Not gonna lie. I didn’t really like RakU, the ballet that premiered in Seattle as part of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Emergence program last week. Despite absolutely loving some elements, there were a couple things I just don’t think audiences should tolerate. Even so, I keep turning the piece over in my mind, worrying at it like a splinter that won’t come out. There’s just so much to say about RakU.

About RakU

A short narrative ballet by Russian choreographer Yuri Possokhov, RakU is historical fiction loosely based on the 1952 burning of Kinkakuji. The same incident inspired Mishima’s novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. The ballet does not follow history or the novel. Set “in feudal Japan,” it is about a fictional princess who suffers rape and the death of her husband before committing suicide.

The Music

I’ll start with what’s good about RakU. To my mind, the first among these is the original score by Shinji Eshima. The opening notes using Western classical instruments to convey the sounds of koto and shakuhachi instantly placed the listener in Japan. Except for a few folky percussion patterns and a Buddhist chant, the rest of the piece was more Western in feel. But all of it was beautiful. Although I don’t have the ear to notice, there are some really cool subtleties to the score as well. Eshima employed a meter for the love theme that mimics the 5/7/5 rhythm of haiku and introduced a marimba “stutter” for the monk’s scene. (Mishima’s monk had a pock-marked face and a stutter. This image, whether historical or not, has become canon for that character.) I really enjoyed Eshima’s score for RakU.

The Tech

In the program booklet there’s a quote by the choreographer about how opera has surpassed ballet in visual design, and particularly in its use of technology. I agree. Seattle Opera has done some really inventive things with projections (like in Semele and coming up in Aida). The use of projected images in RakU is helping ballet catch up. It’s starts as a simple backdrop projection using historical photos of the Golden Temple. But toward the end the projection really takes on an active – and effective – role in telling the story.

The Assault

RakU comes with a trigger warning because the central element of story is rape. I think it’s important for art to address serious issues, and the time is right to face this topic. I am seriously impressed by the dancers who had to submerge themselves in those roles (Noelani Pantastico and Kyle Davis) and convey that experience through weeks of rehearsal and performance. Emotionally and technically, it is a tremendous challenge, and they handled it with grace.

The depiction of assault in RakU involved a pas de deux – which is usually the dance version of a love scene – but subverts the fairly traditional choreography of lifts and holds through the princess’s attempts to escape and expressions of anguish. Something that is usually beautiful becomes frightening and traumatic when there is no consent.

Obviously, I can’t speak for everyone, and other viewers may feel exactly opposite. But I felt that the depiction of assault in RakU gave an intelligent and sensitive interpretation of violence without sugarcoating it. I’m not sure, however, that other elements of the ballet didn’t undercut the message.

Characters and Story

First: stop calling it “unrequited love.” I’ve seen several references to the monk’s unrequited love. Rapists are not in love. Lovers do not commit violence against their beloved. The desire to dominate and possess is not love. If we are going to have these sorts of conversations, it’s really important to choose our words carefully.

Where RakU goes off the rails for me is the story. An Asian woman is sexually exploited and kills herself. Ever since Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, this seems to be the only story about Asian women that the West wants to hear. Ironically, Puccini himself didn’t have an Asian problem so much as he had a woman problem. Puccini intended Madama Butterfly as a political commentary against Western imperialism. “She died for love,” was as true of his European heroines as Cio-Cio-san. Audiences fixated on her as representative of race when she was actually representative of Puccini.

Nowadays, even the original Butterfly story is produced with caveats. Last year Seattle Opera balanced it with An American Dream, community panel discussions on “the Butterfly Effect,” and a night of theater by Asian women. So why, in the 21^st century, would Possokhov choose to use the Butterfly tropes in a new work? Possokhov wasn’t limited by Mishima or history. His ballet isn’t even set in the same century as the temple-burning. His princess never existed.

Yes, the temple must burn. But the monk doesn’t have to be the one to do it. For the princess, the temple was a false refuge. She was abused by her supposed protector in the place where she sought solace. Her impulse to destroy the temple would be tragic and profound.

Mishima’s mentally unstable monk hated women and wanted to destroy beauty. Despite some of what I found the most interesting choreography in the ballet, we never really get a sense for the motivations of Possokhov’s monk. He’s inscrutable – another Asian stereotype.

Centering

Possokhov misses the opportunity to tell the more interesting story of a princess who fights back.

Is the story really about the princess at all?

Possokhov seems to be centering her. The princess first appears on stage standing formally just in front and to the right of her husband. This is exactly the opposite of the way a historical couple would have stood, even as late as the Showa period. Reversing their positions in the opening scene (if intentional) makes a subtle but strong statement about her importance.

The princess remains on stage for almost the entire piece. She is in constant motion and her feelings are the only ones we really get to see. (Without the depth of Pantastico’s performance, the princess’s choreography would be maudlin.) The story ends at the moment of her death.

But a protagonist requires agency, and suicide, especially in such a well-worn scenario, doesn’t really cut it. If the princess is the protagonist, the actual burning of the temple is superfluous. The arson is not relevant to her story. It is consistent with the monk’s destructive nature. But if the monk is the true protagonist, then the focus on her suffering becomes gratuitous, making the audience complicit in the monk’s crimes. (To me, the transparent panels and cut-outs of the costumes exacerbate this tension. They seem to be sexualizing a profoundly unsexy story.)

Authenticity

Puccini is the poster boy for appropriation, but he incorporated genuine Japanese folk melodies Madame Butterfly (not easily researched in his day). Likewise, RakU beautifully incorporates certain authentic elements of Japanese culture. Eshima’s score includes the Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo (Kannon Sutra for Protecting Life), performed by Buddhists chanters, rather than a secular choir. The kimono in the opening scene is a work of art. The ballet borrows from the structure and style of noh theatre in contrast to balletic movement, in much the same way that Crystal Pite contrasts a classical ballet structure for very contemporary movement Emergence.

But any time a white, male artist starts talking about “stylized inspiration” from an ethnic group, it raises a red flag. Too often that’s code for not wanting to take the trouble to find the truth. (Just like suicidal heroines who save male writers the trouble of resolving a story.)

Dance is tricky, because it’s already stylized, but I do think a long time ago in a galaxy far away approach would have been less problematic than pseudo-feudal Japan. I wouldn’t have wondered why a woman in the highest ranks of the warrior class in a hierarchical society wasn’t able to handle her troubles with as much stoicism as the average modern G.I.’s wife.

And okay, maybe this next criticism is petty, but the swords bugged me. Props in ballet are hit and miss for me (the boxes in Little mortal jump were awesome; the beach balls in that one Kent Stowell piece, not so much). During the soldiers’ dance, I kept imagining body parts falling to the floor. At one point I was surprised to see the princess start dancing, because I thought she was already dead. She had sliced herself to ribbons with her husband’s sword. It was like the sword version of Hollywood movies where people wave guns around and tuck them into their pants.

TL;DR

Art is supposed to keep us from becoming complacent. It is not necessarily most successful when it is well-loved. Success is also related to how strong a response it provokes. I’m not advocating the shock tactics of John Waters or right-wing pundits, but I do believe there’s value in any work that makes us think and sparks arguments, even if a misstep is what ignites the discussion. A spectacular failure is better than a cookie-cutter success. I think RakU proves that in more than one way. Where RakU innovates, it is strong. It fails where it lazily recycles old tropes; but if the result is progress in how we deal with representation in the future, then it succeeds even in its failure.

Tickets

If you want to see for yourself, the remaining performances are:

April 19–21 at 7:30 pm

April 22 at 1:00 pm

Tickets ($37-$187) may be purchased online. Subject to availability, tickets are also available 90 minutes prior to each performance at McCaw Hall – these tickets are half-price for students and seniors; $5 for TeenTix members.

Just the Facts

Yuri Possokhov’s RAkU

Music: Shinji Eshima (2011)
Libretto: Gary Wang
Choreography: Yuri Possokhov
Staging: Quinn Wharton
Scenic and Projection Design: Alexander V. Nichols
Costume Design: Mark Zappone
Lighting Design: Christopher Dennis
Duration: 36 minutes
Premiere: February 3, 2011; San Francisco Ballet
Pacific Northwest Ballet Premiere: April 13, 2018

Cast I saw:

Princess              Noelani Pantastico*
Samurai              Seth Orza*
Monk                  Kyle Davis*
Warriors             Guillaume Basso, Dammiel Cruz, Miles Pertl, Dylan Ward