An explicit ballet

LEWIS Segal’s cogent, insightful review notwithstanding, not everyone in attendance Saturday night appreciated or enjoyed Ballet Preljocaj’s unenlightened assault on Stravinsky’s primitivist “Rite of Spring” (“Preljocaj’s Opposing Forces,” Oct. 28).

My female companions were appalled by the crude sexual violence inflicted on the female dancers, not to mention the explicit suggestion that the serial forcible couplings on display were the inevitable (even expected) consequence of their initial teasing overtures.

Preljocaj may have hoped to avoid charges of sexism and degradation of women by victimizing and humiliating the male dancers as well, but the rape scenes, even though presented as “choreographic abstractions,” only re-asserted the male aggressive impulse that continues to subjugate women.

Julio W. Kidder

Costa Mesa