"Salome" contains a documentary "Making of" part ; this is better than average, giving genuine insight in a creative thought process and in the development and staging of a dance performance. However, it is the dance part which deserves the laurels by bringing vivid, vibrant life to the Biblical story.
Dance, music and acting complement each other beautifully, although it should be said that the work is better at portraying the decadent hothouse atmosphere of Herod's court than at portraying religious conviction or intimate contemplation. The costumes and make-up deserve special mention, both for their charm and for their aptness. One only needs to look at Herodias, for instance, in order to grasp her backstory : a middle-aged woman, once a great beauty, who doesn't love her straying husband anymore, but clings to him like ivy because he feeds her pride and provides her with riches and power. Here she's allowing - nay, encouraging - her husband to ogle her young daughter ; there is no doubt that she would have thrown him her young son, if that would have been more to his liking.
(By the way : Herodias' headdress, somewhere between an crown and a comb, is both original and gorgeous. Ladies with sufficient amounts of beautifully thick and long hair might want to try out the effect for themselves.)
The living heart of the ballet is an unbalanced but intelligent and majestic Salome, ably played by Aida Gomez. Her veil dance is not only superbly sensual, it is also deeply chilling. Music and choreography evoke some kind of innocent ancestral dance celebrating love and fertility, such as a dance for a bridal feast, hijacked and subverted into something entirely different. (Watch out for the gaily clapping hands, reminiscent of folk dances and pastoral entertainment.) Thus the dance becomes perverted, in the more literal meaning of the word - it is led astray and leads astray.
Well worth watching.
