It’s no surprise that a strange film begets a rather strange ballet. La Strada is Federico Fellini’s 1954 Oscar-winner, the haunting tale of Gelsomina, a childlike young woman sold by her mother to a travelling strongman, who still manages to find hope and wonder in a hardscrabble life.
Enchanted by Gelsomina’s otherworldly goodness, one of the world’s leading ballerinas, Alina Cojocaru, has brought that story to the stage with her own production company. Cojocaru is incredible to watch whatever she does, and, as ever, she gives her heart and soul to the character. Choreographer Natalia Horečná captures the naive Gelsomina in slightly awkward, puppet-like gait, and Cojocaru provides the expressive features, her misery and confusion at being packed off with strongman Zampanò suddenly transforming into hopeful optimism, the chance to see the world, find her freedom.
Except life is the opposite of freedom at the mercy of Zampanò, a brutal man of testosterone urges. Mick Zeni has a tough gig playing a mean-faced, two-dimensional muscle man. Gelsomina sees something underneath, someone damaged who needs care, but that’s not really revealed to us. Cojocaru’s real-life partner, Johan Kobborg, is Il Matto, Zampanò’s foil: agile, wry and playful, his dance showing tricksy turns of phrase. Kobborg, at 51, is still a fine, intelligent dancer (bonus: he also juggles and rides a unicycle). But Il Matto ultimately can’t love Gelsomina either. In a strong scene, Gelsomina lays herself down for him and he looks bewildered by being asked to be a real human rather than an arch clown.
The louche world of the circus is atmospheric, the patchwork of music from the original film and other Nino Rota scores often eerie, with its incongruity between jaunty melodies and hollow lives. Gelsomina does find her freedom, in her imagination, danced with two angel-like figures in flowy sleeves, who help her fly through the air as Cojocaru gives herself up to unselfconscious in-the-moment-ness. Dramaturgically, however, the ballet loses its way in the second half, when the border between reality and dream-life is dissolved, like drifting in and out of consciousness. At one point, Gelsomina bursts forth with strength and purpose, finally the heroine of her own tale, Cojocaru and Horečná wanting to give her the catharsis she deserves.
• At Sadler’s Wells, London, until 28 January.
