Myra Beltrans Looking for the Spirit of the Rose Myra Beltrans Looking for the Spirit of the

Rose is a deconstructive take on Michel Fokines classical perfume ballet Le Spectre de la Rose, featuring the famous dance legend Vaslav Nijinksy. Unlike most dancey contemporary takes on classical material, Beltran opts for the direct and somber. Even foregoing her presence on stage by literally letting history speak for itself. The piece opens with a documentary material projected on the screen where Nijinskys daughter Kyra, probably in her 60s or 70s recalls the legacy of her father, segueing into a short clip of the famous pas de deux section of the ballet. Beltran teases out the uncomfortable relationship of the body to history through restraint, inhibiting the authoritative voice of a choreographer in favor history, in favor of time, in favor of the communicative. In choosing the straightforward path of showing an archival material in dance, she creates a space and time for reflection. An opportunity for the audience to decide whether they would identify to the piece or not a move to be considered risky, but one borne of maturity. Paradoxically, it was only in partially letting of the movement in dance that Beltran effectively conveyed the ontological status of dance and its relationship to movement. So never mind, if we did not see Beltran in her signature solo expositions in dance, what we see instead is a timely break from history -- a still-act in order to interrogate her historical and subjective relationship to dance. A necessary digression ultimately leading us back to Fokines original intention when he created this piece, which was to stage a ballet in an intimate setting of tiny room enclosed by two walls leaving little room for dancing where the difficulty lay not in the execution of intricate beautiful steps but in confining the dance to such a small space.