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The Giant Bach Quilt

Duato´s “Diversity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness”
Bavarian State Ballet
Munich National Theatre, Germany
December 26, 2009

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2009 by Horst Koegler 

At 52 the Valencia born Juan Ignacio Duato Bárcia, since 1990 director of the Spanish Compania Nacional de Danza, looks back on an oeuvre of 52 ballets. Educated at Rambert Ballet School in London, at Béjart´s Mudra School in Brussels and at Alvin Ailey´s New York based Dance Center, he started as a dancer with the Cullberg company in Stockholm and was there picked up by Jiri Kylián for the Netherland´s Dance Theatre. Duato created his first ballet for the company in 1984 and had his break-through as a choreographer in 1992 with “Jardi  Tancat,” a work for three couples based on Catalan songs. For the Bach anniversary of 2000 he was commissioned by the city of Weimar, where Bach had spent some of the happiest years of his life as an organ-player and concert-master at the Court Chapel, to create with his Spanish dancers a Bach-ballet, which was premiered there under the title “ Diversity. Forms of  Silence and Emptiness” ( its Spanish original title read “Multiplicad. Formas de silencio y vacio”) and became an international hit, produced recently by the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet and on December 23 by the Bavarian State Ballet at the Munich National Theatre.

Dancers in Daylight

Form and Movement: Photographs by Philip Trager
National Building Museum
Washington, DC
December 27, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by George Jackson 

This exhibit of Philip Trager's photographs has been up for some time but having seen it only now, not long before its last day on January 3, I want to go again. Trager takes pictures mostly of structures (buildings, bridges, statues) and dancers (postmodern and some ballet), and does so preferably in natural light - which often means out of doors. What he captures is the timeless transience of his subjects. It is an aspect seldom looked for.

So Familiar Yet So New

“Nutcracker”
San Francisco Ballet
War Memorial House,
San Francisco, CA
December 19, 2009

 by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano, 2009

No ballet affords the opportunity of multiple viewings the way “The Nutcracker” does. Every year large companies, as is San Francisco Ballet, schedule so many performances that it is possible to encounter “new” casting even from familiar dancers. Half way through SFB’s current three week run of Helgi Tomasson’s 2004  version, I had never seen Yuri Possokhov’s Drosselmeyer nor Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun’s Arabian. The really new casting, however, came with a guest appearance as the Nutcracker Prince by former PNB Principal Casey Herd, who last year joined the Dutch National Ballet.

Here’s to the Women

Women in Dance at the 92nd Street Y: History in the Making

92nd St. Y Harkness Dance Center 

New York, NY

December 12, 2009

by Martha Sherman

Copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman

The grace and presence of the choreographers being honored in the 92nd St. Y’s “Women in Dance” Festival was a tonic on a cold winter weekend. The three day festival included 26 performances choreographed by Jewish women. Each day’s program honored a woman, including Anna Sokolow, Pearl Lang, at this performance, the late Amy Sue Rosen. The long afternoon offered excerpts of dances by eight artists as well a 1999 film of one of Rosen’s works. Although the work on film was paler than the live performances, it was complete, and in that way, the most satisfying. The unifying theme of the afternoon was the women themselves Each had her own voice to share, and the energies and images were as varied as the women.

Schlock and Awe

“Rasta Thomas’ Rock the Ballet”
The Bad Boys of Dance
The Joyce Theater
New York
December 15, 2009

by Kathleen O’Connell
copyright © 2009 by Kathleen O’Connell

What does Rasta Thomas think he’s doing? He’s named his newish six-man troupe The Bad Boys of Dance, but they’re about as bad as your average boy band—and every bit as adorable. (Per the program notes, each Bad Boy has been “hand selected.” Like premium cigars or choice cuts of beef? One wonders.)

Something Good

“Fräulein Maria”
Doug Elkins & Friends
Dance Theater Workshop
New York, NY
December 10, 2009

By Lisa Rinehart
Copyright ©2009 by Lisa Rinehart

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? Ask Doug Elkins. He’s managed to do just that with his delightful “Fräulein Maria,” a loving romp through the schmaltz of Rodgers & Hammersteins’ classic, “The Sound of Music.” Set to Julie Andrews’ crystalline renditions of just about every song from the movie, Elkins avoids silliness or parody with an arsenal of choreographic ideas ranging from ballet to basketball. Canon, counterpoint, mime, slap-stick, clowning, breaking, petit allegro and post-modern ennui all surface in wickedly clever vignettes capturing Maria’s journey from dreamy nunnery novice to matriarch of the Von Trapp Family Singers. It’s a story many of us know and love, but Elkins adds a 21st century twist that makes “Fräulein Maria” a whole new kind of schnitzel.  

Neumeier's new "Orpheus"

“Orpheus”
Hamburg Ballet
Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg, Germany
December 6 and 8, 2009

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2009 by Horst Koegler

June 24,1962 proved a Red Letter Day for the German ballet scene. That was the day of the Hamburg Stravinsky Festival in honor of the composer’s 80th birthday. Stravinsky had been invited by Rolf Liebermann, General Manager of the Hamburg Opera House, to present an all-Stravinsky ballet-programme, consisting of “Apollon musagète”, “Orpheus” and “Agon”, performed by soloists of the New York City Ballet and members of the Hamburg State Opera Ballet. It was a glorious event that set the barre for the further development of ballet in Germany, just recovering from the wounds the country had suffered during the Second World. Such was the success, that the New York City Ballet on its first tour to the Soviet Union was invited back to Hamburg for the autumn, performing six Balanchine ballets: “Raymonda Variations”, “Liebeslieder Walzer”, “La Valse”, “Episodes”, “Four Temperaments” and “Symphony in C”. By that time, German ballet was inflected with the Balanchine virus, which spread from Hamburg to the many opera-ballet companies operating in Germany, with Stuttgart just emerging as its number one address, after John Cranko had been appointed artistic director of the Stuttgart State Opera Ballet the year before. At that time Liebermann, a personal friend of Stravinsky, was still hoping that he might accept a commission to compose a third ballet to complete a trilogy, based upon classical Greek myths.

Monochrome

“A Number of Small Black and White Dances”
Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group
Dance New Amsterdam (DNA)
New York, NY
December 10, 2009

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2009 by Leigh Witchel

Telling moments of perception leisurely unfolded during Aynsley Vandenbroucke’s “A Number of Small Black and White Dances.” It felt like reading Edith Wharton or Henry James; it’s a pleasure to see that level of perspicacity in an artist. The tradeoff is that we’re not reading a book; we’re watching a performance and that doesn’t always work.

Don't Blink

“Mortal Engine”

Chunky Move

Howard Gilman Theater

Brooklyn Academy of Music

New York, NY

December 9, 2009

By Martha Sherman

Copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman

There were two stars of Chunky Move’s new show “Mortal Engine:”  light and shadow. Music came next. The dancers, moving in athletic powerful movements, were the supporting players, a means toward an end. Their bodies triggered increasingly complex light and shadow patterns filling first the stage, and later the entire auditorium at BAM. The Australian company and its choreographer Gideon Obarzanek were joined in this performance piece by a fascinating light technology to match, move, stretch and distort the bodies’ movements in light and shadow. Designed by Frieder Weiss in increasingly complex patterns, his effects made the bodies almost vanish, sometimes visible only in silhouette or as shifting outlines. Our eyes were trained not on the dancers, but on the dance of the light itself.

Ballet for All Seasons

"Concerto Barocco", "Liturgy", "Les Gentilhommes" & "Liebeslieder Walzer" i.e., Program 2
New York City Ballet
Opera House, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
December 11, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by George Jackson

The solution for a sluggish box office seems to be good programming and quality casting. The small portion of NYC Ballet which is in Washington this cold December week has attracted customers galore with its decidedly non-Nutcracker repertory. It even happens that two of the ballets, the first bill's "Dances at a Gathering" and this program's "Liebeslieder Walzer", take place ostensibly during one of the year's warmer seasons. Programming savvy was in evidence too when the three shorter works on bill 2 were presented as a triptych, separated only by brief pauses. Not that "Barocco", "Liturgy" and "Gentilhommes" have similar or complimentary essences. Quite the contrary, but their proximity helped in seeing what each had to offer - which wouldn't be the case with the ballet that followed a full intermission, "Liebeslieder".