The Russian National Ballet brought Little Red Riding Hood to Springs. Kit Peel went to check her out
‘I heard about it at the hairdressers,” the lady in the next seat explained. “When the ballet came to Springs last year, my hairdresser told me that it was disgusting. A load of queers leaping about the place, she said.”
I was at a performance by the Russian National Ballet in Springs on October 26. My neighbour, who had sneaked into the front row during the interval, was giving me the low-down. “Ag, there are so many ignorant people in Springs, they’d rather spend R99 on a Michael Jackson concert than come to this wonderful spectacle.”
With ticket sales of 300 (100 more than last year’s performance), the civic hall was still only half full. Lots of mothers and dressy teenage daughters, oldsters, and the occasional stray male. The other men, I discovered earlier, were also watching men in tights. American wrestling on TV in a nearby bar. Instead of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf dancing to a Tchaikovsky score, there was “The Rock” throwing the “British Bulldog” into a metal chair.
It was extraordinary. Here was a highly respected Russian ballet company, which has danced in Europe, the United States and the Far East, in a lesser-known backwater of Gauteng. Worse still, the ballet’s itinerary in South Africa also included Potchefstroom, Welkom and Pietermaritzburg. I had heard from friends who saw a performance in Pretoria on October 24 that they danced to music played from giant speakers, instead of an orchestra. That night one speaker was off until after interval. “Gosh,” my friend commented, “those poor Russians must really be desperate.” Two days later, tongue-in-cheek article in mind, I headed out to Springs to see what was going on.
I was to meet with artistic director Serguei Radtchenko and impresario Edouard Miasnikov at the civic hall before the ballet’s afternoon rehearsal. Falling foul to the local pastime of misdirecting outsiders, I arrived late, by which time the dancers were already limbering up.
Radtchenko, artistic director and founder of the Russian National Ballet, quickly shattered my illusion of skid row Russians. “We like coming to South Africa,” he said, “it is a change from the usual tours, to Europe or America. It is also a lot warmer than Russia at this time of year! OK, some of the venues are not so great, but we are professionals, we must work in any circumstances.” The speakers, he explained, were preferable to using orchestras that are often cobbled together at the last minute.
The Russian National Ballet was founded in 1989. Radtchenko’s aim was to bring together the highest classical elements of the Bolshoi and Maryinsky Ballet companies into an independent new company. In its 10 years, the company has toured worldwide to great acclaim and subsequent re- engagements.
Among the ballet community in South Africa there is mixed reaction towards these journeyman companies. “It’s often seen as just another group of Russian dancers coming to try and make it in South Africa to get money,” explains Johannesburg ballet teacher Alex Lemaitre.
The Cape Town Orchestra’s struggle for survival last week highlighted an even greater problem: the South African “culture clash”. In response to the orchestra’s plea for a R3-million lifeline, local government first queried the orchestra’s representativity and its relevance in a city in which many inhabitants live in abject poverty. As impresario (that is, organiser/promoter) Miasnikov knows, the arts in South Africa have become politicised.
Miasnikov is in a doubly difficult situation. On the one hand, ballet is seen as elitist and not part of popular South African culture. Also, what sponsorship there is for ballet in this country is reserved for home-grown companies, not visiting ones. This is short-sighted, he says.
“If strong artists come to South Africa from Russia, England or America it can only help South African culture. People here can see the top professional standards. It will help them. There was a far higher standard of performance this year by the Russian National Ballet, even though they were using the same dancers. Why? Because since last year they have performed overseas, they have worked with the top international companies and learned from them.”
Miasnikov, from 1972 to 1991 the principal clarinettist at the Bolshoi Theatre’s symphony orchestra, and now with our own National Symphony Orchestra, is trying to bring ballet to a wider audience. For this reason the Russian National Ballet can be seen not just in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban or Cape Town but in such culturally suburban places as Springs. Ballet can catch on in this country, Miasnikov believes. In the programme he is quoted as saying: “Ballet is a form of art which is loved and understood all over the world, with no regional frontiers of barriers.” On the evening of October 26 I was in the right place to put this theory to the test.
Sitting behind me in the second row, my cultural guinea pig waited. A scowling teenage girl was muttering what sounded like “kak” to her friend. Culture versus kak, it was a national dilemma.
The first half began with three short pieces. An uneventful Tchaikovsky number, a stunning Spanish dance (as much flamenco as ballet) and Rachmaninov’s Spring Waters. Behind me the chatter resolutely continued. The Paquita ballet, the tale of a Spanish gypsy girl in love with a Napoleonic officer, saw the tide begin to turn. Flashy dancing, gorgeous costumes and an old- fashioned love story proved a real crowd- pleaser. Every other leap was met with applause.
In the interval I discovered a group of women artists from Ghana. They were exhibiting their work in Benoni that weekend. In the meantime, their hosts had arranged the trip to Springs. It was their first glimpse of ballet and they were enthusiastic about it. Was it relevant to Africa, I asked. “Of course,” they laughed, “everyone can see that it is beautiful.”
The second half was taken up solely by act three of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. A medley of fairy tales starring Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf, Goldilocks and a bear, the bluebird and his princess among others. It was the high point of the evening. Little Red Riding Hood pursued by the wolf, the bluebird and princess soaring across the stage. My seat-hopping neighbour was enthralled. Looking back I saw that the scowl had gone. Culture had won, the girl was enjoying herself. The Russian dancers closed to rapturous applause and Miasnikov had been proved right.
Much of the criticisms laid against ballet were, as the evening showed, clearly untrue. It may carry an elitist badge, but it sure had popular appeal. The combination of music and dance told a story in a way that everyone could follow. The dazzle of the staging and costumes and the constant movement of the dance also ensure against the darker side of classical music, boredom.
“We must get people interested in this. We can make this one culture for everybody,” Miasnikov says. He has a point. After all, if it can work in Springs, why not in the rest of South Africa?