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Fast or Slow--As You Like It

Doug Varone and Dancers
“Lux,” “Home” and “Boats Are Leaving”
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
April 21, 2008

by Rita Felciano
copyright © 2008 Rita Felciano

San Francisco Performances closed its current season with a return visit from Doug Varone and Dancers. What a smart move that was! Two years ago, when the company made its first appearance in fifteen years, Varone was practically unknown in the Bay Area. Certain companies return year after year but Varone’s was never among them. Yet this is a  choreographer whose work is rich beyond the way he uses music and movement. No matter the tenor of the times with its demands for experimentation for its own sake, Varone never let this get into the way of making formally cogent work about what it means to be human: conflicted, fragile, resilient. He may also be the most visible direct descendant of early modern dance.

Bavarian State Ballet (Munich)

“Cambio d´abito”, “Adagio Hammerklavier”, "Violakonzert/II"
Bavarian State Ballet
National Theatre
Munich, Germany
April 12,2008

by Horst Koegler
copyright @2008 by Horst Koegler

Among the four German Ivy League ballet companies of Berlin , Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart, the Bavarian State Ballet, housed at the beautiful Munich National Theatre, is certainly the most classically oriented. Solidly established under the experienced direction of Konstanze Vernon in 1989 as part of the greater Bavarian State Opera establishment, it has been led since 1998 by Ivan Liska, formerly John Neumeier's star-pricipal in Hamburg. Its repertory offers the most comprehensive survey of Petipa of all German troups, including the Tchaikovsky classics plus “Don Q”, “La Bayadère”, “Raymonda” and the recently added “Le Corsaire”.  Other choreographers contributing substantially to the bulk of the repertory are Cranko (the three full-lengths), Balanchine, Neumeier, MacMillan, Van Manen and Kylián through Childs, Ek, Preljocaj, Teshigawara and Forsythe. Its annual Ballet Festival Week opened this year with Van Manen´s “Adagio Hammerklavier” of 1973 vintage, flanked by two creations: Simone Sandroni´s “Cambio d´abito” and Martin Schlaepfer´s “Violakonzert / II”.

The Custom of the Country

“Serenade,” “Rubies,” “Ballet Imperial”
Kirov Ballet
New York City Center
New York, NY
April 18, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

It takes guts to bring an all-Balanchine program to New York.  The scene at City Center on the Friday night opening of the program was thick with present and former New York City Ballet dancers, including Peter Martins, all there to watch, and perhaps to judge. If bringing coals to Newcastle is going to be done, it might as well be by a company like the Kirov that has a completely different tradition. Watching the Kirov do Balanchine is like wandering into a Japanese grocery and marveling at Western dishes transformed by native tastes; Ronzoni spaghetti is next to packages of spaghetti sauce mix – cuttlefish flavor.

Balanchine-Nureyev-Forsythe at Paris Opera

Balanchine-Nureyev-Forsythe
Paris Opera Ballet
Opéra Bastille
Paris, France
5 April 2008

by Marc Haegeman
copyright 2008 Marc Haegeman

With its latest triple bill simply called ‘Balanchine/Nureev/Forsythe’ the Paris Opera Ballet invited us to rediscover the styles of three major figures of 20th century ballet, each in his own way expanding and transforming the classical legacy of Marius Petipa. To illustrate this, the company revived George Balanchine’s “The Four Temperaments”, a short suite of extracts from Rudolf Nureyev’s full-length “Raymonda”, created for the Opera in 1983, and “Artifact Suite” from William Forsythe, distilled from his evening length 1984 “Artifact.” Not the most balanced choice of works perhaps for such an ambitious programme, but one which had at least the merit to say something about the present state of the company itself, if not about the personalities and their respective styles it wanted us to compare.

Assimilation

“Steptext,” “Approximate Sonata,” “The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude,” “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated.”
Kirov Ballet
New York City Center
New York, NY
April 15, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

In 2004, the ballet of the Mariinsky Theater (we still call it the Kirov when it comes to visit) decided to propel itself into the late 20th century – better late than never – with an all-William Forsythe evening.  For the Mariinsky, it was a bold move. All Forsythe evenings aren’t a new thing; Paris Opera Ballet presented one in 1999 that included two of the works performed here (“In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated” was also commissioned for them by Nureyev in 1989) but also with two new works.  There were no commissions in St. Petersburg. By 2004, Forsythe wasn’t making dances on ballet companies.  We’ve seen some of these works in New York for more than two decades.

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.

Patched-Together Petipa

"Le Corsaire" (Le Jardin Animé, Pas des Odalisques, Pas de Deux); "Diana and Acteon" Pas de Deux; "Don Quixote" Pas de Deux; "La Bayadère" (The Kingdom of the Shades)
Kirov Ballet
City Center
New York, NY
April 8, 2008

by Susan Reiter
copyright © 2008 Susan Reiter

Following a second program that ventured into the very early twentieth century with the works of Michel Fokine, the Kirov returned to the sharply-etched classical purity of Marius Petipa's works, necessarily presented in excerpted form for this engagement on a stage whose dimensions would not accommodate their expansive full productions. Next week will offer the more contemporary side of the company -- programs of works by George Balanchine and William Forsythe -- but on this occasion we again were able to witness the latest evolution of the company's noble heritage and longstanding traditions. Except for the expansive glories of "La Bayadère," the one work repeated from the opening program, this was an evening of abrupt transitions between bits and pieces, and while the company has had a week now to acclimate itself to the cozy confines of the City Center stage, there was still a stiffness and reserve to much of the dancing -- or, at the other extreme, a tendency towards over-emphatic punctuation.

A Wreck that Soars

“StringWreck”
Janice Garrett & Dancers
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
April 10, 2008

by Rita Felciano
copyright © 2008 Rita Felciano

Gimmicks are all the rage these days. The idea of pulling the members of a string quartet out of their chairs to have them interact with dancers sounded like a clever marketing device but not something one necessarily wanted to see. In fact “StringWreck,” the collaboration between Janice Garrett & Dancers and the Del Sol String Quartet turned out to be a deliciously entertaining, slightly wacky evening of music and dance that could charm a turnip. Collaborating choreographers Garrett and her partner Charles Moulton set the tone but its blithe spirit floated on Del Sol’s exceptionally rich musical choices.

Happy Birthday

"Suite from Mazurkas", "Jardin aux Lilas", "Little Improvisations", Pas de Deux from Romeo & Juliet", "Judgment of Paris"
New York Theatre Ballet
Florence Gould Hall
New York, NY
April 4, 2008

by Mary Cargill
copyright 2008 by Mary Cargill

The enterprising New York Theatre Ballet celebrated two 100-year anniversaries in their recent performance of works by Jose Limon and Antony Tudor.  The company has long been known for its dignified revivals of Tudor works (Sallie Wilson, the famous Tudor dancer, has worked extensively with the company), but any excuse to see anything by this great choreographer is welcome. 

Making the Scene with Tharp and Costello

"Square Dance," "Sonatine," "Tarantella," "Nightspot"
Miami City Ballet
Kravis Center for the Performing Arts
West Palm Beach, Florida
April 4 & 5, 2008

by Susan Reiter
copyright © 2008 Susan Reiter

Eight years after Twyla Tharp last created a work for a ballet company, she has found her way back to that milieu with style and verve, if not the penetrating focus that one has come to expect of her. In 2000, she produced a most impressive one-two punch: "The Beethoven Seventh" for New York City Ballet, followed two months later by "Variations on a Theme by Haydn" for American Ballet Theatre. She next made a series of works for her reconstituted company before turning her attention to her two Broadway projects, the exceptional (and wildly popular) "Movin' Out" (2002) and the more phantasmagorical (and short-lived) "The Times They Are A-Changin" (2006). This year, she is choreographing for several major ballet troupes, starting with this splashy premiere for Miami City Ballet -- a heady, provocative collaboration with Elvis Costello, whose pungent score covers a lot of stylistic territory, and costume designer Isaac Mizrahi.