Caligula, the Ballet

LIZ SAYS: It was Caligula, the ballet, what would one expect? Uh, I did not know. That made it all the more compelling. What would it be?
Well?
It was wild, semi-modern, semi-traditional, beautiful, inexplicable, wildly unconventional and at the same time familiar. Okay, Caligula is not the most sympathetic figure, but, you have to say, he’s an unconventional subject. This version explained him as an epilectic. His body fought his mind. The music alternated between Vilvaldi’s Four Seasons and snippets of discontinuous electronic sounds, creating tension that revealed a beauty in the ugliness of the conflict of his body and mind. And it never stopped. No matter how beautiful the moment, he was still conflicted, tortured and unhinged.
Caligula himself was dressed in a short fitted red velvet jumpsuit that had white trim that outlined the the muscular structure. It alternately looked like a flayed body and Little Lord Fontlaroy.
There were 3 identical figures lead by a forth figure that seemed to express his imbalance. The lead character danced a very fluid, angular abstract dance in a stark white fitted tee and capris, his muscles flowing through space in a captivating tightness. The three other figures with painted white faces and outfits that looked like minimalist versions of samurai skirts. The three interacted with the one, pulling and pushing conflicting and co-operating until it was no longer possible.
One of the greatest moments was the interaction between Caligula and his horse. His horse was played by the most beautiful body in motion, a man. He was at first the gait of the horse, then the rear, the sway of the animal, then the affection, of an animal with a man/person that could not realize love with a human being. It was BEAUTIFUL. At the end, he bid his horse farewell and it was at once humorous and touching. It was a man patting a man on the butt and Caligula the monstre bidding his horse farewell. It was glorious.
The entire ballet was a conflicting mixture of ‘normal’ and ‘exceptional’, the Vivaldi being normal and the epileptic episodes being exceptional. It did not forgive or excuse, it enlightened.
I loved it. I am not sure anyone else would think it was even okay, but I and Dick thought it was transcendent. It was great.
Swanlake is a pond. Caligula was an ocean of time and motion.