"Shostakovich" "Sand"
Alonzo King Lines Ballet
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, CA
April 21, 2016
by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano 2016
It is rare in this country that a ballet company relies on the energy and talent of one creator. And having followed one of them for over twenty-five years, it’s tempting to suspect that there won’t be much new. Yet with the annual spring season's reprise of the 2014 "Shostakovich" and the premiere of "Sand", Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet, on the eve of an upcoming eleven-city tour of Europe, presented a singularly satisfying program.
Lines Ballet in "Sands." Photo © Chris Hardy
In the past King has often chosen fascinating music but this did not necessarily compel him to choreograph to or even against the scores. Also unisons did not particularly interest him; they often looked like a necessary evil. More recently he seems to pay more attention to these aspects of his dance making. Always technically amazing, his twelve dancers, without losing their individuality, also have developed an enviable esprit de corps. Not easy in a company that invests so much effort in duos. My sense is that Brett Conway, who recently returned after five years with the Netherlands Dans Theater, may have brought with him a fresh vitality, as both a "new" and an experienced company member.
"Sand" was choreographed to the improvisation of saxophonist Charles Lloyd and pianist Jaason Moran, both in the pit, both superb jazz musicians. Moran has worked with the company before but I don't recall him as wildly adventurous as he was here, moving whole melodic patterns into the base or into repeated staccato notes in the top register. He played with the softest of cat's paws and hammered on it like the percussive instrument that the piano is. Lloyd elicited from his saxophone the most remarkable sequence from wind-blown hums and exalted trills and runs. When the two of them played together, they often merged their instruments so that it was difficult to say who exactly took the lead on those shimmering seas of sound colors. Not doubt, a score or a skeleton exists in which the improvisation could happen. But it was the give and take between the musicians and these dancers, often at the edge of their sensibilities, which imbedded in "Sand" its fragile solidity. It's one of King's gentlest pieces.
Choreographed in eight parts, King balanced the work nicely by ensemble sections that alternate with or turn into solos and duets. Conway, the regal Courtney Henry and Yujin Kim, peeled out of walking, dropping and bending sequences, performed by all but in a hiccupping chronology. Unisons often look imposed, here commonality was chosen. King returned to idea in the finale which looked like a joyous celebration until people drifted off and left petite Laura O'Malley with her head in Babatunji's lap.
In a duet for Michael Montgomery, the tornado among the dancers, and the liquidly moving but strong Kara Wilkes, they partnered each hand-in-hand, yet coming up with most astounding patterns and personalized images. A quintet for the men each allowed them a solo, with young Shuaib Elhassan proving his "membership" in this exclusive club. Two-year company member Adji Cissoko, all speed and extensions in the best of Lines traditions, almost showed up Jeffrey Van Sciver, no mean dancer in that area. Still their encounter had a touch of romance about it. Come to think about, so does the whole of "Sand". Spring clearly has come.
Robert Rosenwasser's simple costumes -- the women in white, the men in black -- worked. So did Axel Morgenthaler's subtle lighting; it suggested the passing of time. However, the elevated runs behind Christopher Haas' scrim of elastic cords needed to be either more integrated or establish more of a trajectory of their own.
For the dramatic and contentious 2014 "Shostakovich," King had chosen different movements of the composer's string quartet. This bothered me until I realized at its reprise this year that he had created a sonata-allegro form that made some sense on its own. If "Sand" had a joyous serenity about it, "Shostakovich was all sturm und drang.
The work opened on a frenetic note with dancers slashing and kicking in three horizontal lines as if they had been assembled for a catastrophe about to happen. But then they spun off in twos and unison leaps with first Madeline De Vries, and then Henry, falling. Backstage ran a single beam of light that gradually rose up. When Babatunji began to partner what looked like a neon tube, it seemed like a piece from the set. But his manipulating it ceremoniously, curiously, as a weapon did not make sense except that to tell us that live partners are more expressive.
"Shostakovich's" duets were nicely profiled. YuJin Kim and Conway's hopping together seemed to suggest conviviality but, despite herself, she rejected him by fiercely struggled to break out of his hold. Yet she returned hanging from his back and slithered between his legs. In the beginning of one section Henry stood in silence and magisterially unfolded her limbs and her spine, even as she was shadowed by a figure in the dark. In a fractured duet between Wilkes and Robb Beresford, he collapses and she walks off only to return and help him up.
In one way King is a very traditional choreographer: in his duets the men always do the lifting. (As they do in Paul Taylor)