Young Chang
There's something a little heartbreaking about watching
choreographer/ horseman Bartabas direct his horses and riders in a
tent near the Orange County Performing Arts Center, about watching
the equestrian ballet troupe rehearse, about someone quietly brushing
the mane of their horse in a stable that is continents away from
home.
When considering Bartabas, the Theatre Zingaro founder who goes by
just the one name, the tenderness might have something to do with the
knowledge that his first horse Zingaro died two years ago after 17
years with his master. He still mourns the passing and says it's
emotionally difficult to put on shows without the bearer of the
company's name.
When watching his company members do ballet atop a horse, the
feeling might have something to do with the animal's skill -- its
precision and grace and an elegance that rivals the human being on
it.
With Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," "Symphony of Psalms"
and Pierre Boulez's "Dialogue de l'ombre" as background music, what
you feel is something not even Bartabas can grasp.
"It's a passion," he said. "You cannot explain it."
The Frenchman and his company of horses and humans will perform
the newly choreographed "Triptyk" today through Nov. 8 as the
centerpiece performance of the Eclectic Orange Festival. Twenty-five
horses and seven dancers from India, who are experts in
"kalaripayatt," a martial art from the time of the Raj of Kerala,
will be the stars of Bartabas' new work, which is receiving its U.S.
premiere.
Bartabas said multiculturalism is an important part of his work.
"I think it's impossible to say the nationality of the company,"
he said "Of course, I'm French, but in the company it's all
nationalities."
The performers live as a village where everyone, even the family
members of all the performers, don't distinguish the work day from
the "quotidien day."
"The philosophy of Zingaro is a way of life," Bartabas said.
Bartabas arrived in Costa Mesa last week and his horses began
trickling in soon after.
"Because they were on quarantine," said Natalie Gasser, Bartabas'
press manager in France.
Between South Coast Repertory and the center, there are now
stables and tents and the undeniable smell of horses. In the middle
of Zingaro Village is a tent that seats 1,500 people and is carpeted
with burnt sienna-colored dirt
Bartabas stood on this ruddy dirt Thursday and smoked a cigarette
while watching his horses. The task of choosing and training them
involves looking for a certain spirit, he said. .
What that spirit or personality is like, or how he detects it, is
"difficult to describe," he said. "It's like charming people."
There will be one part in "Dialogue de l'ombre" that is without
live horses, he said.
"An homage, to memory of the horse," Bartabas said.
Choosing and training horses is a relationship, something you have
to build," he said. "I don't wish to just show horses, I wish to show
man and horses."
That relationship, Bartabas said, ultimately shows something more
universal:
"The relations between men themselves," he said.
