Tonight:
4°c
It's 1909 all over again. Boos rang out, shocked patrons walked out. Never mind Frieze, the most provocative art event this week is Sadler's Wells' In the Spirit of Diaghilev.
Conceived as a 100th birthday party for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes - which transformed ballet at the start of the 20th century - it features four modern dance pieces. And the one generating all the fuss is Javier De Frutos's Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez.
A "satirical ballet" inspired by Diaghilev and Cocteau, it features pregnant men in dresses, sex on the papal throne, female masturbation and decapitation. Think Francis Bacon meets Pedro Almodóvar.
De Frutos has a reputation: he's choreographed naked dance solos to Bartók, and blood-soaked bedroom scenes. And Diaghilev purists are famously protective of anyone messing with the master.
I am no Ballets Russes expert but as a fan of live performance I found it thrilling. Peruvian-born, Catholic, gay De Frutos doesn't make things easy.
But, in the spirit of Diaghilev, he asks us to confront issues such as religion and sexual abuse, and the hypocrisy of a church that assaults, then excommunicates.
The hot pink set with its erotic wallpaper (nude males in a state of arousal) is worth the entry price alone.
This is absolutely the way dance theatre should go: shaking up the repetoire, encouraging bold collaborations. Classics atrophy without new blood.
Just look how Rupert Goold's Macbeth with Patrick Stewart made Shakespeare relevant for the Tarantino audience.
Poet Christopher Logue has brought Homer's Iliad bang up to date. In her new film Bright Star, Jane Campion presents Romantic poet John Keats as the bard for the Facebook generation.
I can't bear elitists who say "I never go to the cinema any more" or "there's been nothing good in music in the past 10 years".
It's your duty to go along and be annoyed. Postcards from the edge have a habit of coming back to haunt the narrow-minded (remember, dramatists Sarah Kane and Mark Ravenhill are part of the canon now). The shock of the new isn't supposed to be easy.
On the Today programme, dance critic Debra Caine rebuked classical ballet companies for churning out the same old classics (Swan Lake, The Nutcracker) to keep marketing happy.
It would be a pity if De Frutos's succès de scandale stole all the thunder. It's nothing you wouldn't see on TV.
This is supposed to be new work. Sadler's Wells has already staged the traditional Ballets Russes repertoire.
But Diaghilev, the man who transformed "chocolate box" ballet into an avant-garde art form, would love it. He was a showman. As De Frutos boasts: "He would have sold his soul to create new work for the company.
"He wasn't bothered by political correctness. Those were the glory days when people would sleep with you to get a job. And some of the best slept with Diaghilev."
Tonight, at the final instalment of the Diaghilev love-in, Sadler's Wells is staging the first dance work by Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed. Bring it on.
If fans want us to revere the great man, they've got to move with the times.
Radicalism can't be archived. And when you get boos in the theatre, that just shows it's working.
Reader views (1)
What ever happened to people just wanting to be entertained?
- Rogan, Irving, 19/10/2009 14:25
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