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An Unquiet Mind

"Nijinsky"
The National Ballet of Canada
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Toronto, Canada
November 22, 2017

by Denise Sum
copyright © 2017 by Denise Sum

Fresh from bringing John Neumeier's "Nijinsky" to Paris' Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in October, the National Ballet of Canada performed this ambitious work in their home theatre with renewed vigor. One can only imagine how powerful it must have been for the company to perform a ballet about this dance legend on the very stage where his "Le Sacre du Printemps" premiered in 1913. The entire performance was very strong and the dancers looked confident and well-rehearsed. Rather than a linear biographical narrative, Neumeier presents a melange of swirling vignettes that is part retrospective, reverie, and hallucination. The perspective is not that of an impartial observer; rather the ballet represents Vaslav Nijinsky's chaotic inner world with all its ambiguities, fantasies and trauma. 

Guillaume Côté in "Nijinsky". Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Holiday Comedy

"The Nutcracker"

Kansas City Ballet from Missouri

Opera House

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

November 22, 2017

 

by George Jackson

© 2017 by George Jackson

 

This time, DC's visiting version of "The Nutcracker" comes from Missouri's metropolis - Kansas City, located on the state's western border with Kansas. Like such guests in previous years, the company is wanted back home for Christmas so that its seven performances here are scheduled as a Thanksgiving  treat.  Credited as choreographer is Kansas City Ballet's current artistic director, Devon Carney, a familiar name since his days as a leading soloist at Boston Ballet. Carney's solution to the quandary of having a "Nuts" that's both traditional and like none other is his take on the well known story. Even though what happens is much as in many other versions of the ballet, few opportunities for farce are ignored.  Moreover, behavior is hyper and often highly so. 

 

Kansas City Ballet's The Nutcracker. Photo by Brett Pruitt and East Market Studios.

 

Light and Darkness

"The Winter's Tale"
The National Ballet of Canada
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts 
Toronto, Canada
November 10, 2017

by Denise Sum
copyright © 2017 by Denise Sum

 With "The Winter's Tale", Christopher Wheeldon has transformed one of William Shakespeare's "problem plays" into a highly effective dance drama. Many elements of a full-length classical ballet are there: pas d'action which move the plot along using mime, divertissements to showcase the dancers' technique, and a series of distinctive pas de deux for the leading characters. Yet the work has a pared down candor and expressionist movement style that feels fresh and contemporary. This narrative work is compelling because it takes the audience on a journey as the central characters grapple with difficult emotions and their consequences. There is depth and nuance here, which is revealed during this second run of the ballet, which is a co-production between the National Ballet of Canada and The Royal Ballet. It is worth remembering that audiences respond to this type of dramatic work if it is done well. Some of the National Ballet's recent full length commissions have been visually spectacular yet superficial, with little choreographic complexity ("Pinnochio", "Le Petit Prince", and Wheeldon's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" come to mind). A ballet like "The Winter's Tale" seems a much sounder investment of the company's talents and resources, as it is a work that can remain in the active repertoire and continue to stimulate dancers and audiences alike for years to come.    

Hannah Fischer with Artists of the Ballet in "The Winter’s Tale". Photo by Karolina Kuras.

Gomes X Two

"The Sarasota Ballet: Classical and New Voices"
Works & Process
Peter B. Lewis Theater
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
New York, New York
November 19, 2017, matinee

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2107 by Mary Cargill

Works & Process, the imaginative discussion program sponsored by the Guggenheim Museum, offered a double dose of ABT's revered principal Marcelo Gomes, showing him both as a dancer and as a choreographer in a program featuring dancers from the Sarasota Ballet, led by its director Iain Webb and hosted by Wendy Perron. Webb gave a brief introduction to Sir Frederick Ashton's charming and luminous "The Two Pigeons" which Gomes had danced last year with the Sarasota Ballet, talking about working with Ashton, his special musicality (so intuitive and lyrical, Webb said, as intricate as, though very different from, Balanchine's) and his way of using the upper body, inspired by Pavlova. Gomes then danced the final pas de deux with his Sarasota partner Victoria Holland, a dancer whose delicate and pristine lyricism perfectly complements Gomes' warmth and generosity.

Victoria Hulland and Marcelo Gomes in "The Two Pigeons" photo © Frank Atura

The Scottish Musical

"Brigadoon"
New York City Center
New York, New York
November 16, 2017

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2107 by Mary Cargill

New York City Center's Encore Series has traditionally given revivals of musicals in stripped-down, partially staged, script-clutching performances, offering current stars a chance to perform those glorious songs without having to commit blocks of time to rehearsals. The series' gala production of Lerner and Loewe's "Brigadoon", directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, did have glorious songs, but it was fully (if economically) staged and the actors, complete with valiant attempts as Scottish accents, had memorized their lines, much to Romance's benefit. It is hard to make a kiss convincing which reading from a script.

Scene from "Brigadoon" Photo © Joan Marcus.

Is Paris to Blame?

"Work"

Kim Yong-geo Dance Theater from Korea

Terrace Theater

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

November 9, 2017

 

by George Jackson

© 2017 by George Jackson

 

"Work" could use a sense of play, of gracious relaxation, of elegance. This hour plus display, choreo- graphed by Yong-geol Kim, is crammed full with different dance numbers and has, sometimes, a military air -- especially when its corps de ballet struts onto the stage in marching file. For the opening, though, there were no bodies, no dancers visible but only ballet barres. Four such objects filled much of the floor space. With a copper sheen and a deco shape, these classroom tools looked like art works. From the wings, dancers appeared, gravitated to the barres and began to do limbering routines -- exercises that, indeed, are work. The bending, stretching, rotating and whipping motions performed while holding on to a barre were individual, until an up-tight figure slowly walked on and clapped his or her hands to impose uniformity on the dancers' training actions. Dim lighting, not just for the opening but for much of the display, made it difficult to tell females from males or recognize individuals when they re-appeared. A bit of strobe lighting and vapors that clouded the light beams also did not help visibility. Perhaps that's why the dancers' names were not in the printed program. Anonymity reigns at this worksite.

Dresden in New York

"5", Ganz leise kommt die Nacht / The Night Falls Quietly", "On the Nature of Daylight", "Vertigo Maze"
Dresden Semperoper Ballett
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
November 1, 2017

By Carol Pardo
Copyright ©2017 by Carol Pardo

The Dresden Semperoper Ballet, founded in 1823, boasts a roster of sixty dancers, and a repertory which, during the 2017-2018 season, encompasses everything from Petipa's "Sleeping Beauty" to Justin Peck's "Heatscape". Its inaugural season at The Joyce included eleven dancers from all ranks of the company (among them only one principal), four ballets, all ten years old or less and all U.S. local or world premieres, with three by choreographers, though not well known in New York, with serious Anglo-American ballet bona fides. David Dawson is a graduate of the Royal Ballet School, while Joseph Hernandez is a product of New York's own School of American Ballet. Stijn Celis, with his roots in continental Europe, may be familiar to locals from his work with the now defunct Cedar Lake Ballet. All in all a generous sample of an unfamiliar troupe.

Above:  Gina Scott, Alice Mariana, Zarina Stahnke and Michael Tucker in David Dawson's "5" at the Joyce Theater. Photo © Yi-Chun Wu

Seesawing

"Balance and Imbalance"
Bereishit Dance Company of Seoul, Korea
Millennium Stage South
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
November 7, 2017

by George Jackson
© 2017 by George Jackson

Words that indicate opposites - "traditional" and "contem- porary" – appear in the printed program for choreo- grapher Soon-ho Park's piece for a pair of drummers, a vocalist and five dancers. Indeed, what the eyes see on stage, and on the huge overhead video screen, is quite diverse in terms of dress, age and action, and yet it is also clear. The drummers, who become visible first, are young men in simple white outfits that seem a timeless fashion. They sit on the floor, to the right of center, insistently beating their hourglass drums to produce metallic and organic sounding rhythms. The singer, and presumably storyteller, is a mature woman wearing a gown of heirloom design. Its voluminous bell-shaped skirt flares out from just under the breasts. She gesticulates with not just her arms but also with a fan to give her words emphasis. To my Western ears, this chanting sounds like Schoenberg's "speaksing". The dancers, three men and two women, look like casually dressed young people from just about any country now. They engage each other in leaning and balancing and, by themselves, they hop or slouch and do so not without emotion.

BereishitDanceCompany. Photo: Sangyun Park.