Alina Cojocaru is a wonder. The Romanian former star of the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet is now operating as a freelance and, at the age of 42, is as spellbinding as ever. Last week brought the opportunity to see her in two contrasting works; though they varied massively in quality, her artistry shone through.
The shorter but better of the two came in Bath where, as part of Deborah Warner’s studio season, the Danish choreographer Kim Brandstrup has created a new duet, Metamorphoses, for Cojocaru and the Royal Ballet’s Matthew Ball, using the myth of Cupid and Psyche to weave a compellingly strange picture of attraction and need.
It’s a companion piece to Minotaur, first seen in 2022, where in five neat parts he tells the story of Ariadne, her half-brother the Minotaur, and Theseus, who kills the beast and abandons the woman before an act of heavenly magic makes all well. Now danced by Ball, Kristen McNally (also of the Royal Ballet, and freed from character parts into a melancholy lyricism) and the seemingly ageless Tommy Franzen, it remains a wonder, casting a spell as dazzling as Franzen’s weightless climb across the studio walls.
In Minotaur, Justin Nardella’s set is built around red-spattered painting. In Metamorphoses, the central image is that of a camera shutter, making images from the dark, turning them into light, as blind Cupid cherishes Psyche, on condition that she will not look at him. In Brandstrup’s telling, and Eilon Morris’s sound design, their first Encounter in the Dark is propelled by noise more than sight; Cojocaru floats past a bare-chested Ball like a somnambulist, eyes unseeing. He scratches a wall, or beats his feet together, or flings a cloth past her head so she catches a sense of where he stands.
In Ecstasy, they come together in blind passion; he lifts her in the air or wraps her around his body in gestures of infinite lightness. She flings herself into his arms, shaping her limbs around his rounded form. In Exposure, the movement plays with his groundedness and her fleet grace; he pushes himself off the bench where she sees him, the shafts of Chris Wilkinson’s light falling across his face.
As in Minotaur, the piece progresses through sadness and elegy to a kind of resolution, where Cojocaru cradles Ball in her arms. Brandstrup suggests it is Psyche who brings illumination and forgiveness; it is the man who has most to learn. It’s sumptuous and thoughtful, staying in the mind long after its conclusion. Ball is passionate, playful and strong and Cojocaru is simply transfixing, moving like liquid, her arms and upper body falling into perfect shapes.
Brandstrup’s economy, his ability to conjure entire worlds and complex ideas out of the simplest ingredients, is beautifully served by Cojocaru’s instinctive honesty and openness. Both those qualities are on display in La Strada, a full-length piece she has commissioned for her own production company, ACWorkroom.
It’s arguable that Fellini’s 1954 classic – “one of the most influential films ever made” according to the American Film Institute, and apparently one of Pope Francis’s favourites – isn’t as easy as it appears to turn into a ballet. The plot of an innocent girl (Gelsomina) sold to a brutish circus strongman (Zampanò) relies for its impact on a quasi-poetic, mythological mood that contrasts her constant ability to find goodness with the cruelty of the world in which she finds herself.
Most of that goes missing here in a meandering adaptation by the Slovakian choreographer Natália Horečná, set to a score of excerpts by the film’s composer, Nino Rota. The action is punctuated by long passages where Cojocaru is lifted around the stage by two “angels”; whenever a climax of any kind of called for, a group of circus folk appear and cavort. It is all rather confusing.
But Cojocaru dances with her entire heart and soul, endowing the repetitive steps with integrity. She miraculously captures Gelsomina’s wonder, not just with her enquiring face, but with her whole body, which seems to shrink back to childishness. As Zampanò, Mick Zeni makes a powerful, anguished impact but he doesn’t ever have enough to do.
It’s Cojocaru’s offstage husband, Johan Kobborg, playing the kindly clown Il Matto, who joins her in pushing back the years and filling the stage with life, as he jumps, turns and even unicycles through the action, making each step tell.
Star ratings (out of five)
Metamorphoses ★★★★★
La Strada ★★★
