Ogai’s Carmen is defiant to the last. In the face of death, she holds to her principles. Unzipped, released from her costume, her red dress remains, and it is this that Don José clutches at the end; it is not her, but a veil, and, consequently, her spirit remains free. Inger’s choreography presents a Don José responsible for his own actions, as opposed to one which asks women be held accountable for men’s behaviour. Linnane’s Don José appears suitably as if having throttled the light from every part of himself, but for the aforementioned ‘happy families’ puppet-like mirage. Upright, uptight, and stifled, upon arrival, crumpled and ashen faced, by close, Don José is representative of social order and Carmen, very much outside of society, her non-conformity threatening the preferred narrative order, or so say the powers that be. Through a rawness and clarity of movement, Ogai meets the voyeuristic gaze in her eternal resistance to domination; the social body ever loves to expel the desirable but dangerous Carmens of this world. 

As Ogai describes, Inger’s “Carmen,” particularly where Carmen and Don José are concerned, is “like watching conversation through movement . . . that sits on a beautiful plane.”[7] The stage beneath them serving as a magnet to which various parts of their bodies are drawn or glide upon, from Carmen’s legs and upper body raised defiantly in the air or Don José’s as his head and chest is dragged to the floor, seemingly beyond his control. The same magnetism, naturally, could be said to course through the two of them as well, as typified by their face-to-face deep second position plié, with their arms making triangles overhead, their hands fanning and rummaging in the air, framing their faces. As they each bend sideways, it is impossible in this courtship dance to say who is mirroring who, for it feels free and innate.