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Similarities

ICONS Choreographic Institute Thesis Dance Concert 2022
Dance Loft on 14
Washington DC
Sunday 15 May 2022 at 2 PM

by George Jackson
copyright 2022 by George Jackson

It is not surprising that there were resemblances among the dance works shown on this program. Vladimir Angelov was, after all, the teacher of all the choreographers and performers who were being presented. Angelov's pupils seem to think that dance is an unfolding of the human body - as if were a piece of clothing that had been wrapped up and needed to be unrolled before being worn. Some of the unfoldings on this bill were emotional, others were mechanical.

The most fascinating unfolding was a solo - Mimi Hoorami's "Richard" as danced by former child prodigy and later teen terror Rasta Thomas. "Richard" is this dance soliloquy's title and it is based on Shakespeare;s drama of King Richard. Thomas shows the king as royal, refined, thoughtful, capable of being evil and of noble actions. What a great performance!

 Other choreographers iwere Elizabeth Watson, Millicent Parker and William L. Miller Jr. but it was easy to confuse the dances, especially those in which the unravelling motions tended to become routine. One fine new dance per program, though, is a true gift! Thank you, Mr. Thomas and Ms, Noorami !

Perplexity

"Wall"

Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company

Courtyard of the National Portrait Gallery

Washington, DC

Thursday 19 May 2022 at 6 PM

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2022 by George Jackson  

 

There was no printed program for this dance premiere. Yet some credit information could be had from the Internet announcement for the event, Burgess had based his choreography on a magical realist novel by Mexican author Octavio Paz (1914 - 1999). Nevertheless, it wasn't the story or an aspect of plot that captured my attention first and foremost but the scenery: several large, square tablets arranged wall-like at the rear of the courtyard's dance space. The space between tablets could be opened up to let dancers penetrate and pass through the wall. 

"Don Quixote"

"Don Quixote"
Marius Petipa, Alexander Gorsky, Kevin McKenzie and Susan Jones
American Ballet Theatre 
Opera House
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
Thursday, 31 March 2022

by George Jackson
copyright 2022 by George Jackson

 

It was fun, this production of a 19th-Century Russian ballet. Not sophisticated humor but shrewd slapstick. Danill Simkin blazed as the barber Basillo so that people in the audience asked whether it wasn't Baryshnikov. No, it was Simkin indeed in the barber boy role. As his love Kitri, Isabella Boylston was pliant and crystal clear. Devon Teuscher had two parts, not a good idea because it confuse the viewers. Teuscher had verve as the street dancer and dignity as dryad queen. As the cupid figure, Amour, Lea Fleytoux was filligree to the utmost. This ballet's abundance of pantomime parts were a reminder that movements can express character, passages of bravoura dancing by soloists and corps kept proceedings lively.

 

The music by Ludwig Minkus hasn't the nuance ofTchaikovsky's ballet scores but propels the story. Compared to this century's "whim" choreographies, the old "Don Q" provides satisfaction.   

 

Isabella Boylston and Danil Simkin in American Ballet Theatre's production of "Don Quixote." Photo by Gene Schiavone.

Whims: 23rd Century Ballet

Whims:  23rd Century Ballet

Farewell Celebration for Kevin McKenzie

American Ballet Theatre

Kennedy Center Opera House
March 29, 2022

 

by George Jackson
copyright 2022 by George Jackson

 

Two things happened in Washington, at the Kennedy Center's Opera House on Tuesday evening, March 29. One was a farewell celebration for American Ballet Theatre' artistic director Kevin McKenzie. He has been in charge of the company for about 3 decades but will be retiring at the end of the current season. Who will succeed him has not  yet been announced. The other event was an attempt by three choreographers chosen by McKenzie to define 23d Century ballet.  

 

American Ballet Theatre. Scene from Alexei Ratmansky's Bernstein in a Bubble. Photo_Rosalie O’Connor

 

 

An Occasion

AN OCCASION

Opening of the 2021/2022 Season

The Washington Ballet

National Building Museum

Washington, DC 

October 21, 2021

 

reviewed by George Jackson

copyright 2021 by George Jackson

 

This opening program was not what the publicity had led people to expect. It was an evening of divertissements, some classic, some new and others somewhat familiar. "Flames of Paris". a 1932 extravaganza by Vassily Vainonen from Soviet Russia that promulgates revolution but not necessarily democracy, wasn't attempted in its entirety. Only the well known, acrobatic, neoclassical  pas de deux was shown. There were standard duos "after " Marius Petipa such as "Diana and Acteon" and "Don Quixote". Brand new was DC choreographer Andile Ndlovu's "B1"  to Ape Chimba music. The ballroom balletics of Twyla Tharp's "Sinatra Suite" were passionately presented by long time favorites Sona Kharatian and Tamas Kizsa, New as well as familiar performers appeared in the first item, Jessica Lang's "Reverence" octet to Schumann music. Silas Farley's "Lament" was to a Kyle Werner composition. 

Massive and Weighty

Book: "No Fixed Points. Dance in the 20th Century."

by Nancy Reynolds and Malcolm McCormick 

Yale University Press, 2003 and recently reprinted

 

reviewed by George Jackson

copyright 2021 by George Jackson

 

This book hits readers like a space rock, all 907 pages of it. Its authors, Nancy Reynolds and the late Malcolm McCormack (1927 - 2018) were dancers and have proven themselves to be scholars. My only real objection to the current edition is the difficulty of holding such a thick book in one's hands or even resting it in one's lap. It should have been issued in two or even three volumes. 

 

The authors start the story of 20th Century performance dance by focusing on what was new in 1900, what was causing history's pages to turn. They argue that it was principally body movement as presented by American women - Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncn, Ruth St. Denis, Maud Allan. Their best audiences, though, were European. Other historians you may read ascribe the invention of modern dance to a Frenchman, the  singer and actor Francois Delsarte (1811 - 1871) and his American disciples, Steele McKaye and Genevieve Stebbins. Still others nominate Britain's Emma, Lady Hamilton and her embodyments of human figures, way back around 1787. 

Domestic vs, Foreign?

Domestic vs, Foreign?

Book: "Todd Bolender, Janet Reed, and the Making of American Ballet"

by Martha Ullman West

University Press of Florida, 2021

388 pages with black/white photos

 

by George Jackson

copyright ©2021 by  George Jackson

The noisiest individual about nationality in dance in the America of the 20th Century was Lincoln Kirstein - sponsor, writer, would-be patriot. Never mind that the choreographer he admired the most, George Balanchine, was from Russia by way of Serge Diaghilev's international Ballets Russes. Kirstein advocated against what he considred the "superficial" Americanism of choreographers such as Leonide Massine in ballets like "Union Pacific". In contrast, to represent the beginnings of American ballet, the two individuals our author West has chosen are neither the most likely nor the least likely. Todd Bolender (1914 - 2006) began as a modern dancer. Janet Reed (1916 - 2000) was often classified as a balletic soubrette. Bolender and Reed did not even meet until the fall of 1939. Mrs. West might instead have picked the dramatic Nora Kaye or one of the explorative Littlefield sisters and a Christensen brother or Eugene Loring to represent America ballet. But she is unwavering that Bolender and Reed serve history best. These two met again in the 1940s, and became occasional dance partners but lifelong friends. Bolender was a prolific choreographer in the USA, Germany and Turkey. Reed was a prominent dancer with such major companies as (American) Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet. The book by Mrs. West details the course of their careers and the growth of American ballet. 

Anticipation

Book: Francis Cunningham 
5 Continents Editions ($55)
March 18, 2021

reviewed by George Jackson

copyright 2021 by George Jackson

 

A magic moment sometimes at a performance is when the curtains have parted but nothing yet has happened. One's awareness is acutely that of the stage space. The dancers, if already present, are about to be in motion - which differs  from standing still.  Many of Francis Cunningham's paintings and drawings give me the feeling that what is depicted is a theater's stage when things are about to happen. There will be motion. Cunningham's space is pregnant and birth will occur, so be alert.

 

Reading and ReReading

Balanchine Variations, by Nancy Goldner

University Press of Florida, 2008 & 2021 
April 22, 2021

 

by George Jackson 

copyright George Jackson © 2021

 

Books are selling in this era of the coronavirus quarantine, and University Press of Florida has republished critic Nancy Goldner's 2008 "Balanchine Variations" in which she admires, analyzes and annotates 20 ballets by George Balanchine (1904 - 1983), a  colossus among choreographers. Included in the works discussed are two of Balanchine's earliest surviving ones and also some of his last.

Magician and Muses

Magician and Muses

"Balanchine's Mozartiana - The Making of a Masterpiece"

 by Robert Maiorano and Valerie Brooks

 Freundlich Books, New York, 1985

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2020 by George Jackson  

 

Not new, this book about the making of a ballet remains an important item of danced literature. Its principal author, Robert Maiorano, was a dancer with New York City Ballet for 15 years, beginning in 1961. For the company's Tchaikovsky Festival in 1981, Maiorano asked Balanchine's permission to attend rehearsals for his announced new "Mozartiana" that would be premiered at the  festival's opening. Balanchine gave his consent. Maiorano, although he had written on his own previously, enlisted journalist Valerie Brooks as co-author. They wrote not for each other but together. As a dancer, Maiorano had a dash of Edward Villella's drive and a drop of Helgi Tomasson's elegant finish as part of his observant, efficient manner. Relating what went on at the Mozartiana rehearsals and premiere, the authors give us description, explanation, suspicions and some fascinating asides. 

Undressed or Corseted

“Naked Truth – Viennese Modernism and the Body”
by Alys X. George
University of Chicago Press, 2020

Reviewed by: George Jackson
(copyright 2020 by George Jackson)

Look carefully at the picture on the cover of this book. It shows a naked woman dancing. Her face is turned away so that only part of her profile appears. Her torso seems somewhat flattened, like that of an ancient Egyptian image. The arms and hands are held lightly away from  the body’s center of gravity. The lines of the long legs are bent slightly at the knees. She gives the impression of moving forward, to our left. Oddly, this woman is not even Viennese, but the German dancer Claire Bauroff (1895-1984). Still, the author is trying to make a point: that the body in its totalities was focal in Vienna from ca. 1870 to 1938. Bodies included cadavers that were being dissected at Vienna’s famous medical school and lively ones dancing at the city’s ballrooms and cafes. Vienna’s professional ballet dancers elegantly arched their feet, the women wearing pointe shoes and, for classwork, transparent white socks over the toe shoes so that the teacher could readily spot and correct cramped stances. Under their costumes or practice garb, the ballet women wore corsets or girdles. Bauroff is barefoot on the book’s cover, yet my guess is that her delicate toes have had pointework training. The imprint of such instruments as corsets and toe shoes isn’t easily erased from the flesh.