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| Program 6 |
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| SF BALLET 2008 75TH ANNIVERSARY |
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| information for research and entertainment and is a collection of thing s that anyone can find using Google. |
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| CriticalDance Forum |
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| A Delicate Battle was premiered eight years ago, which is an eon in the life of a young choreographer and its opposites and antagonisms look schematic, even crude by comparison. Today, constant snow falling on stage, women in evening gowns and men in business suits can�t help but look like leftover tropes from an older generation of Eurodance (yes, think Pina Bausch). First, Mrozewski shows us the classicists, seven dancers (led by Jenna Savella and Keiichi Hirano), in Christopher Read�s tight whities animating the contrapuntal structure of the "Ricercar � 6" from Bach�s Musical Offering. It�s all airy, conscientious and a bit stiffly academic in its vocabulary. Unisons suggest a community at peace with itself. On the periphery hovers the gowned Alejandra Perez-Gomez, arms raised in a presentiment of doom. Suited men hurry across the stage. A silvery canopy sinks to the stage. Snow descends as three couples (Perez-Gomez/ Etienne Lavigne, Heather Ogden/Patrick Lavoie, Sonia Rodriguez/Christopher Body) plunge into a series of weighted, increasingly violent duets. The music, adroitly conducted by David Briskin, segues from Bach to Gavin Bryars� enticing After the Requiem with its brooding string and guitar textures. The duets, with dancers dragged across the floor, suggest that ugliness is more real than beauty, but I�m not sure that was Mrozewski�s intention. One is left admiring the fluidity of design and the commitment of these sleek dancers and that may be enough. The best of this choreographer�s work surely lies ahead. Tuesday�s performance of Duo Concertant (made for the 1972 Stravinsky Festival) was a testament to the speedy attacks that can still make New York City Ballet�s Balanchine such a bracing experience. Angle flew through the shifting balances and daring extensions with flair and a sense of fantasy. At this point in her career, Yvonne Borree, while practiced, can�t quite keep up and an element of coyness entered the performance. Here, Balanchine is doing nothing less than probing the source of choreographic inspiration, as the dancers stand behind the on-stage piano and allow the music to seep through their pores. Violinist Arturo Delmoni and pianist Cameron Grant were the splendid on-stage musicians. It was easy to find this performance a bit wanting in passion, at least in comparison with the remarkable rendering by Nino Gogua and Lasha Khozashvili of the State Ballet of Georgia in Berkeley last February. Note that NYCB�s Sterling Hyltin and Robert Fairchild will dance in alternate performances Altro Canto (Another Song), sounds grim: a 10-part, 40-minute work for 19 dancers, set to ravishing pre-baroque vocal and instrumental scores by Claudio Monteverdi, Biagio Marini and Giovanni Kapersberger, most of it unfamiliar even to early music buffs. The piece�s ritual atmosphere, like incense filling the nostrils...Maillot derives theatrical tension from the contrast between the spiritual nature and filigree texture of most of the music and the muscular, visceral quality of the choreography. ..Altro Canto compels attention. In a d�cor limited to candles descending, rising and arranging themselves in different configurations, the dancers, clad in Karl Lagerfeld�s chic, shiny white costumes (which incline to skirts for the men) enact a stylized passion play. There are religious overtones as a woman is hoisted by the crowd and paraded through the stage space like an icon. But much of the rest of the piece inclines to earthy, sometimes unisex encounters. Maillot highlights gestural details throughout: a recurring image is of the arms on a supine dancer squiggling like overcooked spaghetti. Maillot gives us an arresting set piece, positioned three-quarters of the way through the piece. An extraordinary duet features Bernice Coppieters and Ramon Gomes Reis during which the pair barely touches. Instead, through a series of convoluted gestures, they seem to draw power and sustenance from each other�s soul./ VOD Review |
| National Ballet of Canada brought promising talent. Although young Canadian choreographer Matjash Mrozewski made a forgettable dance for the Ballet last year, his "A Delicate Battle" from 2001 proves far more memorable. The battle is between three women in Victorian-esque dresses and the brutish men in suits they depend upon, an Ibsen-like conflict that plays out in both theatrical gesture and gymnastic partnering to Gavin Bryars' sour electric-guitar score.
I thought more might be done with the silver leotard-clad ensemble that leads off the ballet with pristine formalism set to Bach, that they might meaningfully recur, and I wondered if the central duet for Sonia Rodriguez and Christopher Body would look half so compelling without confetti falling hypnotizingly like snow behind. But to make a ballet juxtaposing rigorous musicality and atmospheric drama is no small feat. And dressing the women in slippers rather than pointe shoes gave these sinuous dancers a catlike quality that was pleasingly delicate beneath the Bach, delivered by the Ballet Orchestra under the Canadians' conductor, David Briskin. New York City Ballet has sent just four dancers to alternate in George Balanchine's 1972 "Duo Concertant" - and what a delight opening night's Yvonne Borree and Jared Angle proved. Balanchine's jesting and then surprisingly touching jaunt to Stravinsky is a treasure - it hasn't been seen on the War Memorial Opera House stage in at least a decade - and it could hardly be performed with more authority than by members of the troupe Balanchine co-founded. Borree is a dancer not in her first flowering, and not in great favor in New York, but she looked fresh and in fine form Tuesday, and she had a wonderfully crisp counterpart in Angle. Watching them you realized anew just how distinctive a New York City Ballet performance of Balanchine is, from the confident but not hammy way the two handled the passages of simply standing and listening to violinist Arturo Delmoni and pianist Cameron Grant, to the breakneck tempi. Detractors might call the studied quality of gesture sterile, but the swiftness and angular style looked gold standard to me. The second-cast dancers, Sterling Hyltin and Robert Fairchild, represent a slightly younger City Ballet generation; I hope to catch them also. The music was canned for Jean-Christophe Maillot's "Altro Canto," set to religious music by Monteverdi and other 17th century composers - and so was the concept. The gender-bending costumes by Karl Lagerfeld, murky lighting and portentous stares - I could have embraced them had there been a shred of truly spiritual feeling in Maillot's hollowly schematic choreography. The motif was a flame, physicalized in flickering hands and then arms and finally torsos, echoed by candles above. Bernice Coppieters and Ramon Gomes Reis shared a duet of rare sincerity and playfulness...Review My review - First Impressions: I thought it was wonderful that the Canadians brought snow in April, and loved the patterns that the long dresses made in the snow. I was looking at two worlds - like parallel universes � sometimes passing unaware of each other and sometimes confronting each other. The Balanchine was the perfect, simple middle piece, like a sherbet course that cleanses the pallet to get ready for what came next. Altro Canto was a revelation - a mix of the sacred and profane. The duet made me aware of the negative space between the dancers - a tangible, powerful force. |