“Allegro Brillante,” “Hapless Bizarre,” “Murder Ballades,” “Che Malambo”
Miami City Ballet, Doug Elkins Choreography, etc., L.A. Dance Project, Che Malambo
Fall for Dance, Program 1
City Center
New York, NY
October 6, 2015
by Leigh Witchel
© 2015 by Leigh Witchel
You can tell from the reports on City Center’s Fall for Dance that no matter the variety of acts, the structure is altogether the same: Something classical, something funny, something modern, something pop. The opening program of the festival hewed to the formula.
Renan Cerdeiro and Patricia Delgado in “Allegro Brillante.” Photo © Daniel Azoulay.
Miami City Ballet imported “Allegro Brillante” back to the stage where it originally premiered. Company director Lourdes Lopez danced the work when she was at New York City Ballet; MCB lead Patricia Delgado physically resembled Lopez, but her presence was lighter, like the pale rose dress she wore: deceptively simple, feminine as a spring bloom. “Allegro” can handle a bravura performance, but Delgado made virtuoso technique seem modest. You didn’t notice until later how solid she was on her balance as she breathed up and out of a developpé, or how cleanly she spotted turns both to the corner and directly front. She and her consort, long and spidery Renan Cerdeiro, had beautiful rapport; he partnered her ardently.
Still, the ballet looked hemmed in. Can “Allegro” have outgrown City Center? Sometimes the compression gave the dance a glow; there seemed to be a magnetic pull from the lead couple at the center to the couples at the four corners. But more often, the cast slowed down at the wings to exit, or fought the low energy of a recording that sounded as if it had been piped in all the way from Miami. The MCB dancers have Balanchine in their sinews; some reacted by pushing the attack, giving the ballet Balanchine described as “everything I know about the classical ballet,” Tchaikovsky’s romantic edge.
The humor was provided by Doug Elkins’ “Hapless Bizarre,” a work that used clowning as an apt metaphor for the awkwardness of courtship. Pro clown Mark Gindick played Everyclown, with big nods to Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp. To start, a bowler hat eluded Gindick, taking evasive actions on the floor. It got tossed offstage and returned from completely different spots, sometimes changing color. Elkins, who has always enjoyed the schizophrenia between his postmodern and breakdance abilities, was in a release mood here, with rolling vocabulary and just one or two b-boy moves.
This was a comedy piece, and Elkins wasn’t playing hard to get with the plot line. Gindick wore a plain white shirt, black pants and nerd glasses, the five other cast members were in psychedelic paisleys, shimmying to lounge music. Two more men for three women implied that there was a partner for him somewhere; the question was who. Attempt #1 was with the magisterial Deborah Lohse, in riotous flowered prints and an Annie Lennox dominatrix crew cut. “She knows how to have a good time,” the sound score pastiche of ‘60s sex-ed PSAs advised us.
“Strange Love” appeared on the play list. All kinds of sexual ambivalence were implied, but by the finale, where everyone did swing dance and Bob Fosse hepcat hands, Gindick found his potential mate: Cori Marquis, who – like Goldilocks’ chair – was just the right size. The two skipped off together at the end of Elkins’ goofy and sweet-tempered roundelay.
Heaven knows what was murderous about Justin Peck’s “Murder Ballades,” except the title. The décor was gorgeous, a glowing patchwork backdrop of paintbrush strokes by Sterling Ruby. The eponymous music was a suite by Bryce Dessner that in Peck’s hands felt longer than it was.
Don’t look for blood or bodies; the program notes mentioned “dark undertones that slowly seep through” – evidently slow enough that they didn’t make it during the performance. Made in 2013 for L.A. Dance Project, “Murder Ballades” was three couples in a suite of playful dances that was even more upbeat than “Hapless Bizarre” – sophisticated in movement, naïve in outlook.
Peck choreographs like a newspaper writer – he’s very aware of the need for a hook. This time, he put the ballet in sneakers, and had his cast take them off and put them on again in full view of us. Rachelle Rafailedes didn’t tie her laces tightly enough and we watched them dangle much of the opening movement. She finally took them off to dance a fluid duet with Nathan Makolandra to hiccupping music.
The L.A. dancers had beautiful lines. When they hit a clean arabesque, they brought out the ballet in Peck’s choreography, even in sneakers. “Murder Ballades” ended with a familiar device: each dancer had his or her own entry in a breathless finale. Rafailedes did rapid turns where the close of one was the start of another.
This work is two years old, which for Peck is a whole era back. Yet so far, darkness has eluded Peck; his emotional range is varying shades of winsome. Much of the current generation of dance makers at NYCB seems to see movement in childlike terms: formations and movements cribbed from the playground. It would be nice to see them grow up.
If Flamenco Puro had been cornered in a dark alley by Riverdance and violated, the bastard spawn might be Che Malambo. The spectacle was an amped-up celebration of Argentinean gaucho dancing as it might have been done on the pampas of the Las Vegas strip. Fourteen men all in black set out to alternately thrill and hogtie the audience with their testosterone. The dancers rattled out boot stamps, pounded out drum beats, and spun bolos so furiously they would catch the sweat from the dancers’ hair. This was a feature of the performance, though Broadway best practices were ignored by neglecting to give the first two rows ponchos.
First seen in 2007 at the Casino de Paris (if only it had been the Crazy Horse Saloon) Che Malambo pegged the cheese-o-meter and may have broken it. Even the omnivorous Fall for Dance audience got sarcastic. The dancers punctuated every stunt with a whoop and folks started to whoop along, or even whoop at random points and giggle. What the heck, a great time was had by all. Che Malambo, with all its sweaty machismo, was tacky enough to vault past bad to awesome.
© 2015 by Leigh Witchel
Middle: Mark Gindick and Kyle Marshall (behind) in “Hapless Bizarre.” Photo © Christopher Duggan.
Bottom: Rachelle Rafailedes in “Murder Ballades.” Photo © Rose Eichenbaum.