Boston Ballet
“D.M.J. 1953-1977”, “Rubies”, “Bella Figura”
Opera House
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
June 3, 2014
by George Jackson
copyright 2014 by George Jackson
The opening ballet’s title is like an obit. An individual with the initials DMJ, one supposes, lived to be only 24 years old. Is this piece by Czech choreo-grapher Petr Zuska a memorial? Yes and no. At first, the story seems to be about a man grieving for a woman. We see him bring a flower to her grave. She, an emotional being, appears in his imagination. So does an entire Greek chorus, a dozen figures of lovers separated and joined in death. Mortality may seem to be a singular experience yet it touches everyone. Is this Zuska’s message? When he finished telling his tale, I wasn’t sure at all that he meant anything so obvious. Who was mourning who became uncertain. Was it the woman, so agitated, who was trying to cling to the image of her lost man? Is this, perhaps, a ballet about forgetting? Zuska certainly seems to be inviting the audience to doubt what it sees and suspects. The staging tactics he uses – especially the several meaningful curtain drops – make his work and Kylian’s “Bella Figura” bookends of a sort. In between came a piece that relied just on choreography and dancing – Balanchine’s “Rubies”.
Zuska’s meaning is complicated by the initials he chose. The title’s DMJ may stand for the three composers whose music accompanies the action. Dvorak, Martinu and Janacek are all Czech, but more importantly their sound doesn’t go well together. They clash, particularly so the lush orchestral romanticism of Dvorak and the terse piano only of Janacek. Distinction between the principal pair whose dancing is individualized and the unison of the corps couples immediately telegraphs the nature of the corps, but this separation persists too strictly throughout. Zuska likes to twist and torque ballet steps into expressive configurations and keeps doing so with leaps and lifts. One longs for a more varied vocabulary. Beside the curtain drops and rises, this 2004 ballet’s drama depends on lighting and props (the moveable black boxes that represent grave stones) as much as on moving bodies. As the principal couple, Lia Cirio and Lasha Khozashvili, intense at the start, crested without becoming corny. She, alone among the women, wore point shoes at first, but none for the pair’s semi-stripped appearance in the final scene which is danced to Janacek’s piano.
Jiri Kylian, Czech too like Zuska but of an older generation and situated in Western Europe, also used a musical mix for his 1995 “Bella Figura”. Pergolesi, Alessandro Marcello, Vivaldi and Torelli are, arguably, a consonant group but Lukas Foss is part of Kylian’s soundscape as well, and so is silence. “Bella Figura” begins in silence with the dancers warming up and ends in silence. Using more than one piece of music doesn’t bode well for a work’s unity. Indeed, this dance has the quality of a collage concocted of distinct scenes, some in the Western tradition of theater, others in the Far Eastern or as hybrid. Curtain drops, lighting effects and props are part of the staging tactics. Most memorable are the voluminous red unisex skirts used to demark orientalia. Before the end, one couple drops its skirts and appears in mock nudity. Kylian’s movement melds ballet and anti-ballet steps, athletic and pedestrian action, plus exotica. What is taken from these sources is amply diverse and yet the resulting alloys seem consistently smooth. Nevertheless, the predominance of crouch, cramp, sag and thrust results in dancing that I find blunt and not “bella”. The cast of nine - who appeared in trios, duos, double duos and ensembles – consisted of Kathleen Breen Combes, Petra Conti, Erica Cornejo, Paul Craig, Altan Dugaraa, Rie Ichikawa, Sabi Varga, Sarah Wroth and Yury Yanowsky: a strong team.
Skipping rope, playing follow the leader, chatting and spooning are all part of George Balanchine’s “Rubies” and yet there’s not a moment that doesn’t look like ballet dancing. Although the cast is structured hierarchically, the feeling is popular - like on the sidewalks of New York. This choreographer’s ability to transform movement, develop it musically and make it fit the dancers is too well known to need discussion. Moreover, the much performed “Rubies” has been reviewed a lot lately. Balanchine no longer being around to do the fitting, the staging has restrictions. It was done for Boston by Sandra Jennings Eshima with much attention to step and gestural detail. Still, the hierarchy was turned topsy turvy. Whitney Jensen in the soloist role shone! She isn’t tall but dances big and was fully attuned to the jazzy dynamic of Igor Stravinsky’s music. The principal couple, Misa Kuranaga (despite remarkable balances) and Jeffrey Cirio, just didn’t dominate either Jensen or the lively corps of eight women and four men. Like the right of way on city sidewalks, “Rubies” worked democratically.
Sharing the conducting of the the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra were Boston’s Jonathan McPhee and Beatrice H. Barrett Chair. Piano soloists were Alex Foaksman for the Janacek and Freda Locker for the Stravinsky. Jan Kodet and Michaela Cerna staged the Zuska opus, and Ken Ossola and Elke Schepers assisted Kylian. The red skirts and other costumes for “Bella Figura”were by Joke Visser.