Forte Company turned their attentions to the Finnish epic, The Kalevala, reworked in Hungarian (with a few twists and turns for added contemporary relevance) by young Hungarian poet, Balázs Szálinger.
Tree stumps litter a white stage, looking ominously like an untouched, ancient northern landscape. And then there’s the neon-light beam arching above the action. It’s, futuristic style. I’m assured that this is not just going to be a nostalgic tale of heroes and princesses.
Kalevala
We’re confronted by a large cast of primitives. Sort of. It must be quite warm in this Nordic place, as costumes consist of really just the bare minimum, with lots of body paint. Once again, though, the look is distinctly futuristic – not a loin cloth in sight, and the black boots are even little bit Mad Max.
We follow bits and pieces of the Kalevala stories in the Forte Company style of dance mixed with dialogue. There is also a polar bear who comes in to talk about global warming sometimes, which explains the set and costumes. Interplay between the poetry and the physical imagery is full of intrigue and creativity, and the piece is amazingly sensual. Everywhere there are sweating, quivering bodies rubbing off paint on each other, portraying primal human instincts with, I imagine, the intention of evoking these in the audience, too.
Beyond the sensuality however, the deeper importance of the meaning behind the text doesn’t come across as fully developed. A lot of the choreography is highly acrobatic and very impressive to watch. My problem with this is that sometimes the movements are too showy. To place these next to a political and sociological message gives both aspects of the piece a feeling of superficiality. Each impressive lift or leap pulls me out of the atmosphere and distracts me from the context.
This is also an extremely dense piece. One and a half hours are crammed completely full and there is a lot to take in. I don’t doubt that every minute was created with passionate dedication, but the effect is that sometimes there is so much going on, it turns to white noise and I’m satiated with imagery and distracted from the essential intention.
I appreciate the value of making old stories topical. I definitely appreciate the value of story-telling through exciting performance styles and experimental images. Kalevala does achieve these things to some extent, and the manner in which the piece questions how far we have moved on from our ancient ancestors, and what lies beyond today’s world is quite effective. But perhaps it would be easier to absorb this admirable aim with more focussed imagery and fewer distractions.
Kalevala was performed at the Merlin Theater on January 21st, 2010.