Tatyana

39658 original

Despite being taken under the wing of Brazilian choreographer Deborah Colker, Russia is never far away in this adaptation of Eugene Onegin. Pushkin himself even plays a central role, doubled by Colker and Dielson Pessoa as a lithe, powerful puppet master, a reminder that the characters' decisions and emotions do not necessarily come from them. Colker has used Russian composers too: Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninov's exquisite 'Piano Concerto No 2' which elevates her second act to a profoundly passionate level. Her costumes have a tactile 19th century edge: lush silks and sheer frills.

Spurning Tatyana's declarations of love, rich, arrogant Onegin decides to flirt outrageously with her sister, Olga, inciting jealousy in Olga's fiancé , resulting in a tragic duel that Onegin wins. Years later he changes his mind about Tatyana but she has grown older and more sophisticated—dancing en pointe here—and against her deepest desires finds the strength to reject him.

Colker—who dances like it's the most natural way in the world to communicate—draws a deep emotional range from her cast, and her decision to represent each of the four main characters through multiple performers is both conceptually brilliant and visually stunning. Tatyana breathes as one, even when her various personalities and moods are stretching their own different limbs. When, in the second act, she allows herself one last indulgent fantasy, she literally appears to melt as she is manipulated by the many-bodied Onegin, repetitions of herself appearing behind a gauze like torn thoughts, producing dance of the most complex and sensually charged kind.