Amal Choucri Catta is captivated by a free spirit's death dance ABC Dance Company, Festspielhaus, St Poelten, Austria, presenting 10 poems (+4) and Carmen. Venues: Sayed Darwish Theatre, Alexandria, 31 January, 8pm; and Main Hall, Cairo Opera House, 3 and 4 February, 8pm Highlights were abundant on ABC Dance Company's opening night at Cairo Opera's Main Hall: they succeeded in catapulting the company's dances onto the very first ranks of choreographic excellence while lifting the dancers to stardom overnight. No one in Cairo had ever heard of the company prior to 3 February, whereas now audiences will never be able to forget "the Austrian Ligeti", or "the Austrian Carmen", both having turned into an overwhelming event. ABC Dance Company, Choreographic Centre is in residence at Festspielhaus in St Poelten, Austria, where they premiered in November 2002 with Tristan, Isolde, choreographed by Nicolas Musin, artistic director, principal choreographer and co-founder of the company. Since then he has created five new dances, of which Carmen featured last week at Cairo Opera's Main Hall, to the condensed musical score of Rodion Shtchedrin's Carmen Suite and fabulous lighting effects by Lukas Kaltenbaeck. The programme began with 10 poems (+4), a series of dances choreographed by Karole Armitage to the music of 14 songs by Gyoergy Ligeti composed to poems by fellow Hungarian author Sandor Woeres. Music and choreography were in harmony with the poet's philosophy: "Perfect happiness, without joy; perfect sound, without voice," an abstract vision of a world filled with contradictions and nonsense, with irony and absurdity. Ligeti's music never attained absolute popularity among the masses, though he was considered one of the most important composers of modern times. Born in 1923 in Hungary, Ligeti settled in Austria, working with Stockhausen and other composers in Germany. His compositions of the late 1950s and early 1960s presented new ideas, new techniques, introducing precisely calculated sound textures and dense scoring, creating what he called "micropolyphony", which developed in the late 1970s into melodies of a "non-diatonic diatonism", to use the composer's words. Written in 2000, the first seven songs of 10 poems refer to a children's rhyme, while the last ones are reminiscent of enchanted tales filled with wondrous deeds and amazing adventures. The dances were a striking Moto Perpetuo of movements, arabesques, torsions, leaps and walks, solo or in groups of two, three and more, according to the choreographic requirements of each song. Dancers seemed to be gliding meditatively through ages of eternity, or soaring into invisible spaces, while their heels were designing verses of love to one or the other of Ligeti's exotic tunes. There was harmony and excellence and an extraordinary amount of discipline in the entire performance. There was also humour and irony as the dancers swept merrily over imaginary labyrinths of abstraction, trying to find choreographic tracks leading onto the unknown, while cobalt-blue lights turned to sunny yellow on the backdrop. Often reminiscent of the theatre of the absurd, 10 poems were an eloquent prelude to the next performance on programme: Carmen. Rodion Shtchedrin, born in 1932, is one of the most appreciated Russian composers in Egyptian musical circles. His orchestral suites and ballets have already graced the Opera's Main Stage and his Carmen Suite is no newcomer to Cairene audiences. This time, however, Musin, choreographer, costume and set designer, has made use of Shtchedrin's condensed musical score for his 50-minute creation of Carmen, undoubtedly one of the most astounding ever performed. There is, in fact, no limit to Musin's imagination, as he leaps from one idea to the other, changing moods, lighting effects, sets and costumes with breathtaking fluidity. If Shtchedrin created Carmen's score for his wife, the celebrated Prima Ballerina Maya Plisetzkaya, Musin succeeded in using the condensed score masterfully. There was never a dull moment in this Carmen: Shtchedrin had perfectly adapted his score to Georges Bizet's four-act opera, while Musin successfully granted his audiences most of the melodious highlights, as well as the entire story in a nutshell. Sevilla was an impeccable white removable wall on a black backdrop, and Don Jose was, symbolically behind bars, on a forlorn chair with a casket of rough wooden planks covering his head and shoulders. The casket likewise covered Carmen, barefoot, in a short red dress, while Micaela, in a nondescript garment, kept pacing in and out of focus. Highlights were, in fact, numerous in this tale of love and death, jealousy and rage, power and glory. An endless number of symbolic sequences kept swaying in and out of the drama, while the dancers were expressing a variety of moods with appropriate perfection. It all began with the girls' quarrel in a non-existent cigarette factory, as male and female dancers were smoking cigars while performing, and the dense, grey smoke wandered like a heavy cloud into the hall. Don Jose was a weakling in Carmen's sinful hands and she soon succeeded in turning him into a toy she played with, before tossing it away. But Jose kept returning, even while Carmen was dancing with Mercedes at Lilla Pastia's. The mood was sombre and the while wall, turning grey with lust, had lost its innocence, as Escamillo came marching in with the skull of a bull in his hand. The skull and the matador, however, were just another pair of new toys in Carmen's merciless hands. Director Musin was generous: he even gave his audience the card- game scene; though, this time, the dancers were not shuffling cards but "wearing" them in the form of wide-skirted pinafores, while dancing to the tune of Carmen's "Well, be it so, if death must come, Carmen will defy it, Carmen is strong." Musin also gave us the scene with Zuniga and the smuggling expedition, as well as Carmen's death spectacularly closing the dance. "Carmen is a free spirit," writes Musin, "however the reality of Carmen and the other personalities of the opera also represent an uprooted world in which gypsies, soldiers, foreigner and toreros mix. They are all far away from home. And Sevilla, like one of the huge capitals today, is a complex melting pot, full of social contradictions. Sevilla is an Eldorado of young people, looking for their identity and getting lost in the fumes of their dreams. Freedom is a deception, a fraud," for death does come at the end. Musin's Carmen was in all respects a masterpiece Cairene audiences thoroughly enjoyed -- they do hope ABC Dance Company will be returning to the Cairo Opera House with another of their extraordinary dances.
