There’s a high threshold for bad behaviour in the arts, particularly from men. When reports emerged in 2011 of Sergei Polunin’s unruly antics as the Royal Ballet’s youngest-ever principal – blown-off rehearsals, cocaine-fuelled performances – the company continued to award him choice roles. And when the Ukrainian superstar abandoned the Royal the following year, bored by his own rapid ascent, fans indulged his defection with patience and even affection. Polunin was unbelievably talented, after all – this generation’s Nureyev, so went the refrain – and despite his enfant terrible repute (or perhaps because of it) he continued to soar, courting offers from prestigious choreographers and even breaking the pop culture barrier with stints in music videos and big-budget films.
But good grace has waned for ballet’s resident bad boy, thanks in large part to a 2018 social media spree steeped in sexism and homophobia. Polunin’s rampage cost him a contract with the Paris Opera Ballet, while his growing sycophancy towards Vladimir Putin, recently sealed with a chest tattoo of the strongman’s face, continues to alienate followers, both online and at the box office.
And so it’s under his own brand, Polunin Ink, and not at the invitation of a British company, that the dancer returned to the London stage last week, starring in a mixed bill by two young choreographers, supported by assorted European dancers. Ross Freddie Ray’s Fraudulent Smile poses the question: “Why does a good man do bad things?” and registers as a blatant image recovery effort, with Polunin cast as the “one good, true soul” struggling against a mastermind corrupter (the eminent Johan Kobborg). It’s a cabaret of inelegant clowning, weakened by a disjointed movement style and misogynist undertones. There’s a commendable intensity to Polunin’s tortured characterisation, though his technical performance seems half-hearted, a muster of spiritless leaps and off-kilter fouettés. Kobborg is a sturdy nemesis, but the supporting ensemble of mimes look under-rehearsed, fumbling their timing as they lurch from poker-faced to fancy-free.
Yuka Oishi provides the programme’s other two works, both inspired by the inner workings of Vaslav Nijinsky, the gravity-defying virtuoso of the Ballets Russes. In Paradox, Alexey Lyubimov and Dejan Kolarov channel polar halves of a fractured psyche, scripting a language of tense, tight shudders as they catapult between Stravinsky compositions and spoken word. There’s a vivid resonance to their shuddering limbs and hunched chugs, designed to echo Nijinsky’s struggle with mental illness, though the duet undoes much of its own hard work by crisscrossing too many moods too hurriedly.
A similar unfastening occurs in Sacré, a take on the 1913 masterpiece The Rite of Spring: after 40 minutes of solo prowling from Polunin, Lyubimov and Kolarov drop in for a schmaltzy coda meant to hammer home the parallel between Polunin’s and Nijinsky’s troubled yet visionary personas. Oishi’s ballet showcases Polunin’s formidable ballon, or bounce, and its dance-to-the-death climax glimmers with gut-punch energy. At the same time, it telegraphs, once again, the feeble sentiment that it’s Polunin’s lot in life to be beaten down by outside forces. As much as the public loves a redemption arc, it’s hard to imagine Polunin achieving this with such a naked lack of self-awareness.