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December Flurry: In & Around DC

> Maryland Dance Ensemble
> Flamenco Men
> Eureka
> Imperfect Dancers of Italy
> Dakshina

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson

Maryland Dance Ensemble, a student-faculty performance company, allowed its educational obligations to dominate this program. There was no escaping the "Movement Poetry Project", an exercise that turned up on both halves of the bill and during the intermission. Motion phrases and words were paired, but instead of winged verse and daring dance what emerged were Western Union messages and Boy Scout signals. Predictably, one of the words used was "ululation". "No" and "talent" also were on the exercise's list of terms, but no one had the guts to link them. A few minutes of this game might have looked cute on a kindergarten class but for college students? Adriane Fang was tagged as culpable. 

Characters in Search

"Stay"
Theater of the First Amendment Company
Lansburgh Theatre
Washington, DC 
11 / 11 /  2011

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson

Eleven people are placed on an island in this new dance play. Perhaps they are stranded. Some, though, seem to be there by choice. We watch them interact and indulge themselves for 90 intermissionless minutes, speaking Heather McDonald's text and dancing Susan Shields' steps. At the end, they sight a ship offshore. Does it take them away from themselves and each other? Despite the signs cast by Gregory Cane's sky projections and many reminders of theater past (Theophile Gautier's "Giselle" scenario, Richard Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk notions, Luigi Pirandello's "6 Characters in Search of an Author" and Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" among them), we'll never know. Were there more structured action in the writing and choreography, we might even care. Too much of the time, though, these people seem to be just treading water.

Transplant Thriving

Living Dance Festival / 2011 Dance Festival of India
IDEA - Indian Dance Educators Association
Theater 1, Gunston Arts Center
Arlington, Virginia
October 29, 2011 at 7:30 PM

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson

A sturdy, supple tree's silhouette and nothing else decorates the cover of this festival's printed program. It is an apt symbol of how classical India dance is thriving on the other side of the world from its origins. Each of the weekend's 3 programs was substantially different, a goal which the Washington area's ballet teachers would be hard pressed to match. Aneal Krishnamurthy invited me to the Saturday evening performance which featured the Kathak style and a Nepalese rarity as well as Odissi and ubiquitous Bharatanatyam. I'll indulge my Euroeccentricity by comparing these styles to different forms of traditional ballet.  

Floor

"Haze"
Beijing Dance Theater
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
October 26, 2011

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson

Most remarkable about the piece of group choreography with which BDT made its USA debut wasn't its social message nor its dance substance but the floor on which the performance took place. It was soft. Steps sank into it just a bit. Falls rebounded with a little bounce. While it looked impersonal, like a large sheet of industrial grey felt, in order to balance on it each cast member (10 men, 5 women) had to be assertive. The help or hindrance this flooring provided gave the slim, young dancers chances to show signs of individuality, which the overt movement did not. "Haze" is group choreography almost to the point of anonymity.

The Outsiders

"Charlie Chan and the Mystery of Love", "Becoming American"
Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company
Dance Place
Washington, DC
October 16, 2011

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson

A small town lad in America's Latino southwest falls in love not with the date he has escorted to a dance but with another lad. An orphan girl from Korea is adopted into an an American home. The lad, when not out dancing, is transfixed by television and fantasizes about the much replayed adventures of detective Charlie Chan, an outsider like himself. The girl can't forget images of her Korean past as shadowy figures haunt her few possessions - a bowl, a box and a piece of baggage. It is such misplaced, displaced people who transfix choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess. They haunt his dances, including the two his company performed this past weekend. Despite the kinship of their protagonists, these Burgess works were unalike as dances.  

Thou Shalt ...

"Rodin / Claudel"
Les Grands Ballets Canadiens
Theatre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts
Montreal, PQ, Canada
October 13, 2011

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson 

Foremost, this ballet probes the relationship of artist and work of art. Peter Quanz, author and choreographer of the "Rodin / Claudel" story, does it with movement that has body power and that haunts the stage. By animating the statues that populate his tale, Quanz shows they are not just putty in a sculptor's hands. They make demands and woe to the individual who disobeys the 11th commandment - thou shalt tend to thy work. As the statues take shape, their torsos seem as pliant as protoplasm. They twist and they torque. They flow singly as solitary figures or, grouped, surge as would salmon upstream. It is when they stall that the sculptor's diligence is crucial. "Rodin / Claudel" would be a rich dance work were it just a set of panoramas about the sculptor's art in process. This ballet, though, is also a true story about problematic people and the society to which they are expected to adapt. For the real people, Quanz uses a different type of dance than for the statues.  

Time Lines

Dakshina Dance, Kalakshetra Dance & Leela Samson
Fall Festival of Indian Dance
Lincoln Theatre
Washington, DC
October 7, 2011

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson

Transitions and transformations happen even in the most traditional of arts. Leela Samson, the superb Bharatanatyam dancer, has become an administrator and educator. The evening of October 5, in India's embassy, she stood at a podium as only a dancer can - her sari-clad frame pliantly upright, her head held high and her hands resting patiently at her sides when not animated to illustrate a point. Samson was lecturing on arts policy and management issues. Two nights later, she was on stage at the Lincoln Theatre in a pair of solos. Her dancing has been an alloy of flesh, velvet and willpower since I've known it and this time she had to will her body to obey more emphatically than before. Obey it did and her marvellous balances lasted untremored. With one leg raised at an angle infront and the clearly articulated arms floating, Samson's right index finger was poised in expectation as the light on her faded - undoubtedly it was eternity for which she was waiting.

Another icon of continuity at the Lincoln was Kalakshetra, said to be India's oldest dance company. Samson, though, had brought it along for its first American visit to show the current vitality of India's classical dance. Youth dominates Kalakshetra. Its cadre is fresh and raring to go. 

Almost A Waltz

"Romance of the West Chamber"
Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre
Terrace Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
September 29, 2011

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson

A romantic comedy of remarkable charm is what I saw and heard. Each performer on the stage of a Chinese opera must posses movement skills as well as voice and character. These the cast unquestionably had. Quite accessible to the Western ear compared to the more familiar, shriller Peking operas, "Romance" is an example of the Kunqu style which seems not as grandiose yet isn't a whit less refined. I can't relate much else about this style in general, other than that it is ancient, because the Kennedy Center's printed program proved to be uninformative, referring its readers to beikun.com - a website in Chinese. Alternate sources tell more but not all one wants to know about Kunqu opera. Perhaps, though, the 140 minutes of highly civilized entertainment "Romance" provides and the afterthoughts it prompts about human behavior ought to suffice.    

Richmond Cares

"Who Cares?" preceded by "Pas Glazunov" & excerpts from "Apollo" & "Nuevo Tango"
A Tribute to Igor Antonov
Richmond Ballet
Studio Theater of the Richmond Ballet
Richmond, Virginia
September 10, 2011

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson 

Igor Antonov's career as a danseur began in the Ukraine, is concluding in Virginia and has included considerable years in Germany. Trained in the Soviet Union's Vaganova curriculum at Kiev, Antonov won fans dancing for companies he joined - Donetsk Ballet, Richmond Ballet, Duesseldorf Ballet and again Richmond - as well as for companies that invited him to guest. His director at Richmond, Stoner Winslett, decided to start her 2011/12 season with a pair* of programs that are retrospectives of Antonov's choice roles. Initially the idea seems to have been to cast him in a different one or two of these parts at each performance during the September 8 to 18 run. However, Antonov demurred and chose instead to say goodbye in the same work on each occasion - George Balanchine's "Who Cares?". It pleases him to see the company's younger men, whom he has helped to rehearse and coach, do the other dancing. 

Home on the Range

"The Four Temperaments", "Grand Synthesis", "Sinfonietta"
Ballet West
Filene Center
Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts
Vienna, Virginia
August 23, 2011

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson 

Ballet West brought 48 dancers East, to Wolf Trap. That's slightly more on-stage performers than the Ballet Russe companies used to tour but those legendary, long vanished caravans also traveled with enough musicians to form a small orchestra. In contrast, Ballet West danced to recorded music for this visit, live sound being something current economics simply won't allow. Still, this company can count on something the Ballets Russes only dreamt of - a permanent home. It sounds good. In practice, though, a home base can be both a blessing and a burden. Salt Lake City, Utah where Ballet West rehearses, tries out new productions and performs regularly, isn't on the international dance circuit. That imposes obligations on the company - it must keep its steady audience educated and aware because that public has no other source for standards, trends, traditions and innovations or for just about anything else. Moreover, when Ballet West travels it is expected to be distinctive, to represent its home and "the spirit of the West". Doing all of that is far from simple and easy. For this one night stand at Wolf Trap, Ballet West artistic director Adam Sklute chose familiar works by 2 internationally famous choreographers and a newer piece by a dance maker not from the West but from Wolf Trap's neighborhood - the Washington, DC area.