American Ballet Theatre Like Water For Chocolate Review
June 30, 2023 | Metropolitan Opera House – New York, NY, USA
Sex sells alright, and ABT caught on.
With little knowledge of Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water For Chocolate, I sit in the theatre waiting for an experience to unleash. I brush up on the synopsis printed on the evening program, mentally preparing myself as good form of theatre etiquette.
In a sentence, here is the info I gather from my pre-show research: A family tradition keeps a woman named Tita away from her true love Pedro, but later, they find a way to be together.
The drama in between is aplenty, and I brace myself for the potential mature content. Equipped with these thoughts in mind, my curiosity of how Mr. Wheeldon will meet the choreographic expectations in Chocolate intensifies.
American Ballet Theatre Like Water For Chocolate Review
The ballet opens with a striking line of “corps de brides” leering at the audience silently. They turn around all together and transform themselves into knitting widows dressed all in black. Perhaps Mr. Wheeldon is trying to illustrate loss of innocence.
They take their seats, as the main characters of the ballet enter sporadically, demonstrating some fan kicks, using the table as a dance partner after every other step. The table is a significant prop in the ballet – a symbol for stability; dancers gather around the table, eat on it, and come to it when they need support.
Lots of tricky partnering work ensues. Tita partnering with Mama Elena, Tita partnering with the family cook (Nacha), later, Tita partnering with Pedro. The choreography is physically demanding, and complex by design, it looks more like domestic contact sport then dance. Perhaps Wheeldon is expressing how dysfunctional it can be between intimate relationships.
Pedro and Tita’s initial communication is a wave, and as they pas de deux for the first time, they harmoniously complete each other in motion. The movements are very contemporary – transiting in 360 degrees from floorwork to fancy lifts. Choreographically, there are lots of ups and downs in the dance so far, just like in life.
As the ballet continues to embody Laura Esquivel’s novel of the same name, some risqué content starts to develop.
During a family dinner, LED lights suddenly start flashing all over the place. Gertrudis, the eldest of Mama Elena’s daughters, eats from the aphrodisiac meal and is now fully aroused resulting in a burlesque-like dance with the male rose petals, wearing a nude body suit bedazzled in rhinestones. Her arabesques over the dinner table are quite scandalous.
I was amazed by all of Gertrudis’ razzmatazz – doing gymnastics, flips, and suggestive fan kicks, looking utterly euphoric as the roses encircle her while she touches her own body in pleasure. She ultimately gets onto a mechanical horse with one of the men and rocks back and forth wildly as they sail off into sunset.
As if not to be sensually outdone, Tita and Pedro dance a pas de deux during which a crescendo into a difficult lift leads dramatically to a pause near the stage right wings. Tita rips off Pedro’s shirt, and he eagerly returns the favor, the topless couple interlocking their arms behind Tita’s smooth back as they kiss passionately. A beat later, he lifts her up and spins with her off stage.
Disguised by the structure of a story ballet, I thought I was safe to see Like Water For Chocolate at face value; but as it turns out, what happens at the end of the ballet is all about sex.
And because of it, Chocolate becomes an over the top production where sex appeal distracts the viewers from the great aspects within its construction.
Towards the end of the epic ballet, two concentric circles quickly serve as a costume change gimmick for Tita and Pedro who reappear in minimal clothing, very much in nude. At last, they are alone, touching each other’s hearts, sending shock waves through their bare bodies. The dancers ripple to the rhythm of the electric pulsations of their veins.
And it doesn’t stop there.
The sexually charged lovers start to explore each other’s bodies even more artfully, turning and lifting each other up and down, side to side, and creatively navigating among other positions, getting very inventive as they dance the heck out of a stimulating pas de deux.
They try to manipulate their bodies to fit into each other’s; they lift their hips, reactively arching their backs, maneuvering in upside down splits, all the while taking turns at being touched. It is climactic and raw. The lovers make sure to release all their pent up energies, and their passionate pas lasts for a while.
Still not over, Tita then leads Pedro onto a king-sized bed in the middle of the stage, turning to face the audience as she gently wraps her legs around his hips while he sits in front of her with his muscular back facing the audience.
Their hearts become one while heated breaths are passed back and forth.
Caressing softly at first in dim lighting behind a sheer screen, they hold each other tighter and tighter, rocking and arching in sync, leaving nothing to the imagination.
The blank screens transition to LED lights beaming with flowering fire that amplifies like an inferno, engulfing the couple during their intercourse. The lovers grip onto a suspended pulley from the ceiling as they soar above – for once – calmingly. Offstage, a woman is serenading opera as the lovers unite their bodies and souls in midair.
People declare love in ballets all the time, but this isn’t innuendo, this is using ballet to enact having sex.
The curtain drops. The end.
I sit in shock and awe… melting.
My visceral reaction makes me hesitate to rise and participate alongside the crowd’s wildest standing ovation.
Remember the scene at the end of Center Stage where Julie Kent’s character reluctantly stands and claps with everyone after seeing Cooper Nelson’s (played by Ethan Stiefel) student ballet production? Well, that was me at the end of Like Water For Chocolate. Trying to blend in.
I walk away from my orchestra seat and head to the exit door sooner than I should, leaving Lincoln Center feeling blindsided.
I am not discounting Mr. Wheeldon’s choreographic genius.
In fact, I respect Mr. Wheeldon a lot and have a great deal of empathy for why he staged Like Water For Chocolate the way he did.
My favorite moment in the ballet is when Tita mourns about not being able to marry Pedro, when she dives into a heartbreaking solo where she contorts herself into a manic-looking bind on the floor… like a disheartened fetal. I love this vulnerable moment and credit Mr. Wheeldon for his brilliant embodiment of a true heartbreak.
But why try so hard, Mr. Wheeldon? Why play with fire?
I wonder if inserting a lot of sex in a ballet is a good idea, especially when there are children involved in the cast. The attempt at attracting more people to go see ballets this way ignites debate. Maybe in this case, it’s better to leave the story in the book and the movie on the screen?
Vaslav Nijinsky‘s Afternoon of a Faun, a once controversial ballet that also has an erotic ending, seems like child’s play next to Chocolate.
And all the while, the food theme from Esquivel’s novel isn’t nearly explored enough.
One can only hope.
My first hope is that Like Water For Chocolate will not be an entry point for more grand-scale ballet eroticism in public.
My second hope is that ballet companies are not going to compete with Hollywood on normalizing sex scenes in its future productions.
And finally, I hope Chocolate is just a one-off, a humanization of ballet for the novel’s sake.
Furthermore, we all know the dancers at American Ballet Theatre are superbly trained; even a dead character on stage at ABT points her toes.
But now, will the purity of ballet technique also take a back seat in dances that prioritize its plots?
I presume some ballet goers are also presently shaken a bit. And one can only imagine what future ballerinas have to put up with in leading roles if Chocolate sets precedent.
All in all, the sexually explicit ending makes Chocolate satisfying for many voyeurs at the show. I know many people crave real life connections to ballet and see Chocolate as progress. But the event marks a radical departure from the ballets I know.
Perhaps, it’s best to accept reality as is and keep ballets as a way to escape it?
Featured Photo for this American Ballet Theatre Like Water For Chocolate Review of Devon Teuscher and Joo Won Ahn. Photo by Marty Sohl.
