The source of inspiration comes from Russia, the choreography and performances hail from Brazil – and, unlike Tatyana and Eugene Onegin, this coupling achieves a thrilling and fulfilling relationship.
The secret to this success? Deborah Colker's flair for showing the shifting dynamics of passion, be it stretching and yearning with an awakening erotic charge in a young girl or eager and impulsive with the driven adoration of a man who sees, feels, the object of his desire dancing out of his reach. What Pushkin evoked on the page, Colker and her company translate into a physical poetry of their own.
Act One condenses countryside and narrative into a quartet of main characters – albeit multi-faceted, with four "selves" apiece – who swarm, often acrobatically, in and over a toweringly angular tree. As lyric Tchaikovsky gives way to thrumming Brazilian hip-sway, Pushkin himself appears (in male and female duality) to manipulate the encounters that leave naive Tatyana in emotional thrall to arrogantly indifferent Onegin and her sister's decent fiance dead after challenging Onegin in a duel. The fast-paced, agilely inventive choreography is akin to the Colker we know.
Act Two, set to Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto, comes as a ravishing surprise. The men are now black-clad Onegins, the women are Tatyanas in white basques and on-pointe, delivering a sensual vision of romantic surrender before dancing proud, with scything limbs, in a rejection of the belatedly smitten Onegin. A stunning counterpoint to the vivid energies of Act One with Colker and her company in awesome form throughout.
Sponsored by Jenners.
HHHH
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article