seven and Hilaire Swan Lake choreography by Alexander Ekman

Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman began his career in ballet at the age of ten as a student at the Royal Swedish Ballet School. After completing his studies, he becomes a dancer at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, then for three years he performs as part of the Nederlands Dans Theater troupe. As a dancer, he worked with choreographers such as Nacho Duato,. a turning point in his creative destiny turns to 2005: as a dancer with the Cullberg Ballet, he first proves himself as a choreographer, presenting the first part of his ballet trilogy "Sisters" - the production of "Sisters spinning flax" in Hannover at the International Choreographic Competition. At this competition, he took second place, and also won the prize of criticism. Since that time, Ekman, having completed his career as a dancer, devotes himself entirely to choreography.

Along with Cullberg Ballet, he collaborates with the Gothenburg Ballet, the Royal Ballet of Flanders, the Norwegian national ballet, the Rhine Ballet, the Berne Ballet and many other companies. Although he started his career as a classical dancer, as a choreographer he gave preference to modern dance with its freedom, not constrained by any rules and established traditions. It was in this style that the choreographer felt the opportunity to achieve the main goal that he always sets for himself when creating this or that production - “to say something” to the viewer, “to change something in people, even the way of feelings”. Main question, which the choreographer asks himself before starting work on any production - “Why is it needed?” It is this approach, according to Ekman, that is appropriate in art, and not the pursuit of fame. “I would rather work with a less talented but work-hungry dancer than with a jaded star,” says Ekman.

“Mastering the ballet” (this is how Alexander Ekman calls his work), the choreographer, in an effort to “change the image of feelings” of the public, always creates something unexpected - even the music for some productions was written by him. Ekman's productions are always unusual, and therefore attract the attention of the whole world - for example, the ballet "Cacti" was presented on eighteen stages. The use of music seems to be a particularly unexpected solution, and on this basis a witty production is built, embodying a slightly ironic look at modern dance. No less famous was his first multi-act ballet - Ekman's Triptych - Teaching Entertainment.

But, although Ekman opted for modern dance, this does not mean that he does not turn his eyes towards the classical traditions at all. So, having received an offer in 2010 to create a production for the Royal Swedish Ballet, in 2012 he presented the ballet "Tulle", which is a kind of "reflection" on the themes of classical ballet.

But even if Alexander Ekman refers to the popular masterpieces of the past, he gives them a fundamentally new interpretation - such is the "Lake of Swans", an innovative interpretation of "Swan Lake", presented by the choreographer in 2014. The dancers of the Norwegian Ballet had a hard time, because they danced ... on the water, the choreographer created a real “lake” on the stage, flooding it with water, for this it took more than one thousand liters of water (according to the choreographer, this idea came to him during his stay in the bathroom). But not only this was the originality of the production: the choreographer refuses to present the plot, the main characters- not Prince Siegfried and Odette, but the Observer and two Swans - White and Black, the collision of which becomes the culmination of the performance. Along with pure dance moves the performance also contains such motifs that would be appropriate in figure skating or even in a circus performance.

In 2015, "Lake of the Swans" was nominated for the Benois de la Dance award, and Alexander Ekman would not be himself if he had not surprised the audience at the concert of the nominees. Despite the fact that he had not performed as a dancer for quite a long time, the choreographer himself went on stage and performed a humorous number, specially invented by him for this concert, “What I think about in Bolshoi Theater". The laconic number captured the audience not with virtuosity, but with a variety of emotions - joy, uncertainty, fear, happiness - and, of course, there was a hint of the choreographer's creation: Ekman poured a glass of water onto the stage. In 2016, another creation of the choreographer was nominated for this award - “Dream in midsummer night».

The work of Alexander Ekman is many-sided. Not limited to ballet in its traditional incarnation, the choreographer creates installations with the participation of ballet dancers for the Swedish Museum contemporary art. Since 2011, the choreographer has been teaching at the Juilliard School in New York.

The Opera Garnier hosted the most intriguing event of the Paris season - the world premiere of the ballet "Play" ("The Game") by composer Mikael Karlsson, staged and set by one of the most sought-after young choreographers Alexander Ekman. For Swedish creative duet this is my first experience with the Paris Opera Ballet. Tells Maria Sidelnikova.

The debut of 33-year-old Alexander Ekman at the Paris Opera is one of the main trump cards of Aurélie Dupont in her first season as artistic director of the ballet. The success of the choreographer in Sweden and neighboring Scandinavian countries turned out to be so contagious that today he is in great demand both in Europe and in Australia, and even the Moscow Stanislavsky Museum Theater recently performed the Russian premiere of his 2012 performance "Tulle" (see "Kommersant" dated November 28 ). Dupont lured Ekman to a full-fledged two-act premiere, providing carte blanche, 36 young artists, historical scene Opera Garnier and an enviable time in the schedule - the December holiday session.

However, artistic, and even more so commercial risks in the case of Ekman are small. Despite his youth, the Swede managed to work in the world's best troupes both as a dancer and as a choreographer: in the Swedish royal ballet, Ballet Kulberg, in NDT II. And I got the hang of making high-quality synthetic performances, in which, as in a fascinating hypertext, a lot of quotations and references are piled up - and not only on the ballet heritage, but also on Parallel Worlds contemporary art, fashion, cinema, circus and even social networks. Ekman seasons all this with the “new sincerity” of the new century and creates as if his concern is to cheer up the viewer so that he leaves the performance, if not like from a reception at a good psychotherapist, then like from a good party. Local balletomanes-conservatives pronounced their verdict on such a “IKEA” attitude to the venerable ballet art long before the premiere, which, however, did not affect the general excitement.

Ekman starts his "Game" from the end. On a closed theatrical curtain, credits run with the names of all those involved in the premiere (there will be no time for that in the final), and a quartet of saxophonists - street musicians - is playing something uplifting. The entire first act flies by on an unpretentious note: young hipsters frolic uncontrollably on the snow-white stage (from the scenery there is only a tree and huge cubes that either float in the air or fall onto the stage; the orchestra sits right there - in the depths on the built balcony). They play hide and seek, pretend to be astronauts and queens, build pyramids, jump on trampolines, walk around the stage with a wheel, kiss and laugh. There is in this group a conditional ringleader (Simon Le Borne) and a conditional teacher who tries in vain to rein in the naughty. In the second act, grown-up children will turn into blinkered clerks, playful skirts and shorts will be changed to business suits, cubes will turn into dusty workplaces, the green tree will defiantly dry up, the world around will turn gray. In this airless space, if there is smoke like a rocker, it is only in the office smoking room. Here they played, now they stopped, but in vain, says the choreographer. For the completely dull, just in case, he main idea pronounces, inserting in the middle of the second act a "manifesto about the game" as a panacea for all ills modern society, and in the finale, gospel singer Calesta Day will also sing instructively about the same.

But still, Alexander Ekman expresses himself most convincingly in the choreographic language and visual images, which are inseparable for him. So, in the children's games of the first act, a completely unchildish scene slips through with the Amazons in corporal tops and boxers and in horned helmets on their heads. Matched appearance Ekman picks up moves well, alternating sharp pointe combinations and predatory, icy pas de chas with two bent legs following the line of the horn. He loves a spectacular picture no less than the same Pina Bausch. The German woman in her The Rite of Spring strewed the floor of the stage with earth, making it part of the scenery, and Ekman covered the Stockholm Opera with hay (“A Midsummer Night's Dream”), drowned the Norwegian Opera in tons of water (“ Swan Lake”), and on the stage Opera Garnier brought down a hail of hundreds of plastic balls, arranging orchestra pit ball pool. Young people make an enthusiastic face, purists - peevish. Moreover, unlike the Norwegian trick with water, from which Ekman could not swim anywhere, in the "Game" the green hail becomes a powerful culmination of the first act. It looks like a tropical downpour promising rebirth: the rhythm that the balls beat as they fall sounds like a pulse, and the bodies are so contagiously light and loose that you want to put an end to it. Because after the intermission, this pool will turn into a swamp: where the artists just dived and fluttered carelessly, now they are hopelessly bogged down - no way to get through. Each movement requires such effort from them, as if plastic balls were indeed replaced with weights. Voltage adult life Ekman puts them into the bodies of the dancers - “turns off” their elbows, circles “two shoulders, two hips”, makes their backs iron, mechanically twists their torsos in given poses in given directions. It seems to repeat the merry classic pas de deux of the first act (one of the few solo episodes - the Swede really feels freer in crowd scenes), but the same strokes, attitudes and support in arabesque are dead and formal - there is no life in them.

You get drawn into Ekman's complex "Game" during the performance: all you have to do is solve the compositional puzzles, without being distracted by the scenographic sweets that he throws up to the audience every now and then. But this is not enough for the choreographer. To play like this - already after the curtain falls, the artists again come to the fore to launch three giant balls into the hall. The dressed-down premiere audience picked them up, tossed them along the rows and with pleasure threw them to the Chagall ceiling. It seems that even jury snobs from the stalls sometimes miss not the most intellectual games.

The Opera Garnier hosted the most intriguing event of the Paris season - the world premiere of the ballet "Play" ("The Game") by composer Mikael Karlsson, staged and set by one of the most sought-after young choreographers Alexander Ekman. For the Swedish creative duo, this is the first experience of working with the Paris Opera Ballet. Tells Maria Sidelnikova.

The debut of 33-year-old Alexander Ekman at the Paris Opera is one of the main trump cards of Aurélie Dupont in her first season as artistic director of the ballet. The success of the choreographer in Sweden and neighboring Scandinavian countries turned out to be so contagious that today he is in great demand both in Europe and in Australia, and even the Moscow Stanislavsky Museum Theater recently performed the Russian premiere of his 2012 performance "Tulle" (see "Kommersant" dated November 28 ). Dupont, on the other hand, lured Ekman to a full-fledged two-act premiere, providing carte blanche, 36 young artists, the historic stage of the Opera Garnier and enviable time in the schedule - the December holiday session.

However, the artistic, and even more commercial risks in the case of Ekman are small. Despite his youth, the Swede managed to work in the world's best troupes both as a dancer and as a choreographer: in the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Kulberg Ballet, in NDT II. And he got the hang of making high-quality synthetic performances, in which, like in the most fascinating hypertext, a lot of quotes and references are piled up - not only to the ballet heritage, but also to the parallel worlds of modern art, fashion, cinema, circus and even social networks. Ekman seasons all this with the “new sincerity” of the new century and creates as if his concern is to cheer up the viewer so that he leaves the performance, if not like from a reception at a good psychotherapist, then like from a good party. Local balletomanes-conservatives pronounced their verdict on such a “IKEA” attitude to the venerable ballet art long before the premiere, which, however, did not affect the general excitement.

Ekman starts his "Game" from the end. On a closed theatrical curtain, credits run with the names of all those involved in the premiere (there will be no time for that in the final), and a quartet of saxophonists - street musicians - is playing something uplifting. The entire first act flies by on an unpretentious note: young hipsters frolic uncontrollably on the snow-white stage (from the scenery there is only a tree and huge cubes that either float in the air or fall onto the stage; the orchestra sits right there - in the depths on the built balcony). They play hide and seek, pretend to be astronauts and queens, build pyramids, jump on trampolines, walk around the stage with a wheel, kiss and laugh. There is in this group a conditional ringleader (Simon Le Borne) and a conditional teacher who tries in vain to rein in the naughty. In the second act, grown-up children will turn into blinkered clerks, playful skirts and shorts will be changed to business suits, cubes will turn into dusty workplaces, the green tree will defiantly dry up, the world around will turn gray. In this airless space, if there is smoke like a rocker, it is only in the office smoking room. Here they played, now they stopped, but in vain, says the choreographer. For those who are completely dull, just in case, he pronounces his main idea, inserting in the middle of the second act a “manifesto about the game” as a panacea for all the ills of modern society, and in the finale, the gospel singer Calesta Day will also sing instructively about this.

But still, Alexander Ekman expresses himself most convincingly in the choreographic language and visual images, which are inseparable for him. So, in the children's games of the first act, a completely unchildish scene slips through with the Amazons in corporal tops and boxers and in horned helmets on their heads. To match the appearance, Ekman perfectly selects movements, alternating sharp combinations on pointe shoes and predatory, icy pas de cha with two bent legs, repeating the line of the horn. He loves a spectacular picture no less than the same Pina Bausch. The German woman in her The Rite of Spring strewed the floor of the stage with earth, making it part of the scenery, and Ekman covered the Stockholm Opera with hay (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”), drowned the Norwegian Opera in tons of water (“Swan Lake”), and Opera Garnier took the stage rained down a hail of hundreds of plastic balls, arranging a ball pool in the orchestra pit. Young people make an enthusiastic face, purists - peevish. Moreover, unlike the Norwegian trick with water, from which Ekman could not swim anywhere, in the "Game" the green hail becomes a powerful culmination of the first act. It looks like a tropical downpour promising rebirth: the rhythm that the balls beat as they fall sounds like a pulse, and the bodies are so contagiously light and loose that you want to put an end to it. Because after the intermission, this pool will turn into a swamp: where the artists just dived and fluttered carelessly, now they are hopelessly bogged down - no way to get through. Each movement requires such effort from them, as if plastic balls were indeed replaced with weights. Ekman puts the tension of adult life into the bodies of dancers - “turns off” their elbows, circles “two shoulders, two hips”, makes their backs iron, mechanically twists their torsos in given poses in given directions. It seems to repeat the merry classic pas de deux of the first act (one of the few solo episodes - the Swede really feels freer in crowd scenes), but the same strokes, attitudes and support in arabesque are dead and formal - there is no life in them.

Alexander Ekman. Photo - Yuri Martyanov / Kommersant

Choreographer Alexander Ekman contemporary ballet and social networks.

Tulle appeared in the repertoire of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater - the first ballet in Russia by Alexander Ekman, a 34-year-old Swede, the most prolific, sought-after and talented choreographer of his generation, who has already directed 45 ballets around the world, the last of them in Paris Opera.

– You have a rare gift for staging plotless comic ballets: in Tulle, for example, it’s not the characters and their relationships that are funny, but the very combinations of classical movements and the peculiarities of their performance. In your, classical ballet outdated?

I love classical ballet, it's great. And yet it's just a dance, it should be fun, there should be a game. I don't distort the classic movements, I just show them from a slightly different angle - it turns out to be such an easy absurdity. And misunderstandings can arise, especially on the part of artists: working like in a drama is not very usual for them. I always tell them, “Don't comedy. It's not you who should be funny, but situations.

- So, the theater is for you after all more important than ballet?

“A theater is a space where two thousand people can feel connected to each other, experience the same feelings, and then discuss them: “Did you see this? Cool, huh? Such human unity is the most beautiful thing in the theater.

- You introduce speech into your ballets - replicas, monologues, dialogues. Do you think the audience will not understand your idea without words?

“I just think it's more fun that way. I like to present surprises, surprises, surprise the audience. Consider speech as my trademark.

You have a rare gift for staging plotless comic ballets: in Tulle, for example, it is not the characters and their relationships that are funny, but the very combinations of classical movements and the peculiarities of their performance. Do you think classical ballet is outdated?

I love classical ballet, it's great. And yet it's just a dance, it should be fun, there should be a game. I do not distort the classic movements, I just show them from a slightly different angle - it turns out to be such an easy absurdity. And misunderstandings can arise, especially on the part of artists: working like in a drama is not very usual for them. I always tell them, “Don't comedy. It's not you who should be funny, but situations.

So, theater is still more important for you than ballet?

The theater is a space where two thousand people can connect with each other, experience the same feelings, and then discuss them: “Did you see this? Cool, huh? Such human unity is the most beautiful thing in the theater.

"Tulle", Musical Theater named after Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, 2017

Photo: Dmitry Korotaev, Kommersant

You introduce speech into your ballets - lines, monologues, dialogues. Do you think the audience will not understand your idea without words?

I just think it's more fun that way. I like to present surprises, surprises, surprise the audience. Consider speech as my trademark.

In my review, I called your "Tulle" an ironic class-concert of the 21st century. First, it presents a hierarchy ballet troupe, and secondly - all sections of the classic simulator, except for the machine.

I don’t know, somehow I wasn’t going to be ironic about ballet art. I just staged a production of The Game at the Paris Opera, and while I was there, my respect for ballet grew into admiration. When you are inside this troupe, you see how the artists carry themselves, how the etiquette enters the hall - with a royal posture, with a sort of regal self-awareness - absolutely amazing associations arise. The class system, the royal court, Louis the Sun - that's what it is. At the Paris Opera, you can immediately determine who is an etiquette, who is a soloist, who is a coryphaeus - by the way they carry themselves, how they move, how they interact with other people. All this reflects their position in society, their status. And I realized that this is primary - this is how nature itself works. For example, you enter the chicken coop and immediately see the main rooster - he is absolutely beautiful. Perhaps only in France and Russia can one see this shadow of absolutism in theaters. In these countries, ballet is appreciated, it is national pride, and therefore, it seems to me, there is a deep connection between French and Russian cultures.

And how did you work with the Parisian roosters? Did you come to the hall with ready-made combinations or did you improvise? Or forced to improvise artists?

In any way. I always have a clear idea of what I want to create, however particularities are born along the way. But if you have 40 people in the hall, you can’t make them wait until you compose a specific combination. Otherwise, they will look at you like that - they say, is this all that you are capable of? - that the remnants of fantasy will disappear immediately. At the Paris Opera, I had a group of five or six dancers, we worked out the material with them - and I transferred the finished drawing to the corps de ballet. In fact, when you stage a ballet, you never know what will happen in the end - you are haunted by the horror of not knowing. The process is exciting, but very exhausting. After Paris, I decided to take a time out.

The Game, Paris National Opera, 2017

Photo: Ann Ray / Opera national de Paris

For half a year. Or for a year. All my life I have staged very intensively: in 12 years - 45 ballets. It was a constant race, in the end it seemed to me that I was doing one endless production. I was driven by success - we are all career-oriented. I took barrier after barrier Paris Opera was my goal, the pinnacle of the path. And here she is taken. The first act of my life ballet is done. Now it's intermission.

You have given yourself a break from ballet before: your installations were presented at the Stockholm Museum of Modern Art.

Well, critic criticism is different. Some are even pleasant.

The ones who love you. For example, Moscow: we always praise your performances, adore "Cacti" and remember how nicely you danced at the Bolshoi at the Benois de la danse concert under your own monologue "What I think about at the Bolshoi Theater." Then you were nominated for Swan Lake, but they didn’t give you a prize and didn’t show the performance: they didn’t want to pour 6,000 liters of water onto the stage of the Bolshoi. What prompted you to stage the main Russian ballet in Oslo and how does it compare with the prototype?

No way. At first there was an idea to pour a lot of water on the stage. Then we thought: which of the ballets is connected with water? Of course, Swan Lake. And now I don’t know if it was smart to call my performance that way, since it has no connection with the Swan Lake ballet.

Swan Lake, Norwegian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, 2014

Photo: Erik Berg

You did Swan Lake with the famous Swedish designer Hendrik Wibskov. By the way, he also wanted to dance as a child - and even won a prize for performing hip-hop.

Yes? Did not know. Hendrik is great, I miss him so much. He and I completely coincide creatively - both seem to be twisted in one direction, set to create something so crazy. He also likes to have fun, knows how to play, his fashion shows are like performances. In Paris, we made a defile in the form of Swan Lake: we poured a pool of water, laid a podium on it, the models walked like water, and dancers in costumes from our performance moved between them.

And do you post all your games on Instagram? You are very active on social media.

Social networks are a very convenient thing for creative person. I can present my finished work, I can show what I'm working on now - it's like a portfolio. Needed for Instagram special language, and I think that my productions, which have a lot of visual effects, are good for Instagram. But I don't like it when people upload photos like "look, I'm sitting here with so-and-so." Reality needs to be lived, not shown. Networks formed new form communication, and it gave rise to a new addiction - people have forgotten how to talk to each other, but they look at the phone every minute: how many likes do I have there?

You have a lot: more than thirty thousand followers on Instagram - twice as many as, for example, Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, the main choreographers of the famous NDT.

I want even more. But on the work page. I'm going to delete the private one because I'm doing the same thing on it as everyone else: hey, look how nice I'm having a good time.

Let's get back to reality: have you been offered a production here in Moscow? Or at least the transfer of some already finished thing?

I would like to do something here. But I have intermission. Although, to be honest, it pulls into the rehearsal room.

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