Loved: Akram Khan, like ,"Guys, just write me a new score for The Rite of Spring."
Loved: The result. Although, the music to the show is unlikely to have an independent life as the Stravinsky's masterpiece, within the show this mix of works of three composers functions perfectly well. Some electronic parts are very bodily, the pitch and the volume are present in the theatre in very physical manner, like in the clubs.
Loved: The crafty characters. Every one of them had their own colour (easy), shape (still not that difficult, although costumes in iTMOi are exceptional) and many, obviously, their own dances.
Not that loved: sometimes it looked that the author does not know what to do with the awesome creatures he built. The deity with horns is absolutely great, but when it enters the stage for the forth time I already knew that hmmm... it will not add anything new.
Loved: Costumes. An excellent example how elaborated costumes provide more opportunities for a choreographer than challenges for a dancer.
Loved: The opening dance of the dervish / priest.
Not that loved: I wanted more of that guy!
Loved: Indo-European core story of a dying-and-rising god. Mythology is out of fashion these days, all the magic you can have is "battle magic" in games and fantasy. iTMOi works with my favourite sort of magic - spiritual.
Not that loved: the final dance of the princess / heir. Sorry, it was weak.
Totally loved, through and through: the classic Indian dance elements used not as "oriental" tokens, but as powerful expressive vocabulary.
Overall, when this piece is polished and refined, I would live to go once again.
