LACUNA (Juliano Nunes) at the Origen Festival - August 2022

[FionaM]

@Sabine0308

thank you very much to you and Shale for this running order.   I was hoping to get this.   
 

One of my thoughts whilst watching this was how wonderful for Alina to dance to Myrtha’s music.   Something she’ll not have done professionally.  

 

My other thought about Alina in particular relating to the new creation with Juliano, was how wonderful for her to have this opportunity, as so many of the ballets she performs are narrative ones.    
 

The performance did have 2 other ‘parts’ not mentioned above … the introduction, which had the sounds of an orchestra tuning up whilst Alina marked various steps as though backstage.  
 

I thought it was a clever start, as there is no curtain to this round stage.  Performers enter and exit from two doors between the audience and then climb precariously over the barrier between the audience and the suspended stage by holding the suspension chains.   There is quite a big gap between.  
 

The second non-musical part served as a pause part way though the programme … again with orchestra tune-up as background but this time with all 5 dancers on stage … some sat stretching or massaging their feet, others walking about or vaguely marking a few moves.  
 

I did think both these ‘backstage’ parts could have been a bit shorter.  

 

I’ll post a proper review shortly.  

[Christine]

Thank you very much for the information on the different "numbers" that make up Lacuna, Sabine. Will write more on it asap, but am currently still too busy with other things.

So sorry, you couldn't go. It was my first time at the Origen Festival Cultural but certainly not the last time.

Origen is fascinating project of which the festival and dance performances are just one element.

The two different pieces I've seen, Trümmer by Thiago Bordin and Lacuna by Juliano Nunes were very extra special and could not have taken place this form  - no brief from the Festival Direction regarding the new creation but with an exquisite line-up in both cases - anywhere else, probably. 

Amazingly, and despite the top-notch dance casts and small size of the venues (180 in the Julier Tower), the performances were not sold out in advance which is  part of the charm of the festival.

[Sabine0308]

7 hours ago, Christine said:

Thank you very much for the information on the different "numbers" that make up Lacuna, Sabine. Will write more on it asap, but am currently still too busy with other things.

So sorry, you couldn't go. It was my first time at the Origen Festival Cultural but certainly not the last time.

Origen is fascinating project of which the festival and dance performances are just one element.

The two different pieces I've seen, Trümmer by Thiago Bordin and Lacuna by Juliano Nunes were very extra special and could not have taken place this form  - no brief from the Festival Direction regarding the new creation but with an exquisite line-up in both cases - anywhere else, probably. 

Amazingly, and despite the top-notch dance casts and small size of the venues (180 in the Julier Tower), the performances were not sold out in advance which is  part of the charm of the festival.

Thank you @Christine and I'm looking forward to your report. I was scratching my head about the number of audience, it's actually a shame that it wasn't sold out then. I am not surprised though, with such a tiny Media coverage (I found exactly 1 article online). But maybe they do this on purpose. What I saw was exquisite and I hope they will perform it (or parts of it) elsewhere. It's too precious to get lost. BTW I read the Red Tower project will end next year, is that true?  I would love to go there.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Sabine0308

[FionaM]

LACUNA in the Red Tower 

Beautiful primarily classical choreography throughout.  Much more classical than I’d expected from Juliano Nunes, and it felt more classical in whole than the parts he’s shown on his Instagram.  Most pieces were duets, plus a solo for each dancer, and the changing trio piece in the middle.  

 

The show started with Alina entering the round stage through the audience (there is no other way) and then marking her solo to an orchestra tuning up, much as dancers do backstage before curtain up.  Though of course there is no curtain on the round stage in this venue.  A few chaînés, an arabesque, a few arm movements, mostly walking.  A privilege to be in her ‘preparation’ mode.  
 

Her first solo to Martha’s music was lovely.  I just love new choreo to familiar music … it highlights different aspects of the music, and as an audience member I feel won over before the start.  As mentioned above, it must have been interesting for Alina to dance to Myrtha’s music, having presumably not done so before.
 

Each piece flowed into the next with physical connections between the dancers as they changed over … hands touching and joining.  Sometimes within the music, sometimes in silence.  (I’m not a fan of dance to silence.)

 

The dancers were all really, really good.  I heard that Nayara Lopes (principal at Philadelphia, promoted onstage last year by Angel Corella) and Derek Dunn (principal at Boston) replaced original cast members Polina Semionova and Friedemann Vogel, who had diary clashes.  No doubt they would have been good too.  Better?  maybe not.

 

Every moment was super exposed as the front row of the audience is within touching distance.  The dancers had nowhere to hide, being clad only in grey full-body unitards. Every nuance and movement was up close. (Like sitting on all four sides of a studio rehearsal).  The costumes have a thin coloured ribbon embellishment in different geometric lines on each dancer.  These seemed to be of a velveteen material as they were slightly raised and reflected the lighting.  Lighting and smokey atmosphere was by Konstantin Binkin, regular at the Origen Festival each summer from the Mariinsky Theatre.  He’s won golden masks for his lighting designs. 
 

All of the dancers created a super mood in their pieces, I was especially pleased to see Daniel Camargo creating a super aura.  He appeared to be a giant physically, next to the petite ballerinas and the other two short male dancers, but held his own.  If I had to pick a few standout pieces for the best combination of choreo, technique and mood … it would be

- Shale  & Nayara’s Sugar Plum duet. Joyous

- Shale & Derek’s Dying Swan finale.  So emotional and truly beautiful and demanding choreo. 

- Derek Dunn’s solo.  Outstanding in everyway.  Very impressive.

 

I so wished I could have stayed for a second viewing, but I see a hint in Alina’s Instagram post of a possible future performance.  
 

Plenty of clips on the choreographer’s Instagram @nunes.art

 

A beautiful evening of ballet, with the enhanced experience of this unique venue in the beautiful Swiss mountains.

 

Highly recommend if you get a chance to go next summer before the temporary licence expires and the tower is taken down.

 

 

[Sabine0308]

10 hours ago, FionaE said:

LACUNA in the Red Tower 

... 

The dancers were all really, really good.  I heard that Nayara Lopes (principal at Philadelphia, promoted onstage last year by Angel Corella) and Derek Dunn (principal at Boston) replaced original cast members Polina Semionova and Friedemann Vogel, who had diary clashes.  No doubt they would have been good too.  Better?  maybe not...

Thanks Fiona. From what I saw, the dancers were perfect for each other, especially Shale and Derek - I still can't get over the beauty of the Swan duet, also saw the excitement it caused among many people on instagram. It's possible that Polina and Friedemann were supposed to dance the "Dying Swans", who knows. But maybe the change of cast inspired Nunes for a different pairing. He had already created a duet on Shale back in 2020, with Evan Mckie as partner, also at Orsolina. Nunes does create a lot of duets on male dancers, I know, so this is just my imagination. In any case, the LACUNA cast was just perfect, imo.

I hope to see this breathtaking creation some day.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Sabine0308

[alison]

NB: For clarification:

 

Alina - Cojocaru

Shale - Wagman

Nayara - Lopes

 

This follows on from

 

 

[Christine]

Sorry for the delay –  here is my report at long last. I do apologize that it has turned out a bit too gushy and for repeating what Fiona has written already. I wrote this some time last week and only found the time now to do a bit of proof-reading.

 

I saw two performances of LACUNA, the first night on August 4^th and the third and penultimate performance on August 6^th.

Expectations were very high, after all the line-up for this piece was pretty exceptional: 5 top-level dancers from as many companies or free-lancing: Alina Cojocaru, Daniel Camargo (now ABT), Shale Wagman (Munich), Nayara Lopes (Philadelphia) and Derek B. Dunn (Boston). I had seen the former three before – Daniel danced with Stuttgart Ballet from 2009 to 2016. Almost needless to say my expectations were met, if not surpassed, which, I believe, was due not least to the extraordinary venue:  as mentioned before, the Julier Tower is a temporary wooden construction that only has a permitted life span of 5 years. There is an improvised bar and foyer on the ground floor, where the Origen Festival organizer Giovanni Netzer and choreographer Juliano Nunes gave a brief intro. The stage is on the first floor with 3 rows of seating on the perimeter of a round platform with a diameter of 10 meters that is suspended from chains so that it can be hoisted up or down. More seating is provided on another level about 5 meters or so above the stage. I sat in rows 1 and 3 on the two nights respectively; row 1 is literally an arm’s length away from the stage/dancers with the head just above platform level, a position which was much better than it may sound and was very close to the action.

 

The Dancers entered the stage from doors of the different staircases in the tower and  had to step (rather precariously) across a small gap between the built seating area and the suspended platform.

 

The dancing was very much in the classical style with the ladies in point shoes, but in Juliano Nunes’ flowing and, I find, always highly musical choreography which as you can see from Sabine’s very useful list above consisted of a number of different PDDs, Pas de trois or with all 5 on stage.

 

As a stage as small as this one does not permit much jumping, the focus was more on PDDs with bodies intertwining, some truly spectacular, innovative lifts that were beautifully set and executed to the music and solo work, and very few jumps. Actually, there were more jumps on the first night than on the third night.

The evening began with Alina warming up and marking steps to the sounds of an orchestra getting tuned and transitioned into Alina’s solo to the Myrtha entrance music, from where one dance sequed into the next with the recovery pause mentioned by Fiona. (I can only guess the pause was so long to allow the artists to regain their breath).

 

As explained by Juliano during the introductory talk he chose to call the piece LACUNA (which in the Rhaeto-Romance language spoken in this part of Switzerland means gap) because he felt he had reached a phase in his life where he was a bit at a loss at what should come next, a period of indecision perhaps. So rather than the contemporary pieces he had created for the Origen Festival in the past, he decided to invent new dances/steps to a string of classical ballet numbers including some pieces with music by Luke Howard, and developed together with these fantastic dancers.

 

Wonderful, just how the choreography played to the strengths and fitted the personality of the different dancers to a tee – dreamy, introverted, completely authentic (Alina), powerful in its movements and with a very strong stage presence (Daniel), highly charismatic look-at-me, long-limbed and elegant (Nayara), full-of-longing princely & perfect in all his movements (Derek) and the ever-surprising virtuoso creative (Shale).

In terms of dance-fireworks that were on display in this small confine there were some incredibly various-speed pirouettes which transformed into arabesques especially from Derek and Shale, and the aforementioned lifts, all brilliantly timed and executed to the music.

 

What I found even more impressive, though perhaps was the dancers’ ability to completely focus on their performance, to get totally absorbed in their dance, express emotions & tell miniature stories as though they were performing on a much bigger theatre stage, casting their magic spell over the audience.

Standouts for me on the first night were the Nutcracker pas performed by Nayara & Shale, Derek’s solo to Sleeping Beauty (who really took me by surprise with his immaculately executed, beautifully expressive and in-the-role lyrical dancing(, and the “Dying Swans” PDD danced by Derek and Shale: rarely perhaps have two male swans expired more beautifully and believably than these two, down to the clawed fingers and last breaths exhaled in perfect unison at the end of LACUNA. No doubt, this would make a great gala number.

 

On my second visit everything had fallen into place more and some inconsistencies ironed out, also was also a good deal less stage fog. There was a very impressive statuesque solo danced by Daniel, beautiful pizzicato pointe work by Nayara dancing to Nikya’s temple music, unforgettably musical and heartfelt dancing from Alina and Daniel which flowed so naturally and beautifully, you could see Daniel’s face beaming with joy and pleasure and Alina celebrating her emotional artistry. During the intro Juliano said you never know what to expect from Shale and so it proved to be: incredible pirouettes, indescribable and inexplicable turns all the while with beautifully sculpted hand movements that make you believe that such things as gravity and balance do not exist, at least not for some people. And, of course, again, the Dying Swans at the end… almost a classic already!

 

BTW, I had the pleasure of meeting Fiona whom I recognized from her photo on the London Ballet Circle website and I completely agree that it is probably not only this last PDD of LACUNA that contains material for a gala performance. Thank you Fiona for the information about the lighting which was very effective and made the dancers’ costumes glow.

 

And yes, originally Polina Semionova and Friedemann Vogel were on the cast list. While I do not believe one can say that this might have been better or not, it would certainly have been very different, and it would have been fascinating to see  what Nunes would have created with two such charismatic and experienced dance artists and see them perform in such an intimate space.

[FionaM]

@ChristineThank you so much for this evocative report.  It took me right back to those soulful emotions!    I wish I could have stayed for another show … And I do hope there will be further performances.  Alina has hinted at it on her IG. 

[Christine]

4 hours ago, FionaE said:

@ChristineAnd I do hope there will be further performances.  Alina has hinted at it on her IG. 

Oh, these are good news!

[Sabine0308]

What a wonderful "review", thank you @Christine! And now I'm even more sad that I couldn't come. Here's to hope for a gala, or full length LACUNA again🙏❤️

[Sabine0308]

On 14/08/2022 at 13:14, Sabine0308 said:

Thanks Fiona. From what I saw, the dancers were perfect for each other, especially Shale and Derek - I still can't get over the beauty of the Swan duet, also saw the excitement it caused among many people on instagram. It's possible that Polina and Friedemann were supposed to dance the "Dying Swans", who knows. ...

Speculation ends here, as I got info from Shale: Friedemann and Shale were to dance the Swan PDD. 

Would have been very different then.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Sabine0308

[Sabine0308]

Here is the Dying Swans PDD from rehearsal at Orsolina 28 Studio. Filmed by Juliano Nunes himself. Dancers: Derek B Dunn (Principal with Boston Ballet), Shale Wagman (First Soloist with Bayerisches Staatsballett München)