Art for Art's Sake

THEY WANTED to tell me about atrocities. They wanted to tell me about repression, of Jews, Christians, Estonians, Poles, Lithuanians. But mostly Jews.

I ignored the protesters, I ignored their signs, I paid only slight attention to the t.v. cameras filming the crowd. I was late for the ballet.

It was opening night for the Moiseyev Ballet, the U.S.S.R.'s premiere troupe of folk dancers. The ballet was conducting the first major Soviet performance tour of America in a long time. I was excited to see it. I have always wanted to see a Cossack dance.

But I was also a little worried. On opening night in New York, someone had tear gassed the audience. A friend of mine who had been gassed once called it the worst feeling in the world--and a lousy way to begin a show, I imagine.

Some other students and I were the guests of Saks Fifth Avenue, which was sponsoring a fashion show after the show. The fellow who sat next to me in the box was from Eliot House--he only lasted through the first act.

He must have become very ill, because I cannot imagine any healthy person wanting to leave. Whether floating across the stage in huge black robes, acting out a patriotic defense of the homeland, or just doing those low Cossack kicks, the dancers rarely lost my normally dance-defying attention. The only inexplicable piece was an overlong sequence in which the dancers pretended they were skating on a Russian ice rink, even executing fake spins. Very impressive. The Ice Capades must not have reached Moscow yet.

THE AUDIENCE was not allowed outside during intermission, probably to prevent any last minute assault by suicide stink-bomb squads. Most of the audience poured out into the Wang Center's stuffy lobby, sipping over-priced Coca Colas and complaining about the protesters.

I wondered if I should feel guilty. The protestors had gotten to me, at least by pricking my conscience. I knew that these so called good-will tours were a farce, a public relations extravaganza for one of the more evil governments on earth.

I am supposed to dislike Soviets. The Russian Revolution drove my grandparents into Iran; the closure of the Soviet Union made part of my family strangers to me forever.

But I could not feel outrage. My only discomfort was from the nicotine addicts lighting up in the overcrowded room. I wished I had brought a date, but that made me feel worse, so I returned to my seat, and waited until the second act began.

It was awesome. I have no other words to describe it, an almost hour-long musical Walpurgisnacht, set to Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain. The most impressive moment of the evening occured just before the musical climax of the piece--the music just stopped, like the blade of a guillotine. The dancers paused for a moment, waiting for--the beat! Congas! Big band style, Gene Krupka back from the dead.

The dancers, still dressed as demons and succubi did ten minutes of freestyle Thirties choreography. One audience member called it "Busby Berkley in Hell." Then just as suddenly, they went back to the Russian dancing. After they finished, most of the audience gave them a standing ovation.

The reception afterwards was good, almost as good as the show. I was seated at a table with a Quincy House tutor and a woman named Bunny. Perhaps that is why I downed three staight vodkas, each with a champagne chaser. Then came a fashion show of gorgeous Russian furs, set to scratchy Russian and American records and a lot of artificial smoke. I was aware of the ironies swirling around me, but I was feeling too good to care.