Coliseum
London

23 August 2018

Maggie Foyer

All the world loves Swan Lake and the audience at the London Coli who came to watch Irina Kolesnikova’s interpretation of Odette/ Odile, were no exception. The programme gave no clue as to who was responsible for the production, a very traditional Soviet style reading with a happy ending, but no-one seemed to care much as they cheered and clapped. What they wanted was the iconic image of the ballerina, her back arched and arms extended into wings, flanked by immaculate rows of tutu-clad swan maidens, and this is what they got.

Irina Kolesnikova
Photo: Vladimir Zenzinov

The centrepiece of the production is Kolesnikova, a principal dancer who has created an impressive aura and understands star status like few do in these egalitarian times. It was in the ballroom scene they she came into her own, dominating the stage, executing a brilliant solo and whipping of a series of fouettes at breakneck speed.

The softer passion needed for the lakeside meeting of the lovers proved a more difficult task and she was not helped by Denis Rodkin, although he too proved himself an excellent dancer. He was an attentive partner, never missing a hold or lift, but he might as well have stayed in Russia for all the chemistry there was between the two. This role has become Kolesnikova’s trademark and she has refined each pose to maximum effect, a picture perfect swan, even if the fluid sensuality was lacking. It was only in the final act that the couple captured a little of the passion, as the swan corps and a fierce Rothbart helped to build the drama.

Rothbart, Dmitriy Akulinin, made a fine impression from his first entrance, helped by a strong stage presence and a powerful jump. (I was rather hoping for an alternative ending where Odette decides that Rothbart is the better bet.) Also impressive was Sergei Fedorkov in the much-maligned role of the Jester. This character can be a rather annoying interruption to the action but Fedorkov did much to liven up the first act with his virtuosic technique and genuine charm. The Pas de Trois was notable particularly for the dancing of Olga Pavlova who displayed neat, bright footwork, a lovely line and engaging presence.

Swan Lake
Photo: St Petersburg Ballet Theatre

The corps de ballet, were drilled to perfection their lines, musical timing and positions were flawless. The Little Swans zipped through their number to encouraging applause, but the three Big Swans had a difficult time attempting to look graceful with rather awkward choreography. This company, directed by Konstantin Tachkin, may not have the huge budgets of major opera houses but it was attractively designed and costumed, particularly the Ballroom scene, although again no credit was given. There was to be no lump-in-the-throat moment in this performance but for all that it was a Swan Lake that fitted the bill.

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Battersea Arts Centre
London

6 September, 2018

Maggie Foyer

Battersea Arts Centre, Grand Hall
Photo: Fred Howarth

Theatres have a painful relationship with fire.  Often, when visiting a theatre, it is the second or third building on the site, as previous wooden structures have been victims of the flames. Battersea Arts Centre, however is a massive stone structure built in 1893 as a community centre in an age of civic pride. Even so, in 2015 it caught fire in spectacular fashion: a blaze on Battersea Rise that could be seen for miles.

On 6^th September 2018, like a phoenix rising from the ashes it returns to life in a fresh artistic incarnation. Previous unused spaced like  the loft is now a busy office space – with fabulous views –there are several versatile rehearsal  and performance spaces, accommodation for visiting artists and communal areas to eat, drink and chat.

The new BAC is quite unique in its interior design and decoration, or lack of it. Artistic Director, David Judd said that the decision had been taken to allow the building to show its history including the scars of the recent fire. As a result the walls are partially plastered and painted in a singular design style that could be called, ‘historical distressed’.

Gecko in “Missing”
Photo: Robert Golden

Gecko, was the company in residence when the fire occurred.  It happened in the afternoon so while no-one was injured, the company lost all their costumes and sets. Help from many sources, including a local carpenter who turned up with a bag of tools and an offer to rebuild the set, enabled the company to honour later commitments. However they’ve had to wait three years to complete their BAC season – but it was worth the wait.

Missing is a search into choreographer,  Amit Lahav’s personal history: an upbringing played out against the breakup of his parents’ marriage. It could have been any of a thousand similar lives and poignantly investigates how memories deceive and reveal, how persistent searching through the layers finds new truths and different perspectives. This complexity is ingeniously played out in the staging.

Gecko in “Missing”
Photo: Robert Golden

The set is minimal but innovative in the use of moving walkways, framing and lighting. Images recur, the child doll, the sensual Spanish dancer and the warring couple caught in fiercely focused lighting (Chris Swain and Amit Lahav) to heighten the drama. Images are distorted and fractured, one part highlighted, other parts left in darkness. It all ratchets up a sense of unease, dislocation and the fragmenting of cultures through migration and, while never comfortable it is tantalising and engaging. Katie Lusby as Lily, holds the centre ground in this uncertain world of past memories.

Battersea Arts Centre is back in business with a huge groundswell of goodwill and wonderful new spaces to be explored by a range of imaginative artists. Gecko has set the benchmark for a brave new future.

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Atlas Performing Arts Center
The Paul Sprenger Theatre
Washington, DC

September 14, 2018

Carmel Morgan

I’ve been living in Washington, DC, for over a decade, and I’ve enjoyed watching choreographers and dancers grow here in the nation’s capital. Believe it or not, DC is a city in which artists can thrive. Amidst Congressional chaos and political party bickering, the arts hold strong and hold DC’s residents together. This country will never agree on everything, but I think there’s plenty of agreement that the arts matter. I remain thankful for the gifts that artists give. Particularly in tumultuous times, a night out at the theater can provide a welcome respite. PrioreDance’s Cirque De Nuit successfully delivered such an escape.

The program notes indicate that Cirque De Nuit (“Circus of the Night”), created and choreographed by Robert J. Priore, features a roaming band of traveling entertainers who bond both inside and outside of the circus tent. Authors, along with artists and audiences, have long been attracted to the magic and community of societal outcasts in the world of the circus. As a reader, I’ve been drawn to circus/sideshow-themed novels, including Erin Morgenstern’s similarly named “The Night Circus,” and Katherine Dunn’s breathtaking “Geek Love.” And DC certainly has seen its share of circuses lately!

It’s natural that circus life might spark Priore’s choreographic imagination. After all, the subject matter offers mystery, romance, quirkiness, and creepiness. What does Priore bring to this well-covered territory? A lot of what one would expect.

I’m not sure who to heap praise upon for the costumes and makeup (no credit is given in the program), but the dancers looked endearingly odd. Their pale faces, powdered and painted, conjured otherworldliness. A pair of female dancers twisted and tossed straggly ankle-length hair. Gypsy-inspired corsets with curtain fabric skirts, and the music, too, often French ballads, set the wandering troupe in a fantasy Europe of yesteryear. Maybe because I don’t speak French, however, I felt the music sometimes overwhelmed the dancing. The lighting design by Paul Callahan kept things fairly dark and somewhat mottled.

Priore adeptly maneuvered ten dancers (Jamal Abrams, Diana Amalfitano, Philip Baraoidan, Ryan Carlough, Abby Leithart, Taylor Pasquale, Kelsey Rohr, Sherman Wood, Robert Woofter, and Magali Zato) in various groupings, and every dancer had a chance to take the spotlight now and then. The choreography at times brought to mind Butoh. Dancers silently screamed with mouths agape, misshapen hands grotesquely extended. At other points, I was reminded of Michael Jackson’s iconic Thriller music video. Dancers grouped together gestured in unison and moved in zombie-like lumbering steps.

Cirque De Nuit, however, for me, didn’t illuminate the subject it tackles. Although the dancing was impeccable, the choreography, overall, came across as rather bland, especially given the focus of the work. I wanted more risk, more danger, more emotion, but this circus was strangely uneventful. A few times dancers, invisible in the wings, whooped and clapped, but the movement on the stage didn’t burst with enough excitement to merit the wild applause.  

PrioreDance’s Ryan Carlough in Cirque De Nuit, photo by haus of bambi

I longed to have more insight into the individual characters and for the role of each dancer to be more distinct. Only the ringmaster, the wonderfully lithe Abrams, stood out as being relatively well-defined. I puzzled over the motivations and identities of rest of the superb cast.  Weirdness could have been pushed further. Carlough, as a clown with a spooky red-smeared smile, laughed maniacally. Confusingly, after a solo toward the beginning of Cirque De Nuit in which he spasmed with loud guffaws, his unsettling giggles were no more. Baraoidan once acted like a pet, crouching and following along like a monkey, which was amusing, but then he straightened up. Maybe the extreme behaviors were simply part of their acts?    

Surprises were few. I loved it when subsequent to a section with all of the dancers on stage, a male and female dancer were left alone together. A duet between them didn’t commence, though. Instead, the male dancer turned and walked off, and another female dancer entered the stage, ending eventually in an amorous quintet among the women. That small surprise was clever, and I wish there had been more of them.

In addition to Abrams as the domineering and revered leader, among the dancers who caught my eye were Robert Woofter and Magali Zato. Woofter is both incredibly graceful and powerful, as is Zato. An early duet between Zato and the also excellent Wood sang with beauty and feeling. And Woofter, in a solo, dramatically stretched and propelled himself in a storm of elegance. I appreciated how Priore let the women be strong, and the men be tender, and also vice versa.

At the conclusion, a dancer rolled up the red tape that had formed a square demarcating the performance space. Abrams looked defeated and exited the stage behind his troupe with his head bowed. My companion for the evening asked me after the performance if taking up tape from the stage is “a thing.”  Yes, apparently so, because he and I have seen this a few times in the last year — tape carefully placed and then ripped up and bunched into a ball. Watch out for the tape trend?

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Sleeping Beauty Dreams – Promotional Kickoff
The Guggenheim Museum
New York, New York

September 13, 2018
“Meet the Artists” Program

Jerry Hochman

If you’re a balletomaniac, unless you’ve been comatose for a hundred or so days you’ve probably gotten wind of new project spearheaded by Producer and Director Rem Khaas and featuring Diana Vishneva that is intended to explore one aspect of the story of The Sleeping Beauty in a groundbreaking way on multiple levels: what happens in Aurora’s mind while she’s comatose for a hundred years: what does she dream about? The production, titled Sleeping Beauty Dreams, received a formal kick-off at a “Meet the Artists” program on Thursday evening at the Guggenheim Museum.

(l-r) Thijs de Vlieger, Bart Hess,
Edward Clug, Diana Vishneva,
Andrei Severny, Tobias Gremmler,
and Laurent Fort
at “Meet The Artists” program
at the Guggenheim Museum
Photo by Presley Ann/PMC

With folk roots going back at least to the 14^th Century, most recitations of The Sleeping Beauty story are derived from  Charles Perrault’s La Belle au bois dormant (“The Beauty sleeping in the wood”), first published in 1697, and a subsequent adaptation by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. Except for a somewhat gothic side of the tale involving an ogre of a mother-in-law that has been sanitized out of more contemporary iterations in the past few centuries (or morphed into a separate story), the whitebread Disney-ish version is the one most people are aware of, and which, with few exceptions, has found its way into most ballet versions. [Two exceptions are Jean Christophe Maillot’s La Belle, which relies on the original two-pronged Perrault story (and which, to my knowledge, has not yet made its way to New York), and Matthew Bourne’s outrageously wonderful Sleeping Beauty, which was presented at City Center five years ago.]

But none of these versions has explored Sleeping Beauty’s 100 year sleep. Readers and viewers suspend disbelief and take on faith that while the world changed around her, she awoke with a stranger’s kiss physically unchanged.  No one, to my knowledge (and to the knowledge of everyone on the Guggenheim program) has wondered about, much less visualized, what was happening in Aurora’s mind while she slept. Were there no brainwaves, or did she dream about something? And if she dreamed, what did she dream about? And in exploring this, does it show that The Sleeping Beauty is really a coming-of-age (sexual awakening) allegory – she goes to sleep a girl, but awakes a woman?

Diana Vishneva at
“Meet The Artists'”
program at the
Guggenheim Museum
Photo by Presley Ann/PMC

As I understand it, this is what Sleeping Beauty Dreams will explore – what Aurora (or one of the other names that the character has been given over the centuries) dreamed of for a hundred years.

But the subject matter is only one aspect of this production. Even more unusual is how this exploration is to be presented on stage. Based on some of the explanations provided at this preview, it will be an interaction between the real and the imagined via a combination of live action, film, and virtual reality. Integrating live action and pre-filmed action, either as overlap or as phrase repetition or completion, is nothing new, and the results have been either mind-blowing or incomprehensible.The difference here promises to be a live presentation between dancers – Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes – and avatars that will respond,in real time, to whatever the “real” dancers are doing on stage (presumably also with a filmed background or projection), all in a digital world of images, film and music: a marriage of the technical with technique.

Diana Vishneva and Tobias Gremmler
at the “Meet the Artists” program
at the Guggenheim Museum.
Photo by Brian William Waddell

In addition to Vishneva and Khass, who originated the project and was present in the audience, Thursday’s program featured the technical masterminds behind the project.  Each of the speakers – Tobias Gremmier (digital artist), who, together with technical artists collectively known as fuse*, will visualize and bring to life the digital avatars that will react in real time to the dancers’ movements on stage; Edward Clug (choreographer); Bart Hess (costume designer), who will design costumes that interact with the virtual projections; Thijs de Vlieger (composer), who created the electronic score; Laurent Fort (light artist); and Andrei Severny (filmmaker) – briefly explained his artistic/technical area of expertise and role in creating the piece.

Each of the three short films presented (all by Severny) explored the creative and technical boundaries of their work. The first, Digital Dreams, visualized Gremmier’s digital artwork; the second (a world premiere), Colliding Opposites, focused on Hess’s design ideas and process (Hess famously created Lady Gaga’s “slime dress”), and the third (also a world premiere), Gravitation: Variation in Time and Space, displayed Vishneva (on film) in some sort of haze state moving and posing in ways in which the interplay of light and movement was paramount (as I watched, I thought of the ending to Balanchine’s Duo Concertant, on a much larger scale). I’m not an expert in digital technology, so the first film impressed me in an academic kind of way, and the third as a visualization of a slow-moving dreamscape. But, possibly because it’s appears more concrete, I found Colliding Opposites to be fascinating.

Stage atmosphere
at the “Meet the Artists”
program at the Guggenheim Museum
Photo by Presley Ann/PMC

Be that as it may, Sleeping Beauty Dreams (note that the word “Dreams” works as both a noun and a verb) promises to be a different kettle of dance and digital art then anything previously seen, and that, because of the unique interactions between the dancers and the avatars, no two performances will be the same. Aside from the technical challenges involved, others will be to make the presentation move dreamlike but not so slowly as to put the audience to sleep, and to make it, ultimately, more romantic than scary. But with Vishneva and Gomes, no strangers to each other and their Sleeping Beauty roles, and in their first performance together since she retired from American Ballet Theatre in June, 2017 (it seems much longer than that), there’s no telling what dreams may come.

In December, while most dance venues are displaying Marie (Clara) dreaming her Nutcracker dreams, New York audiences will see if they can carry it off.

Sleeping Beauty Dreams premieres at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center on December 7 and 8, and at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on December 14 and 15.

The post To Sleep; Perchance to Dream: Preview of “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” appeared first on CriticalDance.

Boston Ballet
Boston Opera House
Boston, MA

2018-2019 Season Opener Program: “Genius at Play”
Interplay, Fancy Free, Glass Pieces

 2017-2018 Retrospective: Outstanding Performances
Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty, Flower Festival in Genzano                                         

Carla DeFord

On September 6 the new Boston Ballet season opened with “Genius at Play,” a three-part program that paid tribute to choreographer Jerome Robbins.  More about that below, but before turning to current events, a retrospective is in order.  Because of scheduling conflicts, last season I did not review several performances by men of the company that rocked my world, not just because of the dancers’ technical virtuosity but because of their maturity as actors.

This is in contrast to a fairly common phenomenon in the ballet world — male dancers who have a tendency to go off-duty while onstage when the spotlight is on their partners.  Some of these performers, as they wait for their next cue, might as well be checking their phone for messages or reviewing their grocery list.  Such mental absence, although it may not have much of an effect on the ballerina, can create a perception in the audience that half the performance is missing in action.

Isaac Akiba and members of Boston Ballet
in Jerome Robbins’s “Fancy Free”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor

Last season three Boston Ballet men (and two of their partners) did the exact opposite by bringing a profound commitment to roles they undertook.  The following is a belated recognition of these dancers for having created and sustained characters who taught me something about what it means to be an artist — and a human being.

In a Dance magazine article that chronicled his year-long recovery from a tendon injury (https://www.dancemagazine.com/the-rebirth-of-david-hallberg-2414204804.html), David Hallberg recalled that after his first post-injury performance, he “stopped in the wings and looked back at the empty stage” then clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and bowed.  “It was a gut reaction,” he said; “I don’t pray.  But I was so grateful to the stage for allowing me to be on it again.”  One feels a similar gratitude in the face of performances of the highest caliber.

Retrospective

Acknowledgement goes first to Junxiong Zhao as the title character in Romeo and Juliet (Cranko version), whom I saw on March 31.  Frankly, I did not have great expectations.  Zhao always had gorgeous technique — those beautiful pointed feet, high elevations, and soft landings — but the last time I had seen him in a principal role, as Conrad in Le Corsaire, he seemed so shy that he had difficulty even looking at his ballerina.

Junxiong Zhao and Nina Matiashvili
in John Cranko’s “Romeo and Juliet”
Photo by Brooke Trisolini

Imagine my surprise when he presented a Romeo who was not only fully present every second he was onstage, but who filled the role with such extreme and heartbreaking emotion that I walked out of the theatre not quite steady on my pins.  What I remember most vividly were the moments after Mercutio’s death when Zhao took up a sword and started slashing it around.  I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such a powerful combination of grief and fury.  He was almost crying but also seething with desire for revenge.  I was stunned by the complexity, believability, the bedrock truth of what he was giving us – and it felt like a gift.

Other moments that stayed with me were the quiet ones, such as in the balcony pas de deux when he walked away from Juliet and stood downstage right, savoring his happiness.  He just looked out into space and somehow convinced us that he was unutterably in love.

Nina Matiashvili and Junxiong Zhao
in John Cranko’s “Romeo and Juliet”
Photo by Brooke Trisolini

In the bedroom scene he was all agony.  As in his reaction to the death of Mercutio, he was able to show simultaneous emotions: the depth of his love, the pain of having to leave Juliet, and the necessity of his doing so.  As he evolved from romantic dreamer to star-crossed lover to tragic figure, Zhao’s Romeo was no less than thrilling.

His intensity was complemented by Nina Matiashvili as Juliet.  A moment that was emblematic of her approach to the role occurred in the balcony scene when Romeo carried her across the stage in a split lift.  Her arms were extended, and her face was so open, vulnerable, and ecstatic that as she sailed through the air, she seemed like a breath of fresh air herself.  The immediacy of her portrayal was almost startling; it was a luminous performance.

Lasha Khozashvili in Marius Petipa’s
“The Sleeping Beauty”
Photo by Liza Voll

Also deserving of recognition is Lasha Khozashvili whom I saw on May 19 as Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty (by Petipa with additions by Ashton) opposite Ashley Ellis as Aurora.  I’ve seen others in this role who either checked out periodically or just didn’t connect with their ballerina.  One knew that Khozashvili’s prince would be different when, in Act II, he reacted with visible shock and sorrow as Aurora, appearing to him in a vision, revealed that she was living under a spell and implored him to rescue her.  When she looked into his eyes, he gave something back, and what he gave was empathy.

At that point he reminded me of Ivan Nagy who, as Siegfried in the Act II grand pas de deux of Swan Lake, seemed to say to Natalia Makarova as Odette, “You are no longer alone. I will help you shoulder your burden.”  When Ellis went stage right, froze in position (mimicking her paralyzed state), and then became reanimated, the delight on her face foretold how she would look when she awakened – to his love.

(l-r) Isaac Akiba, Derek Dunn, Paulo Arrais
and members of Boston Ballet
in John Cranko’s “Romeo & Juliet”
Photo by Liza Voll

Finally, Derek Dunn, who came to Boston from Houston Ballet last year, has distinguished himself, time and again, in various repertoire.  His greatest acting achievement (I didn’t see his Prodigal Son) was Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet (March 15).  What I remember most was the little smile he gave when he put his head on Romeo’s shoulder just before he died.  That interaction with Paulo Arrais as Romeo seemed like the end of a real love affair between two friends; it was immensely touching.

His Bluebird in Sleeping Beauty (May 19) was the most exquisite I’ve ever seen live.  It reminded me of Brian Shaw in the 1963 Royal Ballet production starring Margot Fonteyn (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlQcGWfmsl4).  In the brisé volés (broken-flight leaps) of his variation he seemed to achieve extraordinary height and hang-time in the air.  Then, after doing a couple of tours jetés (turning leaps) to travel upstage, he came forward with skipping steps and the most meltingly lyrical port de bras since Shaw danced the role.  At that moment Dunn looked like a sprite out of Midsummer Night’s Dream – an ethereal creature.

Derek Dunn and Ji Young Chae
in the pas de deux from
August Bournonville’s
“Flower Festival in Genzano”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor

In the pas de deux from Flower Festival in Genzano (May 25) Dunn seemed as if he had been steeped in Bournonville technique from the time he was born.  He and his partner, Ji Young Chae, didn’t look so much like flesh and blood as some sort of animated fairy dust, with those fluttering feet, gracious partnering moves, and leaps out toward the audience.  It seemed like a definitive performance.  Both Dunn and Chae received well-deserved promotions this year.

Chae was also unforgettable as Princess Florine opposite Dunn’s Bluebird (May 19) and exceedingly charming as the Songbird Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty (May 20, 2017).  My favorite of all was her Woodland Glade Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty (May 13).  Not since Ashley Ellis performed that role in 2013 have I seen it done with such finesse.

Season Opener

In the all-Robbins program, which consisted of Interplay, Fancy Free, and Glass Pieces, several dancers also stood out.

Isaac Akiba and members of Boston Ballet
in Jerome Robbins’s “Fancy Free”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor

On opening night Isaac Akiba was the sailor who does the first variation in Fancy Free.  The role features a split jump from the top of the bar in the saloon where the sailors are having a few drinks.  This is Akiba’s signature move, which he has perfected over the nine years in which he has played lead Russian in The Nutcracker, ending the Trepak with eight consecutive split jumps – an invariable show stopper.

What moved me most about Akiba’s performance, however, was that his face was filled with the wonder and excitement of visiting the Big Apple.  Robbins is reported to have said that dancers have to be so familiar with their characters that they know what they (the characters) had for breakfast.  That’s how deeply Akiba inhabited his sailor.  There was a moment when he pointed out into the audience as if dazzled by something he saw in the distance, and that gesture seemed to sum up the sailor’s reaction to being, for just one day, in the great city where the Bronx is up and the Battery’s down.

Kathleen Breen Combes and Paul Craig
in Jerome Robbins’s “Fancy Free”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor

One of the sailors’ love interests, the girl in the purple dress, was Kathleen Breen Combes.  This was the first featured dancing role I’ve seen her perform since her return from maternity leave, and it was suffused with authority.  Her sculpted lines and the way she created a relationship with her partner, Paul Craig, gave tremendous authenticity to her character.  When, after kissing him, she wiped the lipstick off his face, one believed she really cared for him.

Breen Combes’s performance was also notable for the expert way she handled several athletic moves.  Credit for this also goes to Craig for his partnering skills; together they were able to make such moments look effortless.  When, toward the end of the pas de deux, Craig flipped Breen Combes in the air, it literally took my breath away.

Lia Cirio and Paulo Arrais
in Jerome Robbins’s “Glass Pieces”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor

In Glass Pieces, the final work on the program, Paulo Arrais, who danced in the Facades pas de deux, delivered an especially riveting performance.  It seemed as if every muscle of his body was eloquent.  I’m not sure what story he was telling, but his moves were astonishingly precise and articulate.  At one point he did a circular port de bras (low to the ground) that immediately made me think of Le Spectre de la Rose.  Clearly, that part would be a perfect match for him, and he told me it’s one of his dream roles.  I hope he gets to do it sometime soon and that I’ll be there (as the Four Tops used to say) to see it.

On a return visit to “Genius at Play” (September 9) I had the pleasure of seeing Roddy Doble as “rhumba boy,” the role Robbins originated in Fancy Free. A consummate actor, Doble brings such minutely observed details to every character he plays (no matter how minor) that one feels privileged to be in their presence.

Roddy Doble and Chyrstyn Fentroy
in Jerome Robbins’s “Interplay”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor

As he did the rhumba, Doble was fully aware of how adorable he was, but when he cocked an eyebrow at the girls and his fellow sailors seated at the table stage right, there wasn’t a trace of conceit in it.  He just wanted them, and the audience, to have fun with him.  That hip-swiveling rhumba epitomized the generosity of spirit one felt in his entire performance.  The dancer was subsumed in the character, and the character radiated an irresistible sweetness and good will.  When the music of his variation turned lyrical, Doble opened out into a leap that seemed to reach toward an unattainable vision that presaged Bernstein and Sondheim’s “somehow, someday, somewhere.”  It was the physical body reaching toward the spiritual, the mortal reaching toward immortality.  Robbins himself could not have done the role better.

The program began with the overture to Candide, and on September 9 it seemed especially sparkling and witty.  Kudos to the Boston Ballet Orchestra under the direction of Beatrice Jona Affron for the bubbling champagne-like homage to Bernstein.

With its variety of moods and music, this was a great season opener.  As the year progresses, I look forward to seeing new members of the company (especially principal dancer Viktorina Kapitonova, who comes to Boston from Ballett Zürich) and veteran dancers in new roles.  Next stop: The Nutcracker.

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Les Sylphides, Tarantella, first pas de deux from Seven Sonatas, pas de deux from Swan Lake Act III, Sombrerisimo

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Eisenhower Theater
Washington, DC

September 29, 2018 Matinee

Carmel Morgan

The season opener of The Washington Ballet (TWB) was surprisingly strong. Artistic Director Julie Kent, who joined TWB in July 2016, may be finding her footing. The dancers looked assured and well-rehearsed, and the program, although it consisted of a truly odd assortment of pieces, was a huge success. Kent, in her speech before the matinee started, explained that the program was designed to show off the depth and diversity of the company, and it did just that. As well, Kent dedicated the performance to the memory of Arthur Mitchell, an African-American ballet legend (former principal dancer with New York City Ballet and one of the founders of Dance Theatre of Harlem), who recently passed away. Notably, TWB’s present company members include dancers of various races, ethnicities, and nationalities. While I value seeing dancers of different backgrounds, I don’t think it’s significant in this review to signal the shade of a dancer’s skin.

Preceding TWB’s matinee was a week of heightened emotion in Washington, DC, as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Kavanaugh’s nomination as a Supreme Court justice. The calming notes of Frederic Chopin’s music and the beautiful choreography of Michel Fokine coated my weariness. I was able to set aside the fact that Les Sylphides, a quintessential romantic ballet, features one male surrounded by women who move around him as if he’s the sun. I set aside, too, the distinctly fragile and flirtatious poses of the women. I forgave this classic ballet for all of that and more and simply let myself be entertained by its loveliness. And it was lovely indeed.

In this fantasy ballet, women in long white tulle skirts with rings of pale pink roses around their heads sport tiny fairy wings on their backs. They’re mythical spirits. Often their feet are drawn together, elevated, their legs snugly together, so they drift like a breeze as their feet gently tiptoe beneath them. Arms extend in curved frames around their faces or to the side just above their hips. They lean forward slightly, and very consciously, while standing. They wear peculiar expressions of bliss. Small groupings intersect in perfect symmetry. It’s as pretty as it is perfectly controlled.

In this sea of delicate dancers sharing a pensive mood and soft gestures, Tamako Miyazaki stood out. It was as if she didn’t get the memo to look sedated and dreamy. Instead, Miyazaki looked infused with joy, and she danced that way, too — light and effervescent in comparison to the rest of the more sober cast members. Although Les Sylphides has slow pacing, and that’s part of its loveliness — watching the motion unfold leisurely, almost lethargically, Miyazaki added some zest to the graceful choreography. Ayano Kimura and Ashley Murphy-Wilson displayed, appropriately, a more placid, cool demeanor. Their performances were good, too, albeit less animated. And Gian Carlo Perez’s stoicism was apt.

TWB in Les Sylphides, photo by media4artists Theo Kossenas

Following intermission were three gala-type duets. George Balanchine’s fiery, fast-paced Tarantella is the opposite of the serene Les Sylphides. It was fun to watch the dancing go from 0-60 mph. Nicole Graniero and Andile Ndlovu attacked the choreography (and the tambourines) with vigor. Ndlovu, in particular, is a delight to watch. He achieves incredible height in his jumps, but it’s his warm personality that comes through the most. Ndlovu is a showman, and increasingly a star. Graniero was a good partner for him. She was crisp and precise, powerful and engaging.

Next was the first pas de deux from Alexei Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas. Glenn Sales, a veteran guest pianist with many dance companies, now in this third season as music supervisor for TWB, played Domenico Scarlatti’s music brilliantly. Ratmansky’s choreography is superb, but the pair dancing exceeded it. Internationally renowned dancers Stella Abrera, American Ballet Theatre (ABT)  principal dancer, and Marcelo Gomes, former ABT principal dancer, gave a passionate performance of the sort ballet lovers dream about. Seeing them together in this work was like watching a master class in artistry. These experienced dancers are at the apex of their careers, and they were utterly exquisite to behold. Volumes of genuine emotion poured forth in each moment. Abrera and Gomes moved organically. Whether crouching, embracing, turning away, or holding hands, they danced with one heart, and it’s precisely that kind of connection one longs to see on stage.

I had not seen guest artist Katherine Barkman, guest principal dancer with Ballet Manila, dance before, and I worried that she wouldn’t fare well against such a stunning performance by Abrera and Gomes. But Barkman held her own. She displayed an intoxicating youthful exuberance that demanded attention. Her dynamism, confidence, and dramatic knowing glances at the audience would tempt anyone to guess she’s Russian. She’s not Russian, but American, yet her Russian Vaganova training is obvious. Her pas de deux from Swan Lake Act III with TWB’s Rolando Sarabia was remarkably solid. Barkman skillfully captured the black swan’s tantalizing allure and exhibited a level of maturity you would expect to see in much more seasoned professionals (Barkman, the 2014 gold medal winner of the Youth America Grand Prix in Philadelphia, is in her early 20s). Apparently, she will join TWB as a company member in its upcoming performances).   

TWB in Sombrerisimo, photo by Dean Alexander

Closing TWB’s eclectic season opener was Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Sombrerisimo. This lively contemporary ballet for six men stood in stark contrast to the old and ultra feminine Les Sylphides that began the evening. Javier Morera, Alexandros Papajohn, Alex Kramer, Oscar Sanchez, Stephen Nakagawa, and Daniel Roberge were the epitome of suave. Sombrerisimo is more playful than serious, but it smartly shifts in tone. The black hats that play an important role in the choreography are a clever device, but thankfully they don’t dominate the work. It’s definitely the dancing rather than the props that charm the audience in this crowd pleaser.

Latin influence is evident in the music as well as in the swagger and swooshing hips of the dancers. In a group there are lifts of various heights, but the portion of the body sticking into the air is upright legs rather than merely upper bodies. Lopez Ochoa’s choreography embraces repetition. Now and then the dancers pop up in straight vertical jumps like kernels of exploding popcorn. Sombrerisimo effectively highlighted the talent of some of TWB’s younger male dancers, and it’s a stylish work that will grow with them.

From classical ballets to beguiling duets to robust contemporary works, TWB seems poised to have a promising season, but I’d prefer to see fewer guest artists, as amazing as they are, and more opportunities for TWB’s own dancers, especially the younger ones, to tackle more challenging roles.

The post The Washington Ballet appeared first on CriticalDance.

Pacific Northwest Ballet
McCaw Hall
Seattle, WA

September 22, 2018, afternoon and evening
Jerome Robbins Festival: Programs A and B

Dean Speer

I had been greatly looking forward to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Jerome Robbins Festival for quite some time, and seeing its two programs was a sublime experience.

While I thoroughly enjoyed each of the seven ballets presented, I have to publicly admit that my favorite was Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering (1969). I knew from previous viewings that it’s a great, poetic ballet. Indeed, folks around me were openly weeping following its conclusion. An hour-long work to Chopin piano music, it is a work of power and beauty — of the nature that compels one to travel long distances just to see it. One of my seatmates observed it’s a ballet that at once is about nothing, yet is about everything.

Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers
in Jerome Robbins’s
“Dances at a Gathering”
Photo by Angela Sterling

I adored every minute of it and its colored-coded “A-level” cast of the evening’s “B” program:  Pink (Sarah Ricard Orza); Mauve (Elizabeth Murphy); Apricot (Noelani Pantastico); Green (Laura Tisserand); Blue (Elle Macy); Brown (Lucien Postlewaite); Purple (Seth Orza); Green (Jerome Tisserand); Brick (Kyle Davis); and Blue (Joshua Grant).

Program B concluded with a work at the other end of the artistic spectrum, a comedic ballet — The Concert (or the Perils of Everyone), also set to some iconic Chopin. Robbins reveals what is really going on in people’s minds as they enjoy a piano recital in the salon of a department store. From a soul who is carried away by the music to a hen-pecked husband who’d really rather be anywhere else, to the late comers who disturb everyone else. What a riot too is the now-famous “mistake waltz ballet” where six corps de ballet females display to very humorous effect all the foibles of dancing a ballet where, yes, mistakes are made such as going in the wrong direction and having a lone dancer who just cannot quite get the ensemble movements on the correct side or with the correct timing.

Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers
in Jerome Robbins’s
“The Concert (or The Perils of Everyone)”
Photo by Angela Sterling

This cast  included: Ballerina (Lesley Rausch); Shy Boy (Benjamin Griffiths); Wife (Lindsi Dec); Husband (Ryan Cardea); Angry Lady (Angelica Generosa); Matinee Ladies (Emma Love Suddarth and Sarah Pasch); Usher (Miles Pertl); and Steven Loch plus Joshua Grant.

Both programs opened with Circus Polka done for 48 ballet school students, in three different batches of levels, each group coming in one after the other, with the youngest group skipping in to many “ahhs” from the audience. The Ringmaster for the matinee was Jonathan Porretta and for the evening, it was former and much-beloved Principal Dancer Ariana Lallonne, whose entrance was loudly welcomed and whose bow was madly applauded.

Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers
in Jerome Robbins’s
“In the Night”
Photo by Angela Sterling

In The Night is a series of three pas de deux, each one depicting a couple in different stages of their relationship — from young tender love, to a mature one, to one that is combative yet dependent, with the couple apparently still in love with each other. These were danced by Elizabeth Murphy with Dylan Wald; Lindsi Dec and Steven Loch; and finally Rachel Foster (in great form and rarely better) and Ezra Thomson.

Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers
Noelani Pantastico
and Seth Orza
in Jerome Robbins’s
“Other Dances”
Photo by Angela Sterling

Afternoon of a Faun‘s premise is a glimpse into a ballet rehearsal studio, beginning with a young man napping and then stretching, whose reverie is interrupted by the entrance of a ballerina. They both look at the “mirror” (audience) in the rehearsal way, dance with each other, and then after the young man gives her a tentative kiss on the cheek, she dissolves away, retreating, perhaps back to her dressing room. Principals Lesley Rausch and Jerome Tisserand were ideally cast.

Other Dances was a nice surprise. I had seen photos from its 1976 premiere with Baryshnikov and Makarova, done for a gala, but had not seen it live nor on TV. I was very pleased that it was much more than a showcase duet but an extended pas de deux with depth. At the crest of her amazing career, one of my favorite PNB Principals, Noelani Pantastico, more than “took” the Makarova part and Seth Orza proved that today’s male dancers are on par with the wonder of Baryshnikov from 40 years ago. Orza showed power, clean control, clarity and élan.

For musical theatre power, Robbins’ apex might be his West Side Story Suite, a re-telling and re-setting of Romeo and Juliet. Robbins extracted and pulled together the dance scenes from the movie musical and made this West Side Story Suite that highlights the dancing yet still tells the story; kind of a Reader’s Digest version.

Pacific Northwest Ballet dancer
Ezra Thompson (center)
and members of the company
in Jerome Robbins’s
“West Side Story Suite”
Photo by Angela Sterling

It must be a fun challenge to stretch oneself to not only execute demanding dances but to also have to sing, act, and absorb and produce the necessary style. Leads in the cast included: Tony (Lucien Postlewaite); Riff (Ezra Thomson — who was superb); Bernardo (William Lin-Yee — who at the post-performance discussion reported how much he enjoyed doing this part; fun being the bad guy); Anita (Lindsi Dec); and as Maria, Angelica Generosa.

This Festival drew friends and colleagues from far and near, including two former students and their respective daughters (who both now take ballet), and three from Augsburg, Germany, who now live in the Northwest United States. We all had such a great time. We rejoiced in each of the ballets and re-affirmed that we are so lucky to have one of the top ballet companies right here in our own backyard.

The superb pianists for the programs included Cameron Grant, Mark Salman, and Christina Siemens. When full orchestra was called for, the mighty PNB Orchestra was led by Emil de Cou.

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[pending receipt of performance photographs]

New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York

September 21, and 22 afternoon, 2018
Concerto Barocco, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Symphony in C
Jewels

Jerry Hochman

Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, New York City Ballet is doing very well. Granted there’s been some highly-publicized turbulence and some decisions made that, upon discovery of real facts, may turn out to have been ill-advised. But based on the two opening programs of the Fall, 2018 season, the company may now be stretched a bit thin, but its vitality continues unabated.

The two programs were comprised of only a small part of NYCB’s bedrock repertoire, the dances of George Balanchine, but they were glorious examples of that choreographer’s genius regardless of composer or period (here Bach, Bizet, Faure, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky). The performances I saw last week of Concerto Barocco, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Symphony in C, and Jewels, each a company staple, were thrilling to watch, and even more exciting because of the enthusiastic audience response.

Thursday’s program, the season’s first repertory evening of Balanchine classics, displayed everything about what makes a classic a classic, and a masterpiece a masterpiece. Since each of these dances is well-known and performed by companies world-wide, my discussion of each will be brief.

Teresa Reichlen, here with Sara Mearns,
in a prior performance of
George Balanchine’s “Concerto Barocco”
Photo Paul Kolnik

Like Serenade, Concerto Barocco is an outgrowth of a School of American Ballet exercise that preceded NYCB’s existence. It premiered in 1941 with American Ballet Caravan, entered the repertory of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1945, and was first presented by NYCB three years later.

Some recent performances I’ve seen have lacked the sparkle and pin-point timing that Concerto Barocco requires, but not on Thursday. The company danced as if something needed to be proven, although that’s not the case. Teresa Reichlen and Russell Janzen led the performance, with Reichlen particularly spectacular (as was the eight-ballerina corps). My only quibble was the casting of Abi Stafford as the second female lead. She executed well – no complaints about that – but sometimes a significant height difference between one ballerina lead and another works as visual contrast, but here it didn’t because when they were supposed to match each other technically, Reichlen’s superior flexibility and extension made Stafford appear to consistently come up short – which shouldn’t have been an issue in what otherwise was a stellar outing from both of them.

Stellar, however, is not a strong enough word to describe Tiler Peck and Joaquin De Luz’s performance in Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux. This pairing always brings down the house, but, with Thursday’s being their final performance of the piece together (De Luz is scheduled to retire on October 14), the significance for them, and for the audience, increased exponentially. Their performances did as well; neither has looked better, together or individually. And Peck, whom I’ve described since at least 2013 as a world-class ballerina whose performances should not be missed, continues to astound, squeezing a particularly gasp-inducing twisting seemingly spontaneous off-balance flourish at the end of her fouettes in the coda that was believable only because it was done in public.

Stravinsky Violin Concerto, which premiered in 1972’s Stravinsky Festival, took a bit of getting used to for me, but repeated exposures have demonstrated what a masterpiece it is. Essentially, Balanchine has taken a classical form for the dance’s opening (Toccata) and concluding (Capriccio) movements, played with it, and sandwiched in between two pas de deux (Aria I and Aria II) of contrasting dynamic character (and color) even as the music for both is adagio and more aurally angular. Consequently, the piece overall conveys a sense of visual balance and out-of-balance, classic and modern, concurrently.

Sterling Hyltin,
here with Robert Fairchild
in George Balanchine’s
“Stravinsky Violin Concerto”
Photo Paul Kolnik

In addition to their featured roles in the piece’s opening and closing segments, Sara Mearns and Taylor Stanley led Aria I and Sterling Hyltin and Ask la Cour Aria II. Mearns did fine work overall, and particularly with Aria I, and Hyltin and la Cour danced an exquisitely ascetic Aria II. But as marvelous as all three were, Stanley, in his role debut, was extraordinary both in his partnering, execution, and attitude. Stanley’s evolution since first joining the company has been remarkable to watch.

The evening concluded with Symphony in C, a continuing feast for the eyes – and another Balanchine masterpiece. The dance premiered with the Paris Opera Ballet (as Le Palais de Cristal) in 1947, and entered the NYCB repertory in its first program the following year. Although it bears similarity to several Balanchine pieces, because of the Bizet score and the supersonic speed of movement (one can watch members of the corps racing from the end of one choreographic movement cluster to just barely get into position for the beginning of the next – which might be comical if it weren’t done so skillfully), it has an indelible character of its own. And with three of the four Movements being allegro vivace, the piece seemed to conclude much too soon.

New York City Ballet dancers
in a prior performance of
George Balanchine’s “Symphony in C”
Photo by Paul Kolnik

Ashley Bouder and Joseph Gordon led the First Movement – Bouder with her usual flair and Gordon stepping up and executing sensationally in his New York role debut. Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle, veterans in their roles, led the Second Movement (Adagio), and both had the house cheering. In New York role debuts, Indiana Woodward and Sebastian Villarini-Velez soared through the Third Movement, and a very capable and confident-looking Erica Pereira and Troy Schumacher (in his New York role debut) led the Fourth Movement.  The soloists and corps, too numerous to identify here, executed flawlessly.

The company’s season began on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with Balanchine’s glittering Jewels. I was unable to see those programs, but the one on Saturday afternoon was worth waiting for. Peck and Stanley and Unity Phelan and Adrian Danchig-Waring (Stanley and Phelan debuted in their roles earlier in the week) were sublimely mysterious in Emeralds, Hyltin and Andrew Veyette jazzily sultry in Rubies, and Mearns and Gordon (who debuted earlier in the week) led Diamonds. I’ve complained about Mearns’s interpretation of the role previously – too maudlin, too filled with pathos – on many prior occasions, but here she largely played it straight until Odette, and unnecessary drama, crept back briefly. Everything else about her performance was very well done. And Gordon again executed unexpectedly well for someone so new in the role. Of the soloists, Sara Adams, Sean Suozzi, and Meagan Mann delivered enthusiastically in Emeralds, and Kretzshmar, who substituted (and debuted) in her role earlier in the week, was sensational in Rubies, dancing with a feral intensity I’d not previously seen from her.

Sara Mearns in a prior performance
of George Balanchine’s
“Diamonds,” from “Jewels”
Photo credit Paul Kolnik

Finally, I must once again credit NYCB’s orchestra for its usual first-rate execution, including by soloists Kurt Nikkanen and Arturo Delmoni (on violin) in Concerto Barocco, Nikkanen in Stravinsky Violin Concerto, and Susan Walters’s piano solo in Rubies. Music Director Andrew Litton led Jewels, and each of the four dances the previous night was directed by Clotilde Otranto, one of the company’s two Resident Conductors. Both have outsized and exciting conducting personalities that perfectly complement the excitement on stage, and the very knowledgeable NYCB audiences know that.

Indeed, the audiences at these two performances added a special quality to these programs. Clearly, these audiences came not just to see the ballets (which, I suppose, most have already seen many times previously), but to support the unwarrantedly beleaguered company. The extras that came with that at these two programs – whoops and standing ovations (both unusual for NYCB audiences) – took the programs to another, and appropriate, level of appreciation.

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Fall for Dance 2018
New York City Center
New York, New York

October 1,4, and 5, 2017
Program 1: Bach Cello Suites (Boston Ballet), Dances of Isadora – a Solo Tribute (Sara Mearns), Bzzz (Caleb Teicher & Company), The Barbarian Nights, or the First Dawns of the World (excerpts) (Cie Hervé Koubi)
Program 2: New Work for Goldberg Variations (Pam Tanowitz Dance), Sleep Well Beast (Justin Peck and Patricia Delgado), Inner Voices (Gemma Bond Dance), Promethean Fire (Paul Taylor Dance Company)
Program 3 (first half): Reclamation Map (Tayeh Dance with Heather Christian), Balamouk (Dance Theatre of Harlem)

Jerry Hochman

With the first two programs of both its 75th Anniversary Celebration and the 15th Anniversary of its Fall for Dance Festival, New York City Center presented its usual potpourri of different forms of dance before sold out houses of enthusiastic audiences. But this year, at least so far, the caliber of programming has exceeded expectations. Indeed, in my view there was only one disappointment – and that one improved as it progressed, so perhaps I’ll change my mind on subsequent views. As for the rest, every one of the pieces in Program 1 left a positive and indelible impression; and in Program 2, Gemma Bond’s new ballet, Inner Voices, though not without flaws, is quite good, Sleep Well Beast, Justin Peck’s pas de deux for himself and Patricia Delgado, is superb, and Paul Taylor’s Promethean Fire is an unqualified masterpiece.

Members of Paul Taylor Dance Company
in “Promethean Fire”
Photo by Paula Lobo

The best way, and the only way, to make sense out of this quality dance performance mélange is to discuss the programs, and the dances within them, seriatim – necessarily focusing on certain pieces and giving relatively short shrift to others. But sometimes one must dispense with logic, and having now seen Program 3 as well as Programs 1 and 2, I must begin with highlights from that program. More detail will follow in a subsequent review, but I couldn’t let my thoughts about the initial two dances in Program 3, both City Center commissions in their world premiere performances, ricochet silently between my ears until then.

Members of Dance Theatre of Harlem
in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s “Balamouk”
Photo by Paula Lobo

Simply put. Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Balamouk is the finest new work, as choreographed and executed, that I’ve seen from Dance Theatre of Harlem in a very long time. It’s not a monumental ballet, nor is it “cutting edge,” but it doesn’t try to be. Rather, Balamouk, which to my understanding is Romanian for “house of the insane” and is the title of a multicultural album by Les Yeux Noirs (The Black Eyes), one of the dance’s three musical sources, is a sparkling, joyous ballet that melds its disparate musical cultural sounds – I heard Klezmer and Greek, among other folkish references – into a coherent whole, and that showcases the individual and group talents of the company’s ten participating dancers. It’s a fitting tribute to Arthur Mitchell, New York City Ballet Principal Dancer and DTH’s co-founder, who passed away a couple of weeks ago, to whom the program was dedicated.

And the evening’s opening dance was a stunning surprise. I had not previously heard of Tayeh Dance or recalled that I’d previously seen one of Artistic Director and choreographer Sonya Tayeh’s dances (Face the Torrent, performed by Cuba’s Malpaso Dance Company at the Joyce Theater last January), nor had I heard of singer / songwriter / musician Heather Christian and the two vocal artists who accompanied her live on stage, but that demonstrates yet again that I need to get out more often.

Perhaps in part because it was such a pleasant revelation, I found Reclamation Map (I haven’t a clue – yet – as to the title’s significance, but I suspect there is one) to be a mesmerizing, haunting, multi-textured piece of complexity and dramatic tension, generating in the process an atmosphere to get lost in. Like a novel by William Faulkner – you may not “get” it on a word-by-word, page by page, note-by-note, step-by-step basis, but you certainly “feel” it as the ambience these artists create opens the door to a strange but somehow not unfamiliar world. In its moments of passionate despair, parts of it vaguely bring to mind Christopher Wheeldon’s brilliant This Bitter Earth pas de deux, but Reclamation Map is more structurally diverse and cohesive than my recollection of Five Movements, Three Repeats, the full piece from which Wheeldon’s pas de deux was culled (and which coincidentally had its New York premiere at the 2012 FFD Festival).

Members of Tayeh Dance,
with Heather Christian and vocalists,
in Sonya Tayeh’s “Reclamation Map”
Photo by Paula Lobo

The trio of singers provided an awesome display of passion and harmony, and by focusing on one I don’t mean to ignore the musical contributions of the others. But to my admittedly unsophisticated musical ear, Christian, who wrote, played, and sang lead for the suite of songs which inspired and was reflected in Tayeh’s choreography and the performances by the four compelling company dancers, is a composer / chanteuse who presents an unusual, and potent, combination of delicacy and power, crystalline clarity coupled with earthy expressiveness, emotional depth, and most of all, soul. Even before the dance’s movement structure began to develop, her introductory sounds cast a spell from which escape was impossible. In her words (or sounds, when I couldn’t decipher the words due to my location in the house) I heard the intelligence and sadness of Jacques Brel (think “Amsterdam” more than “Ne Me Quitte Pas”) and Edith Piaf’s despairing heart. Add a little LeAnn Rimes, a little Lady Antebellum and a lot of deep south gospel, and maybe you get a rough idea of the magic her music, her voice, and her delivery (she doesn’t just sit there) create.

In case it’s not yet clear, the piece blew me away.

Program 1: It was the best of times, it was the … best of times

With Program 1, City Center presented a seeming tale of two forms of dance entertainment, and two types of dance audiences. That it all worked splendidly is a tribute to dance excellence of any form or era.

On the surface, the difference between the first and second halves of the program is about control vs. abandon – for both the performances and the audience. Of course, at least with respect to the pieces danced, it’s more the appearance of abandon than any absence of control. Indeed, all four pieces in Program 1 exhibited remarkable control. The difference and the resulting audience response, was the sense of energy and abandon that the second two pieces demonstrated.

Let me try to explain.

Boston Ballet dancers
in Jorma Elo’s “Bach Cello Suites”
Sergey Antonov on Cello
Photo by Stephanie Berger.

All four dances in Program 1 were excellent examples of their art, both in choreography and execution. The first two, Jorma Elo’s Bach Cello Suites, performed by members of Boston Ballet, and Sara Mearns dancing in Lori Belilove’s (after Isadora Duncan) Dances of Isadora, a Solo Tribute, were models of inventive rigor. Elo’s piece is contemporary ballet that doesn’t push the envelope, but does what it does with invention and grace. Dances of Isadora accomplishes the same for Duncan’s form of modern (or pre-modern) dance. But both are as good as they are because of the control reflected in the choreography and the dancers’ execution. Duncan might have been appalled at the thought that her dances could be seen as indicative of “control” rather than the “spontaneous abandon” and “natural movement” for which she was famous, but times change – and when the dance is performed by Mearns, a Principal Dancer with New York City Ballet, a sense of consummate control goes with the territory. But within eyeshot of my position, many members of the audience began to fidget, as if waiting for something beyond technical brilliance to happen.

Cie Herve Koubi dancers
in “The Barbarian Nights,
or the First Dawns of the World” (excerpt)
Photo by Stephanie Berger

The second two, Caleb Teicher & Company’s Bzzz (another City Center commission having its world premiere), which Teicher choreographed “with improvisation by dancers,” and The Barbarian Nights, or the First Dawns of the World (“Barbarian”) danced by Cie Hervé Koubi in an excerpted form, had the appearance of wild abandon, spontaneity, and irreverence – an absence of control – that the other two pieces did not. Through both pieces, the audience was noisy and ecstatic.

Of course, the audience reaction was likely a product of people being attracted to programs that feature forms of entertainment that appeal to them, but that begs a set of questions for which there are no easy, or satisfying, answers.

Boston Ballet dancers
in Jorma Elo’s “Bach Cello Suites”
Photo by Stephanie Berger.

I’ve seen only a limited number of Elo dances, but Bach Cello Suites is the best of them. The program would lead one to believe that the ballet essentially consists of five couples dancing sequentially, but the piece is far more visually inventive than that. There’s nothing “cutting edge” here, but that’s not necessary. The element of pleasant surprise as the initial introduction of couples yields not to a duet by the first couple, but to an extended sequence involving the men alone, is the first hint that Bach Cello Suites is not your standard multi-couple ballet, and the visual variety continues unabated throughout, within which the five duets are skillfully, and seamlessly, interwoven. Sergey Antonov, the highly competent cello soloist, was pasted stage left center as the dancers responded around him.

As much as I enjoyed Elo’s choreography, I was even more impressed by the overall quality of the Boston Ballet dancers: Maria Baranova, Lia Cirio, Kathleen Breen Combes, Misa Kuranaga, Addie Tapp, Paulo Arrais, Derek Dunn, Lasha Khozashvili, John Lam, and Irlan Silva. All excelled, including particularly Kuranaga’s elegant, pristine execution. But two men I’d not previously seen, and two women I’d not previously heard of, dictated my response to the piece.

Khozashvili’s role involved not only execution of Elo’s steps, but also a measure of emotional depth, and he carried both off brilliantly, with a riveting intensity and quiet sincerity that are rare combined assets. He makes you “feel” what he appears to feel on stage, whether connecting with his partner or making angular arm movement meaningful. Originally from Georgia (the country), Khozashvili, who has danced with BB since 2010, drew attention to himself because he stood out.

Derek Dunn (center)
and Boston Ballet dancers
in Jorma Elo’s “Bach Cello Suite”
Photo by Stephanie Berger

Also standing out was Dunn, who lateralled to BB after four years with Houston Ballet. When I saw Dunn execute, I saw a young Daniel Ulbricht (Principal Dancer with New York City Ballet). Like Ulbricht, Dunn is ceaselessly exciting to watch. He explodes with energy no matter what he does on stage, has pristine bearing and technique, and takes whatever he’s doing – particularly solos – to another, higher, level of intensity. In the unlikely event that either NYCB or American Ballet Theatre run low on smallish power-packed dancers (or even if they don’t), they should give him a look. [My colleague, Carla DeFord, who reviews performances in the Boston area, recently highlighted both Khozashvili and Dunn in a retrospective of certain male dancer performances during BB’s 2017-2018 season. She was right.]

Both Dunn and Khozashvili are company principals. Baranova and Tapp are, respectively, a company soloist and second soloist. Baranova, in her initial pairing with Silva, is the ballerina next door. A Finnish expatriate who danced with John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet for several years before joining BB in 2015, Baranova conveys a youthful warmth and vulnerability – along with inner strength – that’s endearing (and looking a little like Alina Cojocaru doesn’t hurt). According to the BB site, she’s already assayed many major roles, including Juliet (in John Cranko’s version of Romeo and Juliet) and Nikiya in La Bayadere. Figures. Tapp looks like a stereotypical Balanchine ballerina top to bottom – not surprising since she’s a graduate of NYCB’s affiliated School of American Ballet. She too stands out – not just because she’s tall and thin and blonde with legs from here to forever (and, in this piece, relatively emotionless), but because someone as inexperienced as she is shouldn’t be able to look as supremely confident as she appears. When she’s on stage, you can’t avoid her. It remains to be seen whether acting is within her talent range, but I look forward to seeing her and all these dancers again the next time BB comes to New York.

Sara Mearns in Lori Belilove’s
“Dances of Isadora, A Solo Tribute”
Cameron Grant on piano
Photo by Stephanie Berger.

I’ve reviewed Mearns’s performance in Dances of Isadora previously (as part of Paul Taylor American Modern Dance’s “Icon” series last year), and won’t elaborate on that here. Suffice it to say that she’s marvelous in it – and a natural as a Duncan representative. It may come across as a backhanded compliment, although I don’t intend it to be, but this is one of her finest roles. And NYCB Orchestra’s Cameron Grant, who has become a star in his own right and seems to be everywhere at once, delivered the piano solos to Chopin, Brahms, and Liszt compositions as compellingly as he always does.

I dislike music that’s essentially a collection of sounds made by human body organs. And when Chris Celiz stepped in front of the curtain prior to the beginning of the third piece on the program and started creating sounds with his fingers in or around his mouth that sounded like bodily functions or just plain silly (called “beatbox vocals”), I wanted to run out of the theater. But cognoscenti knew that this performance before the performance would segue into, and become the musical background for, Caleb Teicher’s dance, and as it progressed the sounds Celiz produced to accompany Caleb Teicher & Company’s Bzzz seemed less Cage-like than cagey.

Caleb Teicher and members
of Caleb Teicher & Company in “Bzzz”
Photo by Stephanie Berger

The last (and first) time I saw Teicher was nearly a year ago as a member of the Chase Brock Experience, which presented pieces that, with one exception, I dubbed “dances of joy.” I had heard that Teicher had his own company, and now that I’ve seen an example of the work he does for himself and his own company, it seems as if joy is Teicher’s stock and trade. The program note indicates that Caleb Teicher & Company presents a wide-range of dance styles that include signature elements of musicality, humor and warmth; here, the dance form presented by CT&Co was tap – and tap with musicality, humor and warmth.

Members of Caleb Teicher & Company
in “Bzzz”
Photo by Stephanie Berger

It’s not my place to compare this company with the group led by Michelle Dorrance, the reigning queen of tap. But, based on what I’ve seen, while Dorrance takes tap into new dimensions, Bzzz elevates “traditional” tap to rare heights without altering its character or trying to make a statement. The result, for a dancing art form that’s far older in the U.S. than ballet, looks like tap not so much changed as on steroids, and ultra-contemporary. The energy level never ebbed, but it was the visual richness that I found most impressive.

Koubi’s Barbarian is another dance entirely. The program note informs that the full piece is the choreographer’s “reimagining of the origins of Mediterranean culture,” in the process examining “an ancestral fear of strangers” and “the hidden refinement of ‘barbarian’ societies.” Nothing like having a limited thematic palette.

Culture clash has been done, and I suppose culture absorption and transformation has as well, though off the top of my head I’m not aware of examples. But I doubt if any are like this. Since the dance performed in Program 1 is represented as being excerpts from the complete piece, I can’t comment on its overall quality. But what I saw, though somewhat confusing (perhaps because of the cutting and pasting that was done), was not only ambitious, but impressive.

Cie Herve Koubi dancers in
“The Barbarian Nights, or
the First Dawns of the World” (excerpt)
Photo by Stephanie Berger

Koubi and his company of male Northern African male dancers are based in France. Koubi emigrated from Algeria to France – I don’t know whether the others are emigrants as well, but that’s irrelevant. The company specializes in what’s called Northern African street dance, which describes what I saw when the company appeared at FFD a few years ago. Although my affinities don’t usually include street dance, African or otherwise, what Koubi’s company presented was dancing of undeniable quality and uncommon skill.

Slow forward, and Koubi’s company is even more impressive now. Although it’s still a form of street dancing, what’s presented here has a sort of tribal elegance to it, with nonstop motion and the dancers spinning like whirling dervishes. Upside down. On their hands. Often on one hand. At times it looks more like random athleticism than programmed movement, but that appearance is deceptive; there’s undeniable structure to the piece. And the simple costumes (designed by Koubi) of plain-looking but billowy “shorts / pantaloons” cleverly amplifies the sense of constant motion.

I don’t understand all the imagery, and ideas seem to overlap, but the visual presentation, even in this excerpt, is extraordinary. The curtain opens on two groups of people, one group “native,” the other wearing silver “helmets.” Exactly which group are the barbarians is unclear – it depends on your point of view. But that’s the point. To the constant, loud sounds of staccato tribal drumbeats, the group wearing the helmets removes them, and they gradually merge into and become (from what I saw) indistinguishable from the native group. [This seemed incomprehensible considering Koubi’s stated intent – but, as probably is too often the case, I have a theory.]

After awhile the initial incessant drumbeating yields to Mozart (an unspecified composition) and the struggle takes a different turn: a mighty battle as the tribe first resists, and then absorbs, the radically unfamiliar culture. And as the dance ends, we see the natives transformed – forever altered by the globalism that had invaded it, and facing a new, different, and uncertain future visualized by one of the tribe’s members being hoisted toward the sky by the others, presumably to peer into the sunrise of the tribe’s uncertain future and identity (aka The First Dawns of the World, the dance’s subtitle).

My theory: the primitive tribal civilization could fight against armor-clad warriors, but it could not shield itself from ideas that were dominating and beautiful. I have no idea whether that theory is what Koubi intended, and it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the visual presentation is ceaselessly exciting, but also a product of intelligence, with a point to display even if I’m not certain what that point is. And the thirteen-man company danced with a level of seeming abandon – but undeniable skill – that drove the audience crazy. One day, Koubi and his company should present Barbarians – the complete piece – to New York barbarians.

Program 2: Bach to Bach

Pam Tanowitz Dance opened FFD’s second program with a “new” take on Bach’s The Goldberg Variations. Titled simply New Work for Goldberg Variations (“New Work”) – either intentionally or because the piece’s formal name hasn’t yet been determined, the dance bears no resemblance to Jerome Robbins’s masterpiece The Goldberg Variations(and seems about 1/3 its length). On the contrary, it seems to be the anti-Robbins – and maybe the anti-Bach.

Members of Pam Tanowitz Dance
in “New Work for Goldberg Variations”
Photo by Paula Lobo

While a pianist plays center-stage, members of Tanowitz’s company, six women and one man, slowly emerge one by one and move to the music. Initially, the simple movement looks strange and purposeless beyond largely mirroring the music. Arms were thrust out, bodies slightly shimmied, steps were endlessly repeated. It seemed that Tanowitz was playing off the playfulness and repetitiveness in the piece and injecting comical movement for no apparent reason – but what came across was inane rather than comic. Sure Bach’s piece sounds repetitious and structured by phrase variations from which there appears to be little change from one to the other. [It’s not called The Goldberg Variations for nothing.]  But Bach’s music isn’t funny and is never boring. This dance is. And where Robbins took the music to levels of significance not previously considered, Tanowitz’s piece minimizes and trivializes it.

Members of Pam Tanowitz Dance
in “New Work for Goldberg Variations”
Photo by Paula Lobo

New Work did get better as the dance devolved into solo sequences with a sense of purpose even if one couldn’t discern what that purpose was, and it ended with a measure of respect for the score, but by then the damage was done.

Peck’s piece, according to the program note, is an expansion of a previous piece set to music by The National. I’m not familiar with it, but regardless, Sleep Well Beast, another in a string of sneaker ballets, stands on its own as one of his best duets. Peck is well known for his ability to move groups of dancers in endlessly interesting and inventive ways, but his pairs efforts have been lackluster. Not this time – maybe because his heart was in this one.

Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck
in “Sleep Well Beast”
Photo by Paula Lobo

To two unidentified songs, Peck and his partner (offstage as well as on) Patricia Delgado, first explore a relationship being torn apart, and then another relationship (maybe the same one; maybe not) kept together by love – although perhaps I was not seeing it accurately, since when the dance ended the two inexplicably went their separate ways. (I suppose that breaking up is hard to do, but staying together may be harder.) As perplexing as this ending was, it doesn’t diminish the quality of the choreography or execution.

One tends to forget that Peck is a fine dancer (a NYCB soloist) as well as a renowned choreographer, but his recent effort in Robbins’s West Side Story Suite (as Bernardo) rekindled memories of his powerful movement qualities. Sleep Well Beast (the title of one of The National songs?; a reference to the persistence of doubt?) displayed his raw power as well.

Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck
in “Sleep Well Beast”
Photo by Paula Lobo

Delgado was his match in inner strength, but coupled with vulnerability her portrayal was irresistible. A former Principal Dancer with Miami City Ballet, it would be very nice to get to see her dance more frequently.

An ABT member of the corps, Bond has been knocking on the door of choreographic success for a long time, but if there were still any lingering doubt as to her choreographic ability, with Inner Voices those doubts should now be put to rest.

James Whiteside (center) and
members of Gemma Bond Dance
in “Inner Voices”
Photo by Paula Lobo

To unidentified Prokofiev music, Bond here creates an interwoven series of scenes within which the members of her company, all but one are current ABT dancers (and a sizeable number of company dancers not performing populated the audience) are utilized in a variety of visual forms that maintain viewer interest throughout. No one scene or dancer dominated, although I was drawn most frequently to Catherine Hurlin, Zimmi Coker, Stephanie Williams, and Erez Milatin (previously a standout with Gelsey Kirkland’s company, then New York Theatre Ballet, and to my knowledge the one in the cast not currently an ABT member).

James Whiteside and Cassandra Trenary
in Gemma Bond’s “Inner Voices”
Photo by Paula Lobo

Within these opening and closing segments is embedded a complex pas de deux laden with definite, albeit non-specific, emotional gloss. Cassandra Trenary and James Whiteside were outstanding as the couple. Trenary looked more confident, and executed more cleanly, than during ABT’s Met season last spring (perhaps there had been a minor injury), and it was the most impassioned and selfless performance I’ve seen from Whiteside in a very long time.

But as good as my overall impression was, Inner Voices is not without concerns. There are few images beyond the pas de deux that linger in my mind, to me indicating a diffusion of focus that might limit an audience desire to see the piece again. And the ballet’s ending is far too abrupt, creating a visual void that demands to be resolved, but isn’t.

Members of Paul Taylor Dance Company
in “Promethean Fire”
Photo by Paula Lobo

Having opened with a piece to Bach, Program 2 closed with a piece to Bach – but the two compositions and choreographic presentations could not have been more different. In its first appearance since its visionary founder’s death a few weeks ago, the Paul Taylor Dance Company looks as finely tuned as it ever did. And Promethean Fire, Taylor’s unacknowledged but undeniable reflection on the events of 9/11 and the triumph of the human spirit, is a masterpiece that, like his Esplanade (but totally different in every conceivable way except choreographic competence and execution), will remain a monumental work of art for generations to come.

More on Program 3, and on other programs of Fall for Dance 2018 that I’m able to see, in a subsequent review.

The post Fall for Dance 2018: First Two (and a Half) Programs appeared first on CriticalDance.

Oregon Ballet Theatre
Keller Auditorium
Portland, OR

October 6, 2018 (Opening Night)
Napoli

Dean Speer

I initially had no direct connection to Bournonville’s work in my own ballet training until I began studying with Flemming Halby, at Seattle’s First Chamber Dance Company in the 1970s, then followed him to his Dance Lab School (when First Chamber Dance Company shut down, three of the dancers began their own school — Halby, the inimitable Sara de Luis, and Raymond Bussey) and then to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s School, where he was on the faculty until his retirement. Halby first caught my eye as a young dancer when, watching him in a studio rehearsal, he executed a perfect sequence of a sauté a la seconde that immediately went into a grand jeté en tournant (aka, a tour jeté); I recall how he always wore a blue, knit unitard, and how hard all the dancers worked — and sweated. Flemming was Danish trained and liked to recount how he began as a child — one of the many on the bridge scene in Act III of Napoli, and how he grew through the ranks to become a principal of the Royal Danish Ballet. We’d beg him to give us some Bournonville steps and sequences and sometimes we’d be lucky enough that he’d acquiesce and give us something really fun and challenging. I was also so impressed and pleased when PNB’s directors at the time, Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, asked him to stage PNB’s first complete act from the historic and iconic Bournonville canon — in this case Flower Festival at Genzano. As I recall, it was wonderfully done. (The pas de deux from this ballet is often seen, but rarely do we get to see the whole thing.)

Peter Franc, Xuan Cheng,
and Oregon Ballet Theatre dancers
in August Bournonville’s “Napoli”
Photo by Jingzi Zhao

You can imagine how thrilled all of us were when Oregon Ballet Theatre announced last year that not only would they be bringing back their rendition of their Act III of Napoli, which they first did in 2015, but that they would be producing the ballet in its entirety. Wow. I believe OBT is first ballet company in North America to stage the full-length version of this ballet. OBT built its production, locally, from scratch including sets, costumes, and importantly bringing Danish ballet royalty to stage and coach the cast:  Frank Andersen (former Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Ballet); Dinna Bjørn (former Royal Danish Ballet dancer and former Artistic Director of the both the Norwegian and Swedish National Ballets); Eva Kloberg (former ballet mistress and teacher at The Royal Ballet School, as well as The Royal Danish Ballet in the Bournonville repertoire); rounding this out costume and scenery designer Marie í Dali, a frequent contributor to things Danish — opera, theatre, and the ballet.

Kelsie Nobriga,
Matthew Pawlicki-Sinclair,
and Oregon Ballet Theatre dancers
in August Bournonville’s “Napoli”
Photo by Jingzi Zhao

Opening Night was one for the books — truly a milestone in the artistic and business growth of OBT and how enriching to have this important ballet now available to NW audiences. The entire Company, augmented by OBT II, OBT School students, plus supernumeraries were on their A game, for sure. Revisiting Act III, I found it even tighter and fuller and before, replete with details, small and large, and a rousing, rousing Tarantella that made us all want to rush out, buy our own tambourines and move to a village where everyone dances after dinner. How wonderful is that?

Oregon Ballet Theater dancers
Xuan Cheng and Peter Franc
in August Bournonville’s “Napoli”
Photo by James McGrew.

The amazing cast included Xuan Cheng as the spunky heroine Teresina, Peter Franc as her faithful boyfriend/fiancee, ballet mistress Lisa Kipp doing a turn (literally and with great fun and panache) as Teresina’s mother, Veronica, ballet master Jeffrey Stanton doing double duty as both Fra Ambrosio (a friar) and as a troubidor singer, Pascarillo, and comedically competing for Teresina’s hand, Adam Hartley as Giacomo, and as Peppo, Michael Linsmeier.

Jeff Stanton
and Oregon Ballet Theatre dancers
in August Bournonville’s “Napoli”
Photo by Jingzi Zhao

In Act II, principal Chauncey Parsons got to exercise not only his dancing but also his acting chops as the sea monster, Golfo, who transforms Teresina into a Naiad (water spirit), with a group of water nymphs led by Ansa Capizzi and Makino Hayashi.

As much as I loved and adored Act I and II, I was living for Act III, especially its lively dancing — the pas de six and its accompanying Tarantella. So much precision, pep, small and large jumps (often combined), and sweet delivery made for a rousing finale. Kudos to Eva Burton, Kimberly Fromm, Hayashi, Katherine Monogue, Emily Parker, and the cadre of men — Thomas Baker, Colby Parsons, Matthew Pawlicki-Sinclair, and the featured Brian Simcoe. (This was largely the same cast who did the Balabile dance in Act I, and supplemented by Jessica Lind, Kelsie Nobriga, Christopher Kaiser, and Theodore Watler).

Xuan Cheng
and Oregon Ballet Theatre dancers
in August Bournonville’s “Napoli”
Photo by Jingzi Zhao

Some of the Bournonville characteristics I enjoyed were turns from second position (rarely done), tight pirouettes into a fifth position that were long held, arms en bas (low fifth), and the quick use of feet with rapid small steps.

And if you were looking for the traditional pas de deux and attendant variations, they were embedded in the swirl of the grand Tarantella. Cheng and Franc greatly excelled in their assignments, each with the joy and style that comes with this choreographer’s work. They displayed sustained balances, turns and beats galore.

Oregon Ballet Theater dancers
Chauncey Parsons and Xuan Cheng
in August Bournonville’s “Napoli”
Photo by Jingzi Zhao.

(I love the true story of how Bournonville was banished from Denmark for un-authorized speaking to the king from the stage, and how he turned this to his artistic advantage by soaking up other cultural expressions in foreign lands and then later incorporating these into his ballets upon his Prodigal return.)

Music Director Niel DePonte led the 53 piece mighty OBT Orchestra through the historic score composed by Edvard Helsted, Holger Simon Paulli, Niels W. Gade, Francois Henri Prume, and Hans Christian Lumbye.

OBT’s production of this classical ballet was more than first-rate, and I know I want to see it again and again. In my view, it could be brought back each year as perhaps a seasonal offering.

Let’s get our tambourines and celebrate!

The post Oregon Ballet Theatre’s “Napoli”: Royally Served appeared first on CriticalDance.

[pending receipt of performance photographs]

New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York

October 6, 2018, afternoon and evening
Pulcinella Variations, This Bitter Earth, The Runaway, Fearful Symmetries
The Exchange, In Vento, Judah, The Runaway

Jerry Hochman

New York City Ballet’s Fall 2018 Season continued last week with three new dances and four others by 21st Century Choreographers (translated: neither Balanchine nor Robbins). While Justin Peck’s Pulcinella Variations, Mauro Bigonzetti’s In Vento, Christopher Wheeldon’s This Bitter Earth, and Peter Martins’s Fearful Symmetries are interesting and more, all but In Vento have been seen and reviewed several times previously (they premiered with NYCB in 2017, 2006, 2012, and 1990 respectively). Accordingly, the focus was on this season’s new dances, each of which premiered at NYCB’s 2018 Fall Gala (which, this year, I was unable to see).

The results are mixed, which is not unusual for a set of new dances, and which serves to reemphasize the commendable chances that the company takes year after year in its efforts to present new ballets to supplement its classic repertoire. Matthew Neenan’s The Exchange, his first piece for NYCB, was disappointing, and Gianna Reisen’s Judah, is a curious and engaging, though not entirely successful sophomore effort.  But Kyle Abraham’s The Runaway is a ballet of a different color.

Contrary to the buzz I heard following its premiere, I found The Runaway to be a landmark ballet (yes, it’s a ballet) that’s audacious and intelligent, and one of the finest, and certainly most original, creations I’ve seen this year.

Taylor Stanley
in Kyle Abraham’s “The Runaway”
Photo by Paul Kolnik

I was prepared to dislike Abraham’s new piece because I had not been impressed with his recent efforts for his own company. And even given Taylor Stanley’s astonishing performance, I did dislike it, intensely, for maybe ⅔ of its length on first view (at Saturday’s matinee The Runaway replaced the originally announced Concerto DSCH, for no apparent or indicated reason). But then I began to understand what Abraham was trying to do – or at least came up with an explanation that made sense of it all.

One could view The Runaway as a collection of dances to various musical selections – no less, but no more. But doing so would reduce The Runaway to sound and fury signifying nothing more than that Abraham can adapt his choreographic style to ballet (or vice versa). Though that’s not an insignificant accomplishment, it leaves a bitter taste because he could have done the same thing without making the disturbing musical choices he made. And I suspect that many in the audience were impressed with The Runaway simply because Abraham choreographed to these violent and egocentric lyrics on seemingly sacred establishment ground (the DHK theater stage), because the NYCB dancers looked astonishingly good executing it, and because the costumes were brilliantly outrageous.

(l-r) Sara Mearns, Georgina Pazcoguin,
and Ashley Bouder in Kyle Abraham’s
“The Runaway”
Photo by Paul Kolnik

But rightly or wrongly I give Abraham credit here for more than that, based on several factors: his success in having the dance flow as seamlessly as it does notwithstanding the cacophony of music and the riot of movement that he presents, and on clues embedded in the ballet’s structure and imagery that cannot be ignored. First is the title, which is too meaningful to have been employed for no reason. More significant is the fact that Stanley’s lead character opens and closes the piece with a solo, and although he occasionally travels through the scenes in between, the solos reflect a sense of yearning and questioning and discomfort (at the beginning), and of a tortured, maybe repulsed soul (at the end). In between were the exuberant dances to a carefully curated assortment of songs with titles that include “I Am a God,” “I Love Kanye,” and “I Thought About Killing You,” most of which, frankly, I could have been perfectly happy never having heard. Lastly, the costumes, by Giles Deacon (supervised by Marc Happel) are ridiculous – quite intentionally. Dancers wear harlequinish costumes, albeit in black and white color blotches, accessorized with cones of black frizzy hair appended to their heads where pigtails might be or a shock of spiked black hair rising above a ballet bun, black fur-like accessories around their necks like lion manes, and a mass of  hair rising straight from the wearer’s neck like two-foot, tightly wound, porcupine quills where the body’s head is supposed to be. It was unreal.

And maybe it’s supposed to be. Everything in between Taylor’s opening and closing solos is, to one extent or another, a cartoonishly unreal visualization of songs that are, in their own way, equally cartoonish and which may reflect an overcompensating way of creating – or being a reflection of – an outsized and presidential ego, which itself might be an overcompensation in response to an overwhelming underlying challenge. To me, there’s no way to see them other than as mini-dreams – or mini-nightmares – even though each individual movement sequence can be isolated and appreciated for its intelligently different choreography and the brilliance of its execution.

Taylor Stanley (front)
and members of New York City Ballet
in Kyle Abraham’s “The Runaway”
Photo by Paul Kolnik

Indeed, despite being musically and choreographically “in your face” and largely distasteful and disturbing, that’s part of what I think is Abraham’s point.  If I got it – and I’m not sure I did – The Runaway is more than just a rap ballet (hip-hop would be much too whitewashed a term for some of the music Abraham uses). It could be seen as an individual’s trying to cope with his differences (whether racial, sexual, emotional, or all combined) and finding the available alternatives that his societal circle provides to be repulsive, unhelpful and maybe shameful (at the end, Taylor strikes an overwhelmed, hopeless, despairing pose, bent over, his back to the audience, seemingly cradling his head in shame). But it could also be seen as a novel way of observing and describing an individualized “black experience” (although I don’t believe I’m competent to discuss what that experience feels like). And it also works more universally as a visualization of a person uncomfortable in his (or her) own skin, for whom there is no viable way to escape.

But regardless of the way the dance hits you, and even if you can’t stand the songs or Abraham’s choreographic style (which, after the fact and in context, I see as inventive and meaningful, evolutionary rather than revolutionary, different rather than nihilistic), one must see The Runaway for the dancers. Aside from Taylor, whose performance is an award-worthy tour de force, every member of the cast (Ashley Bouder, Sara Mearns, Georgina Pazcoguin, Jonathan Fahoury, Roman Mejia, Sebastian Villarini-Velez, and Peter Walker) seemed released from stylistic straightjackets and bursting with energy. And although one expects Bouder to deliver electrified speed (though maybe not to the “non-stop dynamo”extent she does here) and Pazcoguin to be very good overall and particularly in the piece’s rare opportunities for comic relief, seeing Mearns move around the stage like a turbo-charged engine was especially priceless.

Unfortunately, I can’t be as enthusiastic about the other two premieres. Matthew Neenan is a well-known and undeniably accomplished choreographer, having created many pieces for Pennsylvania Ballet as well as for the company he co-founded, Philadelphia’s Ballet X, which has made several recent appearances at the Joyce Theater. I usually find his dances impressive, but here he misses the mark. But for the costumes by Gareth Pugh, which bathe the stage in a red blur as the dancers, in their red costumes, sail through the choreography, The Exchange is forgettable.

The dance itself, to music by Dvorak, is at once strange, simplistic, and repetitious. The ballet’s all too obvious theme is an “exchange” between a starched group of dancers (apparently at some formal gathering, but that’s not clear) imprisoned behind red masks (like stockings) that restrict their emotional responses and close-fitting costumes that restrict their physical motion, and another group of “liberated” dancers unencumbered by restrictions either of movement or emotion. Of course, freedom is better than restraint, so eventually the “exchange” takes place during which the initial group recognizes that it’s more fun to be free, and ditches the masks – more a replacement than an exchange.

What undoes the dance, however, isn’t the simplistic theme so much as the repetitious choreography. With rare exception, most of what I recall seeing was the same or similar movement sequences repeated too many times. One image that I vividly recall is of the “masked” group seemingly plastered against the rear stage wall like sculpted wallflowers, which instantly tells you everything you need to know about what Neenan was trying to say. But one memorable image, and stunning-looking costumes, do not a ballet make. Maria Kowroski and Russell Janzen, and Tiler Peck and Joseph Gordon, respectively led the icily distant masked and free-flowing unencumbered groups.

I enjoyed Gianna Reisen’s debut piece (Composer’s Holiday), which premiered at the company’s 2017 Fall Gala, but despite substantial visual variety and interesting staging, Judah comes across more as a ballet in search of reason for being than one for which some reason might be irrelevant. I don’t think that Reisen had a particular point in mind beyond creating an interesting-looking dance, and there doesn’t have to be one. But as staged, it seems that there should be one, but it’s not there, or not sufficiently evident if it is.

To an assortment of music by John Adams (from an album titled “John’s Book of Alleged Dances,” one of which is titled “Judah to Ocean”), and to mercifully non-spectacular but attractive and perfectly appropriate costumes by Alberta Ferretti, there is a vague sense here of dances at a gathering of nymphs and fauns, either celebrating … something (maybe the freedom from restriction that they enjoy) or searching or waiting for … something (there are multiple images of one or another or a pair seemingly staring out into the distance), and of a hierarchy as to which Lauren Lovette and Preston Chamblee are the apex (and the only ones wearing white), and Harrison Ball is either second in command or a rival.

The stage is dominated by a pair of multi-step platform stairways to nowhere rising from downstage left and right roughly six feet up from the floor. Individual dancers from time to time either stare out from the promontory that the top level creates (the dance opens with one man – to my recollection Ball, but I’m not certain – staring into the distance while some of the nymphs and fauns frolic below him), or as platforms upon which Lovette and Chamblee are occasionally and somewhat regally positioned. These stepped platforms might have been intended to be a substitute for the cliché images of dancers gathering in a scrum and lifting one or another over their heads for whatever reason, or, of course, they may have had no purpose at all beyond being a convenient abstract substitute for a cliff or a place of honor, but their unexplained presence is annoying.

It’s also possible that there’s more to the ballet’s title than a connection to one of Adams’s “dances:” the name “Judah” inevitably brings to mind a Biblical reference of some sort, but unless all these dancers are meant to be descendants of the Tribe of Judah standing sentinel in anticipation of invasion while dancing because, well, what else does one do when life in the wilderness is otherwise pretty dead [dead…Dead Sea… sorry], I saw nothing that would support that. Rather, if anything, I saw a little of the atmosphere of Ashton’s Sylvia. Just a little.

The dance has a cast of thousands – well, eighteen, and the variety of movement succeeds in moving things along in a visually interesting ways, even if it’s unclear that the ballet is anything more than that. In addition to Lovette, Chamblee and Ball, Sara Adams, Megan LeCrone, and Indiana Woodward led the engaging cast that serves to reemphasize that, still, NYCB is blessed with an embarrassment of riches.

Of the remaining dances I saw on both Saturday programs, each has considerable merit. In Vento is the third piece by Bigonzetti, with music by his frequent collaborator Bruno  Moretti, that I’ve seen, and it’s by far the best. [The others were Oltremare and Vespro.] It’s an interesting, compelling piece, which I suspect was considerably more unusual when it premiered than it seems now – there’s a sense that by now this sort of thing has been done many times. Nevertheless, the images of dancers emerging out from (or into) the darkened upstage wall / curtain into an atmosphere only slightly less opaque, within which they move as if illuminated shadows (lighting by the always masterful but often under-recognized Mark Stanley) seemingly as visualizations of emotions that pass through the lead dancer’s mind as if carried through his memory by wind (“In Vento” means “in the wind”).

With the dancers clad in black mesh and black toe shoes (the bare-chested men wearing black tights), and with the shadowy ambiance, In Vento looks other-worldly. The piece is not without overt sexual imagery (women are repeatedly lifted and, with their legs spread, rotated 360 degrees sideways in front of the men who lift them), but here the images serve a purpose and are less exploitative than my description sounds. Andrew Veyette was the tormented soul, either dreaming or reliving or simply observing the images that blow through the dance, and Maria Kowroski and Russell Janzen carried the laboring dancing oar. Olivia Boisson, Laine Habony, Sarah Villwock, Gilbert Bolden III, Lars Nelson, Villarini-Velez and Walker, at times moving as a group of windswept leafy branches (in the form of chains moving out of sync with each other), and at times dancing in subgroupings, executed superbly.

Members of New York City Ballet
in a prior performance
of Peter Martins’s “Fearful Symmetries”
Photo by Paul Kolnik

Also executing superbly were those dancers having their role debuts in Fearful Symmetries. I’ve observed previously that contemporaneous opinions as to Martins’s skills as a choreographer appear to have been prejudiced by his not being Balanchine. Seen with fresh eyes, a significant number of his pieces, though not at the masterpiece level, are not at all without ingenuity or quality craftsmanship. Fearful Symmetries is one of them, and the piece had the advantage of superlative performances from Emilie Gerrity and Chamblee (in role debuts), Kristen Segin and Troy Schumacher (and it was nice to see Segin’s sparking stage presence again following her recovery from an injury), and (also in role debuts) a particularly liquid and commanding Miriam Miller (as I overheard one person sitting near me say to another after the dance ended, “Who is that ballerina with the long legs”) and Alec Knight.

In another unannounced program change, Teresa Reichlen and Ask la Cour replaced the originally scheduled Tiler Peck and Tyler Angle in Christopher Wheeldon’s This Bitter Earth. Both Reichlen and la Cour debuted in these roles the previous night.

Christopher Wheeldon’s “This Bitter Earth,”
here in a prior performance
with Wendy Whelan and Tyler Angle
Photo by Paul Kolnik

I saw This Bitter Earth at its NYCB premiere in 2012, consider it one of Wheeldon’s finest and most moving dances, and am forever locked into the masterful performance then given by Wendy Whelan, who infused her portrayal with the emotion and the gravitas essential to match, and illuminate, the recorded performance of the song by Dinah Washington. Reichlen, a wonderfully accomplished dancer always compelling to watch, executed Wheeldon’s steps magnificently, but her relatively stoic visage (but for a few moments toward the dance’s end) didn’t fit the emotional bitterness and triumphant resignation that the role demands. La Cour’s role didn’t require the same emotional investment, and his execution was first rate.

Member of New York City Ballet
in a prior performance
of Justin Peck’s “Pulcinella Variations”
Photo by Paul Kolnik

Finally, Justin Peck’s Pulcinella Variations, which premiered at NYCB’s Fall Gala a year ago, is unlike the standard operating Peck piece in every conceivable way except craft-worthiness.  It looks retro. Featuring an eye-filling assortment of costumes by Tsumori Chisato, the ballet is Peck at his most classical in form. Maybe that’s off-putting to some, but it’s a clever piece of work that’s not only well-crafted, but a lot of fun to watch. Claire Kretzschmar, Unity Phelan, Brittany Pollack (back from Carousel on Broadway), Lydia Wellington, Mearns, Daniel Applebaum, Sean Suozzi, Gordon and Janzen comprised the cast. Suozzi and Kretszchmar were particularly thrilling to watch, and Gordon continues to excel as circumstances have compelled him to assume a lead or featured role in an unusually large number of dances this season. But I’ve been noticing, as at times was evident here, that he tends to be slightly ahead of the music. The result makes him look a bit like a hyperactive puppy, but under the circumstances that’s not necessarily bad.

The season continues into its last week with repertory programs, culminating in Joaquin De Luz’s farewell on October 14.

The post New York City Ballet: A Runaway Hit appeared first on CriticalDance.

[Pending receipt of performance photographs]

New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York

October 12 and 14, 2018
Afternoon of a Faun, Other Dances, Moves, Something to Dance About
Theme and Variations, Concerto Barocco, A Suite of Dances, Todo Buenos Aires (De Luz Farewell)

Jerry Hochman

The first time I saw Joaquin De Luz was when he portrayed the Bronze Idol in American Ballet Theatre’s La Bayadère, which I then understood (though I’m not certain) was his first featured role with that company. Although I’ve never seen that bit of performance excitement executed poorly, with the possible exception of Daniil Simkin I have not seen anyone attack it with the explosion of energy De Luz did. Instantly, he became unforgettable.

I have now seen De Luz’s Farewell performance, this past Sunday, with New York City Ballet, the company he joined as a soloist (a rare lateral) in 2003 after leaving ABT. A Principal Dancer since 2005, he’s still exciting after all these years. But now, there’s far more to his performances than excitement.

Joaquin De Luz
and members of New York City Ballet
at his Farewell Celebration
Photo by Jerry Hochman

I’ll elaborate on De Luz’s Farewell celebration shortly, after first addressing several outstanding performances two nights earlier. But if there’s one feature that unites all of these dances on both of these programs, it’s the welcome sense of unbounded joy that wafted over the DHK Theater stage and into the audience like a benevolent blast of fresh air.

NYCB dedicated a significant portion of its Spring 2018 season to celebrate the centennial of Jerome Robbins’s birth. It was a sensational retrospective of many of his ballets, and was the occasion to honor that most human of choreographers. This season, the company continued that celebration with a program devoted entirely to Robbins. I saw this program the day following Robbins’s “real” hundredth birthday, and the program was extraordinary not just because of Robbins’s choreography, but because of the performances.  Tiler Peck and De Luz danced an exquisite Other Dances, and just prior to that were the sensational role debuts of Lauren Lovette and Kennard Henson in Afternoon of a Faun.

Robbins’s take on the Nijinsky original converts the environment from a forest glade to a ballet studio, the characters from a bevy of nymphs and a lone faun to self-absorbed male and female ballet dancers, and the action from an erotic encounter to … an erotic encounter. Most significantly, instead of fantasy animal-like humans responding to their impulses, Robbins’s characters are portrayed as stereotypical dancer/narcissists in love with their images as reflected in the studio mirrors (the fourth wall) into which they stare at their perfection. The ballerina intrudes on the male dancer’s preening (as the bevy of nymphs intrudes on the faun’s solitude), and they subsequently connect in way that appears to be some emotionally remote interruption of their self-absorption. The ballerina then exits, leaving the male dancer again alone with his muted memory, and, significantly, the ballerina with a registered memory of her own.

The ballet is far more than the brief emotional connection of two unfeeling dancer / automatons. While he adds an essential measure of fluidity into the sense of primitive two-dimensionality that was dominant in Nijinsky’s original, the real genius of the piece, and of Robbins, is to retain the ballet dancer stereotype while injecting in both characters emotion beneath the surface; in the process, while observing and commenting on their narcissism, making the characters real.

Ideally, every dancer in these roles should project the combination of narcissism and barely concealed intimacy that resonates through this ballet, and although I usually see portrayals that err on the side of self-absorption, all to one extent or another do. But Lovette and Henson took their portrayals to another dimension.

Lovette should have been cast in Afternoon of a Faun several years ago, but her debut was worth waiting for. Now every inch the ballerina, she nevertheless has retained that irresistible combination of innocence and experience that has marked her stage persona since day one. The result, in this performance, was the gradual display of an emotional disturbance of the narcissistic force that simmers beneath the surface of a ballet that demands no obvious display of emotion. The operative word there is “simmers.” Nothing in Lovette’s response to the encounter cracks the stoic, self-absorbed veneer, but her emotional response is nevertheless radiantly palpable, unmistakable, and unavoidable.

And Kennard Henson, a relatively new member of the corps, was Lovette’s equal in under-the-surface emotional expression and semi-stoic arousal. More significantly, especially for one so inexperienced, is his display of partnering ability. The piece requires more in the way of partnering than would be immediately apparent, but different from the usual “keep her centered,” “lift her securely and effortlessly,” and in the best cases “present her as the focus of attention.” Here the partnering was more subtle and measured, but no less demanding, and Henson executed flawlessly.

I rarely describe a performance as “perfect,” because I’m not exactly sure what “perfect” is, and there’s usually something, however minor, that my hypercritical mind can find to nit-pick. But, aware of the irony of describing a ballet featuring characters whose artistic and life goal is unattainable perfection as perfect, this one was. And Lovette and Henson seemed to know instinctively that they’d nailed it: during their curtain calls, they seemed barely able to contain their joy. And somewhere, Robbins is smiling.

Joaquin De Luz and Tiler Peck
following their performance
in George Balanchine’s
“Theme and Variations”
at his Farewell Celebration
Photo by Jerry Hochman

The pieces that followed took the evening’s joyous emotional level, primarily because of De Luz, in a different but equally satisfying level.

Other Dances is another Robbins masterwork. To Chopin music that he had not already used for his Dances at a Gathering, Robbins crafted a series of dances that gently merges folk roots with a sense of the joy of being alive, and of being alive to share that joy with one’s partner. It’s been a very long time since I saw the piece’s premiere in 1976 with Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov, but the memory of that performance is not easily forgettable, and on Friday Peck and De Luz did that memory justice. It should go without saying that both executed brilliantly, but Peck added her impeccable phrasing and timing, De Luz added his indomitable and irrepressible energy, and together they ignited the joy that has illuminated all of their performances together.

After a superlative performance of Robbins’s Moves, a ballet in silence (and one of the few of his ballets that I appreciate more than love) that was highlighted by a noteworthy performance by Unity Phelan in the opening pas de deux (with Taylor Stanley, whose season has been nothing short of remarkable), the evening concluded with Something to Dance About, Warren Carlyle’s heart-warming, tear-jerking staging of a collection of Robbins’s Broadway choreography that pushes every conceivable emotional button. I reviewed it when it premiered, and will not push those buttons again myself, but one of that performance’s highlights was Lovette and De Luz as Maria and Tony from West Side Story. Although they were in character, both were effervescent.

And now to the Farewell.

Aside from his obvious talent as a dancer, I didn’t really like De Luz after seeing several of his initial NYCB performances. First, there was envy. I thought that the world didn’t need another talented, good-looking short guy like me. [No, I’m not serious.] [Well, look, one out of three isn’t bad.] Second, for all his prodigious individual talent, I often got the sense that he was too much into himself and consequently less successful as a partner than he was when dancing solo.

Joaquin De Luz
following his performance
in Jerome Robbins’s
“A Suite of Dances”
at his Farewell Celebration
Photo by Jerry Hochman

But in the past few years, either De Luz has mellowed or I have, and to my eye his performances, though no less superlative than they were previously, were less about him than about his partner(s) and his audience. Perhaps the significance is one of my own making, but De Luz transcended it regardless. De Luz has continued to excel in his usual roles as dancer and partner, and there is nothing he did before that he seemingly cannot do now, but perhaps better now than he ever did. If not a shift of attitude, then maybe it’s only the maturing of an artist. Whatever it is, that quality is there now. And to a large extent, it’s about the joy, which seemed to come to a crescendo as his retirement approached.

I recall no one who has gone out on the artistic high that De Luz has. Instead of gradually winding down and no longer attempting roles that are too demanding, in this past brief season, among other appearances, De Luz danced his final Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux (with Peck), La Sylphide (with Sterling Hyltin), The Prodigal Son (with Kowroski), Other Dances (with Peck), and maybe the most astonishing of all, Theme and Variations (with Peck). That array of dances might not be exceptional for one in his prime, but for a retiring dancer, it’s Herculean.

Tiler Peck, Joaquin De Luz
(facing the cast),
and members of New York City Ballet
following his performance in
George Balanchine’s
“Theme and Variations”
at his Farewell Celebration
Photo by Jerry Hochman

And Theme, which was the opening dance on this Farewell program, was particularly extraordinary. It’s Balanchine at his best and one of the ballets that first enlightened me as to Balanchine’s choreographic intelligence and genius, but it’s not for the faint of dancing heart, and certainly not one that would be expected on the Farewell program of a dancer whose hair is beginning to show strands of grey. De Luz not only got through it, but he executed thoroughly and enviably. His partnership with Peck is exciting whenever it appears – as was evident in their Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux earlier this season, and Other Dances on Friday – and was particularly electric on Sunday. When the piece ended, De Luz, joy etched on his face, was saluted not only by the ecstatic audience (which included a group sitting a row in front of me “bravoing” with particular joy, as well as many current and former dancers from ABT), but also by his cast, which included two corps dancers promoted to soloist the previous day, Peter Walker and Aaron Sanz, both of whom appeared particularly pumped (and with Sanz – like De Luz, hailing from Madrid – soaring toward the stage rafters as if he intended to personally fly the Event all the way to Spain).

Joaquin De Luz with Ann Kim
following his performance
in Jerome Robbins’s “A Suite of Dances”
at his Farewell Celebration
Photo by Jerry Hochman

After Theme, everything else on Sunday’s program was a relative piece of celebratory cake. Following a performance of Concerto Barocco that allowed him to change costume and catch his breath (and which was the same cast that appeared in the company’s first repertory program this season, except Kowroski was assigned to the lead pairing opposite Abi Stafford, and the result was a much better visual impression), De Luz closed his NYCB career with Robbins’s A Suite of Dances and Peter Martins’s Todo Buenos Aires. De Luz debuted in the Robbins piece during last season’s Robbins celebration, and at that time delivered a memorable performance in the role originally choreographed for Baryshnikov (another rare lateral from ABT}. Sunday’s performance, again accompanied by Ann Kim on cello, was no less sensational – and maybe it was more so, because by then De Luz seemingly couldn’t stop smiling. Todo Buenos Aires, while not one of Martins’s best pieces, is a showcase for the lead male dancer, and De Luz played it to the hilt, by then dancing on air.

Following the usual front-of-curtain curtain calls with Todo Buenos Aires colleagues Sara Mearns, Kowroski, Jared Angle, Ask la Cour, Andrew Veyette, and Stanley, the curtain opened on De Luz alone, and the audience roared. After a presentation of floral bouquets from a parade of the company’s female principals and single roses from the male soloists, the balance of the company and members of its artistic staff appeared, along with several people I didn’t recognize – including  the group who had been sitting in that row in front of me “bravoing” earlier, who I was later informed consisted of De Luz’s family, including his mother, with whom he briefly but ecstatically danced beside a Spanish flag that De Luz had draped over the floral bouquets. Confetti was released from the rafters and the curtain calls continued until the curtain closed for the last time, after which a celebratory roar could be heard emanating from behind it.

Joaquin De Luz
and members of New York City Ballet
at his Farewell Celebration
Photo by Jerry Hochman

I’ve attended many ballerina Farewells over the years, but have rarely done the same for retiring male dancers. There seem to be far fewer of them, and the emotional attachment isn’t quite the same for me. But I made it a point to attend this one because of the metamorphosis I saw in De Luz over the years from being another pint-sized dynamo of a dancer (size is relative; from occasional sightings off-stage, he’s not really that short), to being a pint-sized dynamo with a heart. Indeed, the last one I can recall seeing was when a soloist named Ethan Brown (Leslie Browne’s and Elizabeth Laing’s brother) retired from ABT in 2004 after a towering performing as Tybalt in Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. I wrote at the time that one of Brown’s enviable stage qualities was that he appeared not to be some unapproachable Olympian god, but to be one of us, albeit one of us with talent. Coincidentally, and unless I’m mistaken, one of the former ABT dancers I spied at Sunday’s performance was Ethan Brown.

De Luz may be far more competent and explosive a dancer than any of us ever could be, but in a way he’s evolved also to be one of us. His presence, and the performance joy he brought with him, will be greatly missed.

The post New York City Ballet: Celebrate, Celebrate (Dance to the Music) appeared first on CriticalDance.

Pennsylvania Ballet
Academy of Music
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

October 14, 2018 at 2:00pm
Romeo & Juliet

Sigrid Payne DaVeiga

Artistic Director Angel Corella introduced this afternoon’s presentation of Romeo & Juliet with a dedication to Beatrice Jona Affron, Music Director and Conductor for Pennsylvania Ballet. Affron is credited with being a “silent poet” for the company as well as the city of Philadelphia. She has led more performances at the Academy of Music than any conductor before her. Dancers and musicians alike cite her as a person of extraordinary compassion, professionalism, and integrity. The music of Romeo & Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev showcased Affron’s magic as a conductor and musical force. Affron graciously accepted her lauds of praise, but did not leave the audience waiting longer than a minute to jump into her position in the orchestra pit and begin the overtures of Romeo & Juliet.

The production opened on an immense mural, occupying the entire stage, of a landscape with two large regal houses on either side, as if en face and seemingly already at odds in the picturesque view. As this façade lifted to transport the audience to one of many elaborate scenes, it was clear that no stone was left unturned in the intentionality of every detail in the production’s scenery and costumes by Paul Andrews. The elements of every set were impeccably executed – even the floor was dappled to appear like a flat stone surface. This is the first time Pennsylvania Ballet has performed Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo & Juliet, and the production established the company’s ability to create a meaningful, entrancing dance narrative. The grandiose movement of the story from place to place throughout the performance created a vast expanse in which to tell the greatest love story of all time.

Act One, Scene 1 was set in The Marketplace where the audience is introduced to Romeo, danced by Sterling Baca in a last minute casting change, as he seeks the company of Rosaline, danced by Jacqueline Callahan. The Marketplace erupts into an onslaught of movement of townspeople and raucous life. The Harlots, danced by Alexandra Hughes, Ana Calderon, and Adrianna de Svastich, were a humorous and exciting trio. Their bawdy hairstyles and flashy character dance were an entertaining addition to every Marketplace scene, and all three seemed to be enjoying their roles. Calderon’s great smile was a wonderful nuance that set her apart in her character’s rendition.

Romeo’s friends – Mercutio, danced by Peter Weil, and Benvolio, danced by Russell Ducker – were exceptional highlights in today’s production. Baca, Weil, and Ducker danced together as a trio multiple times and their power as dancers was quite clear. The three played well off one another, like jovial young friends enjoying their time in the Marketplace and as guests sneaking into the ball at the Capulet’s home in Act One. Weil’s Mercutio was an excellent character interpretation, embodying Shakespeare’s mercurial and unpredictable details. Weil’s leaps were impressive and far-reaching, consuming every possible space on the stage. When Mercutio was executed in Act Two, Weil’s movements – as if he was simply maimed then continuing to fight – were gripping. When he ultimately died, reaching an outstretched arm towards Romeo and Tybalt, each, the audience was entranced as he sealed the two men’s fates with his dying breath. This movement lent a level of meaning to a passage in literature that could only be elevated through the drama of this dance.

The staging of scenes when the entire space was full of dancers was very impressive. The excitement of the fencing scenes was palpable in the audience. The dances when suddenly Capulet and Montague men sword-fought, their swords heard quickly tapping against one another as the men moved back and forth between all of the other dancers on stage, caused some audience members to hold their breath in anxious anticipation. The feud in Act One, Scene 1 ended when Escalus, Prince of Verona (danced by Ian Hussey dressed in an elaborate suit of golden armor and almost unrecognizable) arrived, demanding peace. Members of each family, pulled bodies into a heap of dead on the floor after the feud, reminding the audience that the tale of Romeo & Juliet inevitably ends as a tragedy of loss. There was a notable sterility and proprietary tone to many of the scenes in the Marketplace and at the Capulet ball, which truly set apart the moments of true passion in the production when they arrive in the story.

Oksana Maslova with Artists of Pennsylvania Ballet
Photo: Alexander Iziliaev

In particular, the ball at the Capulet’s home is set in a large two-story room where many dancers walk around the center stage on the second floor looking down. There is a life-size portrait hung at the top of the stairs showcasing four women dressed in the same elaborate and regal heavy dark red and blue gowns, as the female dancers at the ball. The image this created was as if an audience member was simply looking into a large period painting. The function it served to off-set Juliet as she entered was utter perfection. A child nearby in the audience said that Oksana Maslova’s Juliet looked like a beautiful angel when she entered the ball. Maslova’s shorter, lighter, and youthful sparkling gold ball gown presented her as the perfect Juliet, of light heart and pure intentions, in sharp contrast to the dark and heavy gowns of the other women at the ball.

Like a dream, Baca’s sumptuous Romeo was drawn to Maslova’s Juliet at the ball, like two magnets in their rapture. Their pas de deux at the ball was exquisite, as magical as one could dream for their first dance. After the ball concludes, the audience is transported to a different view of the Capulet residence, where Maslova’s Juliet is seen in the balcony in the most famous of all moments from the tale of Romeo & Juliet. The lighting design by Brad Fields and Joseph Naftal was perfect at this moment, casting shadows on the pillars and statues outside of the balcony and shining a bright soft light on the beautiful Juliet on the balcony.

Oksana Maslova
Photo: Alexander Iziliaev

Baca exploded onto the stage in the shadowed light seeking her out. Their pas de deux when she exits the balcony to see him was perfection – every tip-toe, every movement of an arm or finger near each other was like the stolen brilliance of a comet, fated to never last.  The pair captured the sentiment of the two star-crossed lovers to every detail, like two stars or planets streaming past, the audience knowing the beauty of such a perfect thing could never be fated to last. The gravity-defying moments when Baca, on his knees, lifted Maslova to a pristine arabesque passé en l’air and even at one point turned her entirely upside down with her legs pointed beautifully up to the sky, served to turn the audience on its head as well in the wonder of its possibility.

The beauty of these moments and the known ephemeral nature of them, made the sounds of the violins as the curtain opened on the final scene in the Capulet Family Crypt in Act Three, Scene 4, even more poignant and chilling. One always struggles to understand the ill-fated demise of these two young lovers and MacMillan’s Juliet in Maslova’s interpretation attempted to perfectly make sense of it. MacMillan’s Juliet was intended to be determined and passionate, deciding all major decisions of her relationship with Romeo. Maslova embodied the pain and the passion of this intriguing character as she struggled to make her final choices in her ill-fated path. As an audience we watched her evolve in Act One from a young child playing dolls with her nurse, endearingly danced by Jessica Kilpatrick, to a process of forced decision, one which she would never have chosen for herself, nonetheless forced upon her by the constraints of her station in life.

Oksana Maslova
Photo: Alexander Iziliaev

In the legendary chain of events resulting in the finale of Romeo and Juliet taking their own lives, the audience is left with the empty space in the heart knowing that in the universe a love existed where there was no point in living if the love did not exist. Maslova’s Juliet died in repose on her bed reaching out to Baca’s Romeo in a scene reminiscent of their reach as the curtain closed at the end of Act One, Scene 6, when they said good-bye over the balcony ledge. This time, though, the farewell is forever. Every miniscule detail of Maslova’s despair through her dancing and her passion of interpreting Juliet is meaningful and wonderful in its execution of pain and frustration.

When Baca finds her lifeless form and attempts to dance with her and lift her in the air, Maslova’s limp arms and legs are fragile, like a small doll herself, stripped of the ability to control her movements. Timely in the presentation of a woman forced out of a choice, though her intentions were pure and simply not what others wanted for her, Juliet’s struggle in her decision to ultimately drink the poisoned elixir brings to life a timeless tale, whose message of sealed fates and a life lost because of a freedom-less fate will be significant forever.

Oksana Maslova and Artists of Pennsylvania Ballet
Photo: Alexander Iziliaev

While the audience knew the inevitable end of the tale for Romeo & Juliet, there was something shocking about Tybalt’s death on the day of this performance and the reactions it stirred in the audience. Tybalt was danced by Jermel Johnson – a dancer of iconic grace and strength, with an astounding capacity to embody the characters he plays. He is truly a master of his craft as well as a work of art to behold in and of himself, as a dancer. Today, though, his anger and passion in this character were particularly striking. His intention and fortitude were precise in every movement of his sword, his turns and immense jumps and in his body as it seemed to break in half as the sword was plunged into his stomach.

The moment that captivated everyone today, though, was his death and then sudden and surprisingly dramatic and passionate entrance of Lady Capulet, danced by Marjorie Feiring. Feiring’s performance of passionate wailing and her obvious despair were perhaps the most moving moment in the entire day’s performance. Though the suggestion of a relationship between Lady Capulet and Tybalt was a well-kept secret to this point, it was the explosion of this emotional force that brought the audience to tears. On reflection, though, the undercurrent of the message seemed intentional. The voice this moment in the choreography and its execution lended to the understanding of unrequited love, the love other characters have hidden as well, beyond Romeo and Juliet; the force required to hide true love in the face of a sterile and proprietary society, and the damage undertaken by the loss of choice of love and life for many.

Pennsylvania Ballet’s production of MacMillan’s Romeo & Juliet achieved everything it set out to achieve today. The sets, the music, the costumes, and the dancing were perfect. The hidden magic and surprise, though, was the secret in the story that only the company of Pennsylvania Ballet could concoct in their magical elixir that cast a spell on all of us today.

The final performances of Romeo & Juliet resume this weekend, October 19-21.  Visit paballet.org for details.

The post Pennsylvania Ballet: Romeo & Juliet appeared first on CriticalDance.

[pending receipt of Program 5 performance photos]

Fall for Dance 2018
New York City Center
New York, New York

October 5, 10, and 13, 2017
Program 3: Reclamation Map (Tayeh Dance with Heather Christian), Balamouk (Dance Theatre of Harlem), Midnight Raga (Nederlands Dans Theater 2), The Crane Calling (excerpt)

Program 4: Rhapsody (excerpts) (Alina Cojocaru and Herman Cornejo), Canto Ostinato (Introdans), Petrushka (Tiler Peck, Lil Buck, and Brooklyn Mack), Rennie Harris Funkedified (excerpt) (Rennie Harris Puremovement – American Street Dance Theater) 

Program 5: Con Brazos Abiertos (Ballet Hispanico), Tangos (Junior Cervila & Guadalupe Garcia), El cruce sobre el Niágara (Acosta Danza), Stack-Up (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater)

Jerry Hochman

After the overall excellence of the first three programs (actually the first two and a half), which were the subject of a previous review, with a few noteworthy exceptions the overall quality level of the 2018 Fall for Dance programming diminished during its second week. Most of these dances (except for the piece danced by Ballet Hispanico, which I’ve previously seen and reviewed) were well done, though not exceptional or particularly noteworthy. But there were a few that were either unsatisfying introductions to the appearing company, collections of unconnected scenes that preached to the converted but not much more, or bereft of any reason for being.

I’ll here consider the dances seriatim, initially expanding on my review of Program 3, and then consider programs 4 and 5. In sum, aside from the first two pieces in Program 3 (which I was so excited about I included a brief discussion of them together with my observations of Programs 1 and 2), the remaining programs’ highlights were, in program 4, seeing Alina Cojocaru once again grace a New York stage, and a new interpretation of Petrushka choreographed by Jennifer Weber and featuring Tiler Peck, Lil Buck, and Brooklyn Mack; and in Program 5, a series of tangos danced by Junior Cervila and Guadalupe Garcia, and a sterling performance by two male dancers from Cuba’s Acosta Danza in El cruce sobre el Niágara.

The first piece on Program 3 (a City Center commission receiving its world premiere) was shockingly good – perhaps to an extent because it was totally unexpected, but more than that because of the quality of the music by Heather Christian (performed by her and vocalist colleagues Jo Lampert and Onyie Nwachukwu), Sonya Tayeh’s choreography, and the execution by Tayeh Dance’s four dancers. These three components (as well as the lighting, by Davison Scandrett) feed off each other to create a deep and pervasive ambiance. And although the notion of overcoming darkness and despair through inner strength, perseverance, and a measure of faith is nothing new, Christian’s intense music and Tayeh’s intense choreography illuminate the inner (and outer) bleakness in a different and intellectually challenging way.

Members of Tayeh Dance
in Sonya Tayeh’s “Reclamation Map”
Photo by Paula Lobo

Although I did not recognize Tayeh’s name, I realized afterward that I’d seen a prior piece of hers earlier this year: Face the Torrent performed by Cuba’s Malpaso Dance Company. I didn’t enjoy it – not because it was poorly crafted (on the contrary, I found it well-crafted, creating a pervasive mood), but because that mood, that sense of the piece, was non-specific anger about everything, presumably inspiring revolutionary action. Reclamation Map is also as singularly focused, but here the need for some explanation for the atmospheric sense is unnecessary. Emotional disturbance is what it is, regardless of how it got there.

Members of Tayeh Dance,
with Heather Christian and vocalists,
in Sonya Tayeh’s “Reclamation Map”
Photo by Paula Lobo

The piece begins largely in darkness, with light eventually focusing solely on the vocalists (and with one performer, who soon will join the other dancers, sprawled on the stage floor downstage from them, sealing the connection between the dance and the vocal performances), as Christian’s rich, deep voice and animated delivery of the first of four songs – more accurately, poetic atmospheres – “Right Here,” signals the torturous but ultimately redemptive road ahead: “Darkness I know your name / I have somehow remained in your cages / Down here, a storm so small / Do you see it at all while it rages?,” which leads a stanza later to alert the audience to where the piece is going: “Here with the final word / I’ve been sitting til stirred or ignited / But I’m not a match to strike / I’m a pilot light // And here / Right here / Right here / I will draw a map with my finger / and will dare to begin.”

Gradually the lit stage area then spreads to include Tayeh’s dancers (Peiju Chien-Pott, Ida Saki, Austin Goodwin, and Reed Luplau), who visualize the emotional gravity that Christian and her colleagues create and deliver with the urgency of deep south gospel crossed with soulful country. To the second song, “My Legs The Prophets,” the choreography begins with the four dancers divided into couples, dancing emotionally painful duets that are as intense and dark as Christian’s music. Tayeh has her dancers seemingly soaring and crashing at the same time – as if trying to escape but being dragged down. And the partnering, notwithstanding the dance’s dark theme, is complex and moving. I was particularly impressed with the downstage couple – to the best of my powers of observation Chien-Pott (a principal dancer with Martha Graham Company) and Goodwin – who infused their dance with almost unbearable dramatic tension. As I wrote previously, this part of the dance was somewhat remindful of Christopher Wheeldon’s This Bitter Earth.

Members of Tayeh Dance,
with Heather Christian and vocalists,
in Sonya Tayeh’s “Reclamation Map”
Photo by Paula Lobo

With the third song, “Psalm 54: (who is gonna make me like the bird),” and while Christian and her vocal colleagues bear witness (in the gospel sense), Goodwin climbs atop the electronic piano that Christian plays while swinging and swaying and recounting. The Psalm itself speaks of abandonment and the desire to be saved, and Christian’s lyrics expand on that with the focus on escape (being saved) from the inner shackles of doubt. With the pulsing vocals and the rhythm provided by the other dancers aligned alongside him acting like a deep south, percussive version of a Greek chorus, Goodwin writhes atop the piano trying to escape, as if, like a bird, to be freed. Finally, to “The Center will Hold,” the image is of the dancers finding the strength within, as the opening introductory prelude indicated. And with the closing lyrics: “I fumble in the dark / I find my hand / I find my hand and hold it / with my other hand” the piece, and the audience along with it, finds its way out of the darkness.

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Balamouk is as good as it is not because it’s dramatically different from anything else the way Reclamation Map is, but because it perfectly utilizes the score that Ochoa curated to create a dance that looks and sounds more different than it is.

Members of Dance Theatre of Harlem
in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s “Balamouk”
Photo by Paula Lobo

Balamouk is a contemporary ballet that looks like a ballet but also doesn’t, and which creates an atmosphere that the Dance Theatre of Harlem dancers fit into without appearing either unnecessarily constrained by formal limitations or stridently asserting identity. Augmented by the colorful costumes by Mark Zappone, it’s just good choreography, good dancing, and a good time to watch. Daphne Lee, Crystal Serrano, Ingrid Silva, Amanda Smith, Lindsey Croop, Da’Von Doane, Christopher McDaniel, Anthony Santos, Dylan Santos, and Choong Hoon Lee comprised the cast, and although there was no clear individual lead dancer (there were “leads” in each dancing “scene”), to me Silva and Anthony Santos stood out. The ten DTH dancers fly through Ochoa’s seamless changes of focus as if unleashed, with the multiculturalism of the music (by Paris-based Les Yeux Noirs – one of whose songs is titled Balamouk), French composer Rene Aubry, and Australian singer / songwriter / instrumentalist Lisa Gerrard) reflecting the multiculturalism of the dancers and expanding the horizons of the presentation in the process. It’s an exuberant, vibrant, life-affirming piece that was a joy to watch. And it was perfectly set in the program – after Reclamation Map, it was good to see a piece where the souls of the characters were unburdened.

And then there was the second part of Program 3.

Midnight Raga, choreographed by Marco Goecke and performed by two men from Nederlands Dans Theater 2, is an imposition seemingly designed to irritate, with no apparent reason for being beyond torturing its dancers and its audience.

Nederlands Dans Theater 2 dancers
Surimi Fukushi and Adam Russell-Jones
in Marco Goecke’s “Midnight Raga”
Photo by Paula Lobo

When I first read the piece’s title, I saw it as “Midnight Rage.” That might have been a more apt title. Despite superb execution by Surimu Fukushi and Adam Russell-Jones, the piece is a bizarre exercise in upper body movement (there’s relatively little leg movement) that brings to mind hyperactive turbo-charged pugilistic insects caught in some sort of unsatisfying non-relationship. The music – two pieces by Ravi Shankar and one by Etta James – has nothing whatsoever to do with the movement except to provide a broad rhythmic context; the piece might have worked – or failed – just as well had it been choreographed to “Jai Ho” (from Slumdog Millionaire) and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” The only thing the piece accomplishes is to show two dancers pushed to the edge of endurance by pumping and pushing and twisting at a rapid pace and in sync. Sound and fury signifying nothing.

I was not present at its creation, but the word “Eurotrash” has come to mean dances, primarily originating in Europe, that see the world in shades of black with no point to the movement quality beyond angularity, intensity, and nihilism, expressing machine-like rage, which doesn’t travel well across the pond. Midnight Raga gives Eurotrash a bad name.

National Ballet of China dancers
in Ma Cong and Zhang Zhenxin’s
“The Crane Calling” (excerpt)
Photo by Paula Lobo

In a totally different direction, The National Ballet of China closed out the program with an excerpt from The Crane Calling. The engaging cast of 29 (including the unidentified four lead dancers) filled the City Center stage with vibrant color and equally vibrant, lilting beauty, but aside from having the opportunity to see all these Chinese ballet dancers on a stage at one time, there’s nothing to recommend the piece as presented. A story seemed buried somewhere that bore a faint resemblance to The Firebird (perhaps analogous folk sources), but the choreography is pedestrian. The best I can say is that the decision to bring a specially created for FFD excerpt of this ballet was not the best of choices, and perhaps the dance, seen in full, would make for a better presentation. However, if this is a valid example of what ballet now is in China, they have a lot of catching up to do.

Program 4

Sir Frederick Ashton’s Rhapsody (to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini), created ten years after his formal retirement in 1980 to honor the Queen Mother on her birthday, was originally choreographed for Mikhail Baryshnikov, who was guesting with the Royal Ballet that summer. The full ballet included Lesley Collier (whose New York performances with the Royal are a cherished memory) as Baryshnikov’s pas de deux partner (although I’ve seen some sources that credit Bryony Brind) and a small corps. I’ve not seen it.

Alina Cojocaru and Herman Cornejo
in Sir Frederick Ashton’s
“Rhapsody” (excerpts)
Photo by Stephanie Berger

Program 4’s opening offering consisted of excerpts from that piece, and perhaps that was why I found it disappointing. It may be heresy, but what was presented appeared to be a relatively standard pas de deux with an introductory solo by the male dancer that included a series of royal bows, that, out of context, made little sense. Parts of it are undeniably lovely, but what I saw was more form than substance, and fancy footwork that was equally meaningless. No doubt, however, that the Rachmaninoff score soars, and when it does, so does the piece. I’ve seen American Ballet Theatre’s Herman Cornejo look somewhat more energetic, although I had no quibbles about his excellent partnering. But the highlight of the piece, and the night, was seeing Alina Cojocaru once again. She clearly dances with more indicia of experience than she did when I last saw her (guesting with ABT, and performing less than optimally due apparently to a lingering injury), but she still dances with the sweetness of personality and abundance of technique that has endeared her to a legion of fans.

I don’t recall seeing the Dutch company Introdans previously, but judged by the performances of four of its dancers in Lucinda Childs’s Canto Ostinato, I’d like to see the full company.

Childs is known for her minimalist choreography and use of repetitive movement. But of those dances of hers that I’ve seen, particularly those within, say, the past 20 years, “minimalist” may be something of a misnomer. Her dances present not minimalism per se, but a variety of limited movement sequences repeated in various permutations during the course of the piece, and consequently I’ve found her dances to be far more intellectually stimulating and visually interesting than those of other minimalist choreographers.

Members of Introdans
in Lucinda Childs’s “Canto Ostinato”
Photo by Stephanie Berger

In Canto Ostinato, the four company dancers (Verine Bouwman, Salvatore Castelli, Kim Van Der Put, and Pascal Schut), move back and forth and forth and back and up and down and sideways across the stage to Simeon Ten Holt’s score, but Childs works a great deal of variety into the movement – increasing and decreasing speed, adding and deleting moves, and changing angles and directions of movement, and even multiple occasions when the dancers actually touch each other) that the result is not just hypnotic, but instructive in terms of the impact of minimal change on visual content. I wouldn’t want a steady diet of it, but it was very well done.

(l-r) Brooklyn Mack,Tiler Peck,
and Lil Buck
in Jennifer Weber’s “Petrushka”
Photo by Stephanie Berger.

The evening’s most intriguing piece, however, was hip-hop choreographer Jennifer Weber’s take on Petrushka. While not nearly as compelling as the original version by Michel Fokine for the Ballets Russes, and not as successful as it might have been, I give Weber credit for attempting to preserve the overall story while stripping the story to its core, a la Balanchine, and modifying the choreography but not making the result some hip-hop version of the original.

The Stravinsky score (or much of it) is retained, but there is no longer a set. Instead, the three characters – unidentified, but the puppets Petrushka, the Ballerina, and the Moor from the original are the characters (there is no Charlatan, and no Shrovetide Fair in St. Petersburg). The three initially share the stage in their own small open spaces spread horizontally downstage, and it quickly becomes clear what the plot is about.

Lil Buck and Tiler Peck
in Jennifer Weber’s “Petrushka”
Photo by Stephanie Berger

The dance loses the original’s zip and overtones of magical manipulation as puppets are brought to life: here it just happens. And, except for the ballerina, the other two characters have been modified: the character who was The Moor is now respectable and strong rather than an overstuffed bad boy bully. And Petrushka is portrayed not as a downtrodden puppet suffering from low self-esteem and self-despair that doom him, but more like a loser clown.

But somehow the Balanchine-esque stripping the story down to its essentials, the not uninteresting but not radically in-your-face-different choreography, and the power of the three dancers made this version reasonably compelling. Tiler Peck danced impeccably as the Ballerina, Washington Ballet’s Brooklyn Mack was magnetic and powerful as rock (or hip-hop) star puppet that the Ballerina finds irresistible, and Lil Buck’s sad clown version of Petrushka was surprisingly unaffected (no attempt that I saw was made to imbue his character with his “Memphis Jookin’” style, for example), but this character needed to be the most complex and tortured, and Lil Buck was just a sad loser of a clown, with a gait and presentation – aside from the clown face – that seemed uncomfortably remindful of stepin fetchit. I don’t fault Lil Buck for that – I assume that’s the way the role was to be played, but the characterization as presented lacked the complexity the role – at least as in the original – requires, and there was none of Nijinksy’s suffering or tragedy.

But it seemed as if many in the audience had no idea that there was an “original” Petrushka at all, and to its discredit, the program fails to mention it. Substantially modifying and distilling the story and changing the choreography is not a problem for me, but ignoring the piece’s roots is.

The evening concluded with Rennie Harris Pure Movement – American Street Dance Theater’s Rennie Harris Funkedified (“Funkedified”). It’s fine for what it is – a compilation of street dance – but the piece thinks it’s more than a review, and it’s not.

Members of Rennie Harris Puremovement –
American Street Dance Theater
in “Funkedified”
Photo by Stephanie Berger

The program note describes it as a multi-media work set against the landscape of African-American culture and political turmoil in the 1970s. Well, if by multi-media the reference is to snippets of film briefly projected against the upstage wall, the multi-media aspect was perfunctory, non-specific, and without clear connection to anything happening on stage. The thirteen dancer cast performed well, but with exceptions, the emphasis was on styles that relied more on general impression and personal expression than technical rigor. That’s not to say that there was no talent involved – on the contrary, that was abundant, and I found the performances by a few of the dancers particularly well-executed. But it was the appearance of high-energy informality and spontaneity that galvanized the audience. Beyond exhibiting various examples of street dance, the piece doesn’t go anywhere and takes too long to get to wherever it is that it isn’t going, and I doubt that the complete version would remedy that, although in its original form perhaps Funkedified might come across as a purposeful and coherent dance.

Program 5

Ballet Hispanico kicked off program 5 with Michelle Manzanales’s Con Brazos Abiertos, which I’ve extensively reviewed twice previously and need not elaborate upon here. Although I wish the introductory piping of Marty Robbins’s “El Paso” through the theater’s speakers, which occurred at the piece’s premiere at the Joyce Theater two years ago, would be restored because it enhances the dance by placing it in a broader context, Con Brazos Abiertos (With Open Arms) works sufficiently well as it is. The Ballet Hispanico dancers are an excellent and compelling group, and I find things in the piece on multiple views that make me appreciate the choreographic intricacies even more each time.

The program’s next presentation, Tangos, presented by Junior Cervila and Guadalupe Garcia, was a pleasant surprise. The couple (accompanied by a lively nine-person band led by Musical Director Daniel Binelli), took the standard operating Argentine Tango to a different dimension.

Beyond being thoroughly competent tango dancers exhibiting superb technique, Cervila and Garcia placed their tangos in vaguely narrative scenarios and provided characterizations that added context and texture to a dance that I often find rigidly passionate in form, but with no passion in substance. Purists will probably disagree, and the second “Drunken Tango” (my invention; it’s not titled) is certainly politically incorrect, but it appeared to me that with no diminution in tango quality, the dancers here gave it life, and the varied presentation sufficiently toned down the inherent machismo.

Cervila is a large, barrel-chested man who tossed Garcia, a petite woman who appears completely natural (as opposed to the often stiff tango performers) around like a toothpick. My only quibble with the program was a musical interlude (no dancing) that, while well-performed (and obviously inserted to give the dancers time to change costume and breathe), seemed superfluous. But I suppose it’s better than a lengthy pause.

But the program’s third piece was by far the highlight of the evening, and certainly one of the highlights of FFD 2018. El cruce sobre el Niágara, choreographed by Marianela Boán, is inspired by the 1969 play of the same name by Peruvian playwright Alonso Alegria. The dance premiered in 1987 in Havana, but it managed to escape my attention until now. Thanks to Carlos Acosta’s Acosta Danza and its two fascinating dancers, Carlos Luis Blanco and Alejandro Silva, it is now embedded in my memory.

Alegria’s play tells the story of Jean François Gravelet (1824 – 97), a/k/a ‘Blondin’, the most famous tightrope walker of the nineteenth century, who crossed Niagara Falls on many occasions – including while (among many other outrageously impossible exploits) blindfolded, on stilts, stopping midway to crack eggs make an omelet and eat it, and carrying his manager on his back – and his relationship with a fictional sceptic / disciple named Carlos who challenges him, but then agrees to allow himself to be carried across the Falls on Blondin’s back. If the story were that straightforward, it would certainly be interesting, but not much more. I haven’t read or seen the play, but necessarily there’s more to it than that – issues relating to mutual trust at least, and Boán’s choreography addresses that and more.

As presented, the dance is as much about developing an interpersonal relationship, self-reliance and mutual- reliance, overcoming fear, and conquering some seemingly insurmountable divide, as it is about a death-defying stunt. And there are overtones of religious spiritualism (it’s not accidental that the aerialist pose struck by the Blondin character has his arms extended sideways – appropriate for a tightrope walker but also suggesting a cross, giving the story a dual meaning (and maybe a triple meaning if that pose is also considered as a preparation for flight) as well as sexual arousal (exacerbated by the costumes, which consist of the skimpiest of male thongs) that cannot be ignored. Indeed, before I learned the play’s underlying story (which is not referenced in the program) I thought that this pas de deux visualized a complex religio-sexual journey and relationship.

Regardless of the depth and breadth of dance’s thematic considerations, El cruce sobre el Niágara is a riveting and intense work of dance art. And Blanco and Silva are astonishing. I suppose that some might find the dances’ slow pace to be tedious, but watching these two dancers move in slow motion, controlling every muscle of their body seemingly beyond physical endurance while navigating this emotional tightrope, was mesmerizing. Everything had to be executed to perfection, and it was.

The closing piece on FFD’s closing program, however, was considerably less successful notwithstanding its movement variety and staging and doing exactly what it said it would do.

Talley Beatty’s Stack-Up premiered in 1982, and was recently refurbished with a new production. According to the brief program note, the piece was “inspired by the lives of Los Angeles’s disparate inhabitants,” and “depicts emotional ‘traffic’ in a community that is stacked on top of each other.” Fair enough. The program also indicates that the scenery design was adapted from a painting. Also fair enough – many dances are inspired by other immobile works of art or inanimate objects that have an innate movement quality. But little happens here beyond the different character stereotypes parading in and out of scenes – no character or choreographic evolution in a piece where that might be expected.

This is a vibrant, colorful dance, but to me it was all show and little substance. Even the audience didn’t appear particularly excited about it – although several in the audience were having a difficult time restraining themselves from jumping out of their seats to dance to the music (by “Various Artists”) as the piece evolved. Snapshots in time are fine, and many are classics despite being bound to a time or place. But there’s nothing transcendent about this, and although the dancers were top notch, more than energy and vitality are needed for a dance to be memorable. and timeless. Stack-up isn’t.

In future years, and as I’ve mentioned previously, I hope FFD will reconsider its emphasis on presenting excerpts from larger pieces. Doing so allows for more programming variety, but doesn’t always give an accurate flavor of the dance being excerpted or of the dancers performing it. That being said, all in all, Fall for Dance 2018 was a huge success, even if it has evolved into a cheap way to get audiences to see dance styles they already want to see, and an energizing way to begin City Center’s 75th Anniversary Year.

The post Fall for Dance 2018: Second Week appeared first on CriticalDance.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Eisenhower Theater
Washington, DC

October 18, 2018

Carmel Morgan

Brazil’s Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker accentuates the beauty and versatility of the human body like no other dance company I know. Colker’s highly athletic choreography, seen widely in Cirque De Soleil’s Ovo and the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics, is demanding. Thanks to the company’s strong dancers, the challenging choreography appears effortless. I’ve rarely seen dancers so in tune with the music and each other. Colker’s uncompromising artistic vision must fuel their perfection. You cannot leave a performance of this company unimpressed.

In Cão Sem Plumas (Dog Without Feathers), an evening length work based on a poem by João Cabral, fourteen dancers take on the Capibaribe River and its environment. On a scrim at the back of the stage, film directed by Cláudio Assis and Colker plays, although these images are not always present. Stark black and white footage from a voyage down the Capibaribe River sets the stage for the complex movement in the foreground. Musical direction by Jorge Dü Peixe and Berna Ceppas contributes an intriguing mixed soundtrack, full of drumbeats and electronics.

Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker, Dog-Without Feathers, photo courtesy of the Company

In the beginning, a single dancer dodges and scrambles, kicking up dust, while on the screen there are close-up shots of a cracked, dry riverbed. Music pounds as more dancers enter the stage. They move snappily in a sort of ritual. Hips and shoulders swivel, feel stomp. The dancers wear nude textured unitards, giving the impression that they are caked in mud (costumes by Claudia Kopke). The lighting design by Jorginho De Carvalho keeps the stage rather dark, obscuring the dancers’ faces but highlighting the shapes their bodies make. Large rusted metal boxes represent not only the dilapidated landscape at the river’s edge, but also cages that enclose the dancers and serve as surfaces on which to climb (art direction and set design by Gringo Cardia).

Early in the work, dancers flat on the ground roll like waves to verses read aloud, and this liquid rolling later returns. In between, dancers rise and fall with startling ease and frequency, or leap and turn in the air like martial artists. Wrapped in long fabric strips hanging from the ceiling in one section, they sway like sugar cane stalks, their supple bodies stretching. Dancers with devices like crutches or ski poles become active roots of mangrove trees.

Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker, Dog-Without Feathers, photo courtesy of the Company

Entrancing lyrical dancing happens, too. In a duet, a pair of dancers so seamlessly partner that it’s nearly impossible to tell where one body ends and the other begins. Close to the floor and entwined, they propel forward like a slow-moving insect. In a section titled “Herons,” three women en pointe represent elegant birds, but the program notes also describe them as the elite who turn their backs on the poor.

Cão Sem Plumas meanders, but so do rivers. I didn’t mind that my attention was sometimes drawn away from the dancing to the film and vice versa. The overall journey, while a bit long, is rewarding. Like a National Geographic article come to life, this detailed and intimate portrait of Brazil’s northeastern Pernambuco region is affecting.

The post Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker: Dog Without Feathers appeared first on CriticalDance.

American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York

October 17 (Opening Night) and 18, 2018
Le Jeune, Dream Within a Dream (deferred) (new Dorrance), In the Upper Room

Symphonie Concertante, Dream Within a Dream (deferred), Fancy Free

Jerry Hochman

American Ballet Theatre’s brief Fall 2018 Season began last Wednesday, and continues through October 28. During the 13 performance run (plus a Family Matinee), the company is scheduled to present revolving repertory programs featuring two premieres – one choreographed by Michelle Dorrance and one by Jessica Lang, a brief two performance (one at the Family Matinee) redux of Le Jeune, Lauren Lovette’s piece for ABT’s Studio Company and apprentices, the return of Twyla Tharp’s landmark In the Upper Room, George Balanchine’s Symphonie Concertante, Wayne McGregor’s Afterite, Alexei Ratmansky’s Songs of Bukovina, and Jerome Robbins’s Other Dances and Fancy Free.  The two programs I saw last week were a mixed bag, but they introduced Dorrance’s first dance created for ABT, Dream Within a Dream (deferred).

American Ballet Theatre dancers
Herman Cornejo
and Cory Stearns in
Jerome Robbins’s “Fancy Free”
Photo Marty Sohl

My initial take on Dorrance’s dance was not favorable, but on second view, became less negative. Perhaps on a third view I’ll come around completely. And it’s certainly possible that my initial reaction to the dance was impacted by my distance (physical) from the theater stage, and by it being not at all what I (and the audience gathered for ABT’s Fall Gala) expected.

Dorrance didn’t get to be the reigning Queen of Tap for nothing.  I’ve seen several of her company’s performances in recent years, and while, to my taste, there may have been too much experimentation with expanding tap in new directions which compromised the piece’s overall impact, when you’re a “MacArthur Genius” you’re entitled, even expected, to experiment, take risks, and make unusual things happen. And at bottom, it’s the tap prowess of Dorrance and her company dancers, rather than electronic experimentation or emphasis on other dance forms that may have sprung from the same tree, that is most memorable.

When Dorrance’s new piece was announced, I assumed it would be tap seen through a balletic prism, or vice versa. But Dream Within a Dream (deferred) isn’t that – at least that’s not the overt focus (it’s done more subtly). Rather, the dance is a study in getting ballet dancers to move to songs by Duke Ellington; the tap component, subject to a theory I elaborate upon below, seems almost an afterthought. Lively and/or jazzy dances to Ellington’s music have been done many times before. [ABT’s70s staple The River, choreographed by Alvin Ailey, seemed to appear on every program (some things never change), and Susan Stroman’s Broadway-ish For the Love of Duke for New York City Ballet (which included Blossom Got Kissed and Frankie and Johnny … and Rose) come immediately to mind.] Dorrance’s piece isn’t those either. And it resembles dances she’s created for her own company (that I’ve seen) only remotely, when the pace of those dances slows.

And that’s a large part of the problem that I have with Dream Within a Dream (deferred). Dorrance’s curated score includes eight of Ellington’s bluesy/jazzy songs, which results in bluesy/jazzy movement. The result, at least toward the piece’s beginning (to Such Sweet Thunder, Echoes of Harlem, and Across the Track Blues), comes across as moving in seeming slow-motion down to the pace of the music. It’s not really that syrupy, but from my vantage point it seemed that way. And there’s no apparent superimposed thematic element – even a common general “attitude,” like kids in a schoolyard having a good time – that might make the piece more entertaining. It picks up speed eventually, but by then much of the damage has been done.

Members of American Ballet Theatre
in Michelle Dorrance’s
“Dream within a Dream (deferred)”
Photo by Marty Sohl

More significant a problem, however, is the integration, or lack of it, of these ballet dancers with tap. There’s little of it until the dance approaches its end, and what there is, particularly at Wednesday’s world premiere, was danced tentatively, as if the dancers were only dipping their toes into the tap river to see what it felt like. Indeed, until more tap appeared toward the dance’s conclusion, there was clapping of hands where one might have expected the tap dancing to be, as if these ballet dancers weren’t really capable of tap so Dorrance substituted handclaps. Similarly, the movement quality, designed to visualize Ellington’s music, looked uncomfortable to many (though not all) in the opening night cast, like clothing that didn’t fit.

As I watched, particularly on second exposure the following night, I saw an overall picture that was vaguely remindful of Jerome Robbins’s Moves and his New York Export: Opus Jazz, but with very little of those dances’ spirit and contagious, youthful effervescence. Dream Within a Dream (deferred) at times seemed to want to replicate that effervescence, but the music wouldn’t let it. Dorrance may have intended the piece to reflect the inner souls, as well as the adaptability, of ballet dancers, or dances at a different kind of neighborhood gathering (to reference another Robbins masterpiece), but it just looked strained.

Like most of Dorrance’s company’s dances that I’ve seen – it also doesn’t have much glue to hold it all together (although with her company performances, extraordinary tap facility is all that’s really necessary). It seems a collection of interconnected scenes featuring one dancer or group or another taking turns being the focal point. If there’s a link between these vignettes (other than visual continuity), it may relate to the ballerinas (as I recall, all five of them) wearing toe shoes toward the beginning, and at times trying to tap with them, but toward the end switching to tap shoes. [I don’t recall if the five men underwent similar transitions.]  In light of that, and given the dance’s evolution, I have a theory (and one that also helps explain the dance’s title). I think, in a sense, Dorrance is attempting to tell a story of a young person (particularly a young would-be ballerina) who feels bound to a particular style of dance (like ballet) because that’s what little girls did, or maybe that’s what her parents wanted her to try, but really wanting to know what it feels like to let loose and tap – as if dreaming about what he/she really wants to do while constrained (dream within a dream), but having to defer acting on that impulse.

So I checked – and sure enough, according to Wikipedia, when Dorrance was growing up in North Carolina, she took ballet classes at her mother’s ballet studio before pursuing her true interest. [Her mother had been a member of Eliot Feld’s American Ballet Company (later simply Feld Ballet) one of my favorite companies when I first started attending dance performances.]. So maybe there’s some of her history in this piece – although she apparently matriculated to tap very early on.

Be that as it may, the second cast, overall, created a much better impression than the opening night cast (although, again, my position in the theater might have had an impact on that). While I appreciated in particular the work of Calvin Royal III and Breanne Granlund, and the obvious effort from Sarah Lane to learn a new movement language, and it was sort of fun to see them try to let loose, others looked relatively lost. They all – at least the ballerinas – seemed far more at home in toe shoes. But the second cast appeared to “get it” more instinctively – as if it was movement they grew up with (or had more rehearsal time to grow accustomed to). Zimmi Coker, Duncan Lyle, and Jose Sebastian were particularly outstanding, and Casandra Trenary and Stella Abrera handled the different movement very well also. But for me the biggest surprise was Devon Teuscher. I’ve commented previously that notwithstanding her sterling technique, I never get a sense of a personality, a stage persona, from her performances. But she exploded with personality (combined with that sterling technique) in this piece. The remainder of the opening night cast included Gillian Murphy, Christine Shevchenko, Patrick Frenette, Arron Scott, Roman Zhurbin, and James Whiteside; the second cast  was completed by Betsy McBride, Erica Lall, Granlund, Connor Holloway, Tyler Maloney, and Marshall Whiteley.

ABT Apprentices and
members of ABT Studio Company
in Lauren Lovette’s “Le Jeune”
Photo by Marty Sohl

I finally caught up with Le Jeune, the piece that New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Lauren Lovette created for ABT’s Studio Company and Apprentices.  This is a movement piece, with no ulterior choreographic motive (unlike the ballets she’s created for NYCB) than to show an audience what these ten young dancers can do in an interesting way. That it did. To Eric Whitacre’s Equus (as if the relationship of ballet dancers to thoroughbreds wasn’t already sufficiently apparent) these dancers never stop moving for too long, and the result is an invigorating stew of young talent, with plenty of choreographic variety and deft use of stage space.  Including the solo piece she created for her NYCB colleague Ashley Bouder last year, there seems nothing that Lovette cannot do, and do well.

Thursday’s program opened with Balanchine’s Symphonie Concertante. Created for students of the School of American Ballet in 1945, in its complete form it premiered with New York City Ballet’s precursor company, Ballet Society, in 1947. It’s dominated by ballerinas – a supporting group of six featured dancers and sixteen members of the corps, all led by two ballerinas, with one lone danseur. Many consider it another Balanchine masterpiece, but to me it’s not nearly as exciting to watch as other Balanchine classics. While it’s certainly a brilliantly crafted piece and one in which his genius for making music come alive is apparent, to my eye it’s too balanced; too classical, and with exceptions, almost too stiff. I can admire it greatly, but again with few exceptions, it didn’t move me in any particular direction.

Christine Shevchenko (left),
Isabella Boylston,
and members of American Ballet Theatre
in George Balanchine’s
“Symphonie Concertante”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor

Of course, it would be perfectly appropriate to create a more “classical”–looking ballet when the composer is Mozart. To Sinfonia Concertante in E Flat major for Violin and Viola, Balanchine follows Mozart’s lead, not so much bound to it (at least following the clunky-looking beginning) as directed and inspired by it. The parts of it that I found best were those in which the lead ballerinas were moving to and echoing the texture of the two prominent instruments: a violin and viola. Having dancers move in perfect response to instrumental point and counter point is one of Balanchine’s signatures, and here it’s done very well, but overall the piece in other respects comes across as glorious but academic.

Members of American Ballet Theatre
in George Balanchine’s
“Symphonie Concertante”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor

Fortunately, the two leading roles were danced exquisitely by Shevchenko and Isabella Boylston. Both these ballerinas dance “big,” and appearing commanding helped make this performance successful. Shevchenko, recruited on short notice to replace the injured Hee Seo, was utterly fabulous, managing to pull off Balanchine’s wickedly difficult precision footwork and musical timing without looking strained. I often have difficulty with Boylston in classical roles, but aside from appearing a bit pained, she matched Shevchenko in quality if not in spirit. Blaine Hoven did excellent work completing the lead cast.

What I find most interesting about Symphonie Concertante, however, is its connection with other Balanchine pieces created during roughly the same time period. I expect to see another performance later in the run, and will elaborate on that theme (and variations) then.

The two final pieces on these programs sent audiences home happy. Twyla Tharp’s In The Upper Room is a contemporary masterpiece that never stops looking as inventive and exhilarating as it is. And Skylar Brandt would be reason enough to see it even if the piece weren’t already.  Soon after she became a member of the company, Brandt danced one of the two “red toe-shoe girls” (together with Nicole Graniero), and their energy and precision execution was stunning. Now a soloist, she’s graduated to being one of the “pajama” leads, and although this role is not quite as thrilling to watch, it’s more demanding, and she delivered a sterling performance. Her mirror, Teuscher, wasn’t quite as energized here. And Boylston, the third “lead,” executed well, but lacked the spark that makes the determination inherent in Tharp’s choreography enjoyable.

Members of American Ballet Theatre in
Twyla Tharp’s “In the Upper Room”
Photo by Marty Sohl

Thursday’s closing piece, Fancy Free, should be dated by now. That it isn’t is a tribute to Robbins and the ABT dancers. The plot is probably one of the most familiar in modern ballet (and that the visualization of the story hasn’t succumbed to politically correct revision is something to be thankful for), and is unnecessary to repeat. Suffice it to say that, with Leonard Bernstein’s score, it’s fun from beginning to end, and ABT’s dancers did it justice. None are strangers to their roles. Herman Cornejo, Cory Stearns, and Whiteside were the sailors (in order of featured solo), and Abrera and Murphy (with Lauren Post as the climactic siren) the women they try to impress. The three sailors did fine work, as usual, but Abrera and Murphy danced and acted spectacularly.

On to the season’s second week in a subsequent review.

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San Francisco Ballet
Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem, Bound To, Anima Animus

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Opera House
Washington, DC

October 23, 2018

Carmel Morgan

San Francisco Ballet recently flew to the East Coast and presented six works from its much lauded Unbound festival, which took place in California in April and May of 2018. Washington, DC, was lucky to have a chance to see this stellar company performing these vibrant new works. For me, the star of the two different programs was not the choreography, which was often quite good, but the quality of the dancers, who made each work truly shine.

On opening night of Program A, soloist Benjamin Freemantle completely engaged my heart in Trey McIntyre’s Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem. Look out for Freemantle, he’s surely one to watch. He not only beautifully executed the movement, he consistently oozed emotion. The work begins with imagery of a solar eclipse projected onto a scrim at the back of the stage. Freemantle, at first alone, was pensive. He looked, reached, and perhaps bid goodbye to the miraculous sight.

The choreography includes elegant, playful, fluid moves. Against a very black backdrop, dancers, from a distance, resemble brushes making curlicues through the air. The lighting by James F. Ingalls is superb, bestowing the dancers’ flesh with glowing tones. Chris Garneau’s folksy indie pop provides the score. When the music hops, so do the dancers, lifting themselves vertically in little jumps. There’s something juvenile about the abundance of kicks and peppy leaps, but the movement mimics the Americana music. Sometimes the effect is silly and comic, yet it’s also very human. It’s easy to read the many simple gestures (a head on someone else’s shoulder, walking away then being compelled to turn back).

Benjamin Freemantle in Trey McIntyre’s Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem, photo by Erik Tomasson

The closing of Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem again featured Freemantle alone. He wore only underwear this time and used a tiny round stool as a prop. He covered his face with it and turned around and around. His face, like the sun, disappeared. I read the program notes during intermission. I was surprised to learn that McIntyre’s grandfather, whom he did not know and who suffered from dementia late in life, served as the inspiration for the piece. Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem definitely feels wistful and reflective, and as the night wore on I decided I liked the piece more and more.

I’ve heard the second work on Program A, Christopher Wheeldon’s Bound To, described as “the cell phone ballet.” Indeed, the ballet opens with a scrim full of typed letters that eventually fall like rain. Dancers roam about staring into devices the emit light. Yes, they’re bound to their cell phones. They don’t exchange eye contact, and when they place their devices briefly on the ground, they twitch nervously like drug addicts going through withdrawal. The “screens” are like fireflies, and the dancers stretch to keep focused on them, creating interesting moments. Duets are lyrical but strained by isolation. The theme is how we’ve become glued to technology at the expense of being present in actual relationships. It’s a timely topic to which anyone can relate.

Yuan Yuan Tan and Carlo Di Lanno in Christopher Wheeldon’s Bound To, photo by Erik Tomasson

Wheeldon organized Bound To in a series of sections, whose titles scroll by. A section called “Remember When” harkens to a time when communication occurred face to face by necessity. Connections are tight and meaningful, as dancers put the soles of their feet together or embrace. In another section, “Take a Deep Breath,” Yuan Yuan Tan magically rolls up the body of Carlo Di Lanno. She wraps around him unassisted, and is as pliant as a contortionist or a snake. I don’t think Bound To will stand the test of time, but even it’s not bound to become a classic, it speaks well to present circumstances, and the dancers were exquisite to watch.

David Dawson’s Animus Anima ended the evening. Although the work purportedly has something to do with the female aspect of the male psyche and vice versa, I didn’t detect this. The costumes, however, striking black and white numbers by Yumiko Takeshima (a former principal dancer with the Dutch National Ballet, among others, who studied at the San Francisco Ballet School), conjure opposites. Dancers display divided fronts and backs, tops and bottoms, with a narrow strip running down the center of the back like an embryonic spine. Ten dancers rush, rapidly spinning, arms and legs sharply slicing through the space. As they unspool, the dancers dash, leading with their chests, their arms raised in a “V” lagging slightly behind them. Pointe shoes click on the floor as the dancers try to keep up with the spritely music by Ezio Bosso. The relentless whizzing and whirring of bodies reminded me of swarming insects. It was difficult to absorb. The urgent music and urgent pacing left me exhausted.   

San Francisco Ballet in David Dawson’s Anima Animus. photo by Erik Tomasson

When the Washington Ballet (TWB) was under the direction of Septime Webre, the company did a great job presenting lively contemporary works. Since his departure in 2016, TWB, now led by Julie Kent, is more backward looking, using Kent’s expertise to perform classic choreography by masters like Balanchine. I miss the excitement and common touch Webre delivered. San Francisco Ballet’s dose of cutting edge ballet was just what I needed to fill the void.

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San Francisco Ballet
The Infinite Ocean, Snowblind, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Opera House
Washington, DC

October 25, 2018

Carmel Morgan

San Francisco Ballet’s Program B, consisting of three more of the original Unbound ballets, didn’t delight me as much as Program A, but I still left the theater feeling refreshed. Much like in Program A, the night opened with a huge orb on the scrim at the back of the stage. In Edwaard Liang’s The Infinite Ocean, a large orange sun (or planet maybe) hovers behind the dancers. Long heavy rectangles of wood, three per side, hang like shelves, floating in the space adjacent to the wings. The very back of the stage ramps upward. Composer Oliver Davis’s score rivets. Martin West expertly conducted, and Cordula Merks captivated on violin.

Bare-legged dancers in shiny gold costumes with high necks designed by Mark Zappone move organically like flowing liquid. I recall having seen a Liang work in which female dancers squat low to the ground, in second position, en pointe, and I saw that challenge here, too. Dancers cross arms and fit hands into hands like human puzzle pieces. They often circle, ducking a head under another’s arm. In the air, tossed women flip like ninjas or ninja weapons, arms and legs spinning like a pinwheel. In the end, dancers move over the raised edge at the back of the stage and disappear, letting go of one world and traveling to another. The Infinite Ocean, which the program notes explain is about love and death and letting go, is a handsome, deeply moving work, and it’s thought-proving as well.

Sofiane Sylve and Tiit Helimets in Edwaard Liang’s The Infinite Ocean. photo by Erik Tomasson

Although I had read a review of Cathy Marston’s Snowblind, the title didn’t stick with me, and I didn’t immediately recognize it as the ballet based on Edith Wharton’s novella Ethan Frome, which I was forced to read in high school. I did immediately discern, though, that the ballet centered on marital discord and illicit love. I didn’t guess correctly that the women and men in soft gray/brown represented snow, and that they also played neighbors and farmhands. The group functioned like a Greek chorus of sorts, or just helped to push the action along. Patrick Kinmonth’s costumes and stark scenic design (a chair, benches, and elevated platform with a bed) are effective in their minimalism, allowing the focus to remain on the movement.

Sarah Van Patten made an excellent Zeena, Ethan’s sickly wife. She strongly and clearly danced her role as the frail, cold, and angry partner of Ulrik Birkkjaer’s Ethan. San Francisco Ballet should be pleased with the addition of Birkkjaer, formerly with the Royal Danish Ballet, as a principal dancer last year. I can envision him being stunning in many other lead roles. In Snowblind, he skillfully portrayed his character’s conflicting emotions and danced with intense passion. Mathilde Froustey made a wonderful Mattie Silver. In a reddish pink dress, she was girlish, with emotional highs and lows to match those of the man who dangerously falls for her. The ballet ends with a weirdly disturbing trio. Birkkjaer, Van Patten, and Froustey formed a circle with joined hands, pulling this way and that, in a three-way tug of war.

San Francisco Ballet in Cathy Marston’s Snowblind, photo by Erik Tomasson

Justin Peck’s lightweight Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming came last. It’s an upbeat romp. I was reminded of the 1980s TV show Fame about a high school for the performing arts. Somehow, the dancing felt overly enthusiastic and forced, the dancers too inexplicably giddy and competitive, the costumes shiny, tight, and young. This sneaker ballet (the dancers wore white sneakers) is high energy, but not highly inventive. The dancers jog a lot. Supposedly about dreaming at different stages of life, beginning with childhood, I didn’t catch on to the transition to mature adulthood. It all seemed like child’s play to me. I tired of the bouncy cuteness, the striving for cool and chic moves versus choreographic substance. There was more drama in the faces of the dancers than in the movement itself. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming seems recycled and hastily put together, and it doesn’t rank among Peck’s best works.

Dores André and Wei Wang in Justin Peck’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. photo by Erik Tomasson

Program B featured more variety in the choreographic styles presented, and it was nice to see a female choreographer represented, but Program A turned out to be the winner. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to see all of the new works from Unbound. San Francisco Ballet was only able to bring half of them. I’d love to see the other half one day!

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[No company photographs were taken of the performance that is the subject of this review. The photographs provided are from other performances and casts.] 

American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York

October 26, 2018
Symphonie Concertante, Other Dances, AFTERITE

Jerry Hochman

On paper, American Ballet Theatre’s Fall 2018 season seemed one of the least interesting in many years (notwithstanding the trumpeting of its welcome but belated commitment to the “Women’s Movement” in ballet). Regardless of the truth of that initial assessment, Friday night’s program, the last that I will be able to see of this very brief residence, made the season. While I’m less than enamored of one of the dances on the program, and still angry that another was exhibited in its present form, all three dances featured superb choreography and execution by ABT’s dancers that was sensational in every respect.

By far the most noteworthy of these sensational performances was by Sarah Lane and Herman Cornejo in Jerome Robbins’s Other Dances, the middle piece on last night’s program.

I’ve been privileged to have seen many performances of this Robbins masterwork, including the original cast’s Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov. But I don’t recall seeing another performance that illuminated this dance quite like the one I saw Friday night. I’ll spend the first part of this review attempting to explain why.

With rare exception, the essence of a Robbins ballet is the sense of humanity he infuses within it. It’s never by-the-numbers or movement for movement’s sake. Amid the choreographic ingenuity there’s a beating heart (and maybe a giggle or two). The essence of Other Dances, aside from it being a suite of dances to Chopin piano music that Robbins had not previously used in his Dances at a Gathering, is that humanity: even though there’s no “story” per se, the ballet tells one something about the characters (and the dancers) in the dance at given moments in time.

Much has been made of dancers being “in the moment” during a particular ballet, which enhances the experience for them. But being “in the moment” isn’t a concept limited to the dancers on stage. Being enabled by the choreography and the dancers’ execution to be “in the moment” enhances the experience for audience members as well (and applies as much to non-narrative dances as to full-length story ballets). It’s an emotional and maybe kinetic transference the effect of which is to bring the audience in rather than making them static observers. Without this connection, audience members watch the performance from an emotional and/or intellectual distance, and even the most brilliantly-crafted of ballets can appear uninteresting at best, and boring at worst.

I’ve attended many performances of Other Dances where, at a certain point in time you can begin to hear the fidgeting. The execution of the steps may be first rate (and at this level, it would be surprising if it was not), but there’s nothing beyond that to grab you. The best performances, however, are transporting experiences.

Two weeks ago I attended a memorable performance of Other Dances by New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck and Joaquin De Luz. The performance had particular significance because of De Luz’s imminent retirement, but the “grab” was beyond that. The performance not only showed the talents of both dancers, but it also conveyed the sense of being in the moment with them. As fine as their execution of the steps was, it was the joy they brought to the performance, evident by the emotional connection registering on stage, that made it both memorable and one of the finest I’ve seen. Last night’s performance by Lane and Cornejo was equally memorable, if not more. But the two performances were the product of different impressions that the dancers (particularly the ballerinas) created, which perhaps can be described as the difference between appearing perfect and appearing magical. [And although in the ensuing discussion my focus will be on the ballerinas, that’s not to ignore that De Luz and Cornejo (in his New York role debut) executed brilliantly, with exceptional (but differently manifested) connections with their ballerinas.]

Peck is dominating on stage, but unlike other similarly commanding ballerinas, her appeal is that it never comes across that way. She brings to her performances flawless command and a consistent sense that she’ll take her level of execution to another, rarified dimension of technical brilliance every time she steps on stage. And in that performance of Other Dances she went beyond that basic stage persona and with De Luz created a joyous atmosphere which was impossible not to be drawn into and feel a part of. They enjoyed each other’s stage company, and each other’s excellence. They both glowed, and the audience shared the experience.

Sarah Lane and Herman Cornejo
during the curtain calls
for American Ballet Theatre’s
production of
“Don Quixote” last season
Photo by Jerry Hochman

Lane’s stage persona is quite different. The same level of perfection can be there, and certainly was on Friday night (which was to have been her New York role debut as well, but she replaced injured Hee Seo in the role earlier in the week, partnered by Cory Stearns), but it’s masked by an appearance of vulnerability, so when you see the perfection in execution, her technical strength comes as a shock – although by this point it no longer should. The same extravagant phrasing as Peck, the same impeccable sense of timing, the same quality of execution was fully evident, but when it happens, as it did last night (and as it did with her Giselle), it takes your breath away. Together with the security she obviously feels being partnered by Cornejo, and the care he obviously takes partnering her, came a sense of mutual admiration that was impossible not to join in, and be transported by.

But there’s more to the difference between these two masterful performances than that.

When one thinks of folk dances, one sees certain imagery, but one also tends to see how different folk dances appear from ballet. One way to describe the difference is that folk dances tend to be pulled into the earth, while ballets tend to be pulled into the air. Yes, of course there are exceptions, but I think the distinction is valid. Typical folk steps are pushed downward, often pounded into the ground, while ballet is light and airy.

Sarah Lane
and members of American Ballet Theatre
in a prior performance of “Giselle”
Photo by Erin Baiano

Other Dances is not a suite of folk dances; it’s a ballet with folk images coupled with images that soar. To the best of my recollection, however, in all of the performances of it that I’ve previously seen it’s primarily the folk connection that is emphasized, with the accompanying sense of being grounded to mother earth. That’s not a bad thing: on the contrary, superb performances of it, including ones that enable the audience to be transported, can be exceptionally exhilarating – as that Peck / De Luz performance was. But Friday night, with Cornejo’s support and confidence, Lane provided that other aspect of Other Dances that I’ve not previously seen. The steps were the same – the folk images were all there, the “into the ground” folk emphasis was not insignificant – but at the same time she infused the performance with a sense of impossible airiness (gorgeous extensions into space at every appropriate moment that gave the illusion of weightlessness while concurrently being of the earth) that was equally important, that had been a component of the choreography all along, and that changed the perception of the ballet from being an example of impeccable craft to being an enthralling experience. And I can’t help but think, given that Other Dances clearly is more than just its folk references, that this is what Robbins wanted, and that somewhere he’s smiling. [The ballet was staged, and the performances coached, by former Paris Opera Ballet etoile Isabelle Guerin. I never saw Guerin dance the role, but I suspect if I had the performance would have delivered a similar impression.]

When the Peck / De Luz performance ended, I recall a sense of sharing in the joy that both communicated. It was a celebration of incomparable excellence that they invited me to share. When the Lane / Cornejo performance ended, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the impossibly magical moments in time that their performances had invited me (and others in the audience) to share. Both are what make attending ballet performances over and over worth it.

Christine Shevchenko
and members of American Ballet Theatre
in George Balanchine’s
“Symphonie Concertante”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor

When I saw Symphonie Concertante earlier this ABT season, I recognized its technical artistry, but unlike other Balanchine masterpieces, it left me not feeling much of anything except respect for Balanchine’s craftsmanship and the dancers’ talents. On second view this season I ignored the opening segments of the first allegro movement that appeared so rigid and clunky to me, and focused on how the ballet evolves thereafter. And even though I still don’t consider it the equal of other Balanchine masterpieces, I clearly see what Balanchine was doing with Mozart’s musical roadmap, and the genius in what he accomplished. Just like the Mozart score (Sinfonia Concertante in E Flat major for Violin and Viola), it grows – albeit within an overall context of mirror musical phrasing, and his visualization of the counterpoint between the violin and viola is astonishing in its complexity and grandeur.

But Symphonie Concertante’s real significance to me is how it fits into the Balanchine oeuvre, which was triggered in my mind, at least in part, by what I heard as Tchaikovsky’s “sampling” of a bit of Mozart’s composition. [During the Sinfonia’s second (andante) movement, one can hear, twice (once about a quarter of the way through, the second time toward the end), brief musical phrases, a theme, played at a tempo that bears a remarkable similarity to a thematic variation, and the tempi at which it’s’ played, in the adagio movement of Tchaikovsky’s Theme and Variations (corresponding to the point in Balanchine’s ballet when the orchestra reenters and begins to open into the concluding section of that movement).] And as Tchaikovsky seemingly appropriated a melodic phrase from Mozart, Balanchine appropriated choreographic phrases from himself, all while catering to the peculiarities of the music to which he was choreographing. Consequently, as I watched the piece evolve, echoes of other Balanchine ballets seemingly materialized like apparitions of ballets past and future. A brief observation of Balanchine’s choreographic career at that point allows for no other logical conclusion than that this was intended.

Symphonie Concertante was initially created for students of the School of American Ballet in 1945, and in its complete form it premiered with NYCB’s precursor company, Ballet Society, on November 12, 1947. Two weeks later, on November 26, 1947, Balanchine’s Theme and Variations (later to become a component of his Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3) premiered with ABT. Four months earlier, on July 28, Le Palais de Cristal (Symphony in C) premiered with Paris Opera Ballet. All three are distinguishable from each other by admittedly not insignificant differences, but all three are of a piece – there are choreographic paradigms common to each – and the differences are a product of the same overall approach applied to, and reflecting, different musical compositions.

Devon Teuscher,
here with Alexandre Hammoudi,
in American Ballet Theatre’s production
of “Swan Lake”
Photo by Gene Schiavone

I don’t pretend to be a music scholar, and this isn’t a thesis, but exploring the similarities between Theme and Variations and Symphonie Concertante provides an intellectually compelling detour that merits further discussion. I can, however, evaluate the performances with greater confidence.

Last week, Christine Shevchenko replaced Hee Seo on short notice, and I found her performance in one of the two lead ballerina roles to be fabulous. At Friday’s performance, Shevchenko’s brilliance was matched by her partner, Devon Teuscher. Both not only executed Balanchine’s fiendishly difficult footwork immaculately, they both injected their roles with extraordinary flair. During the piece’s opening and closing allegro and presto movements, each looked like she was having a blast. And although the overt enthusiasm waned (appropriately) during the andante, the indicia of security and the absence of any sense of one-upmanship in the semi-mirror counterpoint of the violin and viola that their movement visually amplified made their performances sensational. It was an extraordinary display of technical excellence, which Thomas Forster, as the lone danseur, replicated. The danseur character appears relatively superfluous here, but he’s essential not for any thematic element, but as a moving pillar around which the lead ballerinas occasionally lean (although, with obvious choreographic intent, they do perfectly well on their own). In a relatively thankless role (it reminded me a bit of the “poet” in Fokine’s Les Sylphides), he excelled.

But the performance excellence here did not stop with the lead dancers. The six featured ballerinas – Alexandra Basmagy, April Giangeruso, Catherine Hurlin, Luciana Paris, Lauren Post, and Katherine Williams – each took their roles beyond being mere frames within a frame. Williams in particular somehow always manages to inject a semblance of character into a role that doesn’t have one, and she and Hurlin, who frequently were in mirror positions, seemed to feed off each other’s energy synergistically.

Members of American Ballet Theatre
in Wayne McGregor’s “AFTERITE”
Photo by Marty Sohl

Following its world premiere during ABT’s Spring Met 2018 season, I considered McGregor’s AFTERITE at length. I admired his choreography (the best of his pieces that I’ve seen to date), but disliked the piece intensely. A second exposure has not altered either prong of that opinion.

I have a minor quibble with McGregor’s choreography. If one of the novel components of AFTERITE is transporting the event, the Rite, to some alien–like metaphor for its more common earthly counterpart, as I presume it is, that’s fine. But the concept of “tribe,” and religion-tinged superstition that leads to a sacrifice should be the same regardless of venue. Here, however, the sense of “tribe” (or human settlement on another planet, or after some environmental calamity on earth) is more diffuse, and the sense of tribal unity is diluted.

But McGregor works this to his advantage, allowing for more staging variety than is usually present in a dance to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. This is McGregor’s finest choreography (of those pieces of his that I’ve seen), with not a dancer contorted into a pretzel in sight and not a step that’s superfluous; and it’s dramatic, almost vicious choreography that pushes its cast to the limits. It’s the most exciting incarnation of Rite of Spring that I can recall seeing. [And the extraordinary lighting by McGregor’s frequent collaborator Lucy Carter, which somehow escaped my view last year, manages to be both meaningful and mesmerizing.]

The ABT dancers executed AFTERITE at Friday’s performance with frenzied clarity far beyond what was evident in the dance’s initial run. Cornejo, following immediately upon his superlative performance in Other Dances, here is equally extraordinary in a radically different role apparently as the Father who initially resists the village’s (or its shaman’s) order, but bows to the will of the others and eventually becomes an active accomplice to the sacrifice. Ferri, whom I saw as little more than a concerned mother last year, now explodes with passion throughout the ballet, delivering a performance of extraordinary emotional resonance. But the revelation was Isabella Boylston’s leader/shaman/executioner. I’m not aware that McGregor altered the choreography since the piece’s premiere, but Boylston made the role much more compelling and frightening than I saw it portrayed last season. Here Boylston brings her undeniable power and command to optimal use, delivering a callous – but somehow comprehensible – interpretation of the role. While other cast members excelled as well (particularly Cassandra Trenary, Blaine Hoven, Duncan Lyle, and Garegin Pogossian), those three made the choreography as shattering as it appeared.

But beneath all this choreographic wizardry and brilliant execution is a concept that should have been nipped in the bud.

AFTERITE modifies the theme of a primitive “rite of spring” human sacrifice, the essence of Stravinsky’s score, Nijinsky’s original, and most of the dance incarnations of it that I’ve seen, by making the purpose of the sacrifice more explicit (to make crops grow), and by changing the nature of the sacrifice from a chosen victim, to a “chosen” mother who in turn must decide which of her two children should be sacrificed. Revolting a concept as that is, I can accept it – if McGregor felt that seeing yet another “chosen” victim is something that audiences have become too accustomed to, or if he simply felt the need to show the sacrifice differently, fine. And there’s no question that the sacrifice of an innocent child creates more audience concern, and accordingly more audience interest, than would “standard” versions.

But McGregor takes the concept too far. This isn’t the sacrifice of a child as much as it is a revisiting of Sophie’s Choice. And if the allusion to that novel (written by William Styron) and film (directed by Alan J. Pakula) is not sufficiently obvious, McGregor cements it by having gas fill the enclosed space in which the condemned child is confined. The audience can see the child (a young dancer, like the child that Ferri’s character selects to live, from ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School) enveloped by this smoke/noxious gas within the “greenhouse” erected on stage, and then fall to the floor dead, presumably to become human fertilizer.

This ending destroys any good that might be gleaned from McGregor’s piece. Either he had no knowledge of Sophie’s Choice, which I find impossible to believe, or he deliberately chose to proceed with his concept knowing the reception it would likely receive, including the argument – valid to me – that equating the death of millions of people with some primitive ‘rite of spring’ trivializes the event’s horror (and its universal applicability — the character Sophie was Polish, not Jewish).

I’ve heard a theory that McGregor’s decision to proceed as he did was not made with the intention to trivialize the death of millions, but to in some way honor it. That’s nonsense. I think a more likely explanation beyond astounding ignorance or astounding insensitivity is that McGregor was looking to create the same audience revulsion that greeted Rite of Spring at its Paris premiere. If that was the reasoning, he succeeded.

It’s unfortunate that ABT’s Fall 2018 season ended on this note, and I’m aware of many in the audience who left the DHK Theater on Friday night angry. But if one can focus on the dancers and their execution of whatever choreography they’re asked to perform, the season, encapsulated in Friday’s program, was a noteworthy display of talent by a noteworthy assortment of dancers. The only downside: if one focused on ABT’s promotional efforts, one would think that the company consists of maybe two or three dancers who dominated the season’s announced casting. If ABT is to evolve as it should, both artistically and financially, focusing on casting and promoting only a small group of favored dancers (or those determined, rightly or wrongly, to be more potentially bankable) to the exclusion of others is self-defeating: the goal should be to promote audience awareness of, and interest in, them all.

Finally, an aside. This year was the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jerome Robbins, one of the seminal choreographers of the twentieth century. New York City Ballet devoted a hefty portion of its Spring season to Robbins’s work, and one full program performed on multiple evenings this past Fall season surrounding the actual date of his birth. Other companies worldwide scheduled similar celebrations. Not ABT. On Opening Night, one of the two dancers addressing the audience (Misty Copeland) announced that ABT would be commemorating Robbins’s birth with the performance of two of his dances this season. That was it. It sounded like a post-scheduling afterthought. I saw nothing to this effect in any publicity, and if one didn’t attend that opening night gala performance, one would never have known that the two Robbins dances (Fancy Free was the second) were purportedly scheduled for that reason. And while Lane and Cornejo’s performance in Other Dances may be seen as providing more than sufficient honor to Robbins’s memory, the company’s decision to essentially ignore it is shameful – not even one full evening’s programming devoted to his dances. But it’s also not inconsistent. Last Spring ABT ignored the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Marius Petipa as well.

The post American Ballet Theatre: Other Performances; Other Dances appeared first on CriticalDance.

Owen/Cox Dance Group
Johnson County Community College
Polsky Theatre
Overland Park, Kansas

October 20, 2018
Morena

Steve Sucato

In keeping with its mission statement “to create new music and dance collaborations,” Kansas City, Missouri-based Owen/Cox Dance Group’s artistic director Jennifer Owen said in a curtain speech prior to the company’s performance of Morena that when she attended Victoria Botero’s music concert of the same name, she instantly knew she had to make a dance work around it. The resulting music and dance program performed Saturday, October 20 at Johnson County Community College’s Polsky Theatre proved a wonderful symbiotic collaboration that allowed each artistic element to shine.

Members of Owen/Cox Dance Group
in Jennifer Owen’s “Morena”
Photo by Elizabeth Stehling

Performed by OCDG’s seven member troupe and an ensemble of folk instruments and voices led by soprano Botero, Morena was delivered in a series of vignettes set to songs curated by Botero that are traditionally sung by Jewish, Muslim and Christian women. The songs, sung in their native languages, told of betrayal, desire and the secret hopes of mothers which Owen interpreted in a mix of folk dance-infused modern/contemporary dance choreography. Broken up into three sections, the program began with a collection of Sephardic songs the lyrics of which Owen and her dancers didn’t so much try to interpret as to capture the emotional content.

The section led off with the full ensemble in “Scalerica de oro,” a lively number that set the tone for the kind of high-armed, side-sweeping movement that would come to define the program’s first half.  The dancing had a communal feel with the performers holding hands in a circle and when a featured male/female pair broke off to perform a duet, encircling them.

Demetrius McClendon
and Marlayna Locklear
of Owen/Cox Dance Group
in Jennifer Owen’s “Morena”
Photo by Elizabeth Stehling

Next, dancing to the song “Nani, nani” (Lullaby, lullaby), dancers Megan Buckley, Demetrius McClendon and Marlayna Locklear presented a vignette where Buckley in spotlight on the opposite side of the stage to the others worriedly danced about and appeared to cradle an imaginary infant. Opposing that scene, McClendon and Locklear looked like two people in love. The pair clutched each other in tight embraces and moved through various partnered lifts that spoke of their desire for one another. As the vignette progressed and McClendon drew closer to Buckley, it became clear that there was a broken relationship between them and that Buckley was a woman in deep emotional turmoil over it. Her heartfelt, passionate dancing and that of the others was a highlight of the Sephardic section which overall lacked variety in both the music and in the choreography which tended to repeat itself.

The Arabic section that came next included five songs from the 11th through 13th centuries. In it, the music and the dancing took on new tonal dimensions and interest. The second selection in it, “Lama bada yatathanna,” told in the song’s lyrics of the joy a woman felt in seeing her love sway, his beauty amazing her. Owen’s choreography for the group dance evoked a village festival feel with chain dances, twisting and turning movement and vibrant dances for the women and men as groups.

(l-r) Yazzmeen Laidler, Terra Liu
and Marlayna Locklear
of Owens/Cox Dance Group
in Jennifer Owen’s “Morena”
Photo by Elizabeth Stehling

While much of the choreography for the Arabic section contained movement used earlier in the program, Owen’s choreography appeared to connect better with this music than that of the first section. Nowhere was that more evident than in “Man li hä’im” (He who loves me), a wonderfully-crafted and engaging duet danced by Buckley and partner Christopher Page-Sanders.

The unmistakable highlight of the evening was Morena’s closing Armenian section for which Botero and the Zulal Trio, an a cappella trio of Armenian-American women, developed a song cycle that began with a girl imploring her parents to marry her to a man for love and not money and ends with songs written after the 1915 Armenian genocide when the girl is now a widow and mother.

(l-r) Megan Buckley, Yazzmeen Laidler,
Marlayna Locklear, and (center) Terra Liu
of Owen/Cox Dance Group
in Jennifer Owen’s “Morena”
Photo by Elizabeth Stehling

Showcasing the singing of Botero and mezzo-soprano Kristee Haney, the section brought the marriage of music and dance to its peak beginning with the gleeful women’s quartet “Gago mare, garke zis” (Father, Mother, Have Me Married). Dancers Locklear, Buckley, Terra Liu and Yazzmeen Laidler cavorted as if young women dreaming of love and marriage and celebrated the bond they held between each other as friends.

The most moving and poignant moment in the program came in the extended solo “Sareri hovin mernem” (I Would Die for the Mountain Wind) performed by Laidler.  Heartfelt and adroitly danced, Laidler seemed to pour everything she had into the solo that portrayed a woman seeking resilience in the face of a devastating loss.  Owen’s outstretched and often emotionally wrenching choreography and Laidler’s performance of it were outstanding as was the ethereal singing of Botero and Haney.

Members of Owen/Cox Dance Group
in Jennifer Owen’s “Morena”
Photo by Elizabeth Stehling

For the chameleon-like Owen/Cox Dance Group that works with a rotating cast of dancers and in varying movement styles depending on each project, Morena may have been a bit of an outlier in terms of past projects. Nonetheless, the production, despite its rather one note opening section, had a lot to offer in its blending of cultures, choreography and music and received a standing ovation from the audience at program’s end.

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