Alina Cojocaru, La Strada Review

Alina Cojocaru is one of the best-loved ballerinas ever to have graced British stages. Over more than a decade as a principal with the Royal Ballet, and a later, briefer stint with English National Ballet, she delighted audiences with her steely technique, gamine looks and above all an expressiveness that shaped unforgettable characters: she was a luminous Aurora, a complex Manon, a heart-rending Juliet…. The list goes on.

The winner of numerous awards, she is now a permanent guest artist with Hamburg Ballet, adding the works of the veteran choreographer and director John Neumeier to her extensive repertoire.

To know Alina Cojocaru is to love her; and so it pains me to have to report that she is wasted in her latest project, La Strada, produced by her own company Acworkroom Ltd.

A misbegotten, incoherent work choreographed by the Slovak freelance dance maker Natalia Horečná, La Strada was inspired by Federico Fellini’s 1954 film, a masterpiece of Italian post-war social realism, which is generally considered one of the most influential films ever made; though in a programme note, Horečna is quoted as saying, ‘we have to be authentic to ourselves, and though we make tiny references, we work with the people we have in front to us and let it play out.’

Employing a good dramaturg might have been a better option.

Fellini’s film told the story of the simple girl Gelsomina, sold by her poor mother to the brute strongman Zampanò, and forced to go on the road with him. Although he mistreats and rapes her, she remains loyal, but when she meets and is fascinated by the high-wire artist and clown Il Matto (The Fool), a triangle of sorts develops, with fatal consequences.


Alina Cojocaru as Gelsomina, Mick Zani as Zampanò and Johan Kobborg as Il Matto © Andrej Uspenski
With her ability to portray innocence and intense vulnerability, Cojocaru is a natural Gelsomina; and the ballet is built as a series of flashbacks as remembered by her spirit, guided by two angels (Marc Jubete and David Rodriguez).

There is no character development for the permanently wide-eyed Gelsomina, or for Zampanò, a strongman but not quite the brute of the film – a good dancer, Mick Zeni makes the most of an ill-defined character.

The star turn is provided by Johan Kobborg as a carefree Il Matto. Once one half of a famed partnership with Cojocaru (and, incidentally, her husband) the Danish-trained Kobborg is now 51-years-old and has spent the past few years building up a prolific choreographing career; but pedigree will show, and his performance as Il Matto, was simply delightful, his frame as spare and elegant as that of a man half his age, movement fluid, beats crisp, lines clean.


Johan Kobborg as Il Matto © Photography by ASH
Scene follows scene in a disjointed piece which in its telling never makes up its mind between realism and diffuse symbolism. Cojocaru dances with customary verve and assurance, but she has little to work with, and no story of her own to tell. She deserves a lot better, and we can only hope that the coming Acworkroom projects will offer more accomplished vehicles for her superlative talent.