Lazgi: Dance of Soul and Love – London Coliseum

Original concept: Saida Mirziyoyeva

Choreographer: Raimondo Rebeck

There is plenty of visual innovation in the National Ballet of Uzbekistan’s performance of Lazgi: Dance of Soul and Love at the London Coliseum, there for one night only, in a tale focused on the twin figures of the title whose dance interacts across time. An ambitious piece told in four scenes with backstories and future encounters based on an idea by Saida Mirziyoyeva, choreographer Raimondo Rebeck blends these different eras as well as classical ballet and traditional Uzbekistan folk dance to create an engaging exploration of connection, creation and inheritance.

The first half proves the weaker in the overall concept, introducing the characters of soul and love in separate scenes, the first involving a romantic encounter among a travelling community when an exhausted woman is discovered and welcomed into the dance where the leader falls in love with her. The ensemble here performs a male-then-female segment which is a little ragged while the shaman loses balance during some of the flips and tricks. But the atmospheric love story is fuelled in silhouette before a tender and slow pas de deux that meaningfully unites the principals.

Fast forward to the present day and the scene becomes a museum where these figures of the past are encased, observed by the entity ‘Love’ who releases her own image ‘Soul’ to dance with her as the reanimated travelling community leader dances with both simultaneously, lifting and turning them together. This evolves into another ensemble piece as characters from the past and present dance as one, although throughout Lazgi it is the soloists who make the biggest impact.

The show’s third act is by far its strongest, nominally set in the future. Here Rebeck’s choreography and the storytelling feel much more assured with a dramatic corporate world of robotic workers moving in sleek lines to a tick-tock beat. Yoko Seyama’s set design is also at its strongest here, with layers of tilting rods across the stage that enhance the contemporary dynamic. But then this scene dissolves into a liminal space where our original couples reunite to dance an elegiac classical ballet, the contrasting softness working against the sharpness of the previous scene.

The final section is also two scenes, a very traditional lazgi superbly performed by a single dancer whose dramatic entrance on a stage with billowing cape is only enhanced by simply giving her the space to dance alone. This too blends into a candle-lit ballet that plays with light and shade in visual presentation and in Frol Burimski’s costume design. Again, the original couples reunite and, while some sections are a little over-choreographed on the candle-covered stage, the connection to the original lovers of Act One is told through the movements which echo from that original pas de deux once more.

While Lazgi is bursting with ideas, what the show lacks is cohesion across the four scenes and a stronger sense of narrative would help to guide the audience through the very different eras as well as the ethereal spaces where love and soul dance together. A visually impressive experience, at the heart of Mirziyoyeva’s concept is an eternally intertwined experience of two entities, and it is in these smaller moments with just the soloists to focus on that the show really catches fire.

Reviewed on 14 September 2024