Dance isn’t good at putting strong women centre stage. There are a lot of shrinking violets, visiting princesses and doomed sylphs in ballet. That’s probably why Carmen, heroine of Mérimée’s novel and Bizet’s opera, has appealed to many choreographers. At least she has a bit of agency on the way to her untimely death.
Swedish choreographer Johan Inger’s version of events, created in 2015 but being performed in the UK for the first time by English National Ballet, uses her as an enigmatic force of sexual energy at the heart of what is effectively both a telling of the story and a meditation on the lasting effects of domestic violence.
