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Love’s Labors Found

“Giselle”
Pacific Northwest Ballet
McCaw Hall
Seattle, Washington
June 3, 2011
June 4, 2011 matinee and evening

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2011 by Leigh Witchel

How much does it matter whether a ballet is historically correct?  Less in some ways than is obvious, more in others than we realize. Pacific Northwest Ballet’s historically informed “Giselle” was a labor of love for company director Peter Boal and two dance researchers, Doug Fullington and Marian Smith, who sifted through historical material and created a performing edition for the stage.

The sources consulted spread out over six decades of the 19th century.  The earliest are two detailed manuscripts produced by ballet masters as aids to their own staging. Antoine Titus’ notes, translated by Smith, date from 1842, only a year after the ballet’s premiere. The notes of Henri Justamant date from the 1860s, but were found at a flea market in Germany less than a decade ago.

An Austenian Kitri

“Don Quixote”
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
May 23, 2011

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2011 by Leigh Witchel

The last thing you’d expect to remember about “Don Quixote” is the Act II vision scene. But Alina Cojocaru isn’t a typical virtuoso, and the ballet blanc is her métier.

One of Cojocaru’s greatest roles is Aurora, and she imported it into “Don Quixote,” linking the two heroines’ vision scenes. The obligatory ballet blanc in American Ballet Theatre’s version of “Don Quixote” is typically for virtuoso ballerinas a bridge between the bravura numbers of Acts 1 and 3. But Cojocaru infused the vision with Aurora’s touchstones – as she hovered suspended in attitude, you saw the similar pose from the Rose Adagio.

Bells and Dreams

“Night,” “Bells,” “Woven Dreams”
The Joffrey Ballet
Auditorium Theatre
Chicago, IL
May 7, 2011, evening

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2011 by Leigh Witchel

The Joffrey Ballet has made a program with new works part of its formula to cap the season. This year’s model, “Rising Stars” used company director Ashley Wheater’s connections to San Francisco for the bulk of the show.

“Night” is by Wheater’s colleague, San Francisco Ballet principal Julia Adam.  It’s over a decade old, but a known quantity: a solid, amusing opening work. A young woman in a nightshirt (a very chipper Anastacia Holden) encountered men in blue unitards with vertical ruffles down the legs that made them look half-beast. The men crouched over to become her bed, or pushed her off of them to dance. Three women appeared at first wrapped together in a tube of stretch fabric; they dealt with Holden even more aggressively. “Night” ended, like so many dreams, with falling.

Out and About 02/10-27/2011

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2011 by Leigh Witchel

• DNA Presents: Raw Directions
• “Flamenco Hoy”
• “Swan Lake” New York City Ballet
• “Aesthetic Destiny 1: Candy Mountain” Walter Dundervill
• “fay çe que vouldras,” “Femina” Donald Byrd/Pam Tanowitz

Obsession and Ecstasy

“Devotion”
Sarah Michelson for New York City Players
The Kitchen
New York, NY
January 15, 2011

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2011 by Leigh Witchel

Devotion and obsession are cousins, often found worshipping in the same pew. For her lengthy dance on faith, “Devotion,” Sarah Michelson brought an obsession to the subject much like a Sufi’s determined whirling to ecstasy. It was magical, strange, and for someone not caught up inside the process, way too long.

Out and About (Ballet) 11/5-14/2010

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2010 by Leigh Witchel

•    The New York Choreographic Institute 10th Anniversary
•    The Young Choreographer’s Showcase

Out and About (Modern Dance) 11/3-17/2010

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2010 by Leigh Witchel

•    “Gezeiten” Sasha Waltz & Guests
•    “now and nowhere else” Iver Findlay/Marit Sandsmark
•    “The Painted Bird|Bastard” Pavel Zuštiak|Palissimo
•     “Anchises” Jonah Bokaer x Harrison Atelier

Out and About 10/18-30/2010

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2010 by Leigh Witchel

• “Opening Night” Les Slovaks Dance Collective
• “Faith Healing” Jane Comfort and Company
• “Twin Pines” Keely Garfield Dance
• “THEM” Ishmael Houston-Jones

Fall for Dance Program 5

“Man in a Room,” “The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitiude,” “Thaïs Pas de Deux” “Grace”
Tero Saarinen Company/Dresden Semperoper Ballett/American Ballet Theatre/Ronald K. Brown-Evidence
City Center
New York, NY
October 8, 2010

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2010 by Leigh Witchel

Fall for Dance again finished with a program of substantial works that emphasized choreography as well as dancing.

Dresden SemperOper Ballet is led by Canadian Aaron S. Watkin, a former Forsythe dancer, who brought Forsythe’s “The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude.” A hyper-fast quintet to the final movement of Schubert’s Ninth Symphony, it’s one of the easiest of Forsythe’s dances to produce and probably the one that people need to see the least.  Like judging an elephant only from his trunk, were “Vertiginous” all you knew about Forsythe, you’d just think he were Balanchine on crack.

Second Helpings

“Project 5”
Batsheva Dance Company
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
September 23, 2010

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2010 by Leigh Witchel

Take four short works, run them together with one five minute pause and get people in and out in an hour. Done right, it could have been exhilarating but Ohad Naharin’s “Project 5,” made in 2008 for Batsheva Dance Company, felt both skimpy and padded.