Tomorrow. Is there contact?
By its chosen means of expression, the ballet “Tomorrow” is one of Radu Poklitaru’s most laconic works. With social insight worthy of the sharpness of a surgical scalpel. No sets. A classic black stage, light in semi-darkness that only accentuates the action.
In its chosen means of expression, the ballet «Tomorrow» is one of Radu Poklitaru’s most laconic works. With a social insight worthy of the sharpness of a surgeon’s scalpel. No scenery whatsoever. A classic black stage, light in semi-darkness that only accentuates the action. The performers’ unisex costumes the colour of flickering tongues of fire – as a sign of the divine energy in every living being regardless of sex. And complete concentration on plastic movements, lines, symbols, and narratives about the existing social problems of people, told through personal and collective stories.
The flow of the action’s emotions reaches the graphic expressiveness of a poster in its climactic freeze-frames, which fix them in memory as summary-scenes of social relationships. This – is the point of contact with every viewer. The moment of their feedback regarding their own stories, the ones each of us has encountered in life. For example, the collective that erases and levels the individual, and as a consequence – the infantilism of the masses marching «in step». Dominance in LGBT couples, abuse and violence in a man-woman couple. The chemical reaction of a collective decomposing into separate individuals – and the dread of loneliness that precipitates out as sediment. The unstoppable rush of time, when new and ever newer characters emerge from a hand-made shell – and drift off into life on its current with an undetermined fate. An undetermined tomorrow.
This performance could be called a contemporary parable about the dreadful rules and laws of society that people here, on Earth, create for themselves, because their consciousness is filled to the brim with information in which there is no love! Their deeds, struggles, sufferings, and floundering on the dark bottom of life, with rare moments of rays of light that break into their darkness from the heavens like a prophetic lightning bolt, would in themselves be a harsh but truthful and artistically real picture of the present day… were it not for one «but».
Above the twilight social motion of human souls and bodies, from the first minute of «Tomorrow» to the last, there flows – the music of Chopin, of unearthly harmony and luminous beauty. With which the rhythms of society – do not coincide. And this is not merely a feeling of discomfort, irritation, or misunderstanding. The emotional peaks of human deeds enter into that rhythmic-dramatic conflict which in waves reaches the scale of a genuine antagonism towards the laws of the eternal flow of the harmonious Universe. And how tremulously, in quiet solitary islets, like a bright echo of heaven on earth, the sensual love of people is sometimes reflected – in unison with the Music.
Once again, as is characteristic of the Master, the conflict is taken beyond the bounds of the ballet’s plot, and in essence unfolds between two characters – humankind and the Universe. The laws of love – and the laws invented from knowledge devoid of love. Between the most luminous music of Frédéric Chopin – and the eloquent movements of human actions.
So, what is it that people have apparently come to realize? The divine law, as the Universe conceived it, flows in harmony, and it will be so always. Even if all the clever ones perish, pass into eternity, down to the last. The laws of love were born before us, before humankind. The decision – is ours.
And you know, this performance-parable is, as of today, Radu Poklitaru’s most ironic and philosophical statement as a Master of the language of ballet. Nothing superfluous: the surgically virtuosic aesthetics of artistic truth. And within it – a tension of cosmic scale, compressed into the dimensions of the intimate. Into the volume of a heart. But the finale the Master offers – will be a revelation for you. Come. Tomorrow.
Text: Anna ARKHYPOVA
