Ballet & Nachos

What happens when the world's most famous dance company comes to The Pyramid.

by ASHLEY FANTZ

hen I took my seat at the Bolshoi Ballet Saturday, a tiny bead of sweat trickled down my back and my toes were screaming muffled obscenities in my contortionist heels. At five minutes before the beginning of the show, I had sprinted from a parking lot a mini-marathon away from The Pyramid box office, grabbed two tickets as if they were the Olympic torch, hurdled steps up to the second floor, and parked it in one of those charming cobalt-blue plastic fold-outs.

I must have missed the signs that read, "Come on, y'all, get ya some nachos and a super slurpy for the show!" Because for the first half of the show in which the oldest ballet company in the world, and arguably the best, performed, people filtered in like it was a basketball game. Carrying paper boats of nachos and gigantic Cokes, they weaved in and out of the stadium stands, some noisily ordering silence from their kids -- whose eye-rolling suggested that the only prize for getting gussied up for a night at the ballet with their folks was extra cheese. This continued throughout the two-hour production of A Taste of Health. Ushers allowed people to get up, leave, and come back at their leisure. In fact, a whole front row -- yes, front row -- of people were shown to their seats during the second arrangement like a line of third graders at a school assembly. Near-incessant applause for a pas de deux here and an arabesque there reverberated off The Pyramid scorebox vulgarly looming like a disco ball in the Palace of Versailles.

Maybe the Bolshoi is used to it. In their 221-year history, the Russian company has seen some low points. Still suffering from their country's unstable economy and a contemporary culture that's slowly drifting away from the classical arts, Bolshoi's artistic director Vladimir Vasiliev brought his dancers to Las Vegas' Alladin Theatre two years ago, courtesy of an American mogul. The company that's critically praised for embodying "God's very grace" received second billing under a nude cowboy show called Country Tonite. The theatre had no orchestra pit, so the Bolshoi's musicians had to stand on a make-shift plywood stage next to the dancers. Almost no one showed up. A Vegas stage manager jokingly mentioned that they could have "dropped a tutu or something" to pack the house. The Bolshoi's ballerinas went back to Moscow in tears, some vowing never to come back to the States.

Saturday's performance marks the second chance the company is giving American audiences, but not so much out of true forgiveness. It's rumored that the Bolshoi is in major financial straits again. At The Pyramid, they danced a Spanish romantic farce broken into minuets. Six principal dancers were able to establish early on distinct personalities through facial expressions, costumes, and jovial or sweeping movement.

A beautiful black-and-red silk-underlay dress flowed perfectly with the grand battements of a flamenco temptress. Quick assembles punctuated her turns and crescent back bends. The dancer's grace was complemented by a male principal portraying a bullfighter who, along with the company ensemble, whipped red and black capes. The number establishes a dilemma -- loving something you must kill, as a bullfighter loves a bull. In the faena, or final act of a bullfight, the bullfighter takes incredible leaps forward and holds her in a pas de chat, suggesting that seduction can be suicidal. The number was the evening's most visually stunning.

The Bolshoi is always expected to be technically proficient. They are, after all, the company that first performed Tchaikovsky and Alexander Gorksy's Swan Lake and reinvented Giselle three years ago on several European stages. Sure, they are as significant to Russian high culture as Tolstoy, but the problem facing Vasiliev is how to make the Bolshoi commercially appealing. And taking his company to the most commercial of all countries is a good start. But they shouldn't water-down what makes the Bolshoi great -- inspired and physically straining movement made to appear effortless. For Americans, that translates to "no pyrotechnics or car chases, sorry." Redefining the Bolshoi as a global company capable of entertaining the world again, whether in its own cathedral-like theatre in Moscow or a bloated sports arena with poor acoustics like The Pyramid, is certainly a tall task. Maybe eventually the Bolshoi ballerinas, whose company members are paid $400 a month and -- depending on stature -- about $55 per performance, will do enough touring in America to earn what they deserve for their immense talents.

And for the Memphians -- just think how many nachos that would buy.