danceviewtimes

Explorations

Arka Ballet
American Dance Institute
Rockville, Maryland
June 20, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

With a behemoth, the Bolshoi Ballet, in town could a small classical company performing in a modest studio theater make a dent?  Arka's impact was due to its dancers' interest in exploring styles and cultures, and its director's choice of apt repertory. Distinctions between different types of ballet dancing (Royal Danish, Maryinsky, International Romantic) were conveyed with care. The nuances of love in contrasting societies (old Oriental, genteel European, modern Latino) were addressed seriously. Worthwhile and varied fare well prepared was what the audiences attending this 10th anniversary Arka program saw.

Going Back

"Le Corsaire"
Bolshoi Ballet
Opera House
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
June 17, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

Going back to 1899 in order to restore "Le Corsaire" had its reasons. Wanted was a peak version of the often altered old ballet, plus documentation. The changes Marius Petipa made that year came at a  time when he had also been doing his wonderful work with the great Tchaikowsky and Glazunov scores. Moreover, choreographic notations and other pieces information about that "Corsaire" have survived. The current Bolshoi production by Alexei Ratmansky and Yuri Burlaka uses the 1899 data with discretion. The result is certainly worth seeing in its entirety - once. Is it, though, something to go back to a second time? 

Fun On Mute

"Lucy's Playlist"
Bowen McCauley Dance
Signature Theatre's Ark
Shirlington Village, Arlington, Virginia
June 12, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

How much difference music makes when one watches dance is something I learned long ago from Ann Barzel's silent footage of performances. Barzel, the late Chicago critic and historian, used the movies she took from just off stage in the wings or from the prompter's box in her lectures on what was called "dance appreciation" in the 1940s. Shocking to me was how choreography that had looked fluent in the theater would fall apart when seen on screen without sound. If I knew the missing music well and played it in my head, I could glue the ballet back together again. Balanchine interested me particularly although I hadn't seen much of his work in repertory at the time. In Barzel's takes, though, his choreography cohered. Years later, I learned to turn down my mental sound dial as choreographers began to use more and more pop music for the dance stage. I found I could dampen high volume, diminish stridency and, if necessary, put my mind on total mute. Pop, particularly rock-and-roll, isn't my beat.

I lasted Lucy Bowen McCauley's hour long playlist of r-&-r songs because I knew she had choreographed to true music in the past, had done so with skill and I was able to rely on my perverse skill of ignoring the noise in order to see the dancing. 

Urban Renewal & the Urge to Dance

The Dinner Party
Artomatic
New Building at 55 East M Street SE
Washington, DC
June 11, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

Explanations first! The Dinner Party is a dance performance series for unfinished and impromptu work. It has had monthly sessions since April 2008, usually in vacant places - those about to be demolished or those just constructed but not yet occupied. Previous "sittings" I've attended were at The Warehouse, a crumbling store that once housed a cabaret cafe and faces Washington's sleek Convention Center. For its June sitting, The Dinner Party chose a structure near the city's new baseball stadium and of even more recent vintage. Practically all of this still empty structure has been turned over temporarily to Artomatic - an organization with an even longer history (since 1999) of using urban renewal real estate for art. From May 29 through July 5, Artomatic has put nine floors worth of art objects on display - nine minus room for support activities and performances. The stage on Floor 6 is designated for dance. 

Fresh Wind from Spain

"Sense fi" and "Conquassabit"
Gelabert Azzopardi Companyia de Dansa
Lang Theater
Atlas Performing Arts Center
Washington, DC
June 6, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

With not a castanet or percussive heel in sight or even a whiff of a Nacho Duato mannerism in the air, Cesc Gelabert and Lydia Azzopardi's company blew in from Barcelona* to give us a fresh slant on Spain's dance. This small group** isn't constituted in the usual way: about two thirds of the cast is male and just a single performer is past being young - he is company director, teacher and choreographer Gelabert. The dancing is contemporary insofar as it has a casual finish and eclectic vocabulary but dancing it is. There's pulse and form, and not merely the pedestrian movement that bonds so much of "dancing" Europe. High energy, firm power and clear contours are at this company's command. Gelabert isn't shy about showing these accomplishments and did so for two quite different works.The costumes by his co-director Azzopardi helped  him to individualize the dancers even when they performed as a corps. What an elegantly democratic designer she is!

Singular

"Scheherezade"
Baltimore Ballet
Kraushaar Auditorium, Goucher College
Towson, Maryland
May 17, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

Is there any ballet more difficult to bring back to life than the Diaghilev company's legendary "Scheherezade" of 1910? Part of the problem may be that Mikhail Fokine, its choreographer, had experience, instinct, insight and imagination that few today share. The harem life he evoked on stage was more than merely colorful and strange. It might actually have been alien -  in the extraterrestrial, science fiction, frightening sense. Montesquieu, in his "Persian Letters", refers to the seraglio as "another world". Fokine had traveled to the Persian parts of Czarist Russia. He had certainly read the "Arabian Nights". He knew the harem's rules were cruel by civilized Western standards and its inhabitants obsessed with immediate sensual gratification - whether pleasure of the flesh or the possession of treasure - even at the risk of death. Immerse yourself in that world if you can and likely you will tremble.

It Needn't Have Snowed

"Rubies", Edwaard Liang's "Wunderland", Septime Webre's "Juanita y Alicia"
The Washington Ballet
Harman Hall
Washington, DC
May 14, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

The surprise in "Rubies", Washington Ballet's latest Balanchine acquisition, was Sona Kharatian in the "tall girl" role. This figure is surrounded by men but hasn't an exclusive partner. At times she's the life of the party. Then, suddenly, she seems solitary and yet isn't at all unhappy being so. The women cast in this part often have made her brazen and definitely the ballet's subsidiary ballerina. Not so Kharatian. She gave the "tall girl" dignity and was commanding rather than demanding. She almost became the prima ballerina of "Rubies" particularly since Maki Onuki didn't project a definite personality in what traditionally has been the starring female role. Sometimes overly cute, sometimes seriously sensual and sometimes blank, Onuki (an admirable Bournonville Sylph earlier in the season) seemed unsuited to the efficiency and ease, the  sportiveness and playfulness, the suggestive air and no pretense of this piece of Americana by Balanchine. 

Creativity & Compromise

Kylian's "Petite Morte" & "Sinfonietta", Zuska's "D.M.J."
Narodni divadlo balet (Czech National Theater Ballet from Prague)
Harman Hall
Washington, DC
April 25, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

Fusing ballet and modern dance is creativity at its utmost according to a portion of today's public. I see it as difficult to do without blunting ballet's elegance and purging modern movement of strength and grit. Jiri Kylian, currently the best known of Czech choreographers, has made yards of fused dancing. There's nothing especially Czech about it. His output resembles the compromised movement that became fashionable globally during the 1950s and '60s. Other perpetrators included America's John Butler and Glen Tetley. At its best, this type of balletomodern has a smooth, sculptural fluidity that lends itself to acrobatic duets. Often, though, these one-on-one encounters lack variety and I, at least, soon grow tired of the blend. Earlier experiments in fusion had included countercurrents to the dominant flow dynamic. Examples of interest are Leonide Massine's pair of acrobats in the 1917 "Parade" and the duets in David Lichine's 1946 "Cain and Abel", but (except for Alvin Ailey) quite a few choreographers who came to prominence after World War 2  forgot to look back and as a result we have works such as the three on this program.

Question

Paul Taylor's "Last Look" & 2 Solos
"Dance is the Answer" KickOff
4th Floor Studio
The Music Center at Strathmore
North Bethesda, Maryland
April 23, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

Why take that last look? Because you must. Knowing beforehand what there is to be seen makes no difference. All that is awful is scrutinized again to be sure nothing has changed. But how reliable is that sallow gaze? Does the mirror distort? To stand still and peer is an act of self violence. Twitch, muscle, twitch! Touching another's flesh triggers paroxysms galore.

The horrible, sorry humanity of "Last Look" infects viewers. There's no hope from the start, although there's certainty that all spasms, every stumble, each fall is deserved somehow. People remember Paul Taylor's 1985 dance when they themselves sicken. 

For Children Only?

 "Peter Pan"
The Washington Ballet
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
April 2, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by George Jackson

Much is silly, much is sentimental but bits of it are fun! "Peter Pan", Washington Ballet's Easter staple, is aimed at kids. Yet, Thursday's dressy gala audience of mostly grownups chuckled along, consented to "let's pretend" and clapped for the tricks in this two-act production by Septime Webre (dance choreography), Carmon DeLeone (music), Gina Cerimele Mechley (fight choreography), Foy (flying), Johanna Wilt (staging) and a gaggle of other theater artists. There's a name missing from the program credits: that of the author whose idea the popular story and characters were in the first place - J.M. Barrie. Never mind! Some, though, may care that in our age of deconstructing and reinterpreting conventional art, Webre and his team mates must have taken vows not to philosophize or psychoanalyze Peter Pan - the boy who refuses to grow up. Peter is wholesome to the point of being bland most of the time. He displays temperament only near the end, pouting when his pals - the Darling siblings - are about to depart Never Neverland for the Ever Everyday. Peter's tricks, though, clicked.