After a beautiful career as classicist in the country and abroad, Mihaela Santo had eventually to end her career as ballerina. The fact painfully experienced at first, later opened up a larger and richer path: that of choreographer. Gradually, she modified her stylistic options, opening up towards the forms of modern dance and towards the performance of theatrical ballet, as her diploma project, The Tunnel, after Ernesto Sabato, shows – project entered recently in the repertoire of the Municipal Theatre, Catargiu Hall. Before being presented to the larger public, The Tunnel has already been awarded a prize at the International Festival of Choreographic Creation in Iaşi, 1994 edition. The ballet performance staged with four dancers, an actor and a girl from the ChoreographicSchool maintains unaltered the passionate atmosphere and the poetic mysterious aura of Sabato's characters, being a veritable recital in which each performer has its choreographic part. The main character, the fascinating Maria Iribarne is alternatively interpreted by Corina Dumitrescu and Cristina Uţă from the Bucharest Opera House. A soloist of the National Opera House, with a very accurate technique, Corina Dumitrescu is one of the classicists that have performed modern dance as well and can perform with equal easiness a role like that of Maria from this show. With Cristina Uţă, too little familiarized with contemporary dance, the movement slides imperceptibly towards the line of an arabesque or classical attitude, but a dancer of great sensitivity, beyond these slight stylistic transgressions, she gave the part an exquisite warmth and poesy. Allende, Maria's blind husband, is interpreted by the actor Liviu Pancu, gifted with an amazingly expressive graphicalness like that of a dancer, the result of his apprenticeship with Maria Răducanu, whose assistant he was for a while. At the diploma exam, the part of Juan Pablo Castel, the painter who finally kills Maria, was interpreted by Ioan Tugearu, who imprinted upon it all his artistic experience and his dramatic talent. The part was taken over by the young dancer Lucian Moroşanu, still too young, but displaying graphical qualities that lead to a beautiful career in modern dance. However, the performance is dominated by the powerful personalities of two dancers: Monica Petrică, in double role – of Allende's housekeeper and of the child's nurse – who shows consideration to each gesture, which she performs with clarity but equal inner force, and Răzvan Mazilu in the role of Hunter, the cousin, maybe Maria's lover, gifted with a natural graphicalness of unique value, his dance overflowing the scene, like a miracle you regret when it is over. Beside them, the little Irina Petrescu performs, with an impressive seriousness, the part of Maria as a child, character introduced in the show by the choreographer as a symbol of the heroine's past purity. The set design by Marius Alexandru Dumitrescu, simple but full of ingenuity, as it is shown in the case of the multifunctional screen that turns even into a coffin, also includes paintings by the scenographer in a subtle assortment of gray shades, paintings unexploited however, by the choreographer. The soundtrack made by Sorin Minghiat and Valeriu Sterian includes contemporary music, from Michel Colombier to Pink Floyd alongside with Argentinean folklore and a piece by Paganini, the music being suitable to each dramatic movement taken separately. Although still a little indebted to Adina Cezar's style, Mihaela Santo begins to shape her distinct personality of great force within the Romanian choreography.
by Liana Tugearu
