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Nutcracker Notes

"The Nutcracker" of Joffrey Ballet Chicago, Washington Ballet, New York City Ballet et al. 

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

E.T.A. Hoffmann might or might not have been horrified to see how sentimentalized his story of "Nutcracker and Mouseking" has become in the world of ballet. Never mind that Hoffmann's Stahlbaum family hadn't just two children but three - the 7 year old Marie, the slightly older Fritz and the almost grown up Luise - or that the name of Clara belonged to Marie's doll whose bed is lent to the injured Nutcracker. In the penultimate sentence of the tale Hoffmann alludes to "wondrous things that can be seen if one has the eyes for it". That holds for productions of "The Nutcracker" ballet, big and small. This year I saw 7 performances.

Master of the Glass Bead Game

New "eyeSpace", "Crises", "Xover"
Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Eisenhower Theater
The  John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
December 12, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

A series that proceeds from less to more abstract might be: Merce Cunningham choreography, chess, calculus. Which of the following would be more abstract: the Cunningham choreography or a Cecchetti ballet class, chess or go or the glass bead game? What is very actual and unabstract about all three of the Cunningham dances on this program are the dancers - their bodies, their minds and their off-ballet training. Cunningham, though, is the Magister Ludi. He plays with the dancers' attributes. His world becomes a game board as he arranges positions on stage and plans moves in-place or into space. His world becomes the anatomy theater as he dissects bodies bloodlessly to demonstrate surfaces and expose hinges. His world is the laboratory in which he tests resilience, velocity and equipoise. Much of the work is clear, efficient, elegant. Even the occasional doodle looks deliberate and pristine. What, then, in the choreography or dancing makes "eyeSpace" be itself and not "Xover"? Or are the different Cunningham titles all part of one immense, open-ended opus? Is it possible to like one title more than another apart from its sound, gear or particular dancers? Yes, but just barely.

Labors

"Clytemnestra"
Martha Graham Dance Company
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
December 9, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Not easy! Taking in Martha Graham’s “Clytemnestra” is work. The latest reconstruction of Graham’s epic manifesto has been outfitted with super-titles to help navigate its fracted story, many characters and not unambiguous meaning. Still, some of the audience opted to “just watch the movement”. That’s one approach and, indeed, immediate pleasures are to be had during the two plus hours spent in the theater. Graham, the choreographer, compressed human action and individual expression into moments as memorable as any Phidias marble yet as pliant as flesh. Graham, the costume designer, knew how to dress and undress the sculpted bodies she wanted her dancers to display. Several of the current dancers seem stellar beyond their role fit and sex appeal. Halim El-Dabh’s music and Isamu Noguchi’s stage objects are striking, besides serving Graham’s intent. If you do, though, make the effort to keep track, sort and interpret, then sitting through “Clytemnestra” becomes an event singularly worthwhile.

Singulars

„Dos Mundos“
Fuego Flamenco IV – International Festival
Gala Hispanic Theatre at the Tivoli
Washington, DC
December 6, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Some flames burn with a cold light, some generate heat and still others smolder. The three individuals who starred on the final bill of Gala’s fourth annual flamenco festival differed physically and temperamentally. That they shared the percussive footwork of flamenco and additional technical traits seemed secondary. This was a night of solo forays by Edwin Aparicio – the seeker, magisterial La Tati and seductive Defne Enc. Each of the three seemed apart despite backup by group dancers and dialogue with five fine musicians. 

Night & Day

"Giselle"
The San Francisco Ballet
Opera House
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
November 28 & 30 evening, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Veteran “Giselle” watchers claim that this old ballet’s story, music and dancing are so well made and matched that the result is virtually tamper proof. At the end of San Francisco’s first act – the daytime one - I worried that the performance on October 28, at the start of the company’s five “Giselle” presentations in Washington, would prove to be the rare dud. Yet when the curtain rose on Act 2, the world had changed. Sofiane Sylve, as Myrtha, raised her arms and sparked the midnight air. Mists dispersed as she crossed and re-crossed the stage. The very shadows of the trees retreated as she stepped forward to leap, turn, beat and balance. Dancing of such attack reverberates. Maria Kochetkova, the Giselle I’d found lightweight in the daytime act, is reborn when Myrtha summons her from the grave. This new Giselle obeys, but anger and urgency propel her. From absolute stillness she transforms into a hurricane. Can she be controlled? It soon becomes clear that she will conform only long enough to gain her own ends. This Giselle and this Myrtha were opponents on a grand scale.

Beauty & Blemish

“The Way Dogs Do” ... One-Man Show by Christoph Dostal

Embassy of Austria

Washington, DC

November 21, 2008

by George Jackson

copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Christoph Dostal is a handsome man. Looks are not normally the thing I mention first in a review. In this instance, though, Dostal’s appearance is central to his art of clowning. He’s a sad clown, eliciting our pity by distorting the classical features of his face and the uprightness of his bearing to narrate a goofy story and play grotesque characters. Each of his forays into an incident or personality is like an insult to the beauty and dignity of the human form. When Dostal disengages from his storytelling and acting tasks and resumes his “own” guise, it is a surprise to find that all the make believe hasn’t left irreversible traces behind. He emerges as fine a specimen as he was at the start, and that is the real drama of this one-man show.

Nowhere to Hide in "La Bayadere" (Vienna Letter #2)

by George Jackson

copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Some dancers, like certain cities, make you conscious of volume more than line, space or even spot. Vienna is one of the cities, at least in its inner districts. These are built up of substantial structures - apartment houses of much the same size and shape. The prototype stems from the 19th Century. Façade styles differ – Biedermeier, neoclassical, art nouveau, functional, fancily glass-and-steel and so forth. It is the buildings' boxy volume, though, that stamps itself into the consciousness to become a norm. Dancers who conjure volume – they seem sculpted in the round or molded on a lathe – include three 20th Century ballerinas: the USSR’s Marina Semyonova, Austria’s Poldy Pokorny and the USA’s Nana Gollner.

2008 / 1938 / 1908: A Letter from Vienna

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson
 
How important is the past for Vienna? For sure, in much of life and work the Viennese look back to take stock of time present. In politics now, they are measuring Joerg Haider – killed when he crashed his car on October 11 and then outed sexually by the NY Times more than by the Austrian press – against populist, far right precedents set by Karl Lueger (1844-1910) and Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). In the economy, the financial market in Vienna tumbled as drastically as elsewhere on Black Friday (October 10), but globally the Viennese were among the most insistent on seeing the crisis in a historical perspective. The cultural event most talked about is an exhibit - the “recollection” of the big 1908 art extravaganza here that officially recognized modernism. Dance, though, doesn’t often look back in this city. Most of the local presenters pander to fads of the moment or a moment ago – the acrobatic “Swan Lake” from China, Blue Man Group, Austrian ballroom finalists, Georgio Madia’s nightclub routines for the otherwise refined Rameau productions of the Vienna Chamber Opera, and Gyula Harangozo II’s middle brow repertory and policy of no permanent stars at the Ballet of the Staatsoper/Volksoper. The exception was Andrea Amort’s “political” dance festival – Touchings (Beruehrungen) - which examined choreography from prior to Austria’s 1938 annexation by Nazi Germany and commented on it with work made today.     

Not Without Genius

The Washington Ballet
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
October 25, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Criticism should focus on the art, not the advertising. The latter, though, leaked into the printed program for Washington Ballet’s first bill of the 2008/9 season. The bill was a mixed one of four short works and bore the umbrella title “Genius2”. Intended was a sequel to last season’s G1. The company offered G2 for 6 performances in the fussily redesigned Eisenhower Theater. Septime Webre, the WB’s artistic director, in one of his on-stage chats likened the assembly of a mixed bill to the planning of the menu for a fine meal. Fair enough – that comparison has been made often since one-act ballets became popular in European opera houses at the end of the 19th Century. Must, though, all the “courses” be imported? That was so for G1 and now again for G2. Isn’t there work by at least one “Washington choreographer” worthy of being seen together with those by guest chefs? Apparently, for Webre the answer is no.

Journeys

Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company
Lisner Auditorium
Washington, DC
October 24, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Following one of Burgess’ dances is like traveling through unfamiliar territory with a consummate guide. A sense of adventure persists even approaching the end of a work. Only later do you realize that the finds you think you’re making were put there at precisely the moment they mattered – as when the two couples in “Meditation” weave long, mellow, looping phrases but also raise a question. Why the two pairs, why wouldn’t one couple suffice since they pretty much duplicate the same line and phrasing? Just then you notice slight but certain differences in what they do. You could grow tired of this light counterpoint, but before that happens a third couple enters boldly so that true change reigns. In “Chino Latino” people dance together with real partners or ones yearned for but also seem aware of others on the club’s floor. No actual club set or dance crowd exist, but the feel of a specific place is tangible and there's pressure as if others were present. In “Khaybet”, a solo for a veiled female figure, we watch cloth that at first becomes one with the flesh it covers. Then, though, does it try to stifle the life articulating and agitating so persistently within its folds? The brand new “Hyphen” joins and segregates, binds or puts barriers between individuals, ideas, emotions, time present and memory. To bring such sights into view takes some doing.