No one can fault Zayed and the Dream on slickness, professional production values and sheer spectacle. Think Bollywood meets Lawrence of Arabia and you will pretty much have it. On that level, Caracalla Dance Theatre delivered in spades.
The glorious Coliseum stage may no longer host live horse races (complete with live horses, travelling in opposite directions on the great revolve) but the projected images of Arab horses and flag wielding riders cantering through desert sands lived up to every cliché that you may have harboured about Arabia. One almost expected them to leap through the cloth like a live version of Time Bandits. Instead, the dancers, supposedly by now dismounted, leapt and waved flags, accompanied throughout by Kalashnikov-waving colleagues and, on one occasion, pole wielding construction workers in blue overalls and bright red hard hats who resembled one of Moiseyev's workers' ensembles.
Zayed and the Dream will be playing at UCLA's Royce Hall on July 23 and 24 at 3:30 p.m. The above review is of the London production.
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