Created by Akram Khan | Performed by Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan

"Sacred Monsters"

Theatre de Champs Ellysee, Paris, France  |  2013

     The term classically trained dancer can mean many things in todays modern world of contemporary dance and performance art. It more often than not is referring to ballet. A training program that usually consists of daily ballet class, pointe and partnering work, maybe some extra pilates and strength training thrown in, if you're lucky a music class, a basic history of dance class, and more rarely a semester of intro to acting. But, technique. No less, no more. A student comes out of these training courses, whether conservatory or more open university style, being (in most cases) a capable technician. They have performed works by Marius Petipa, Michel Fokine, Jules Perot, George Balanchine, perhaps even a few works by Twyla Tharp or Paul Taylor. But rare is the classically trained ballerina introduced to more than that. Because they don't need it. For anything. They train and perform as an artist, as a technician, as a beautiful beautiful body. Even as a beautiful mind. It is not their fault that their beautiful mind has purposefully been crafted to be ignorant. So the story plays out. Their career continues. They move from corps to soloist to dancing leading roles. Maybe they are especially gifted, they make a name for themselves. A name like Sylvie Guillem perhaps. They are incredible. Genetically ideal, hard working, artistic, expressive. They dance works by every choreographer imaginable- all the old classics, many times over. But also new work. They witness the way a creative process can range over days or years, the twists it can take, the forms it will inhabit. They even participate a little as they originate roles, as they seek outside of their habitual zones, as they search for something beyond the day to day- the dancing for someone. But they're classical. And the classical world has long left unacknowledged the leaps and bounds that the modern world has painfully and effortfully traversed. Leaps and bounds in thought, theory, mediums and mixtures. There is much that has been tried. Failed or successful it has certainly been tried. And a lot of the most interesting trials I myself have witnessed, have been in schools and educational settings. Have been shown in the young, the unproven, the untainted (or untrained) - where risk is encouraged, and the point of these early creations is to explore what has come before and to figure out where, as an individual in this current era, you stand choreographically. My point comes down to this: The classical world constantly insists on moving backwards. On recreating the steps already so effortfully taken, recorded, and nicely archived for their viewing pleasure. 

I recently had the displeasure of witnessing one of these "small" regressions. "Sacred Monsters", created and performed by Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan.  

The show was…a bit underwhelming. Both choreographically and performatively. They tried hard. They really did. And I could have believed some parts of it had it not been for the fact that I had already witnessed every "tool", device, and compositional choice, used over and over and over again. Things I had seen in my first semester of composition class. In fact watching work like this is exactly what prompted my own restless and very teenage rebellion. The evening had many things that, i admit, have been used successfully over the years. Cannon, repetition, development of one particular movement through time until it morphs into a different particular movement, unison, big and small, traveling an originally stationary phrase. Making a phrase in the first place. Making a gestural phrase to go along with text. Using text while you dance to talk about yourself, your dreams, your problems, your thoughts about the dance you are doing, and about the fact that you are actually talking while you dance to prove a point - about talking and about dance. This juvenile rehashing of your journey of self discovery in the world of dance is not something I particularly enjoy watching. Keep it in your therapists office. Or hell, i don't care, over margaritas with your best ballerina girlfriends, who sympathize but are just a little too naive to really get what you're talking about. Just because you have a famous name, a brilliant career behind you, and the connections to produce and present anything you want, doesn't mean you have to shove all your little wonderings down the throats of a perfectly unsuspecting audience. Although Im placing too much blame on Sylvie Guillem. The ballerina who didn't create, just danced about creating, or talked. There are parts of Akram Khan that I do not understand. I don't know the world he comes from. i don't know his motivations, or the ins and outs of his choreographic process. But, I know what I saw, and it was pure unadulterated cheese. Was his judgement clouded by miss Guillems taunting wit and high kicking legs? possibly. Or maybe he was just pleased to find a willing accomplice - who made legitimate the things no one cared about before. Or perhaps there are people who do, but I would say to them, go take a dance history class, or ANY art history class for that matter. Please. Make something besides a self-obsessed, overly insipid, "experiment". I know it feels revolutionary, but all your doing is misleading others into thinking that they are witnessing work like this for the first time. Into thinking that this type of work is reaching its pinnacle of importance at this stage in history. This is not the case. Its not new! Its a gross misuse of celebrity, and a shameful waste of money and resources.