Created by Alexander Ekman in 2010 for Nederlands Dans Theater 2, “Cacti” is a perfectly understandable response to us dance critics, with our pompous pronouncements and pretentious insistence on imposing meaning on art. Ekman fights back by deconstructing a dance piece and putting its elements back together in unexpected, witty and provocative ways. It unfolds as a collective concert: a string quartet moves among the dancers, who stand on a checkerboard of white platforms, stomping, slapping, drumming, breathing and vocalising to create a hypnotic rhythm in dialogue with the instruments and the music of Schubert, Haydn and Beethoven. The characteristic voiceover, written by Spenser Theberge and full of pretentious art jargon, accompanies the dancing to hilarious effect: “The dancers may be amplified by what their feet stand upon, but will they ever know the realities of Earth’s rough ever-yielding soil? Oh, no.” 

Behind the humour lies a demanding choreography, requiring impeccable coordination and speed, qualities in which the Boston Ballet dancers excel. Sixteen of them, wearing black swimming caps and scattering dust, move from synchronised swimming and classical ballet to warm-up exercises, stretching, running and gestures reminiscent even of techno and popular dance. Suddenly, potted cacti appear on stage, perhaps the quintessential plants of contemporary domestic life, able to survive our increasingly distracted existence. The dancers carry them, contemplate them and dance with them. A playful nod to Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, the succulents remain delightfully elusive in their meaning.

In the second part of the piece, the platforms are rearranged into a scaffold-like structure. The wonderful Ji Young Chae and Daniel Rubin perform a duet while another voiceover reveals what is going through their minds as they dance: everyday concerns that clash with the sublime meaning we insist on finding in art, or amusing nicknames for the steps to help them remember the sequence: “Mix it, mix it, turn it around, open the can, do the fan.” Then, quite unexpectedly, a cat falls from the ceiling, the ultimate absurdity. The piece becomes increasingly self-conscious, to the point of making fun of its own difficulty in finding an ending. “Should this end here? I don’t know,” wonders the voiceover. “I know, I know, right, this is the end.” The curtain falls.

Boston Ballet performs “Cacti” beautifully, bringing tremendous energy and character to Ekman’s challenging ideas. It is a wonderful piece, still tenderly adored by audiences sixteen years after its premiere, even if it is no longer quite the bombshell it once was, following so many successful runs. This season alone, it is being performed across Europe, in Munich, Stockholm and Warsaw. Thus, it is hardly the sort of surprise one might hope for from a company visiting from across the Atlantic.