Shostakovich, Leningrad and Ukraine

For reasons that I cannot quite identify I have always wanted to sketch out a ballet to the music of the seventh symphony. It is not dance music in any sense, although the core theme of the first movement, repeated bolero like with increasing power and violence, does demand some kind of martial dance, however demonic. It was only on listening to the symphony in the light of the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine that the full nature of the ballet hit me. It was reflecting on the current plight of Ukraine and the link, across time and across enemy lines, as it were, that the link between Leningrad in the 1940s and Kyiv in the 2020s became obvious and the ideas really came together.

If I don’t really stand a chance of ever writing an opera, the possibility of choreographing a ballet is absolutely beyond me. The steps, the actual movement, is not something I could ever articulate, although I can see much of it in my mind’s eye. This is a fantasy, but something that I think would give a real twist to the symphony, and its original meaning. There is some irony in the music of a Russian classic being used to commemorate and highlight the suffering of a people invaded by Russia. However, I have no doubt that Shostakovich would approve, he would be no friend of Putin.

The version I was listening to was that of Bernard Haitink, as part of a boxed set of all the symphonies (I loved his rendering of number four!). It was all a little too slow, especially the first movement, but this is not a critique of the performance which I could listen to repeatedly. This is the outline of a ballet, very corny, as much grand ballet has to be, but it does sum up my current response and thinking around Ukraine, and, in my view, fits the music perfectly…

 The look of the ballet, or at least the dancers and their costume, is inspired by Soviet poster art of about the period of Shostakovich’s symphony, the 1950s or thereabouts. This is set, however, against a series of images, mostly projected onto a screen, or screens, at the back of the stage, of the destruction of Ukraine. The blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag dominates the colour scheme of the set. I like the idea of archetypally Soviet Russian elements, Shostakovich, Leningrad, the communist poster aesthetic, being used to critique the contemporary Russian regime.

First Movement: The City. Opens with the full corps de ballet, some in military uniform, some as peasants or city dwellers, dancing together to the opening chords. This disperses and there is an idyllic scene, a picnic, people going about their business, older citizens walking across the set etc. Within this a boy is playing with kite. As the central theme emerges the stage is overtaken by soldiers dancing and driving the civilians out, bombs explode and as the theme grows the film takes over from the dancers (who are silhouetted in extreme forms of the martial dance and of death) with the destruction of apartment buildings etc. The movement ends with the ruins smoking on the screen, a few old people emerge to search for food, and the boy with the kite returns, now looking lost against the destruction that sits behind him.

Second Movement: The Negotiations. The screen shows the inside of the negotiating or signing room in Istanbul. The movement opens with cleaners and flunkies preparing the space, as one watches for the dignitaries to arrive. The middle section is a parody of negotiation and signing, dancers in suits, dancing past each other, each self-absorbed and focused on their own image, leading to a botched signing after which the dignitaries leave, and the cleaners and flunkies dismantle the set and clean everything up.

Third Movement: Support for the Nation. The set is more rural, the agricultural fields of Ukraine coloured in gold and blue like the flag, perhaps with a map of the country coming in and out of focus, with the progress of the war over the first year. The dancing starts with one male dancer representing Ukraine, alone and exhausted, he is moved between other dancers with costumes reminiscent of the flags of Europe and the US etc. The dancer is supported and helped, offered gifts (weapons) and slowly grows in confidence. The middle section is a rallying of the troops led by Ukraine and drawing others to him, slowly bringing coherence out of the chaos. The final section of the movement represents, in dance, a speech by the president, in his trademark uniform, and perhaps with words from his speeches emerging from the screen behind. It is largely a solo, but he also dances with Ukraine and with the other nations as appropriate.

Fourth Movement: Premonition of Victory. There are the ruined apartment blocks at the back again, as at the end of the first movement, but the colour is changing, the sun is slowly emerging, and they take on a certain beauty as the movement progresses. The dance begins with soldiers waiting for orders, playing games, and perhaps joking with each other at the edge of the stage and still confined by barricades. As the music progresses into the open expansive middle section, civilians come in ones or twos, to join the soldiers, they all emerge out of trenches and cellars into the open, entering into a joyous victory celebration, waiving the flag and all moving as one. As they disperse, towards the end of the movement, we are left with a single boy, against a sunset and the ruins, following a kite, in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, alone and in rapture as the symphony and the ballet ends.