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Past Tense in the Present

Brooklyn Touring Outfit
“Co. Venture”
Baryshnikov Arts Center
New York, NY
November 17, 2016

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2016 by Leigh Witchel

“Co. Venture” is a sweet-tempered, wistful look back – and forward. 92-year-old David Vaughan and 31-year-old Pepper Fajans perform a memory play-dance about their lives intertwined, and intertwined with another character – one no longer here: Merce Cunningham.

Pepper Fajans and David Vaughan in “Co. Venture.” Photo © Stephanie Berger

The Rules of their Games

Jonah Bokaer and Daniel Arsham
“RECESS,” “Why Patterns,” “Rules of the Game”
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn, NY
November 10, 2016

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2016 by Leigh Witchel

You wouldn’t think that behavioral psychology experiment could make good choreo- graphy, but Jonah Bokaer would probably disagree with you. And he’d be right.

His concert in tandem with artist Daniel Arsham celebrated a decade of collaboration, and their best works are the ones most like experiments: Arsham provides an environment and Bokaer, while exploring its ramifications and rules, creates a dance inside it. The rules of their game are collaborative; those tasks are probably not so cleanly delineated.

James McGinn and Wendell Gray II in "Rules of the Game” Photo © Stephanie Berger.

Seen in White Light

Gold, yet Standard
Nrityagram Dance Ensemble
“Sankirtanam,” “Panchtaal Pallavi,” “Lalita Lavanga,”“Aali,”“Sridevi”
Gerald W. Lynch Theater
New York, NY
November 4, 2016

The Movement is the Message
Liz Gerring Dance Company
“(T)here to (T)here”
Baryshnikov Arts Center
New York, NY
November 11, 2016

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2016 by Leigh Witchel

Nrityagram opened its program for the White Light Festival with a BAM! as four musicians seated at stage right slammed into a per-cussive score. Nrityagram, based in southern India, returned to New York bringing a group of six dancers – the last few appearances had only been of the two pillars of the company, Bijayini Satpathy and director and choreographer Surupa Sen.

Surupa Sen and Bijayini Satpathy of Nrityagram Dance Ensemble Photo © Shalini Jain.

Magic Rationed

 “The Nutcracker”

Cincinnati Ballet

Opera House

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 

Washington, DC

November 23, 2016

 

by George Jackson

© 2016 by George Jackson

 

Practically every production of “The Nutcracker” aims to be traditional and unique. Achieving both is, of course, an impossible ambition and Cincinnati Ballet’s version by Victoria Morgan is no exception. Among America’s regional ballet troupes, the Cincinnati Ballet  became prominent in the early 2000s with a program from the days of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. It was performed impressively. Morgan, the company’s artistic director at the time, remains in command. Her ““Nuts””, however isn’t of comparable caliber. Moreover, the Cincinnati company has changed. Currently it lists three principal dancers (all of them men), four senior soloists (three of them women), four soloists (two and two), 10 corps dancers, two “new” dancers plus three apprentices. Even discounting the grown-up party guests (some perhaps from Cincinnati Ballet’s second company) and children (DC area locals), the company’s usable total count, though, appears to be be more than 26 because ballet master Ogulcan Borova as the magician Drosselmeyer and Sophie Rose Beadie (from the second company) as the ballet’s protagonist Clara, are not listed among the permanent dancers. Segregating newcomers to the company into a category of their own until they have acclimated seems novel. Does any other ballet troupe use that ploy?  

 

Photo: Cincinnati Ballet's Chisako Oga as Sugar Plum Fairy and Cervilio Miguel Amaso as her Cavalier.

If the shoe fits

"Cinderella"
The National Ballet of Canada
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Toronto, Canada
November 12, 2016

by Denise Sum
Copyright © by Denise Sum 2016

On Nov. 12, 1951 the newly formed National Ballet of Canada gave its first performance at the Eaton Auditorium in Toronto, led by founder Celia Franca. The program featured "Les Sylphides" and "Polovetsian Dances from Prince Igor". Exactly 65 years later, the company marked its anniversary with a spirited performance of James Kudelka's 12 year old production of "Cinderella". The NBoC has had two other productions of the popular fairy tale in its repertoire, from Celia Franca and then Ben Stevenson. It is Kudelka's version, however, that seems to have taken hold in Toronto, with its stylish jazz age setting, witty sense of humor, and contemporary take on the familiar narrative. The opening night cast featured Sonia Rodriguez and Guillaume Côté who created the roles of Cinderella and Prince Charming at the premiere in 2004. 

Photo: Artists of the Ballet in "Cinderella". Photo  by Cylla von Tiedemann.

 

New Bodies in Space

"Working in Process/New Bodies"
Works and Process
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
New York, NY
November 14, 2016

By Carol Pardo
Copyright ©2016 by Carol Pardo

"Stretch as though you're reaching for diamonds." "Your arm is only as long as it is." The first is an exhortation familiar to the New York City Ballet dancers, Jared Angle, Gretchen Smith and Sara Mearns, who performed "Working in Process/New Bodies"; the second, a statement by its choreographer Jodi Melnick. Taken together, those remarks reflect two very different ways of looking at the moving body, with no assurance that ever the twain would meet. In fact, this meeting of uptown and downtown was not supposed to result in a new work at all. Rather, Mearns became fascinated by the choreographer during another match up of uptown ballet dancers and downtown choreographers at the Dancspace Project in 2015, although each was working with someone else. Mearns pursued Melnick, who did not want to make a ballet. Mearns, only 30 and at the height of her career, does not need to design a career beyond pointe shoes (often -- or good or ill -- the reason behind such collaborations). A residency at Jacob's Pillow ensued, with Smith and Angle signed on, and "Working in Process/New Bodies" came into being.

Return of the Giant Vegetables

"The Bright Stream in HD"
Bolshoi Ballet
Empire 25 Theater
New York, NY
November 6, 2016

By Carol Pardo
Copyright ©2016 by Carol Pardo

Seeing dance live is better than seeing it filmed, but film is better than nothing, and sometimes there are unexpected side benefits; this was my first look at the renovated Bolshoi Theater, vast and sea green. (The performance dates from 2012; this was a rebroadcast.)  But more important, it was a chance to revisit Alexei Ratmansky's original production of "The Bright Stream", created in 2003, last seen in New York in 2005, and firmly rooted in Lopukhov's libretto and the score by Shostakovich from 1935. The charm and humor of Ratmansky's version shone through on film."The Bright Stream" examines  the repercussions of a visit by a ballerina and her partner on the inhabitants of a farm collective at harvest time. The ballet's  nocturnal shenanigans bring to mind "A Midsummer Night's Dream" whose mortals behave foolishly, and Bournonville's "King's Guards at Amager" in which, as here, a man's wandering eye is brought up short by a hastily hatched plot and a masked temptress (who turns out to be his wife) and the status quo remains intact. 

Graffiti Tango

Tangos Vivos
Rascasuelos
Carnegie Hall
New York, NY
November 2, 2016

by Marianne Adams
copyright © 2016 by Marianne Adams

It’s unusual to see dance at Carnegie Hall, but in the context of deconstructing and reimagining the great Astor Piazzolla’s tango music legacy, in a “Rock meets Mozart meets Tango” context, as billed by the program, the chosen space actually worked well.  The men behind Rascasuelos, the group bringing the program, musical director and bandoneonista Patricio “Tripa” Bonfiglio and singer Limón García, masterfully delivered their take on reimagined tango, and it would have been difficult to see their vision of their music without the eloquent dancers.

Photo © Paola Evelina

A Commission and an Addition

American Ballet Theatre
“Her Notes,” “Monotones I and II,” “Daphnis and Chloe”
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 29, 2016

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2016 by Leigh Witchel

American Ballet Theatre brought two works into its repertory, yet both looked better on the drawing board than in motion. Jessica Lang’s new “Her Notes” had several things going for it. In a move to even the score for women composers, the music was “Das Jahr” by Fanny Mendelssohn, a cycle reflecting a year’s journey.

American Ballet Theatre in “Her Notes.” Photo © Rosalie O’Connor.

Flavors from the East

“Serenade,” “The ‘Tamil Film Songs in Stereo’ Pas de Deux,”
“O Rangasayee,” “Pure Dance Items”
Mark Morris Dance Group
Lincoln Center White Light Festival
Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College
New York, NY
November 5, 2016

by Martha Sherman 
copyright © 2016 by Martha Sherman

Mark Morris’s love of Indian dance and music isn’t just a passing fad. In “Sounds of India,” his curated series for Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, the broad sweep of his interests were offered for two weeks, then came to rest in his own work, with four Morris pieces influenced by India’s exotic sound and movement. Two of the works were created and first seen in the 1980s; two were made decades later – including the standout of the evening, “Pure Dance Items,” which had its world premiere at this series. The new works were more inflected by than immersed in Indian dance and music vocabulary, and both were, by far, the stronger pieces in the program. The early works, though, offered a quirky and illuminating lens into this important influence in Morris’s choreography.

Stacy Martorana, Domingo Estrada, Jr,. Billy Smith in “Pure Dance Items” Photo © Stephanie Berger.