When the director of the Cairo Opera House Ballet Company Dr Abdel Moneim Kamel was invited to Víctor Ullate Ballet of the Madrid Company, he “fell in love with the production of “Samsara.
And that’s how the performance, that Director Víctor Ullate calls “the dance of life, was brought to its first audience in the East.
“Samsara, – a reference to the cycle of reincarnation or rebirth in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and other related religions – opened at the Opera on Wednesday with a warning from the images that would be screened. The screen, which for the most part carries the image of a closed eye, also projects images of brutality, murder, war; of the suffering implicit in the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
Almost surreptitiously, the audience becomes aware of the dancers that are already performing Tai-chi behind the screen. These performers were given training in Tai-chi for three months to lend authenticity to their onstage performance, Ullate said at a press conference at the Spanish embassy on Wednesday.
Traversing different lands and styles has been akin to “opening a door to freedom, says Ullate pointing to the mind’s third eye. “It creates freedom in mind and movement. This liberated perspective, says the artist, allows you to create your own style and language, and out of this “you can do many things.
Ullate, who studied with Mária de Ávila and started his career with Antonio Ruíz Soler, formed his own school called “Centro de Danza Víctor Ullate in 1983, and became chairman of the “Fundacion para la Danza Víctor Ullate in 2000, a company that supports and trains professional dancers. Most recently Ullate was given the Culture Award of Comunidad de Madrid in dance in 2003.
In Samsara, Ullate’s journeys and taste for the unconventional are reflected in the colors and costumes styles, the music, and most importantly the dance. The contours of ballet are thus curved with the belly-dancing of Egypt, the angular simplicity and the prop of fans of Japan, the swinging waists and shoulders of Indian dance, and the hops and skips found in the folk-dance of Persia and the Levant.
The ballet itself represents the circular journey undertaken also by the audience – one that begins with the horrors and catastrophe of death and sickness, but ends in love and transcendence.
Divided into segments, each movement is preceded by quotes of Buddhist inclination projected on screen, termed “fortune-cookie messages by one viewer.
“Without me, there is no problem, said one about the essence of Buddhism. The variation that followed conveyed romance.
Two figures dressed in minimal and elegant red, black, and white – one male, and one female – dance in a garden enchanted by the sound of a flute, a sound resembling the fall of water and birdcalls. The dance – now staccato and fluent – spills over with innocence. The horrors of bodies being shoveled into mass-graves projected only a few minutes ago are forgotten in the light canter of these two figures.
Another projection recommends “it is hatred we should hate rather than the person. Figures in burqas appear to float upstage towards the audience. They suddenly raise their hands in prayer. The light focuses on their sleight of hand akin to that of a magician or a martial artist. When these ghostly figures appear humanized, they entrap another female figure – whose figure and features are revealed – among them, as the latter attempts to escape.
For the most part, the stage is a delight of sounds and sights. In one piece, colorful figures resembling Indian costume dance to a qawwali with swinging hip movements and occasional claps, all resembling but not imitating one form of song and dance of the Indian subcontinent. Encore another performance, yet this time with a Persian feel.
Throughout these performances – mostly depicting beauty, and some depicting pain – the eye remains closed. Within these performances, the circle functions as an overarching and recurring symbol. The perpetual cycle of birth, death and rebirth that is Samsara is broken only by the understanding that the world is but a dream.
Only at the end of the performance, when the figures clad in white return, this time bearing white roses, which Ullate terms “the spirit of offering, does the journey come full-circle. This time, the eye has opened to the realization that only in one’s offering of love does one find salvation over suffering.
Ullate first thought of Samsara in 2001, after an operation following two major strokes. The choreographer decided to let things be when he traveled to Nepal and India. It was then that Samsara was conceived. “I had a dream – and that dream is what Samsara is all about, he told Daily News Egypt.
Asked why the Samsara that is a cycle of suffering is depicted as a riot of color, Artistic Director Eduardo Lao told Daily News Egypt that the world consists of both the good and the bad, and Samsara is an expression of the gratitude towards and offering of the good.
Ullate wishes his ballet to convey the message of “hope, fraternity, and peace. He expresses the success of Samsara with the response received from audiences that “want to become better, put a little more love, and give more to others.
Catch Víctor Ullate’s “Samsara on Sunday at the Alexandria Opera House’s Sayed Darwish Theater, with the support of Madrid’s regional government and the Embassy of Spain in Egypt. For more information on the ballet company, please visit http://www.victorullateballet.com/
