Whatever this is, it’s ineffably striking

To read the program essays by awestruck French writers, and to enter a circus tent with darkened stage and air made thick with musky incense, is to know that Theatre Zingaro has come to Costa Mesa zealous in its desire to explore the mystical relationship between man, beast and the divine spirit. But the Eclectic Orange Festival hasn’t spent its hard-raised millions of dollars to erect a tent and create a gypsy village next to Segerstrom Hall, to lay tons of dirt, to schlep livestock, dancers and equipment from France and India, simply because audiences hanker for an equestrian interpretation of Stravinsky’s ballet “The Rite of Spring.”

Theatre Zingaro is a magnificent equestrian company. And “Triptyk,” which had its U.S. premiere Saturday night and which will be presented throughout the month-long festival, is more than just a magnificent equestrian show. But how much more is an area of some confusion.

The elements to “Triptyk” that are great, however, really are great. The French company, led by a 44-year-old director, choreographer and horseman who calls himself Bartabas, includes several splendid horses and poetic riders to guide them (and be guided by them). Extraordinary, as well, are the seven Dravidian dancers from Kerala, in southwestern India, who spend years learning to loosen joints to the point that legs accomplish gestures that only arms normally can.

Above all, Bartabas uses his phenomenal resources to create cultishly spiritual spectacles that have become a favorite of the international festival circuit. Twice, the Brooklyn Academy of Music has installed the company in Battery Park in lower Manhattan, but this is its first time on the West Coast and its only American engagement this year.

“Triptyk” is a kind of ballet with Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” and “Symphony of Psalms” as its outer parts, and Pierre Boulez’s “Dialogue of the Double Shadow” in the center. The Stravinsky pieces are performed to loudly amplified recordings of the orchestral and choral pieces conducted by Boulez. Boulez’s piece, for a solo clarinet and tape, uses a live performer.

Bartabas has great ambitions for these scores. The “Rite” is transformed from the original sacrificial scenes of pagan Russia into a full-fledged creation myth. Rising out of the darkness and dirt, the kalaripayatt dancers, practicing traditional Indian martial-arts movements, squirm on the ground, primitive life forms evolving out of primeval ooze. The thudding string chords that augur spring are the cue for seven riders to circle the ring and begin a tense interaction between man (or whatever other animal shapes these dancers amazingly twist themselves into) and noble horse.

Heavy-handed though all this symbolism is, Bartabas is also an entertainer. Dancers leap on the horses in breathtaking acrobatic feats, seeming as much circus act as reverential theater. An announcement in French and English, mostly unheard amid the din of the crowd entering the tent, asked for no applause. But each amazing show of horsemanship got just that from the half the spectators, and angry shushing sounds from the other half. Twice, the applause (or was it the shushing noise?) spooked horses and toppled delicately balanced human pyramids standing upon them, the second time with an angry gesture from a performer.

Still, it was often a challenge to keep quiet. How not to coo over the three frolicking white horses, adorably nuzzling each other as they presumably represented the mystic circles of young girls in the opening of the second half of the ballet? How to squelch that appreciative oohing and awing of a parading black, white and brown Spanish horse?

Boulez’s “Dialogue,” a work for solo clarinet and pre-recorded clarinet (the live player’s shadow), is horseless but still horse-haunted. Two traditional modern dancers, Anouck Tissot and Bernard Gaddis, weave between illuminated Jean-Louis Sauvat white sculptures of desiccated horse parts, with the clarinetist, Yoshinobu Kamei, in the center.

The dancers here are gloomily and conventionally expressive of loss, as they weave about the sculptures. But Bartabas has other inspirations. Pre-recorded clarinet parts circle the audience across six loudspeakers in transitional sections between the fluttery live music, with the sculptures illuminated in synchronization to the moving sounds. Moreover, Kamei’s trilling, leaping, flutter-tonguing performance of this dazzling score proved a sensation in its own right.

“Symphony of Psalms” opens amid thick fog, six women in flowing silk riding six exquisite white horses, a sacred Pre-Raphealite vision. Musically, the “Rite’s” chords are tamed in religious ritual. Horses and riders make stately circles around the stage; at one point, the horses paw their hoofs in counterpoint to a Stravinsky fugue. Tissot twists and turns suspended high above the stage, a trite symbol of rebirth, while the horses add an ineffable majesty to the heavenly praise.

In the end, how one responds to such a high degree of animal training is a personal matter. I found the finale moving but slightly nervous-making, wondering just how a horse feels about being guided into such contrived movement. At the very end, Bartabas appears alone on stage on top of his horse, which rhythmically beats out time to the tolling of bells. It goes on for what seems like a long time. It also appears profoundly egotistical and unnatural. I have no idea what it is supposed to mean, but I wish it weren’t there.

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“Triptyk” continues through Nov. 10, nightly except Mondays and Thursdays, 8:30 p.m., $45-$75, at the corner of Town Center Drive and Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa. (949) 553-2422.