The latest reincarnation of Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird, originally produced by Sergei Diaghilev and the Russian Ballet in 1910, recently took flight from Cape Town’s Artscape, en route to the main stage of the Grahamstown Arts Festival, after which it will tour the US.The composition, Stravinsky’s first for ballet, was an adaptation of a Slavic folktale. It was a smash success and has been regularly reprised worldwide. Given the popularity of this work, its SA version becomes all the more intriguing.Director Janni Younge and choreographer Jay Pather have not disappointed. While staying true to the story’s fantastical root, they have chosen to fuse this magic-reality with the harsh truth of a failing democracy.Younge’s vision, however, is by no means a pessimistic one. It is the complexity of change as a dreaming tool which the director brings to the fore.“In my experience internal struggles are solved not when one force overcomes another, but rather when the battle is exhausted and ...
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