“the second detail,” “Resonance,” “Cacti”
Boston Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
June 29, 2014
by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2014 by Leigh Witchel
Boston Ballet in "the second detail"
For Boston Ballet’s second mixed rep program, during its first visit to Lincoln Center in celebration of the company’s first half-century, it brought short works with a more European viewpoint – to mixed results.
Funny ballets are all too rare (it’s a shame Jiří Kylián’s “Symphony in D,” which would be a natural fit for the company, seems to have disappeared). Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman has made them his stock-in-trade. But his satirical humor had a nasty edge; he didn’t seem to know how to be funny except at someone else’s expense.
For “Cacti,” Ekman picked an easy target: pretentious intellectuals who discuss an artist’s work with little reference to what’s actually there. But it’s not something he’s found anything new to joke about in the last four years: The gags in “Cacti” looked expanded, and often recycled, from “Hubbub,” a dance that Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet performed at The Joyce in 2010.
A posh-sounding narrator began by prattling on about collaboration as all the dancers were revealed on platforms. The work moved into a percussion section; all the dancers pounded in a contrapuntal, visceral symphony. Shocks of white powder on their heads formed clouds as they slammed their hands on the platforms.
The main duet is a replay of the big gag in “Hubbub”: a voiceover narration of the internal dialogue of the performers. “Please be careful with my head,” the woman says as the man cradles her. It’s funny, but less funny if you already saw the exact same shtick in 2010.
The dancers carry cacti, but they don’t figure in the action. It’s just an absurd touch. The sophomoric too-clever-by-half tone quickly wears thin from lack of affection for the material. The mistresses of the art form – the Trocks and their sister companies – point to the cardinal rule: If you want to parody something, you’ve got to love it first.
Jose Martinez is a former Étoile of Paris Opera Ballet and his choreographic style neatly encapsulates the fusion of classical technique and modern sensibility that Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen is working towards. Martinez’s “Resonance” gained context following William Forsythe’s “the second detail” in the program: it became a reconciliation of the romantic ballet with a post-Forsythe environment.
The plotless work got its look from the successful, simple designs by Jean-Marc Puissant: costumes that were either stripped-down practice leotards or severe, uniform-like dresses and tunics with simple piping. The scenery was a series of plain gray movable walls that created a varied environment, but also a metaphor. They became agents of change or revelation; when repositioned new dancers, or even a new pianist would appear.
The ballet began with Liszt’s arpeggios played by Alex Foaksman as Lia Cirio backed on to the stage. The rest of the women entered one by one from the sides or gaps in the panels. Cirio is all over Boston’s rep; here in a solo she looked possessed by the music in backbends and shivering pointe work. Lasha Khozashvili entered dancing with another women. He finished and came face to face with Cirio to partner her.
The ballet’s academic language spiked with Forsythe’s distorted placement was tepid at first, but warmed the more Martinez used structure as a metaphor for the relationships he was exploring. The comings and goings as the scenery hid or unveiled people made the point simply, and Martinez was comfortable working in a large scale with the corps.
The dancers, unfortunately, didn’t look comfortable with the kind of academic style that Paris excels at. There were tense shoulders creeping upwards. But Cuban-trained Alejandro Virelles looked particularly good, with clean, beautiful technique and a free and unaffected carriage of the upper body.
“the second detail,” made for the National Ballet of Canada in 1991, was a greyout – the dancers were in silvery gray, the stage a similar color. A row of spare geometric black stools waited in the rear, in the front was a small sign with the word “THE.” The score was one of Thom Willems’ visceral thumping mixes – beats threaded through electronic sounds – that recalled pipe organs or hurdy-gurdies.
Even without seeing it before, the piece would have looked familiar to anyone who’s seen any Forsythe. There was the cast lining the back, as in “Artifact”; there was the walk-to-place, dance, walk-from-place format in “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated.” The dancers shifted in layers through sleek enchaînements, tough partnering and solos on each blat and wonk of Willems’ score.
Close to the end, Erica Cornejo entered wearing a white folded dress by Issey Miyake, part-Grecian, part-origami. Cornejo kicked high to the front, flailed and ran around the perimeter. She may have been a Goddess Figure or a Chosen One, but rather than pulling the work into focus, it was just another detail. Jeffrey Cirio (Lia’s brother) kicked over the THE and the ballet was done. The Boston dancers looked under a lot of pressure, and it manifested in punchy dancing as well as the tense shoulders. Every phrase ended in a kapow: Look Ma, I'm Dancin' Forsythe! The attitude was pasted onto the choreography rather than coming from it.
As with “In the Middle,” Forsythe incorporated this shorter abstract dance – the ballet blanc, if you will – into a longer piece made for his own company a few months later, “The Loss of Small Detail.” In Boston’s performance, “the second detail” looked very much of its time, and as with 1989’s “Enemy in the Figure” the glossy hostility and hyper-classical distortions of the pelvis felt passé. “the second detail” isn’t bad, it's just second-tier Forsythe - his “La Source” instead of “Symphony in C.” It has all the window dressing, but little of the meat.
So why have “Impressing the Czar” and “Artifact” held up so much better? Because as much as we sometimes wish that Forsythe would shut up and dance, it’s when he tangles with ideas that he’s made his best work (and yes, alas, some of his worst. That’s the price of admission.) Forsythe’s ballet choreography is at its best when he goes long. The tight, shorter works (“In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated,” “The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude”) are easier to acquire and do; they also don’t have the muck you have to wade through in the big works. Yet they present a constricted view of his work: Balanchine on uppers. It’s only when you get to see the full-evening ballets that you see Forsythe do so much more to ballet than play it at 78 RPM.
copyright © 2014 by Leigh Witchel