When “Carmen” premiered in 1875, it was primarily characterized as a flop. The French press and public deemed Georges Bizet’s opera to be vulgar in its portrayal of a working-class woman with questionable morals killed by her jealous lover — oops, spoiler.
Bizet died shortly after the premiere; thus he never saw “Carmen” rise to its place as one of the most familiar and loved operas in the canon. A similar fate awaited Luna Negra Dance Theater when it premiered then-artistic director Gustavo Ramirez Sansano’s full-length contemporary ballet on the subject of “Carmen” in 2012.
“Carmen.maquia” was anything but a flop, but a year later, Luna Negra was gone, never really afforded the chance to see what impact Sansano’s “Carmen” could have made. Other companies took it up: Columbus, Ohio troupe BalletMet and New York’s Ballet Hispánico, to name two (the latter directed by Luna Negra’s founder, Eduardo Vilaro).
But it isn’t until now that Chicago dance audiences have had the chance to revisit Sansano’s tour de force — this time performed by a capable cast from Visceral Dance Chicago.
“Carmen.maquia” runs through Sunday at the Museum of Contemporary Art, marking the 10-year-old company’s first time performing in the museum’s Edlis Neeson Theater.
Even Bizet’s most fervent dissenters could not deny “Carmen” its magnificent score, which is perhaps the only thing resembling “Carmen.maquia’s” inspiration, apart from a loose adherence to the original libretto.
Cigarette factory worker Carmen (Laura Mendes) lives an openly licentious lifestyle. In the original, she sings “Love is a wild bird that no one can tame.” Here, a black dress separates her from the others, who wear variations of white-on-white costume pieces (recreations of David Delfin’s designs by Maggie Jarecki and Zoe Rose).
It’s a contrast that attracts Carmen to Don José, danced here by Tyson Ford, who, of course, is betrothed to someone else. That’s Micaela (Alessandra de Paolantonio), a virginal figure who fights for her man and loses when Don José, who’s gone away to care for his ailing mother, learns Carmen swapped her black dress for a white one and married a bullfighter, Escamillo (Justin Bisnauthsing).
It doesn’t end well for Carmen, who concludes the ballet upstage, limp, covered in blue ink meant to resemble blood. It is a rare pop of color in a ballet that is otherwise presented mostly in grayscale. Flexible accordions of what looks like white corrugated cardboard (by Luis Crespo) are manipulated as abstract set pieces hinting at architecture; various black and gray canvases depict Pablo Picasso-esque imagery of a bull on one side of the stage, and a screaming woman on the other.
It’s a striking, minimalist atmosphere miles away from Sevilla, where a real murder inspired author Prosper Mérimée to pen the novella catalyzing Bizet’s typically gaudy opera. There’s none of that here — nor is Sansano’s storytelling totally obvious. His kind of genius is a marriage of physical theater and contemporary dance that, thankfully, avoids being overly literal. Doing that well requires incredible skill, which these young Visceral dancers have, but need a little more time with Sansano’s aesthetic to really get it.
Like his “Carmen,” Sansano deals in contrasts, forging a movement vocabulary that is at once staccato and legato; light and grounded; deeply serious and absolutely hilarious. That, and, few choreographers have his sense of musicality, which fantastically squeezes various instrumental arrangements of Bizet’s score in every which way.
It is therefore a useful exercise with “Carmen.maquia” to lose the plot and approach it as the smirking sensory experience Sansano intends. An exquisite pair of duets for Mendes and Ford, and another for Ford and de Paolantonio provide some of the evening’s most salient moments, plus Bisnauthsing’s audacious performance of Sanasano’s take on the “Toreador Song.”
There are fantastic moments, too, from the whole ensemble. They make clever use of the Edlis Neeson’s chutes connecting the house to the stage in a terrific downstage passage of something akin to Storm Troopers, skeptically disrupting Carmen and Don José’s pas de deux, and a brief interlude embodying Don José’s fever dream seeing Carmens everywhere while incarcerated. While it’s tempting to sit back and take in this whole, striking picture, occasionally, zoom in to see the gestures and particular eccentricates each dancer brings to their role.
Doing that, one notices more details than any one critic can capture in this small a space — all the more reason to celebrate Visceral for reviving this magnificent work in and for Chicago.
Review: Visceral Dance Chicago presents “Carmen.maquia” (3.5 stars)
When: Through 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 E. Chicago Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes with an intermission
Tickets: $25-$80 at www.visceraldance.com
