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In and Out of the System

“Delinquent”
Circo Zero
November 13, 2008
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, CA

by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano 2008

What an odd place the Bay Area is for watching dance. One night you sit in an alley, under a full moon, and watch LEVYdance’s quintet of exquisitely volatile dancers in work that is so luscious that you can’t take your eyes of it even though most of it uncomfortably slithers over the surface of the issues it raises. The following evening there is a group of “graduates” from the Juvenile Justice System brought together by Keith Hennessey’s Circo Zero in an awkward, at times bumbling work that scrapes at you like sandpaper on the soul.

Mavericks, Mavens & Machines

Beyond Boundaries: Genre-bending Mavericks
Takayuki Fujimoto, Takao Kawaguchi, Tsuyoshi Shirai
"True"
Japan Society, New York
November 13, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

It was many months ago that Japan Society decided to title its fall performance series “Genre-bending Mavericks,” long before the term “maverick” was picked up and pounded to a pulp in this election year. In any case, the guys who put on the latest installment of this series seem more mavens than mavericks: masters of a new form of technological theater that blends sound, lighting and dance into a seamless whole. “True” is an illusion with the force and incomprehensibility of reality.

Nowhere to Hide in "La Bayadere" (Vienna Letter #2)

by George Jackson

copyright 2008 by George Jackson

Some dancers, like certain cities, make you conscious of volume more than line, space or even spot. Vienna is one of the cities, at least in its inner districts. These are built up of substantial structures - apartment houses of much the same size and shape. The prototype stems from the 19th Century. Façade styles differ – Biedermeier, neoclassical, art nouveau, functional, fancily glass-and-steel and so forth. It is the buildings' boxy volume, though, that stamps itself into the consciousness to become a norm. Dancers who conjure volume – they seem sculpted in the round or molded on a lathe – include three 20th Century ballerinas: the USSR’s Marina Semyonova, Austria’s Poldy Pokorny and the USA’s Nana Gollner.

Philadelphia Story

Ballo della Regina,” “Kazimir’s Colors,” “Push Comes to Shove”
Pennsylvania Ballet
Academy of Music
Philadelphia, PA
November 1, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

Surely it’s a coincidence, but Pennsylvania Ballet was stalking American Ballet Theatre last weekend. Both companies danced “Ballo della Regina” and Pennsylvania paired it with Tharp’s breakthrough work for ABT, “Push Comes to Shove.”

Pennsylvania’s version of “Ballo” has a few advantages.  The stage at the Academy of Music is big enough to really move.  Beyond a better space, Pennsylvania’s version is better in premise; the dancers are more conversant in the Balanchine style.  Their dancing is accented, they’re lighter on their feet, they jump and most importantly they move.  The soloists and principals aren’t at the same level as at ABT, granted.  The four demi-soloist variations were well-rehearsed if a bit staid. Amy Aldridge had fast feet but a tight neck and frozen smile; Zachary Hench had the jump, but not the cleanliness.

Flamenco—Looking for a New Road

“Canciónes”
Caminos Flamencos
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, CA
November 1, 2008

by Rita Felciano
copyright © 2008 by Rita Felciano

Thankfully the buzz around Flamenco Nuevo has somewhat died down since the middle eighties when efforts to create a contemporary form of Flamenco--by introducing ballet and modern moves danced to everything from Rock to Baroque--too often resulted in razzmatazz performances delivered with the numbing uniformity of a well oiled machine. So when Yaelisa, an extraordinarily eloquent dancer, announced a program with pop songs from Rosemary Clooney to Led Zeppelin, one had every reason to fear that she had halved jumped on a bandwagon that already has lost much of its steam, most certainly its novelty factor.

Fragment

“Ballo della Regina,” “Romeo’s Farewell to Juliet,” “Jardin Aux Lilas,” “Company B”
American Ballet Theatre
City Center
New York, NY
October 30, 2008

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel

It is an absolute sin that Tudor’s “Romeo and Juliet” has fallen out of repertory. Made in 1943 for American Ballet Theatre on Alicia Markova and Hugh Laing, this one act version uses music by Delius instead of the more familiar and bombastic Prokofiev.  At this point, there’s some question, hotly and loudly debated, whether the Tudor can be fully recovered.  ABT presented a short duet of Romeo’s farewell to Juliet.  It wasn’t built to be a self-contained excerpt, but still, if the duet was any indication of the whole ballet’s quality, it’s exquisite.  Eugene Berman’s celebrated costumes were not used; Juliet and Romeo were costumed simply and appropriately by Sylvia Taalsohn Nolan.  The staging is credited to Kevin McKenzie, though he joined ABT a few years after the full ballet was last danced.  It looked sensitively handled. As in most of his choreography, Tudor figured out ways to make ballet vocabulary conversational; we didn’t just see two people dancing together, but an intimate discussion.  Tudor also rethought pointe work to his own need for expression, emphasizing motions where the toe is stabbed onto the floor almost as much as rises up onto pointe. 

ABT's Tudor Quickie

American Ballet Theatre
Antony Tudor Centennial Celebration
New York City Center
October 31, 2008

by Gay Morris
copyright 2008 by Gay Morris

Antony Tudor is considered one of the great ballet choreographers of the twentieth century, and since his career was closely associated with American Ballet Theatre it is not surprising that ABT would celebrate the centennial of Tudor’s birth, as it did on Friday evening as part of its fall season at City Center. However, Tudor was never easy to place professionally nor easy to deal with personally. Unlike Jerome Robbins, whose long association with New York City was honored by that company last spring, Tudor was not a native son, he did not create a large body of choreography, and he only worked intermittently with ABT. In short, although the company has always claimed Tudor as its own, he was not totally part of it. The ambiguous nature of this relationship may be one of the reasons why Friday’s celebration did not feel altogether committed, showing only sporadic evidence of thought or love.

Balanchine Tudor Tharp ABT

“Ballo Della Regina,” “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deaux,” “Jardin aux Lilas,” “Brief Fling”
American Ballet Theatre
City Center, New York
November 1, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

It comes as a mixed blessing that American Ballet Theatre will be expanding its Balanchine repertory for next spring’s season – planning revivals of “Prodigal Son” and Mozartiana,” and even an all-Balanchine-Tchaikovsky program. It’s a good thing that America’s national ballet company is more fully acknowledging America’s greatest choreographer. The only problem is that Balanchine has never been, is not, and may never be fully compatible with the company’s style. That’s been my observation for many years, and was reinforced by ABT’s performance of “Ballo Della Regina” and “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” at Saturday’s matinee.

2008 / 1938 / 1908: A Letter from Vienna

by George Jackson
copyright 2008 by George Jackson
 
How important is the past for Vienna? For sure, in much of life and work the Viennese look back to take stock of time present. In politics now, they are measuring Joerg Haider – killed when he crashed his car on October 11 and then outed sexually by the NY Times more than by the Austrian press – against populist, far right precedents set by Karl Lueger (1844-1910) and Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). In the economy, the financial market in Vienna tumbled as drastically as elsewhere on Black Friday (October 10), but globally the Viennese were among the most insistent on seeing the crisis in a historical perspective. The cultural event most talked about is an exhibit - the “recollection” of the big 1908 art extravaganza here that officially recognized modernism. Dance, though, doesn’t often look back in this city. Most of the local presenters pander to fads of the moment or a moment ago – the acrobatic “Swan Lake” from China, Blue Man Group, Austrian ballroom finalists, Georgio Madia’s nightclub routines for the otherwise refined Rameau productions of the Vienna Chamber Opera, and Gyula Harangozo II’s middle brow repertory and policy of no permanent stars at the Ballet of the Staatsoper/Volksoper. The exception was Andrea Amort’s “political” dance festival – Touchings (Beruehrungen) - which examined choreography from prior to Austria’s 1938 annexation by Nazi Germany and commented on it with work made today.     

DanceNOW at DTW

2008 DanceNOW(NYC) Festival
Base Camp
Dance Theater Workshop
New York, New York
October 30, 2008

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

For one who has seen a lot of self-conscious drama at Dance Theater Workshop over the years, it was a pleasure to drop in on a program that focused instead on music and pure movement. Thursday’s DanceNOW(NYC) Base Camp, co-produced with DTW, was a survey of 12 companies in a dozen brief works and excerpts, most of them new. The high points were three solos, three duets and a sexy trio.