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Heart and Soul

"Gong", "A Month in the Country", "Piano Concerto #1"
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
November 9, 2013

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2013 by Mary Cargill

ABT's fall season, away from the cavernous Metropolitan Opera House, allows it to feature the younger dancers and shorter works, and the dancers have seized their opportunities, giving the performances an exhilarating gusto.  Mark Morris' "Gong", while not an especially rich or profound work, let the corps show off in the cascade of steps.  It is a faux-ethnic work to bouncy music by Colin McPhee, with little head bobbles and exotic, Javaesque arms and squats thrown in seemingly random.  It was musically incisive, beautifully crafted and colorful (the bright costumes made it look like a string of beads), but essentially soulless.  The dancers, all dynamic and individual performers, seemed indistinguishable, and the audience learned nothing about them, other than the fact they they were all terrific dancers. 

Homeward Bound

"DESH"
Akram Khan
Rose Theater, Lincoln Center
New York, NY
November 7, 2013

By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2013 by Martha Sherman

With a plastic body and changeable face, Akram Khan does more than dance in “DESH” -- he whirls through a story of three generations, with his own life at the center. Desh means homeland in Khan’s native Bengali, and using imagination and imaginative stagecraft at the Rose Theater, Khan plays a man who wrestles with his culture. He mixes traditional Indian kathak dance, rhythmic and story-based, and his own idiosyncratic modern vocabulary, a swirl of shoulders, arms, and fingers around lower limbs that rapidly torque and slide in shifting directions.

Broadway Ballet

“Cinderella”
San Francisco Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
October 25 and 27, 2013

By Michael Popkin
Copyright © 2013 by Michael Popkin

With all the versions of “Cinderella” out there, from Rogers and Hammerstein to Frederick Ashton, did we need another three-act ballet?  By integrating dance with Broadway production values to create an encompassing spectacle, Christopher Wheeldon’s new production for San Francisco Ballet answered “Yes.” 

Deli

“Pas de Dix”, “Duo Concertant”, “Tempo di Valse”,”Agon”
The Suzanne Farrell Ballet
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
November 8, 2013
 
by George Jackson
copyright 2013 by George Jackson
 
George Balanchine was fond of comparing choreography to cooking. Seriously, yet with a sense of humor, he likened the programming of a bill of ballets to planning a meal. For one of her two menus this season (Program B), Suzanne Farrell served an all-Balanchine buffet. There were two morsels based on traditional recipes (the Raymonda “Pas de Dix” and the “Waltz of the Flowers” from Nutcracker) plus two nuggets packed with ingenuity (the lusciously lean “Duo Concertant” and the tart “Agon”). Balletomanes complain that such fare isn’t like sitting down to a four act feast of roasted swans. True, Farrell’s Balanchine is more like tasting high-end deli on the run.
 

Come as You Are

“From Foreign Lands,” “Beaux,” “Classical Symphony,” “Symphonic Dances”
“Trio,” “Ghosts,” “Suite en Blanc”
San Francisco Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 17, 19 (matinee), 2013

By Leigh Witchel
Copyright © 2013 by Leigh Witchel

If you want to know what San Francisco Ballet is about without getting on a plane, the recent New York season was a great place to start. It kicked off with a week of repertory showing off the company's designer fashions: commissioned ballets by top choreographers.

Paradoxically, the weakest piece was from the most recently acclaimed – Alexei Ratmansky, part of the MacArthur Foundation’s Class of 2013. “From Foreign Lands” is an updated divertissement for six men and six women to tuneful music by Moritz Moszkowski. It had a looser quality than it did in March with an alternate cast in San Francisco, but it still had the generic feel of diluted character dance. The costumes by Colleen Atwood, a one-design-fits-all-nationalities template of a tiered skirt and bodice for the women, and tight pants with a side gold braid for the men, didn't help the confusion.

To Be Portrayed

“Dancing the Dream” Exhibit
National Portrait Gallery
Washington, DC
October 4^, 2013 – July 13, 2014
 
by George Jackson
copyright 2013 by George Jackson
 
This display of still and moving images fills six small rooms and their adjacent corridor on the first floor of the Portrait Gallery. Most items are photographs or placards of dancers. There are two video screens that show dancing but no costumes, no sets and no stage designs such as the National Gallery’s Diaghilev exhibit featured recently. Comparatively, this is a modest show. It focuses on America yet manages to conjure corollary horizons – from Isadora mounting the Parthenon in order to conquer the world to digitalized dance encrypted on your i-phone. Broadway, Hollywood, TV and other pop entertainers fare better than ballet and modern-dance performers in the video selections. Nothing “serious” surpasses the clips of an aquatic extravaganza in which Busby Berkeley’s formations for the swimmers shimmer with the eerie beauty of sea serpents. Other remarkable footage is that of revue dancer, anti-segregationist and expatriate Josephine Baker shimmying and shaking irrepressibly. And there are the suave Castles, Vernon and Irene, sweeping swiftly, nonchalantly across a ballroom floor. However, the glimpses of Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations” give no inkling how powerful this modern gospel dance can be on stage, and with all the remarkable choreography Alexei Ratmansky has made, his fussy “Firebird” seems eminently forgettable. Mikhail Baryshnikov doing his “Nutcracker” solo looks canned. The only exciting video sample of “art” dance is Jose Limon, wild as a bull in Doris Humphrey’s “Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejia”.

“La Bayadère” in Boston

“La Bayadère”
Boston Ballet
The Boston Opera House
Boston, Massachusetts
October 25, 2013

by Dale Brauner
copyright 2013 by Dale Brauner

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Boston Ballet gave a gift to its city, staging its annual “Night of Stars” gala on the Boston Commons in September. Over 50,000 people showed up for the free sampler program. Boston Ballet, boosted by a strong school, puts on about six programs during a season, with a healthy mix of classics, a "Nutcracker," a Balanchine-heavy slate, works by its resident choreographer Jorma Elo, and Euro-contemporary. The 2013-14 campaign
also features the Boston premiere of Frederick Ashton’s “Cinderella.” Tours to New York and Washington D.C. cap off the season.

To kick off the season for real, Boston Ballet brought back its 2010 production of "La Bayadère" in Florence Clerc’s staging.

Night and Day

“Giselle”
The Washington Ballet
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
November 2, 2013 at 1:30 PM
 
by George Jackson
copyright 2013 by George Jackson
 
The two acts of “Giselle” on Saturday afternoon differed – but not as intended. Act 1 takes place during daytime, in the real world as it was a few centuries ago. Act 2 happens at midnight when the dead come out of their graves to dance. Both halves of this touchstone ballet of the Romantic era depend most on the ballerina in the title part. Dancing is something Giselle can’t help doing. It expresses her moods, yet she must also observe, do and react – particularly during the ballet’s first portion. In the role of Giselle, Aurora Dickie was not a convincing actress. Although busy much of the time, her dramatics seemed rote. Consequently, at the heart of the action for Act 1 where Giselle should have been there was only an absence. Dickie seemed reborn for Act 2.  As the ghost of Giselle, she has to dance, dance, dance and sustain a mood but there is little detailed, specific acting. Freed of dramatic demands, Dickie proved to be a decent dancer. Act 2 clicked, and I could even believe the sense of loss when Giselle and Albrecht, her love, are parted for evermore. 

Novelty Overwhelms

"Cinderella"
San Francisco Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 24, 2013

By Carol Pardo

Copyright ©2013 by Carol Pardo

Christopher Wheeldon’s "Cinderella," a coproduction with the Dutch National Ballet, sold out its initial run by the San Francisco Ballet last May.The next logical step? Take it on tour, show it off and hope for the same results at the box office. This version, like so many others, uses the familiar Prokofiev score but everything else has been bulked up. Wheeldon has enlisted quite a posse to bring his vision to life; there are credits for sets, lights, costumes, the tree and carriage, and video projections—even the projection programmer gets a mention. A lot of energy and money have been expended to make this "Cinderella" stand out from the crowd. Yet, as the night went on, it was unclear whether Wheeldon & Co. were out to retell the fairy tale or subvert it.