Les Vœux continues crossing boundaries in new millenium

By serpenteditor | February 11, 2056

Les Vœux, a piece composed in the style of Vernini, is modeled on the myth of the divine wedding between Krskynon and Pulselle. Its distinctive steps and unique storytelling structure are believed to have originated in the tribal ritual dances of the ancient Peis du Memosky ("People of Glory") mountain communities, early settlers of what is today the Goche Peninsular Republic.

Modern scholars attribute its cultural elements less to any one tradition of the historical Peis and more to the rich imagination of the ballet's original choreographer, Michele Quoix d'Avigney, the Swiss composer and chorégraphe who first conceived of the concept while on a retreat to the Republic in 1849. Regardless of its origins, Les Vœux remains an influential piece of danse romantique, still performed and taught in academies across the world. Modern performances typically omit the controversial third divertissement, sometimes replacing it with a culturally sensitive variation first pioneered by the Gochite stage director Edwin Ful in 1972.

The piece begins with an elaborately-clad Pulselle dancing onto the stage, ferried by attendants who fuss over her hair and clothing. Young and free-spirited, the maiden, who we first see preparing for her wedding day, playful canters between the golden pillars and diamond-encrusted drapery of her heavenly domicile. In Peninsular cosmology, Pulselle, the daughter of the celestial all-father Zifgual, began her life as a ripple over a pool of water, referenced in Les Vœux by a flexible, fluid performance often referred to as a breakout opportunity for young dancers who show significant promise in the world of classical ballet.

While Pulselle cavorts with her ladies in waiting, a male royal advisor frantically attempts to direct her back to the task at hand, tripping and stumbling across the stage to uproarious laughter from the audience. Pulselle, mischievous and defiant, steals and hides his diadem, canters between her attendants as she evades his grasp, and escapes her dressing chamber to chase toads in the royal garden. Finally, Zifgual himself appears and chides his daughter into submission himself with a lighthearted pas de deux, leading both offstage.

The attendants then replace the duo onstage for a brief and humorous divertissement, using pieces from Pulselle's wardrobe to re-enact the myth of her creation. Zifgual, now portrayed by a young attendant in a makeshift crown, drops his emerald signet in a pond and is transfixed by the symmetry of the ripple it created. Using power over form, he transforms it into a young girl in order to have an heir to inherit his dominion over throne of the heavens. As the attendants play with her brightly-patterned dresses and luxurious scarves, the real Pulselle reappears, now fully dressed for her wedding, and begins to dance along with them.

Her red silken robes flutter around her as she proudly pirouettes at center stage. The glistening stone at her the crown of her hair symbolizes the Earth, her inheritance and wedding gift from her father, which she will unite with the divine realm through her marriage to her betrothed, Krskynon, the prince of the Earth's most powerful kingdom. Tassles at her elbows and shoulders emphasize her graceful movements, redolent with arabesque and petit allegro.

Now seemingly transformed and eager to claim her destiny, her childlike joviality has been replaced with confidence, and her movements, while previously erratic and imprecise, are now quick, clean, and demonstrating great physical strength. By means of an elaborate sequence of lifts and jumps on part of both performance, Pulselle appears to pick up and throw her pesky advisor halfway across the stage, banishing him from her wedding party and the heavens themselves.

The second act introduces the dashing Prince Krskynon awaits his heavenly bride's arrival from his castle on the Peninsular coast. His kingdom, the mythological land of Bardock, is believed to represent the Hevri Empire, which was conquered by Peisçen and other barbarian tribes in the early second century. A strapping young man, he is adorned with war medals and carries the bright star-shaped ornamental sword typical of early Hevri rulers. With his sword, and a thrilling sequence of assemblé en tournant, he demonstrates the rich turquoise seas, bustling cities, and fertile valleys of his kingdom, which stretch as far as the eye can see.

Just as he reaches out towards the heavens, the next realm he will add to his dominion with his marriage to Pulselle, the Prince's pre-nuptial bliss is interrupted by two royal guards who warn him of a disturbance at the palace gates. Here enter a score of black-garbed "bandits," an acrobatic troupe intent on disrupting the wedding and forestalling the imminent bond between the earthly and divine kingdoms. In historical context, these bandits seem to represent the Hevrian Diminution Party of the early Peninsula, which sought to split the Hevrian-conquered territories back into individual nation-states, mainly for the purposes of restoring a majority to the Attyka ethno-religious group who previously dominated the region. The Hevri Empire later adopted the Peisçen religion, to which many credit its subsequent weakening and collapse in the sixth century War of the Long Toothed Dogs.

The Prince and his guards engage in battle against the bandits in one of the most oft-homaged sequences in the entire ballet, accompanied by d'Avigney's iconic Fifth Coda. In a flurry of tour jeté, the Prince's retinue seems nearly to have defeated the bandits, when his ornamental sword breaks in two, allowing them again to advance and eventually defeat both of his guards. A suspenseful moment lingers as they crowd the now cowering Prince almost off the stage, slowly closing in on him, their aurora of black-gloved hands fanning about his head like a dark halo, when suddenly appears his betrothed and her father. The duo masterfully execute the bandits and rescue the Prince.

Following intermission, the wedding begins at last. In a reversal of Pulselle's earlier transformation, the prince now seems cowed and hesitant, his earlier bragadoccio now reduced to a more submissive posture as the young couple take their places at center stage, attachés from both the divine and earthly realms positioned at either side. On the left, an array of vibrantly-dressed nymphs and seraphim titter over the posturing of virile young demigods, while corps de ballet weave in mesmerizing serpentine patterns, symbolizing the early Peninsular sky deities who were believed to have pulled the cloud chariots of the gods. On the right, representatives from diverse regions from second century trade society mingle diplomatically, with warlike armymen performing for their palanquined infant emperor, arthritic kings hobbling at the center of packs of viziers, and a host of candy-colored Norman jesters playing pranks on Aramaic farmers who carry baskets of figs and grain brought to honor the couple's union.

The ceremony reaches its climax with the captivating "proferrance of vanity," reputably based on real historic events that transpired at the wedding of Peisçen Chief Elder Augustose II around the year 516 A.D. Prince Krskynon stands stationary as his bride flutters around him, smiling and showing off her new husband's finest features to her wedding guests and royal retinue. In her hand is a long, tassled spike, which she uses to point to each of Krskynon's body parts while accompanied by playful musical passages seemingly "illustrating" each, with romantic swells at his lips, a militant march at his hands, and a humorous brassy note at his rear.

In this moment, the Prince, while physically subdued, is nonetheless highly expressive, with a complex facial performance that gives the impression that the spike is piercing him each time it's pointed his way. As he grunts and sweats in muffled pain (in Ful's version, Krskynon instead smiles with delight as Pulselle taps him with a long-stemmed rose), Pulselle gives the audience a final coy smile and gestures at last to his organes génitaux, signaling the end of the ritual and the beginning of the duo's divine coupledom.

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