da:ns fest 2015: Au revoir, Sylvie Guillem
Sylvie Guillem performs in Mats Ek's Bye at Life In Progress. Photo: Bill Cooper.
SINGAPORE — When it was all over, the audience at the Esplanade Theatre rose as one to give Sylvie Guillem a rousing, final standing ovation.
The French dance superstar is beloved in Singapore, where she has performed four times in the past 10 years: Sacred Monsters, Eonnagata, 6,000 Miles Away and now, Life In Progress, her touring swansong show.
It’s the international dance world’s very own SG50 moment, as Guillem is taking her final bow as a dancer at the age of 50 (for a bit of perspective, when she first started dancing as an 11-year-old student at the Paris Opera Ballet in 1976, plans for a Singapore Arts Festival had only just been announced).
And on such a poignant night, even a mixed bag of a show could not diminish the dancer’s lovely farewell.
Comprising two new works and two restagings by her favourite choreographers, Guillem danced in three of these, beginning with Akram Khan’s techne, a mystical, ritualistic piece that saw her symbolically communing with the proverbial tree of life (or knowledge). Around a barren, wire-tree structure, the lithe figure entranced as she crouched or scuttled about, monkey- or insect-like, or arched and extended her uncannily malleable body, effortlessly evoking the arcane.
The night’s best piece, however, did not feature her — serving as an intermission of sorts, the restaging of DUO2015 was a hypnotic all-male duet by William Forsythe, whose complex connect-the-dot choreography translated to a frantic conversation between two bodies — Brigel Gjoka and Riley Watts’ — with seemingly haphazard actions linking and de-linking. Clinical and mesmerising, the most bare-bones piece of the night put the spotlight firmly on the body and it was slightly disappointing not to see “greatest dancer of our time” do a Forsythe one last time (she did so back in 2011 for 6,000 Miles Away).
Instead, she was back for Russell Maliphant’s Here & After, a new all-female duet with industrial undertones in contrast to Khan’s earthier piece. The most underwhelming of the lot, it began promisingly as, in the dim light, Guillem and Emanuela Montanari seemingly merged as one slow-moving organism. In tandem with a younger artist, one could imagine Guillem facing her younger self.
But even setting aside the rather outdated vibe (we loved the out-of-nowhere jolt of yodeling sounds but who uses drum and bass as a soundtrack anymore?), it was the piece that least flattered her — Maliphant described the duet as a “female duet partnership” but it felt less of a partnership compared to Forsythe’s more democratic, free-flowing take. Besides, it was rather awkward seeing her run — Guillem, who has always had that ephemeral, light-as-a-feather aura, is more of a glider, don’t you think?
The best Guillem moment was saved for last, and it’s perhaps fitting that her “partner” for this duet wasn’t a tree or another dancer but herself.
Mats Ek’s fittingly titled multi-media Bye was first seen in 6,000 Miles Away but took on more significance here. A two-dimensional Guillem appeared on a doorway-as-video screen and seemed ready to walk away before the lure of the real stage proved too strong and she “emerged” for one final, triumphant hurrah. We then witnessed everything she had seemingly done, encapsulated in a quirky performance that offered nods to her ballet roots and her post-ballet life. One couldn’t help but smile tenderly when, after all this, she reentered that magical portal to blend in with the virtual crowd that awaited her, an extraordinary artist bidding farewell to an extraordinary career.
There’s one more show of Life In Progress tonight (Oct 14), 8pm, at the Esplanade Theatre. Guillem will also give a one-hour talk tomorrow, 7.30pm, at the Esplanade Concert Hall. Tickets for both from SISTIC. For more info on the festival, visit http://www.dansfestival.com/2015/
