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Moonlighting

“The Day”

Wendy Whelan and Maya Beiser in

choreography by Lucinda Childs to

music and poetry by David Lang,

Eisenhower Theater,

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,

Washington, DC

December 6, 2019

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

At the start of the 20th Century, Diaghilev’s ballet dancers such as Pavlova, Nijinsky, Karsavina, Bolm et al. did “moderne” numbers on their comcert programs. Nijinsky, of course, has been considered an innovative modern dance choreographer as well as a classic-romantic performer. If ballet and modern dance are analogized to poetry and prose, then the reverse examples - modern dancers doing ballet - aren’t as frequent. They haven’t the requisite bodies nor techniques. Yet there is the instance of Merce Cunningham’s partner, Carolyn Brown, daring to dance in Fokine’s  “Les Sylphides” and doing so quite credibly.

 

Maya Beiser and Wendy Whelan in "The Day." Photo by Hayim Heron and Courtesy of Jacob's Pillow.

Nearly Neighbors

“Increasing”, “Little Prince”, “Its Not a Cry”, “Switch Phase” Duo, “Last Glass”

BalletX for Damian Woetzel’s Demo

Terrace Theater

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

October 25, 2019

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

Although the two cities are close on the map, Philadelphia and Washington have dance scenes that pretty much remained strangers. The Pennsylvania Ballet, which is at home in Philadelphia, did visit Washington in the past. Yet the  “other” troupe in Philadelphia – BalletX -  had not been seen in DC until now, when Damian Woetzel made it his business to introduce that “contemporary classical” company to audiences in the capital. There are 10 dancers in BalletX, and there was one guest artist for this visit – Robbie Fairchild, formerly of New York City Ballet. Three of the program’s five dances were choreographed by Matthew Neenan. He was one of the principal reasons for founding a “second” ballet troupe in Philadelphia. Neenan uses the dancer’s total body and often deploys it as a unit, as a whole. His choices of music range from a Franz Schubert quintet to folk melodies to dramatic film scores. Something always seems to be happening in Neenan ballets.

 

Ballet X in "The Little Prince." Photo by Teresa Wood.

Ambitions

“Défilé" “Reverence”, “Delusional Beauty”, “Racecar”

The Washington Ballet’s Next Steps Program

Harman Hall

Washington, DC

October 24, 2019

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

The next steps danced are not necessarily new ones. Instead, they can stir memories. This program began with silent video clips of dance and short messages before the company’s director, Julie Kent, stepped in front of  the curtains to welcome her audience. The former ballerina looked trim on high platform shoes with tight, light trousers and a top that resembled a feather duster. The audience had been expecting three new ballets but not a fourth, the opener – Kent’s own défilé for 25 young pupils of The Washington School of Ballet, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary. This ballet’s title, of course, derives from the Paris Opera’s historic défilés, or filings by, in which the dancers walk, just walk, over the stage. Also, Kent may have been prompted to mount her work by the recent hit made by 20 children from Russia’s Vaganova Academy in the Mariinsky Ballet’s “Paquita”. Our local kids, girls and boys, hadn’t the polish and push of the Russian pupils yet presented more than just promise. Their persistence in skipping, jumping and keeping order created an awesome mood as pianist Glenn Sales supported them with Leo Delibes music. The next ballet, Jessica Lang’s “Reverence”, seemed to have evolved from défilés.

 

Worth Its End

“Paquita”

The Mariinsky Ballet

Opera House

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

October 8 and 10, 2019

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

The tastes and skills for this 2017 production of the ballet “Paquita” span several centuries. The story derives from the writings of Spain’s Miguel Cervantez (1547 – 1616). The first dance version premiered 1846 in Paris, choreographed by Joseph Mazilier to music by Edouard Deldevez. The work is named for its principal character: Paquita appears to be a beautiful, young, Spanish gypsy woman. Yet, unknown to everyone (but the audience) she is of noble birth, having been kidnapped as an infant by gypsies who raised her to be a dancer. The knotty plot reveals her true lineage so that she can wed the handsome Andres, an officer who deserts for her sake and is also her cousin. The first Russian production of “Paquita” in 1847, on the heels of the Paris staging, was by choreographers Marius Petipa and Pierre-Frederic Malevergne (the teacher of Lev Ivanov, Petipa’s later and better known collaborator). Petipa restaged “Paquita” several times, adding music by Drigo and Minkus to the Deldevez score, especially for the splurge of dancing at the ballet’s end. That splurge survived on its own. It is Act 3 of the current production, with Petipa’s steps restored by Yuri Burlaka from Stapanov notations now at Harvard University. Is seeing the ballet’s first two acts at all worthwhile?

 

Photo:  The Mariinsky Ballet in "Paquita." Photo by Valentin Baranovsky @State Academic Mariinsky Theatre

 

An Impressionist?

“Beach Birds”, “BIPED”

Merce Cunningham @ 100

Compagnie Centre National de Danse Contemporaine – Angers

Eisenhower Theater

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

October 3, 2019

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

To celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of New York choreo-grapher Merce Cunningham (1919 - 2009), the Kennedy Center imported a contemporary dance company from Angers, France. The troupe is directed by Robert Swinston, a Juilliard School graduate who danced for Martha Graham, Kazuko Hirabayashi, José Limón and, of course, for Cunningham, whose assistant Swinston became. We were shown two Cunningham dances, the fairly digestible, brief “Beach Birds” (1991) and the behemoth “BIPED” (1999). How telling are the choreographies’ titles? Is “Beach Birds” really about flocking behavior in nature, at the shore and is “BIPED” about human beings’ civilized, even technological activities? 

 

Surfeits

Dance Day at The Reach Festival

Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

September 21, 2019

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

An incredible amount of dance was performed in Kennedy Center’s formal and improvised spaces on Dance Day, September 21. From morning into the night it drew a huge audience. I was part of the crowd in the main building’s corridors and theaters, on the terrace overlooking the Potomac River and on the campus’ extension south with  its three blunt, new masonry blocks – buildings by the architectural firm of Steven Holl. I saw snatches of diverse dance on video screens placed theroughout the area, but attended only two entire performances, each about an hour long.

 

Audience members participating in National Dance Day at the Kennedy Center. Photo by Jati Lindsay.

Conflicts

CONFLICTS

 

“Swan Lake”

American Ballet Theatre

Filene Center, Wolf Trap Park

Vienna, Virginia

July 13, 2019

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

Of the characters in “Swan Lake”, Odette and Odile fascinate because they are opposites as well as being similar. Suffering has given Odette her allure. Force is Odile’s magnet. However, Siegfried is just a routine prince. Perhaps he has a domineering mother, yet he both manages the courtiers and mixes with them to some extent. Like all princes who have just come of age, he has longings but doesn’t know for what. Can Siegfried be made to hold our interest? That was one of two challenges for Aran Bell, the last of ABT’s three Siegfrieds at Wolf Trap this summer. His other challenge was the bravura of the prince’s solos. Bell was making his debut in the Siegfried role. 

Craft

“Journey”, “Rondo Ma Non Troppo”,

“Prufrock”, “Extremely Close”, “Songs by Cole”

and music by Chris Rogerson and Zoltan Kodaly

Chamber Dance Project

Harman Hall

Washington, DC

June 22, 2019 evening

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

The format chosen by artistic director Diane Coburn Bruning for Chamber Project’s summer program was an alternation of dance and music-only selections. All the pieces but one were short and for the one long number, the last, there was both dancing and just-concertizing. This format functioned well and, likely, will be used again in the future. Coburn as choreographer was represented by two older works and the new “Prufrock”. Her competence is apparent in all three pieces. The opening  “Journey” is a display of female/male partnering in acrobatic neoclassical style. The mechanics of holding, embracing, lifting and levering are explored. Its flow of movement, the phrasing, gains continuity as the piece progresses. Concurrent emotions are implied. Music for Coburn’s  “Journey” was the Adagio from Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, Opus 11 with stately yet also challenging dancing being done by Luz San Miguel and Davit Hovhannisyan. Seeing a well known choreographer credited for this duet wouldn’t have surprised me. I preferred Bruning’s “Journey” to Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s  “Rondo”, a double duet around, under and on a round café table.

Big Venue, Rather New

“Classically Dope” by Wavelengths Winds et alia;

Copland’s “Billy the Kid” Suite and

“From the New World” i.e., Dvorak’s Symphony #9 by

     The National Symphony Orchestra

The Anthem

Washington, DC

June 5, 2019

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

An anthem is a hymn in praise of joy. DC’s huge, fairly new venue for the performing arts – The Anthem – is being called a concert hall. It opened on The Wharf, the city’s renovated Southwest waterfront, in October 2017 and is being used for dance as well as for music. It has a movie house marquee facing the boardwalk and waters. Up a couple of steps under the marquee, there are doors into a low lobby that leads to the concert hall – a vast vault reminiscent of an aircraft hangar. At the hall’s front is a large, raised stage. The main floor is a flat expanse for comfortable folding chairs. At the rear, surrounding the control pit for sound and light, are tiered platforms for additional folding chairs. Two levels of balcony boxes embrace the hangar. All together, the audience can consist of as many as 6 thousand people! Decoration is provided by tiny light bulbs arranged as curtains. The place is kept dimly lit even when  no performance is in progress so that it is difficult to read the printed program or see expressions on surrounding faces. What of sight lines for viewing dance?

The Familiar and the Strange

“Valse Fantaisie”, “Change”,

“Passage”, “Dougla”

Dance Theatre of Harlem

Ballet Across America

Opera House,

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

May 28, 2019

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

This time Ballet Across America spanned just the nation’s East Coast, but from New York to Florida. Opening night was all Dance Theatre of Harlem’s. It started with company director Virginia Johnson, chic in a sharply cut suit, stepping in front of the curtains and briefly addressing the audience. Johnson had chosen George Balanchine’s neoclassical “Valse Fantaisie” as opener. It is a little piece – a leading couple plus a female corps of four. Mikhail Glinka’s music hasn’t the sweep of a waltz by Johann Strauss 2, nor the surge of one by Richard Strauss, nor the ravishment of Ravel. Rather, the Glinka score is cute and the choreography makes a neat little exercise of it. Dylan Santos as the danseur and Crystal Serrano as the ballerina were amiable, amidst the quartet in its green gauze. After just a brief pause, “Change” followed and it was quite a change of temperament.

 

Photo: Crystal Serrano, Da' Von Doane, and Lindsey Croop in "Valse Fantasie." Photo by Dave Andrews.