George Balanchine likened choreography to gardening. “Dance collapses,” he once said. “It’s like a garden. A lot of roses bloom and disappear in the evening.”
The same applies to food, no wonder Balanchine likened dancing to cooking. Even if you grow and cook it, if you don’t eat it right away, it will lose its flavor. As such, it also collapses.
This relationship between dance and food “Like Water in Chocolate” by Christopher Wheeldon The American Ballet Theater brought the production to the Metropolitan Opera House on Thursday.
Wheeldon’s Story Ballet is inspired by the 1989 novel and subsequent film adaptation by Mexican author Laura Esquivel. Cooking is at the heart of her book, with motion-filled sentences such as “a dazzling display created by dancing drops of water on a red-hot griddle.” Food transforms the behavior of Esquivel’s characters through her realism. Quail rose petal sauce creates erotic desire. The tear-stirred cake reminds you of the memory of a lost love until you vomit and die.
But while the link between food and movement is vivid in Wheeldon’s work, a joint production with the Royal Ballet that premiered in London last year, the food served there is emotional and, sadly, authentic. The story is more important than the dance.
Wheeldon’s “Like Water for Chocolate” meanders. It repeats. The choreography is backed up by lifts that energize the dancers from here to there, or twists the dancers even further to sit on the floor with their legs bent. Some sections are more evocative than others, but the intersection of narrative and ballet often comes down to a gestural approach that leans towards rich acting from words.
Set during the Mexican Revolution, the production marked the opening of Ballet Theatre’s Met season and features music by Joby Talbot. Talbot worked with Wheeldon throughout the scenario and also worked with Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra. She conducts the ballet theater orchestra throughout, lending a vivid subtlety to the film score, which incorporates forms such as traditional instruments and dansons.
A good portion of the story – It takes about 10 minutes to read the synopsis of this three-act ballet. YouTube clip proves it — come to life in the opening scene. Tita (Cassandra Trenary) is born. What looks like a baby wrapped in cloth becomes her dough, which is kneaded and stretched by her family’s cook, Nacha (Luciana Paris). Passing on her culinary knowledge to Tita is a playful lesson.
In those first few minutes, Tita grows up and falls in love with Pedro (German Cornejo), but she does a terrible job. She, the youngest daughter of Mama Elena (the wonderfully vulnerable Christine Shevchenko), is not allowed to marry. Her destiny is to take care of her mother in her old age. Mama Elena, a nightmarish and comical combination of the evil fairies Carabosse and Edward Scissorhands, instead decides that Pedro will marry Tita’s sister Rosaura (Hi So). He agrees so he can get close to Tita, who understandably has a meltdown.
Other characters also make an appearance, including Tita’s feisty sister, Gertrudis (the gorgeous and respectable Katherine Harlin), but she leaves the dinner table after eating Tita’s lust-inducing quail rose petal sauce. attacked by soldiers creeping up from under the She sets off on a mechanical wire horse with Juan Alejandres (Carlos Gonzalez). They face each other on the saddle and writhe violently.
At some point, you might rank the characters and ask yourself, who would you most like to see again? But you can’t even kill them. The two return as ghosts. What makes sense for the recurring Day of the Dead effect is the silent chorus of the 13 brides. If you turn to one side, it looks like you are wearing white clothes. On the other side, however, an old lady in black is depicted knitting.
Gertrudis and Juan finally reappear, leading a delightfully elaborate ensemble that marks Wheeldon at his most exhilarating. The ever-hopping Harlin, along with the equally powerful Gonzalez, enliven the scene with choreography that breaks free from linear flatness. Contrary to the individuality of the characters, it is itching to explore the stage, which is too big for this work, with a dancing body.
Mama Elena’s backstory, which turns out to be terrible for some reason, becomes a dream ballet about how Wheeldon, like Tita, was forbidden to marry his true love. OK. But she spends a lot of time subplotting Dr. John Brown (Thomas Forster), who rescues a beaten Tita from her mother and eventually proposes, weighing down the weight of her ballet. are doing. Her gaze of longing and sweetness turns into boredom. Too much emotion and not enough action.
Cornejo does a better job of portraying Pedro as a boy than as a man, gradually fading into the background. But Trenary instills in her Teeta such a deep spirit and sadness that her emotions are completely in the moment, overflowing from her body like electricity. Much of their stage time is spent battling each other’s desires. One hot night they couldn’t sleep and found themselves together in the dark. Pedro stands behind Teeta and traces the contours of her body without actually touching her skin. It is the space between the bodies that is visible until it becomes unbearable. Pedro props her body over her in a plank-like position and with her rotation she returns the favor.
It took years for them to truly come together, and that moment was marked by a final overwhelming pas de deux full of lifts with swooning turns and breathtaking inclines and spirals. be characterized. Cornejo holds Trenary upside down and hooks his ankle around Trenary’s neck. But the release of this customized passion is so slow and dangerously close to the Harlequin Zone. The inner flame of their long-suppressed love envelops them in flames. They finally united.
It’s hard to fall under the magic of a mystical tale, but “Like Water in Chocolate” has its own charm. Sets and costumes by Bob Crowley, combined with Natasha Katz’s brighter options for lighting, make for the most vibrant part of the production. show. These reflect the way Mexican architect Luis Barragán saturated the building with color and light.
This look, along with Wheeldon’s choreographic approach, is also reminiscent of many other works like “Oklahoma!” And “West Side Story”. Has his ballet story degraded so much that we’re only watching new versions of old shows?”Romeo and Juliet” is included. Perhaps Manon, or Matthew Bourne’s brooding Play Without Words.
In some ways, it wasn’t Esquivel’s book that had the greatest influence on Like Water in Chocolate. It’s Broadway. But story ballet needs a better way to shine. And it’s not a plot twist.
like chocolate water
Until July 1 at the Metropolitan Opera House in Manhattan. abt.org.
