A Quarter of a Century Young

“Irregular Pearl” and “Rasa”
Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, CA
November 2, 2007

by Rita Felciano
copyright © 2007 by Rita Felciano

The dressed to the hilt crowd at the opening night of Alonzo King’s twenty-fifth anniversary season came to cheer, and cheer they did. From the moment King, in elegant black with his trademark cap and long shawl, stepped in front of the curtain to tell the audience that a quarter of a century had passed like a second or like an eternity, “which is the way I like it,” he had the crowd in his hands. Fortunately, there was plenty to cheer about in the two world premieres, “Irregular Pearl and “Rasa.” The first was performed to selections from Baroque music; the second to a new score by tabla and world musician Zakir Hussain. Live music was what gave these works their breath, their life.

In addition to guest artist Muriel Maffre, Lines showcased two new dancers, a tall, very muscular but beautifully expressive Corey Scott-Gilbert, and Caroline Rocher, a dynamo with attitude. They join the four veterans Brett Conway, Michael Scher, Meredith Webster and Laurel Keen. Keelan Whitmore; Ricardo Zayas and Ashley Jackson are in their second season.

King likes to choreograph in small units, for rarely more than three dancers at the time, sending them onto the stage in what looks like haphazard sequences. But what emerges again and again is a sense of time that, instead of being linear, is suspended, and a sense of place that is in constant flux and yet always the same. It makes for dizzying viewing.

For a work that had been announced as being choreographed to baroque music—performed by a first rate quintet from the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra on period instruments--“Pearl” opened on a surprisingly contemporary note. Viola de Gamba player Roy Wheldon had composed a fresh-sounding introduction that smoothly led into the Corelli; he repeated the process a few moments later with another small composition to precede Vivaldi. It felt like the musicians were gently inviting the dancers into their timeless world.

And enter that world they did, starting with two of the newest dancers, Whitmore, a shortish dynamo, and Scott-Gilbert, a giant who ripples muscles and whips pirouettes. Theirs might be called a get-acquainted duet; Whitmore seemed to welcome his colleague into the company. Slowly walking onto the stage, they offered a hand and then began to take their measure of each other. Pushing, pulling, yanking, they stretched each other like rubber bands, limbs intertwined, two bodies becoming one. Two male encounters suggest competition; this duet felt like exploration with a sense of curiosity and surprise to it.

The conversation idea was repeated later in a furiously fast duet for Ashley Jackson, whose limbs can cut space like a cleaver, and the fine-boned Laurel Keen, who can look boneless when she luxuriates herself into some unheard of shape but who, the next second goes for atomic speed in flailing traverses. Though engaging in a short canon, the women mostly danced for each other. One of them did a solo, the other one watched. The process repeated and became a conversation between two very different women who spoke the same language.

One of “Pearl’s” real pleasure was how liquidly King’s segmented choreography flows from one part to the next. Scott-Gilbert in a trio, steps into a duet, for his first encounter with a Lines woman, the regal Meredith Webster. Our attention may focus on a particularly intense twosome, then another dancer -- maybe two -- twirl in, writes a few calligraphic phrases into the air and exits on the other side. What was that all about? Maybe a clouding passing, maybe a fleeting thought.

Despite the angularity, shifting centers of gravity, and limbs reaching beyond the horizon “Pearl,” has a sense of quiet about it. There is plenty of turbulence at ever-dizzier speeds, and then it stops. No reason, it just stops. Rarely have I seen dancers simply stand, not waiting, just being. Sometimes the effect can be startling. For a moment, when new dancer Caroline Rocher, her arms slightly extended over something that looks almost like a tutu, quietly surveys Whitmore and the company’s octane powered Ricardo Zayas flanking her, she looks like the princess having become queen. But when she tears downstage, any notion about queenly calm has evaporated. This is an Amazon going all out.

Michael Schert’s astounding solo in the center section, to exquisite viola de gamba (by Marin Marais), takes him from crawls and floor rolls to tilted extensions with a sense of molten lava inside him. A few minutes later, in a duet of primal intensity with Webster, he partners her forcefulness with great gentleness.

The piece’s final duet for Maffre with Scott-Gilbert focuses on the differences between the dancers. She is pale, long-limbed and internally focused; he dark with dread locks flying, attentive in breathless awe of her. It’s a visually stunning image but it’s their responsiveness to each other which brings it to life. When he gently pushes her back foot towards the standing leg, she inhales and pulls herself just a tiny bit higher.

The second world premiere, “Rasa,” may refer to the Hindu expression for concentrated essence but it also touches on the medieval notion of a blank slate. The piece moved toward as close a state of pure music as is physically possible. And yet it started on about as a dramatic note as King has ever fashioned.

After an initial opening with each of the dancer encased in a separate square of light, Maffre went through what looked like an initiation. A huge pushing-the windows-open gesture, led her into a place of intense loneliness, in which arms aimed for the beyond and curled in onto her own body. Partners Whitmore and Zayas who curl, push and fold her. She collapses over one of them, pumps up the other. At one point, stiff like a board, the men bat her back and forth. Webster becomes a kind intermediary who literally helps Maffre move her legs, as if she needed to learn to walk again.

Even more intense became a no-holds barred duet between Keen and Conway in which she pits herself against him with what begins to look like madness. Trying to subdue, conquer, penetrate him, she fights him on his back, between his legs, hanging on his shoulders, flying around his waist. To relieve some of the almost unbearable tension, other dancers offer small variations, but always the focus goes back to this epic struggle which has nothing do with animosity but everything with forces in motion.

Hussain and singer/musician Kala Ramnath supported and egged on the action on stage in a score that was partially pre-recorded but also clearly improvised in direct response to the dancers. Towards the end of this breathtaking music/dance interaction became so intense that the dancers—taking turns in every faster variations—seemed to atomize in front of our eyes.

My only reservation about these magnificent dancers concerns Zayas whose speed and virtuosity are headline grabbing indeed. But sometimes he seemed in danger of displaying them too much for our approval. 

Photo: Laurel Keen and Brett Conway (by Marty Sohl)
copyright © Rita Felciano