India Post News Service
CHICAGO: A prestigious Latvian National Opera and Ballet (LNOB) in Riga is urged to withdraw “La Bayadère” ballet, scheduled for October 13 2023, as it seems to trivialize Eastern religious and other traditions.
The outreach for withdrawal is led by Rajan Zed, who said that taxpayer-funded Latvian national institution like LNOB should not be promoting appropriation of traditions, elements and concepts of “others”; and ridiculing entire communities.
Zed is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, and he asserted that this problematic ballet was just a blatant belittling of a rich civilization and exhibited 19th-century orientalist attitudes. He also urged LNOB to apologize for such an inappropriate selection.
LNOB, said to be one of the most important cultural establishments in Latvia founded in 1918, should have shown some maturity before selecting a ballet like “La Bayadère” (The Temple Dancer) displaying Western caricaturing of Eastern heritage and abetting ethnic stereotyping, Rajan Zed noted.
LNOB should not choose a ballet which had been blamed for patronizing flawed mishmash of orientalist stereotypes, dehumanizing cultural portrayal and misrepresentation, offensive and degrading elements, needless appropriation of cultural motifs, essentialism, shallow exoticism, caricaturing, etc. LNOB could do better than this to serve its diverse stakeholders; Zed stated.
LNOB Board Chairman Egils Silins, Chief Conductor MārtiņšOzoliņš, Artistic Director AivarsLeimanis need to re-evaluate its systems and procedures and send its executives for cultural sensitivity training so that such an inappropriate stuff did not slip through in the future.
Moreover; Latvia Culture Ministry, led by NaurisPuntulis, should seriously rethink their relationship with LNOB if it continued with ballets like “La Bayadère” which trivialized traditions of “others”; Zed added.
Like many others, Hindus also consider ballet as one of the revered art forms which offers richness and depth. But we are well into the 21st century now, and outdated “La Bayadère”, which was first presented in St. Petersburg (Russia) in 1877, is long overdue for permanent retirement from the world stage; Rajan Zed points out.
Two hours 40 minutes long “La Bayadère”, “romantic story of the temple dancer” and first production on the LNOB stage, will be shown in three acts in the Great Hall (built in 1863 and has 952 seats). Tickets cost up to €45 each and Farhads Stade and AivarsLeimanis are conductor and choreographer respectively. LNOB “performs the functions of the State Theater for popularizing and developing the genre of opera and ballet”.
Also Read: Protest Pays: Ballet “La Bayadère” dropped from England Theatre
