Review: the Cullberg Ballet in Exposure – not to be read by minors under 18
Graham Spicer sees Alexandra Bachzetsis’ Exposure with the Cullberg Ballet – Stickers were placed over the camera lenses of every smartphone.
| Title | Exposure |
| Company | Cullberg Ballet |
| Venue | MILANoLTRE | Teatro Elfo Puccini |
| Date | 11 October 2025 |
| Reviewer | Graham Spicer |
The last time I saw the Cullberg Ballet was when they brought Mats Ek‘s version of Carmen to Milan with Sylvie Guillem and Massimo Murru. This time they brought Exposure to the MILANoLTRE festival… Well, it’s quite a change of gear.
A ‘sensitive content’ notice warned: “Event prohibited to unaccompanied minors under 18 years of age – contains nudity, explicit content, scenes of violence and sexual situations.” Stickers were placed over the camera lenses of every smartphone.
On entering the auditorium, we see the light-coloured dance floor raised up over half of the stage, forming a screen for projections and creating a wall that the performers can disappear behind. There is a naked female performer in an angle of the stage having her breasts painted black, filmed by the camera in front of her and projected onto the ‘screen’.
Swiss-Greek choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis provokes from the outset, and she continues throughout the 80-minute show. It never tires, however, as she continually changes direction with myriad ideas and heavily contrasting themes, colours, lights, music and sound – from blackness to blinding white light; moving in silence to dancing to a heavy rock beat; miniscule movements to expansive jumps; black and white to fluorescent colours; punching and slapping, and then, minutes later, crooning a tender pop song.
And yes, there is ‘exposure’ throughout. A director gives instructions on camera… for a porn film? A man intimately brushes wavy designs into the hairs on his torso in extreme close-up. A semi-bondage moment sees a man tying himself up with a pink ribbon. Painted-on underwear is rubbed off or sweated away. Boobs, willies, and bums wiggle around (with one willy wiggling not so much when its poor owner started to get an erection… it happens).
A camera can expose much and not always the expected, even in a slick show like this one. A dancer wielding a camera and moving along the front row during the incessant club rhythms of the final scene, managed to capture a man sleeping in the front row – quite a feat with the deafening music and blinding lights. The laugh from the audience was probably cathartic.
It’s a roller coaster of a show. The scene between two men who punch and kick each other, yell at each other, and yank each other’s clothes off, is quite harrowing in its highly believable and obviously carefully coordinated violence. But then arrives a naked woman in six-inch stiletto platform shoes singing Minnie Ripperton’s 1970’s song ‘Lovin’ You’, later joined by four men, also wearing six-inch heels.
This juxtaposition was occasionally proposed in the same scene – in one psychedelic section with a 1960s feel, seven of the dancers under geometric projections, wore shocking pink unitards while two men were naked. The simplicity of the two men, contrasting with the unnaturalness of the colours and forms around them, made a strong and poetic point.
We see the predator and the victim expressed through tenderness and violence, intimacy and alienation… nudity and clothing.
The dancers were extraordinary – versatile, good-looking, athletic, and brave! There were several intense monologues to the camera proving the company’s acting chops, some good singing, and muscular dancing.
The voyeur aspect is underlined not just with the various cameras on stage blowing the performers up to giant size, but also by the fact that we, the audience, are looking at those performers so intimately exposed.
The programme blurb stated that the dancers and the audience are empowered “through affective images and situations”. Are they… we… empowered?
Doing my (ahem) research for this, I came across a radio interview with an OnlyFans performer: “It’s a choice I make to empower myself. I think it’s extremely liberating to be able to have sex with anybody just like a man could.”
Yet another adult film performer said, “Sometimes you would get to a gig and the producer would change what the scene was supposed to be to something more intense, and if you didn’t like it, too bad, you did it or no pay.”
The thought occurred during Exposure that the audience watching performers on stage are not so different from the punters in a strip club. To safeguard the dancers, an intimacy coordinator worked with the company, but did everyone feel comfortable about this degree of nakedness? Or did some fall in line because otherwise there would be “no pay”?
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
Would be so interesting if you could actually ask the performers how they felt about doing this? Did they think they were joining a ballet company?
Well, I’m sure that dancers who audition for the company must be aware of its repertoire, but yes, it’s certainly unusual for a contemporary dance company to make such demands of its dancers. While for some, the ideas of the choreographer were maybe met with a shrug, it must have been a challenge for others – a challenge overcome happily, I hope!
Hi — I enjoy your writing! I’m curious about your coverage of this performance, however, because I can’t tell if you “enjoyed” it or felt it was an important and/or meaningful work of art. Would love to know more! Sometimes art/dance like this is produced to make a statement, to give the finger to artistic norms, rather than contribute to an ongoing tradition/legacy. But does work like that last? Should it? Would love your thoughts.
I totally agree with your comments and questions. I was surprised that the review ended where it did; it felt unfinished and more of a report than a review that would include insights and opinions.
Thank you Gillian, and yes I enjoyed it on an intellectual level (that sounds pretentious, but you know what I mean) combined with the bravura of the dancers and the designers. It wasn’t always an easy watch, but it raised many questions. It also had many moments of elegance and beauty, which balanced the raw and nasty. I’m glad that I saw it. Will it last? Well, I can’t imagine it entering the repertoire of other companies, but surely it will stimulate discussion, which is always a good thing!