Not the red army

All over central Perth there are plasticked, flapping flags proclaiming Red Army - the Perth basketball team, whateverthefuckthey'recalled. While this is reality on Hay Street, in the vaulted chamber of the Perth Town Hall, a group of dancers from Tbilisi sit on chrome and leather chairs, facing away from the audience.
I am in the front row, randomly next to a guy from work and his wife.
The hall is close to empty, but I have knots in my guts from wanting to hear this, and somewhat also see it.

The lights go down- the red enamel making the houselight quality diffuse in a warm wash. Bizet begins  Perhaps not in the exact chords in which I am accustomed, but Bizet all the same.
The female dancers are all clad in shiny black lycra, with mesh back-inserts, while the men wear loose back trousers and pleated black tunics, all perfectly fitting.
All of their shoes are black with red soles. The simplicity in itself is moving.

It begins, and almost immediately I am transported in a way that makes me dread the end. The blurb was right, even without words the movements and the feeling convey the Prosper Merimee story.
When Carmen herself emerges from behind the curtain to join the women in the cigarette factory, her head of flaming red hair swarms about her shoulders like a maddened clusp of red butterflies.
Her bones jut, yet she is voluptuous. Her cheekbones lend mischief to a wonderfully angular face.
Her cobbled spine shines under a spit of sweat in the light - no black mesh to mask her here.

Don Jose, swarthy, long haired, perfectly pathetic falls for her, clutching the imaginary flower in his trembling, empty hand. The dance is sensuous, close, but non-committal, after all "love is like, a gypsy child..."

And the dancers return to the stage, with skirts draped around their rounded hips. The music makes me eyes bubble over and my heart soar.

Then Escamillo enters, and here is the magic of interpretation. Escamillo is slim, almost skinny. For some reason he is also in a wheelchair, which detracts none from his sex appeal to the writhing women on stage. Yet even without his usual bulk, and even without his usual honeyed, soily voice he is a captivating presence, and as necessary, he finds his Carmen.

And about the magic of interpretation - Carmen at the Highgate Hotel - she was five months pregnant and anything but gypsy but she was perfect. Carmen at the Statsoper in Berlin - the most minimalist stage set  I had ever seen, and neither the singing now surtitles were in a language I understood, yet there was more emotion in that performance than at the Sydney opera house.

Then, the panic of the crowd increases. The women return with black mesh shrouds and wrap their faces, swinging their arms above their heads - a false Greek choir in Seville.
In the end, Carmen in her sorrow pulls Don Jose's knife into her centre and the story is complete.

I loved it.
I wished the audience was more full, and I wish it had lasted longer, or that I could have just pressed replay. I sat on the bus on the way home with a smile dancing on my face and them Bizet tears in my eyes.


And before Carmen, on a wild blustry very un-Perth afternoon, I found Matt again and we sat in the worst pub ever, 43 below or some shit like that, and drank a bottle (bobble) of bubbles "let's get fucked up" and spent a perfect hour laughing and making bad bad jokes. This week has started with far too much booze to be healthy, but so much damn perfection.

I am ready for all the crazy change this year is promising.
And now, cat furred from a necessary hug, and sleepy I will put on the Suites and lie on the bed.