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Fertile Soil, Fragile Structures

"Drift“
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
Millennium Stage North
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
September 18, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Cassie Meador is the third of three DC choreographers commissioned this year to make something new by the Kennedy Center. I missed the premiers of the other two, Karen Reedy and Vincent Thomas, earlier in the month. Meador’s work seems very young – full of energy and ideas, often shifting gears and still in search of a form. She’s been with the Dance Exchange for six years and has learned many of Lerman’s techniques for weaving communal tapestries on a global scale. “Drift”, however, is about something more intimate.

Philadelphia Fringe

„Factor T“
Dada von Bzdueloew Theatre
Christ Church Neighborhood House
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
September 6, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

For those living between NYC and DC, Philadelphia’s Live Arts Festival or “Fringe” offers a convenient way to keep up with performance dance and conceptual dance from Europe. It is feasible, especially on weekends, to attend 3 or 4 Fringe events in a single day and still catch a bit of home sleep that night. If you want to overnight in Philadelphia without burdening friends, several hotels offer a festival rate that’s not unreasonable. I’d planned to take in 3 things on Saturday and join a post-performance supper party, but hadn’t reckoned with Hurricane Hanna’s aftermaths. The rain that morning was light and had just about stopped at 1 PM, starting time for Willi Dorner’s city tour happening – “Bodies in Urban Spaces”. At the starting place, Love Park, a Fringe ranger informed those who were waiting that there would be no performance. More rain was expected. I had wanted to see how Dorner - a Viennese modern dance choreographer known for his terse phrases and dry humor – would highlight Philadelphia’s sights. Instead, I set out earlier than planned for the second event, an indoor one - Dorner and Lisa Rastl’s photo exhibit “Feet of Contemporary Choreographers” at Painted Bride Art Center. A downpour intervened and lasted hours. I did get to the Polish performance, “Factor T”, and the supper.

In Defense of "Etudes"

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

“Etudes”, Harald Lander’s etude of 1948, is a ballet that critics today love to hate with some reason. Intended to display ballet training and ballet history, it also tests the character and caliber of the company performing it. Often these goals seem at cross purposes in the productions we see now, sixty years after the work’s premiere in Copenhagen by the Royal Danish Ballet.

A Letter in Summer 2008 from Bytom's Festival and Copenhagen's Tivoli

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Construction-site fencing surrounds what used to be a dusty market square, scaffolding and netting cling to the walls of several once handsome houses and some lawns look trimmed.  Is the old coal mining town of Bytom pulling itself up by the bootstraps? Renovation of this Polish, then Bohemian, Austrian, Prussian, German and again Polish place was stalled for a long time. Perhaps it is happening at last. Not in doubt is the vigor of the Silesian Dance Workshop & Festival that has blossomed here each summer for 15 years. For two weeks, June 29 to July 12 in 2008, it sprouted all sorts of classes – diverse dance techniques, a history-criticism-journalism curriculum and a community outreach program  - during its weekday morning and afternoon hours. There was also a week of arts management training. Performances daily and on weekends began in the late afternoon usually with a student showing, continued with a major presentation in the evening and concluded with something experimental at night. Repeats were rare with almost every showing different. The contrast between Bytom and Copenhagen was considerable - particularly prices, the population mix and the type of dance. Bytom continues to be a bargain. Moreover, its rather homogenously Polish residents still can’t help taking long looks at African or Asian festival participants. And the festival favors contemporary movement theater although other dance forms – even ballet - aren’t excluded. Copenhagen costs can be astronomical, yet in this formerly blond-on-blonde city, the sight of dark locks and other than pale skin on a sprinkling of kids is now considered the norm. Regular theaters were on summer holiday in Denmark’s capital but the Tivoli Garden was having its high season and both the pantomime and ballet there were staunchly traditionalist.

With Relish

“Jupiter Symphony”, “Penumbra”, “Pampeana #2”, “Carnival of the Animals”
Pennsylvania Ballet
Academy of Music
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
June 6, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Premiers aplenty on Pennsylvania Ballet’s last home program of the 2007/8 season: Peter Quanz’s to the “Jupiter Symphony” of Mozart and Matthew Neenan’s pair to Ginastera piano-cello pieces were totally new works. Christopher Wheeldon’s “Carnival of the Animals” with a John Lithgow text and Saint-Saens’ orchestral suite was new to the Philadelphia audience (and to me). So much fresh material suited Pennsylvania Ballet and had Roy Kaiser’s company performing with relish. Still, choreographing the “Jupiter” and dancing to it is like climbing Olympus – it isn’t easy to get a foothold on contours so classic.

Violence

“Carmen”
Synetic Theater Company
Family Theater, The Kennedy Center
Washington, DC
June 1, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson   

A world in which everyone is the same soon becomes boring. That was not the world of Carmen, the passionate gypsy of Prosper Merimee’s 1845 novella or Bizet, Meilhac and Halevy’s 1875 opera or numerous ballets. Carmen got her way because others were not like her. Only when her lover Jose is at last driven to violence like hers, is she thwarted. In the world of Synetic Theater’s “Carmen” everyone is violent from beginning to end. Carmen, of course, fights the other girls at the cigarette factory. Jose and his military colleagues exhibit regimented violence. Carmen’s underworld cronies are violent when they carouse and conspire.

In the Hierarchy

Philadanco – The Philadelphia Dance Company
The Concert Hall at Strathmore
North Bethesda, Maryland
May 16, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

If A is for Ailey, B is for Joan Myers Brown and her Philadanco. Yes, fans put it that blatantly when ranking the dance companies that try to forge a popular American Black cultural image. Vox populi, vox dei! What, though, is the reason for Philadanco’s lesser place in the hierarchy?  Not its modest size (a dozen dancers) or its emphasis on ensemble instead of stars but its lack of luck in finding choreography that lasts. The Ailey company had Ailey himself once upon a time. His was the rare gift to entertain, explore and enlighten all at the same time with the same steps. None of the four works Brown chose for the Strathmore performance accomplished that. Zane A. Booker, Daniel Ezralow, Gene Hill Sagan and Rennie Harris were the choreographers. 

Darkness up Close

Paul Taylor Dance Company
UMBC Theatre
University of Maryland – Baltimore County
May 10, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

“Banquet of Vultures” is dark because of its topic and its lighting. When this piece was premiered at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC in 2005, I wasn’t able to see how utterly hopeless a view Paul Taylor had of history because my eyes couldn’t cut through the gloom of Jennifer Tipton’s illumination. Tonight, the Theatre at UMBC gave the entire audience a close up inspection. There are only 7 rows of seating, so even the last place in the house is practically on top of the big stage space - all of it very visible.  This isn’t a fancy theater, but what a venue for dance!

Chopin in Motion: Simplicity, Virtuosity, Structure

"The Dances of Isadora Duncan"
Word Dance Theater
The Dennis and Phillip Ratner Museum
Bethesda, Maryland
May 1, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

How have the dances of Isadora Duncan survived? Neither notated nor filmed originally, they have been passed down body to body, spirit to spirit through the sisterhood of Duncan’s adopted daughters and subsequent disciples. Perhaps pheromones have helped in the process? Our unreasonable expectation for a Duncan program isn’t just that the current performers do the movement well but that, like wine in a church chalice transformed into sacred blood, they become the divine Isadora. Of the three dancers doing the ten Duncan choreographies on this bill, one had something of the air of an original about her.

Lightheaded

“Sawdust Palace”
Susan Marshall & Company
Kogod Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland
April 12, 2008

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson

With its circus title and cabaret staging Susan Marshall’s latest opus was on the light side and a little giddy. It dovetailed neatly with springtime frolics on the college campus. Oh, there were moments when a serious breeze blew through its absurdist proceedings, acrobatic stunts and rangy dancing but these gusts subsided amidst bushels of surrealist fun. A pity that, because “Sawdust Palace” could have been more than an entertainment.  It started (rather like Jerome Robbins’s “The Concert”) with a put-upon pianist and passed through 20 scenes or circus “acts”. Some made you laugh, some made you squirm but a few of them almost made you think.