“4,” “2”
Tao Dance Theater
Alice Tully Hall
Lincoln Center
New York, NY
July 27, 2012
by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2012 by Leigh Witchel
Modern dance is still catching up with ballet in China, but Tao Ye doesn’t feel behind the times. He’s a minimalist and a formalist who played with concepts of pacing and construction that were provocative enough to make people leave. But was the audience provoked or just exhausted?
“Giselle”
Paris Opera Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, NY
July 18, 2012
by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2012 by Leigh Witchel
Paris Opera Ballet featured one of the company’s youngest and most capable stars, Dorothée Gilbert, as Giselle in partnership with one of its newest étoiles, Josua Hoffalt. Yet the production didn’t come to life until after she died.
Gilbert is a technical all-rounder, who can jump, turn and balance. A hallmark of the company’s dancers is their impeccable placement; in her Act 1 solo, Gilbert rolled down from her attitude turns with determined strength to a flat foot and then straight into serene piqué arabesques.
But what distinguished her was her footwork.
“Sit, Kneel, Stand”
Gallim Dance
The Joyce Theatre
New York, New York
June 10, 2012
“Special Collections,” “Shimmering Islands”
Burr Johnson
Danspace Project
New York, New York
June 1, 2012
by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2012 by Leigh Witchel
There are incremental paths to presenting your work in New York; Andrea Miller and Burr Johnson are on different ones at different points – but both are on the right track.
Miller, with her company Gallim Dance, has shown her work at New York Live Arts, but also at Fall for Dance and The Joyce, at first in shared evenings, most recently with her own show as part of the Gotham Dance Festival.
Her “Sit, Kneel, Stand” started even before the lights went down. A woman came in the house to the front of the aisle and started twisting, dislocating her joints in the hallmark of Miller’s movement style. She pushed against the lip of the stage – was she warming up, or trying to move it?
“Devotion Study #1 – The American Dancer”
Sarah Michelson
Whitney Museum of American Art
New York, New York
March 7, 2012
“One of Sixty Five Thousand Gestures,” “Solo, Deluxe Version”
Jodi Melnick
New York Live Arts
New York, New York
March 7, 2012
by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2012 by Leigh Witchel
It takes guts to make a 90 minute dance out of one step. Sarah Michelson’s performances for the Whitney Biennial riffed off last year’s work, “Devotion,” a riveting, exhausting piece that was created in collaboration with another biennial participant, author Richard Maxwell. They’ve teamed up again here, but Michelson zeroed in on one aspect of the earlier work – its insistent repetition – like a terrier shaking a rat.
“New Work”
La La La Human Steps
McCarter Theatre Center
Princeton, New Jersey
February 14, 2012
“Altro Canto Part 1,” “Opus 40”
Les Ballets de Monte Carlo
The Joyce Theater
New York, New York
February 15, 2012
by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2012 by Leigh Witchel
The enigmatically named La La La Human Steps is celebrating its 30th season touring a piece with the least – and most – enigmatic of titles, “New Work.” The program calls it an analysis of two tragic love stories, Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” and Gluck’s “Orpheus and Eurydice.” You wouldn’t get many clues from the standalone angst in Édouard Lock’s production. What you see are ballerinas on the verge of nervous breakdowns.
“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.
“The Bright Stream”
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 11, 2011
by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2011 by Leigh Witchel
Alexei Ratmansky has a gift for finding the best in dancers, even in roles they didn’t create. Two casts of “The Bright Stream” could not be more different and both were successful.
In the opening night cast, Gillian Murphy’s ballerina was a sister to Paloma Herrera’s Zina. Natalia Osipova’s ballerina is not so humble; she’s the star of the Caucasus. As Osipova plays her, the ballerina has a kind heart, but – like Osipova – she’s still a bête de scène. Her instinctive hunger for the limelight makes her a little bit dangerous even at her most benign. It shows in her dancing. Murphy and Herrera danced their duets so similarly it seemed the only difference between them was their hair color. Osipova could not bring herself into synchrony with Xiomara Reyes even if she tried.
“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.
“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.
