Ballet, like water for chocolate, is not supposed to boil. It is supposed to simmer, gently and lyrically, to soothe and reassure.
Really? Well … maybe in another country or in another, more genteel, era. Not in South Africa in 2013, and certainly not in a steamy nightclub “somewhere in Spain”, where Christopher L. Huggins takes us to be seduced by 14 Cape Dance Company dancers to the pulsating strains of Ravel’s Bolero.
The water, our blood, reaches boiling point. I can hear mine; I can see theirs pulsating through their bodies as they pump and rock to and fro to the building beat of the Bolero.
The dancers tease us, moving forward and backward, in twos and fours, dancing ever closer to the flame, fire reflected in their eyes.
They take us to the edge and we are afraid. We know there will be an explosion soon. It will leave a sticky mess on the stove, the hot chocolate will be ruined …
It doesn’t happen, though, because this is a preview, just a ‘practice’. We are in a dance studio: there is no stage, no heavy velvet curtains, no tricks of lighting. The dancers are in their sweats, not the costumes, the magenta body-hugging numbers … mm … with bodices that hug and short skirts that dance around their thighs …
Don’t be surprised if the sprinkler system comes on during the real thing: performances at Artscape, where Bolero forms part of the Cadence season, from November 28.
Booking at Computicket