American Repertory Ballet: “Wonderment” Program – A Wonderful Program

American Repertory Ballet
New Brunswick Performing Arts Center
New Brunswick, New Jersey

October 19, 2024 (matinee and evening)
Program: “Wonderment” – Little Improvisations, Black Swan Pas de Deux, Something About Night, Baroquen Dreams (world premiere)

Jerry Hochman

American Repertory Ballet opened its 2024-25 performing year with an interesting and eclectic multi-piece program, under the rubric “Wonderment,” designed to challenge members of the company – and the audience too. There were four pieces: a relatively little-known dance by an esteemed choreographer; a classic, exciting Pas de Deux; a dance created by a highly-regarded contemporary choreographer; and a world premiere by the company’s Artist in Residence. Each dance was impressive in different ways, presented qualities to get excited about, and raised expectations for the company in the future.

I had the opportunity to attend two performances (matinee and evening), and to observe two different casts. I’ll consider the pieces in program order. Given that three of the four dances were thought-provoking and my predilection to examine such pieces in detail, each invites – at least to me – more lengthy elaboration than usual.

Little Improvisations was choreographed by Sir Antony Tudor, a choreographic icon. It’s so simple-looking and brief (maybe 12-13 minutes) that it’s easily overlooked. That would be unfortunate. It also appears to have no kinship to Tudor’s famous “psychological” ballets. That might be wrong.

I’ll get to the two performances of it that I attended in a bit, but first a little history of, and a little amateur insight into, what I see in Little Improvisations.

The dance is neither early nor late Tudor. By the time Little Improvisations was choreographed, Tudor had already created some of his famous “psychological” ballets (e.g., Jardin Aux Lilas in 1936, and Dark Elegies in 1937), and had already relocated to the U.S. in or about 1940. Tudor continued to choreograph into the 1970s, and in that span of time created some of his most memorable ballets, including Pillar of Fire (1942), the first major dance he created for what became American Ballet Theatre, and The Leaves are Fading (1975), his last major work (and more than the simple “remembrance” that some consider it to be), both of which are considered by many, including me, to be masterpieces.

Little Improvisations premiered at Jacobs Pillow in 1953 (although ABT has the world premiere as 1980, the Jacobs Pillow web site has it as 1953, and identifies the dancers). There were a number of productions between 1953 and 1980 (including at Juilliard in 1962 and a restaging by Tudor for the Royal Swedish Ballet in the early 1960s with a Swedish title that translates as “It’s Raining”) and after (including relatively recently by New York Theatre Ballet). The accompanying score, Robert Schumann’s “Kinderszenen” (sometimes spelled with a “c” instead of a “z”), which translates as “Scenes from Childhood” – a set of 13 pieces for solo piano, each of which lasts just over a minute – is the same for all iterations I’ve located after a non-exhaustive search, as is the choreography.

Any Tudor piece is welcome anytime, but this one is different from others I’ve seen: for one, it’s sweet. Little Improvisations is most often described as two children playing in an attic on a rainy day, visualized as a connected set of very brief and enjoyable vignettes. But my instant take on it, after seeing it for the first time with these two performances, is that it may fit (though admittedly a stretch) within the broad umbrella of Tudor’s psychological ballets.

As I watched the young company dancers perform the piece, I saw an evolution – from being children to being characters older, emotionally, then children. A key, perhaps, to what Tudor was thinking – which to me came across as a red flag – is the positioning of the dancers when the piece ends, with the boy sitting on a small covered table, and the girl sitting on the floor beneath him, with her hands and head resting, lovingly on his knee. That says more than just being tired from play. In between, the dance hints at a growing, increasingly comfortable relationship, including visualizing the loss of an imagined baby cradled in the girl’s arms and watched over by the boy. That’s not just brother and sister keeping themselves occupied on a rainy day. [Save your emails; I’m aware that girls (and maybe boys also) play with dolls that they pretend are babies.] And it’s not nascent incest. To me, it’s adults (maybe young adults) in love seeing themselves, and performing their relationship, through children’s eyes and bodies, and the compressed psychological trajectory that reflects that relationship.

I haven’t seen comments Tudor may have made about the piece, and I don’t claim to be an expert in Tudor or music. But in looking for information about Little Improvisations, I found that Schumann’s score also tells a story of sorts. One web site (Medici TV, but I’ve seen the same information elsewhere) states that [“Kinderscenen”] “is linked to a deeply troubled period in the life of their composer, Robert Schumann. He was deeply in love with Clara Wieck and proposed marriage to her, but her father refused. Schumann plunged into a serious inner crisis…When he sent the score [of “Kinderszenen”] to Clara, he wrote ‘… :you sometimes make me feel like a child! If that’s the case, you’ll see that this child has grown wings….’ Thus [the Medici TV website commentary continues], the “Kinderszenen” are a call to rediscover the world through the enchanted eyes of our childhood.”

While it doesn’t prove anything, this backstory of sorts makes the dance’s relationship evolution, and its ending, possibly more than it appears on the surface to be. And Tudor was too cerebral a choreographer to have not been aware of, and impelled by, the story behind the music he decided to use as his score.

Further, if one watches Little Improvisations with a hyperactive mind, one might feel it rekindling memories of the would-be young lovers in the Off Broadway (and Broadway) classic, The Fantasticks, and one of its songs, “Soon It’s Gonna Rain.”

Be that as it may, the dance itself is fun to watch. The only set item is a low-lying small table (like a piano bench) onto which is spread a tablecloth. Following the opening moments visualizing the boy and girl looking bored (which is also by the table, but, as I recall, with the pair in a different position from the pose at the end), the girl removes the cloth from the table, and, in vignettes corresponding to the one minute plus piano pieces, the two convert the cloth into a cape, a tunic, a shawl, an animal (like a horse or donkey), swaddling covering for a newborn infant, and more. At the dance’s conclusion, the pair return the cloth to the table and take the positions I’ve described above.

The performances I attended (Rachel Quiner and Seth Koffler in the matinee, and Avery Snyder and Tiziano Cerrato in the evening) imbued the dance with the joy and light-heartedness that the piece requires and deserves. Between the two pairs, the afternoon pair came across as slightly more child-like, but that’s a distinction without a difference. Each pair executed the choreography skillfully, performed with credible childlike innocence, and instantly invited and transported the audience to the stage to share in the fun – and maybe the memory.

I don’t doubt that a large part of the performances’ success was the result of its having been staged by Amanda McKerrow (a former ABT Principal), the sole Trustee of the Antony Tudor Ballet Trust, and her husband, John Gardner (a former ABT Soloist), both repetiteurs for the Trust, assisted by ARB’s Artistic Associate (and ABT Principal) Gillian Murphy, who performed in the piece as a student. At each performance, Pavel Zarukin appeared on stage with the dancers playing the piano score.

The Black Swan Pas de Deux is the Petipa warhorse that is frequently performed separately from the complete ballet from which it is excerpted, Swan Lake. It’s more than just familiar, however. For many dancers, it’s a challenge on multiple fronts. I got the impression that that was the case with the two performances I saw. Each pair of dancers, Clara Pevel and Andrea Marini in the matinee, and Nanako Yamamoto and Aldeir Monteiro in the evening, were up to the challenge, and, overall, gave credible performances.

In a very broad sense, there are two prongs to the Black Swan (Odile in the full-length): characterization and technique. [It’s the same for the danseur (Prince Siegfried in the complete ballet), but, rightly or wrongly, isn’t usually considered as critical.] That should come as no surprise. But in this Pas de Deux a correct characterization is particularly essential because it makes the technical demands work. As to each prong, the Black Swans here delivered similar, but in certain respects very different, performances.

Technically, each Black Swan executed the choreography admirably. With respect to the fouettes in the Coda (the part that many audience-members consider a measure of advanced competence and performance success), by my highly unofficial count, Pevel did 28 or 29 turns while Yamamoto did 27 or 28. Each did “simple” fouettes – that is, no embellishments (e.g., no doubles or triples; no alternating ports de bras). Each traveled a bit, but not much. Overall, in that respect, they were comparable – as was the case with the rest of the choreography. But their appearance was different: Pevel came across, at least to me, as relatively fragile (a quality that will serve her well as Odette); Yamamoto appeared very strong. But these differences are surface characteristics.

More significant to me is that Odile must be a seductress. Even in the excerpted Pas de Deux, not conveying that quality makes it appear deficient. Although each Black Swan attempted to communicate this seductive quality (to the audience as well as the Prince), to me Yamamoto was more successful.

In the afternoon, Pevel maintained a relatively fixed “seductive” appearance. That is, in my view her facial expression remained essentially the same throughout, which makes the performance appear somewhat mechanical. [And she should remember that she must stay in character even when she turns to the back wall. It’s not like her face in that situation is equivalent to the dark side of the moon; in many situations, audiences can see.] And I think her characterization was impacted to some extent by her make-up, which, in my view, placed too much emphasis on her lips, to the detriment of her eyes. But I highlighted Pevel the first time I saw her dance with ARB; she’ll overcome all that with more experience. Yamamoto did vary her facial expression, and didn’t appear to be concentrating as hard on trying to look seductive.

As for Prince Siegfried, he must partner his ballerina and keep her centered (with which Marini was more successful than Monteiro), and he must complement the Black Swan’s fouettes in the Coda with his own set of tours a la seconde, if for no other reason than to keep the momentum going through to the final pose. Here, Monteiro kept his working leg higher than Marini did, making that part of his role look more exciting. As for character, all they needed to do was look like a confused, gullible, and besotted prince, which both did.

If I’d seen a dance choreographed by Lar Lubovitch previously, I’ve forgotten it. Based on what I saw in his Something About Night, the program’s third dance, I think I’d have remembered. Something About Night is an unanticipated pleasure that will linger long in my memory.

Something About Night was created in 2018 to celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, but, at least on the surface, it’s not a celebratory piece as much as it’s an introspective and contemplative piece. The ambiance is relatively dark, like a church interior, but there’s also a gentle haze that seems to waft across the stage, suggesting that its setting is outdoors. And its score is calming and understated, with gentle men’s voices adding to the spiritual nature of the dance. [The score is comprised of selections from Franz Schubert’s “Songs for a Male Chorus.”]

Ultimately, however, it appeared to me that the dance’s physical setting and score are meant to echo images generated within the mind. The dance’s air of mysticism and mystery is, perhaps, a consequence of the qualities of the mind to imagine, create, and remember. And the choreography emphasizes this.

The dancers generally move slowly, in relatively simple, non-descript costumes – maybe to make the roles they portray appear anonymous. The focus, to the extent there is one, ranges from the entirety of the ensemble to subgroupings or brief pairings, although any “focus” is difficult to pinpoint because everything is continuously in or out of focus, maybe something like trying to focus a camera on figures that aren’t really there anymore.

There’s more to the piece, and much more interaction among the dancers, than I can recall, but to provide a sense of what’s presented: At one point the dancers move in sync in a circle, at another one give comfort to another, and at another point, they huddle together mostly on their knees, rolling against and upon each other but not connecting with each other – in a sense, the blind leading the blind. But it all flows smoothly, like simple memories, or dreamed wishes, whether granted or not.

The cast of five (it seems like many more than that) was different at each performance, but the different dancers made no difference in performance quality. In the matinee, the dancers were, per the program, led by Michelle Quiner and Roland Jones, with Monteiro, Rachel Quiner, and Cerrato. In the evening, the respective roles were danced by Annie Johnson, Gavin Hounslow, Marini, Savannah Quiner, and Koffler. [Yes, three Quiners – with maybe more en route.] It was staged by Katarzyna Skarpetowska (a choreographer in her own right).

The evening’s concluding dance was the world premiere, choreographed by the company’s Artist in Residence and Choreographer, Ethan Stiefel. It’s the most complex, and possibly the most thought-provoking, of his choreographed creations that I’ve seen.

The dance seems to telegraph its intent by its title: Baroquen Dreams, but it’s less obvious than just a dance that foretells or reflects the demise of the Baroque. And it’s further complicated by there being no note in the program to indicate what, if any, intent or message Stiefel might be trying to convey. The one description I read, from a press release, asserts that the piece was inspired by prolific Baroque composer, conductor, and ballet dancer Jean Baptiste Lully, and one of his protégés, Marin Marais. It also states that Stiefel had always admired a musical instrument from the Baroque period, called a viol (or viola da gamba), which, like a cello, is played between the legs, but is smaller, thereby generating a different tone.

So I expected Lully and Marais, at least, to be identified in the piece. They’re not – although a Lully-like character, “Le Maestro,” is a central focus. I saw no Marais or Marais-like character, and nothing resembling any instrument, much less a viol, was on stage or specifically referenced. Their absence seemed strange.

[I must emphasize that just because there’s an inspiration doesn’t necessarily mean the piece created by a choreographer pursuant to that inspiration is trying to transmit any particular meaning or message. Stiefel’s dance would have worked as an unusual and pleasurable viewing experience even if there were none. But to me regardless of its creator’s intent or lack of it, it’s apparent that Baroquen Dreams is more than only movement choreographed to music, even Baroque music.]

I found the dance highly intriguing, and at times exhilarating – owed in no small part to the magnificently conceived, and varied costumes (ranging from obvious characteristically Baroque style costumes that relate to, but are simpler than, Baroque styles, to differently-colored unitards – or tops and bottoms that looked like unitards – for most of the ladies) designed by Janelle Cornell Urwin, who has designed costumes for ARB for at least a decade, and outdid herself here. The costume variety mirrored Stiefel’s choreography, which also appeared to run the gamut from Baroque to his conception of an evolving dance future (akin to nothing that I can pinpoint) that manifested, in the dance, in Le Maestro’s dream/ nightmare.

Based on the afternoon performance, I had concluded that Baroquen Dreams’ intent was to demonstrate that the Baroque music of Lully was overtaken, either in fact or in the Lully-surrogate character’s mind, by music of the future – which Lully foresaw. Following the evening’s performance, I concluded that there wasn’t any clear “story” here; that despite its title Baroquen Dreams is an abstract dance to be taken as moving images choreographed to the accompanying Baroque music that Steifel utilized. The observations seemed contradictory.

But after being informed by the dance’s music credits, in a sense I may have been right on both counts. It’s a combination of both that works as interesting and different entertainment, but also goes deeper than that if one cares to jump down its rabbit hole.

The musical sources for the dance’s score are not indicated within or beneath its entry in the program, as is usually the case. Following the performance, I hunted for them (in some programs, music credits are located separately). Eventually – it took awhile; they’re well-hidden – I found them.

It turns out that Lully (1632–1687) and Marais (1656-1728) are both in the piece: via their music. Stiefel, apparently, has skillfully positioned Lully compositions to correspond to scenes in which Le Maestro is in control, and pieces composed by Marais to correspond to scenes in which Le Maestro is not in control – scenes in which Le Maestro sees, or dreams of, an evolution in music that, arguably, is so counter to what he knows and had created that it kills him (in the dance, literally). [Too bad; I had really expected to see the dance visualize what really killed Lully – he stabbed himself in the foot with his conducting staff (an elongated cane) and developed gangrene.] Moreover, the Marais compositions, based on their titles, feature the viol, the instrument of which Stiefel is so enamored. So Baroquen Dreams does include both of Stiefel’s “inspirations.” [The implication in advance comments, or just my own hasty assumption, that Marais was Lully’s successor is wrong. Marais was never Lully’s successor – he wouldn’t have had the time: he fathered nineteen children.]

But there’s more.

To me, a major character in Baroquen Dreams is one who out-performed Marais (he fathered twenty children), and isn’t there, either physically or through any of his compositions: Johann Sebastian Bach.

The music credits include, as the final composition in the listing, music created by a composer I’d not previously heard of: Dietrich Buxtehude. So I looked him up. Buxtehude (about 1637-1707) was a well-known and highly regarded Danish-born German musician, composer, and teacher during the Baroque period, positioned in time overlapping Lully and continuing far beyond Lully’s death. He was, according to multiple sources, one of the most esteemed and influential composers of his time. He died, at age 70, and common knowledge of his existence and significance appeared to have died with him.

Why is Buxtehude, and Stiefel’s insertion of a Buxtehude composition, important? It’s what points toward Baroque’s (and in a larger sense, music’s) future, the future that, arguably, Le Maestro sees, or hears. [I’m assuming that the list of music credits is in the order presented in the dance, that the fourth and fifth compositions (or excerpts therefrom), each by Marais, populated separate divisions of the piece, and that the Buxtehude music accompanied the final segment. If that’s not accurate…never mind.]

It sounds apocryphal, but multiple sources relate that in 1705 a 20-year-old budding musician/composer decided to walk between 260 and 280 miles (one source found it closer to 300), from Arnstadt to Lubeck, to hear, and learn from, the greatest composer of his time: Buxtehude. That 20-year-old was Bach. And, also as related in multiple sources, what he gleaned from Buxtehude changed Bach’s life, and his music. As described in oslmusic.org (the site of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s): “Buxtehude’s music served as a musical beacon and source of inspiration in the early phases of Bach’s artistic growth, and without it his greatest accomplishments cannot be explained or understood.”

Describing the difference between Lully and Buxtehude and Bach (1685-1750) is not easy to elucidate, especially since I don’t claim to be a music scholar. It may be as simple as the difference between French Baroque and German Baroque, or Early Baroque vs. High Baroque – each of which begs the same question, which I find difficult to answer with sufficient clarity.

But I found a simpler distinction in one online essay in the publication: classical-music.com., attributed to Paul Riley, describing one way, and maybe the most significant way, that Buxtehude influenced Bach: “…not lost on Bach was the very public [emphasis added] facet of Buxtehude’s art (its influence on Bach’s cantatas would be practical as well as spiritual), and more particularly he came face to face, ear to ear, with the genius of the German ‘stylus phantasticus’ [an often rhapsodic and improvisational style] at its most ‘fantastic’. Already in possession of some of Buxtehude’s organ music which he’d copied as a boy, Bach now experienced its roots in the improvisations which fertilised (sic) all aspects of Buxtehude’s musical imagination. Famously, Bach hungrily outstayed his leave by three months. Equally famously, when he returned home the congregation of the Neuekirche found his chorale elaborations hard to follow….” Lully composed his music, it appears to me, for nobility, not for a “public” (even if that “public” is meant primarily in the context of religious music), and without the imagination or complexity of Bach.

So I see Buxtehude, and Stiefel’s use of one of his compositions, as a link in in the Baroque chain from Lully to Bach (from early Baroque to late Baroque, and from relatively simple melodies to ultra-complex creations. Given Stiefel’s choreography, the link may go much further up the chain than that (as, to a large extent, reflected in the movement and costumes, but a musical link between, say, Lully and Elvis, or to the fourth “B” (The Beatles), or beyond, maybe to whatever the present “future” is, may be a stretch too far.

Is this what Stiefel was thinking or intending when he used the Buxtehude composition in the dance’s final segment? I don’t know. It’s certainly possible that he used it just because he liked the music.

Little of this digression impacts the entertainment value of the dance. One can enjoy it without knowing the above details, based on Stiefel’s choreography and Urwin’s costumes, as well as by the dancers’ highly capable performances. The movement quality is not clearly related exclusively to a particular style, although ballet is a significant component. At times it looks like a jumble, but in context (and with Urwin’s costumes) it marks a distinction between Lully-inspired movement qualities (Lully choreographed ballets for Louis XIV and his court’s pleasure) and those that took place thereafter (in Le Maestro’s dream/ nightmare) danced by Les Reminiscences – the group name by which Stiefel references dancers in the piece other than Le Maestro, and which, in context, may be considered “dream memories.” He also avoids predictability by having one of the piece’s six segments limited to three, and another to four, featured dancers, rather than Les Reminiscences in their entirety.

Of at least equal significance to all the above in the overall theatrical context: the entire cast – except the dancer playing Le Maestro – appeared to be having fun, and that’s a quality that an audience can see and feel. And it’s contagious.

In addition to Le Maestro, who wears his self-importance on his sleeve but doesn’t really have much choreography to perform, Baroquen Dreams has a cast of fourteen (inclusive of featured dancers). Between the two performances, it includes most, if not the entire, company. They carry the weight of Stiefel’s choreography, and seem rarely to stop moving.

As Le Maestro, Leandro Olcese in the matinee and Roland Jones in the evening were superb dancer/ actors, each delivering the role’s essential qualities. The featured dancers in the quartet were Madison Egyud, Lily Krisko, Cerrato, and Tomoya Suzuki in the matinee, and in the evening Jasmine Jasper, Pevel, Olcese, and Suzuki. Those in the trio, which included the dancer portraying Le Maestro, were Savannah Quiner and Jones in the matinee, and in the evening, Erika Reenstierna-Cates and Marini.

“Wonderment” proved to be a wonderful program indeed.

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