City Water Tunnel #3. - Here, New York, New York - dance reviews

Dance Magazine, Dec, 1996 by Rose Anne Thom

A dark-eyed girl draws gleaming candles, floating on a pool of inky water, toward her by apparent force of will; a robed rider bearing a Don Quixote staff suddenly appears above her on his dark steed, then vanishes; two women in flowing harem pants and veils recline voluptuously on the backs of their spectacularly frizzy-maned horses, then suddenly stand with nonchalant ease atop the same galloping mounts; the robed rider chases his huge black horse across the water, then suddenly flees in the opposite direction as the horse chases him.

These images in Chimere ("Wild Dream"), the two-hour-long Equestrian opera" by Zingaro that opened the Brooklyn Academy of Music's 1996 Next Wave Festival, draw together the poles of magic and technique, illusion and skill, wonder and curiosity. Part of the thrill of Chimere lies in the astonishment of the horses' perfect performances. How does Bartabas, the troupe's founder and director, initiate the subtle changes of gait and timing as he and his magnificent horse dance with tiny, delicate steps around the red-earth ring? How does a horse know to jump, lifting all four legs off the ground, in a split second of light that flashes across the dark water? To sit? To twine its neck lovingly around a human body?

The brilliance of Chimere is that these questions remain secondary to their antithesis: the evocation of a union between human and animal that transcends any notion of stunts learned by repetition and reward. The haunting music of the twelve-member Musicians of Rajasthan, exotic costumes, multinational performers, and gorgeous horses create a rich visual and associative context for the spectacle, but Bartabas's real achievement is to offer a drama that speaks of relationships between bodies and souls, both human and equine.

This drama is one that constantly informs dance: how is the utterly controlled body to offer a vision of freedom? In Chimere, when the riders stand or jump on the bare backs of the horses, their feet just skim the gleaming flesh; they remain as much in the air as on a shifting platform of bone and muscle. Absolutely centered, entirely at one with the movement, these artists seem to be showing us that perfect mastery is also perfect abandon.