LONDON â€" Wednesday was the 100th anniversary, to the day, of the first performance of “The Rite of Spring,†the Stravinsky-Nijinsky collaboration at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris that marked a revolutionary, game-changing moment in modern music and dance. There were celebratory performances all over the world of various versions of “Rite†â€" at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Maryinsky Ballet performed Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer’s reconstructed version of Nijinsky’s ballet alongside a new version by the German choreographer Sasha Waltz.
In London, an hour behind European time, audiences were still rushing to the theater or sipping drinks when the lights went down in Paris. But Sadler’s Wells, London’s major dance house, had its own “Rite of Spring†tribute, by Akram Khan, generally considered one of Britain’s most important choreographers.
Mr. Khan did not, however, create his own version of the ballet to the Stravinsky score, as innumerable choreographers have done. (My colleague Claudia La Rocco once suggested that there should be an annual quota for choreographers wishing to work with canonical scores, “rather like the system adhered to by moose hunters in Maine.â€
Instead, he has created “iTMOi,†a fantasmagorical, dark-hued world of sacrifice, ritual, humiliation, fear and exaltation, set to a three-part commissioned score by Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost. “iTMOi,†which must be a strong contender for worst title of the last decade (and why, why, why, the annoying typography?) stands for “in the mind of Igor,†and Mr. Khan speaks, in a program interview, of his extensive biographical research.
You wouldn’t know it from the work, which is all to its credit. “iTMOi†begins with a menacing, high-volume guttural growl, chiming bells and a dimly lighted smoke-filled stage. A tall black man (T.J. Lowe) shouts out the story of Abraham and Isaac in the accents of a preacher, stretching and crumpling, giggling and shouting, before being joined by an ensemble, moving with convulsive, whirling urgency. A white-faced figure in a hoop skirt and outlandish hat (Catherine Schaub Abkarian) takes on a central role, anointing a small woman in white (Ching-Ying Chien) with powder, seeming to compel the dancers to move away or toward her.
Her role is never clear; neither are those of the individuals who emerge from the group. For a while you think the woman in white is the sacrificial victim of the “Rite†scenario. Later a man who has played a central, equally puzzling role, becomes the victim, his body, attached to ropes, jerking helplessly as he is lashed from all sides.
The ambiguity is obviously intentional, as is the symbolism. A dancer wearing horns prowls about the stage; a golden orb swings back and forth; smoke billows, a rectangular metal frame descends like a cage, then vanishes. If we are in anyone’s mind, it’s deep within the unconscious; the work, unevenly paced, full of longueurs, nonetheless plays out like a dream (or perhaps a nightmare) with its own deep logic, helped at different moments by Mr. Sawhney’s beautiful, melancholy strings, Ms. Pook’s strange vocals, and Mr. Frost’s impressive wall of sound.
There were no riots during “iTMOi,†as there famously were at the premiere of the Stravinsky-Nijinsky “Rite.†But afterward there was a sense that something â€" perhaps even something extreme â€" had happened.
