Customer Reviews

Mats Ek - Appartement / Osta, Le Riche, Gillot, Martinez, Belarbi, Paris Opera Ballet

5 star:		(4)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This dvd is my new favorite thing! I've watched and enjoyed Mats Ek's work before, though I sometimes find it a little out there for me, but this one is beautiful! No qualifying remarks, no astriks, just absolutely beautiful. I teach dance and choreography and showed excerpts from this in my class. The students were inspired and many asked where they could get the dvd after class. For me, this one has everthing I love about dance-- human, amazing, unusual movement, beautiful stage design, and beautiful dancers. When you need to defend ballet technique and explain that it isn't all about Sleeping Beauty, this is a good one to watch.

This virtuoso piece is what we like to call avante garde. Most of us have never seen choreography like this, it's extremely demanding of the dancers abilities, non romantic in the extreme yet offers many dazzling male female duets. It's tempting to compare this work with Twyla Tharp's The Catherine Wheel. I think this piece is a little more coherent and none of the dancers are wasted. The vacuum cleaner dance is both funny, angry and celebratory. We have an amazing group of dancers here and they definitely earn the wild applause at the end. The original music is great too.

I only recently found out about Mats Ek and his choreography, and this is the first DVD I've bought of one of his dances. I'm very taken with it. Besides the great movements, the music appeals a lot, and goes perfectly with the dances. I realized after I bought this that the ballet called Smoke which is performed by Sylvie Guillam is also a Mats Ek choreography; you can watch it at her site. I'm familiar with several of the dancers from Paris Opera Ballet featured in this production, it's great to see them in a different work. This exact release is also available on the Art Haus label, so if one is sold out, look here at Amazon for the other. They seem to carry both, but one might eventually become unavailable. No matter what date is mentioned, they are both the 2003 live performance.

As a note of comparison in styles, I bought a few of the DVDs of Ballets de Monte Carlo productions, which are also modern, a little bit like Mats Ek's work. I must say, I think the style of The Appartement is far superior. While the costumes are out of the ordinary, or maybe even futuristic, they do not detract from the dance or the dancers. Conversely, when I watch the Ballets de Monte Carlo productions, much as I like a couple of the main dancers and their bodies in motion, the costumes can be too prominent a feature, and with the bright lighting and stripped down geometric sets, the choreography takes a back seat. I get tired of it pretty quickly.

If you are open to new things by Paris Opera Ballet, I do suggest buying this DVD. I like it so much, I might investigate the musicians' themselves, too. It's a whole new thing for me in a couple of ways.

Mats Ek may well be the best choreographer of this generation. His work is innovative and cutting edge and at the same time, full of humanity and humor. He is a master of the use of stage space and his dancers are superb.

Summary: Avoid this ballet if you are a lover of classical ballet and hate modern ballet
I like my dance to be flowing, uplifting, and as celebratory of human form and movement whatever kind of dance it maybe. The music accompanying this should be at least melodic and with a theme even if simple. On both these counts the ballet fails. The movements are random, disjointed, with no apparent integration or theme. I quickly got bored. Note that these are the same POB dancers and company that I adore. However this choreography is wretched. Obviously I am unable to appreciate elements of beauty in such modern ballets. Nevertheless I lost money since none of the reviews before me made the above clear and so I went ahead and bought this waste of a DVD. Be sure you like abrupt choppy incoherent themeless uncelebratory mundane modern dance before you buy this DVD.