Philadelphia Ballet’s Forward Motion

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BALLET

Mayara Pineiro and Sterling Baca of Philadelphia Ballet in “CIRCUMSTELLARS” choreography by Andonis Foniadakis. Photo by Alexander Iziliaev

Philadelphia Ballet artistic director Angel Corella has restaged a dozen or more classic story ballets since becoming artistic director in 2014, from ‘Swan Lake’ to ‘Cinderella’  and the company is currently in rehearsal for Corella’s lavish production “Sleeping Beauty” opening next month at the Academy of Music.

 But Corella is equally invested in commissioning new ballets for the company’s ‘New Works’ series of ballet forward pieces by some of today most dynamic choreographers looking to bring new ideas and styles to the artform.

‘Forward Motion’ ’is the latest in the series in performance at the Perelman Theater in the Kimmel Center, a more intimate space than the Academy, that provides an up-. close look at the choreography and the dancers in works by Juliano Nunes, Hope Boykin and Adonis Foniadakis. The only similarity between their ballets is that all the dancemakers had 3 weeks to put this dynamic program together and all of the ballerinas danced en pointe in each piece..

The concert opened Nunes’ “PS”  which he describes as “A laboratory” The curtain comes up on 16 dancers in powder blue unitards designed by Mikaela Kelly, posed in silhouette, moving in classical ballet positions. The cast of mostly principals, soloists, and a few corps de ballet dancers, The rhythmic score by Alexander McKenzie and Sune Martine, starts to soar with propulsive rhythms and dancers not skipping a beat, Nunes igniting the company’s strong precision and neoclassical technique.

Throughout the ballet, Nunes laces in a series of couples duets  packed with intricate lifts patterns and body sculptural phrases that just keep flowing.

Nunes is particularly inventive with two trios, the first danced by Nayara Lopes, Zecheng Liang, and Austin Eyler and another variation with Liang, Arian Molina Soca, and Jack Thomas. In the finale duet Liang and Yuka Iseda’s are hypnotic artistry and chemistry in pas de duex at the end of the ballet. It is no surprise that Nunes is the Philadelphia Ballet’s 2022-23 resident choreographer, he crafts works that show both the ensemble strengths and esprit de corps of the company.   

Next is African American choreographer Hope Boykin’s “ENdure” is a movement mosaic  of human behavior for a cast of nine, with themes of personal struggle, human connection, and loneliness. It is scored to introspective piano music by Bill Lawrence.  

Boykin is an African American dancer-choreographer from Durham, NC. Boykin started her professional career in Philadelphia as a member of  Joan Myers Brown’s Philadanco, then joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. Boykin . She created pieces for many companies including Philadanco and BalletX.

The dancers dressed in loose fitting red outfits designed by Marc Eric, along with introspective piano music by composer Bill Lawrence instantly sets a mood for Boykin’s  thought provoking movement meditation of everyday life.  Boykin’s pedestrian movements that  glide into arabesques, turns, plies, and maybe a chance partnering- an equally casual dance vocabulary of their everyday language, connecting or not with others, but enduring no matter what they face down the road.

Boykin’s central duet performed by Jack Sprance and Sibohan Howley was danced with lyrical strength and haunting mystery. And kudos to apprentice dancers Vinicius Ferreira Freire and Ashley Lewis making strong debuts in this work.. The minimalism also gives way to expressive solos, episodes of defeat and personal fortitude. Boykin’s repeated motif of flight, with dancers bolting across the stage mid phrase seemingly at any moment symbolizing so much.

The concert closer was Greek choreographer Andonis Foniadakis’ “Circumstellars” is an atmospheric mosaic of bodies in propulsive galactic flight  with four women and five men in second-skin costumes of muted green and purple designed by Anastasios Sofroniou. The dancers dramatically emerging through lighting designer Sakis Birbilis’ a curtain of laser lighted smoke in what

Foniadakis described the scene as “a vortex.”  The ballet’s breakneck pace sustained fluidity that never looked overpacked. The cast executing Foniadakis’ mach-speed choreo full of feral jetes, off-angled lift patterns, and hotwired immediacy. The body as exploding dance stars.

The choreographer’s longtime music collaborator Julien Tarride composed the symphonic ‘Musicbox Ballerina’ for the ballet.  Principal dancers Mayara Pinero and Sterling Baca partner throughout the piece with increasing speed and thrilling  athleticism. This program showed Philadelphia Ballet covering a lot of  emerging trends, the choreographers creating potent ballet forward concepts.  

Philadelphia Ballet  | Forward Motion | Perelman Theater

Kimmel Cultural Campus, Philadelphia PA

February 3-11, 2023

www.philadelphiaballet.org

Ballet

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BALLET, Philadelphia Ballet, Prokofiev, Storyballets

Philadelphia Ballet

Cinderella

Academy of Music, Philadelphia

Oct. 13-22, 2022

www.philadelphiaballet.org

  Philadelphia Ballet Artistic director Angel Corella is packing company’s 2022-23 season with classic story ballets starting with Cinderella this month and upcoming productions of The Sleeping Beauty, Copellia, and of course that perennial family favorite production of George Balanchine’s Nutcracker in an extended run in December.For contemporary ballet fans there is a program by modern classics by Balanchine that includes Agon, Who Cares? and a ‘New Works’ program with ballets premieres by Juliano Nunes, Andornis Foniadakis and Hope Boykin.

The Academy of Music in Philadelphia was all but full for Philadelphia Ballet’s 2022-23 season opener Cinderella, still enchanting kids of all ages who can’t resist the enduring fairy story of a servant girl marrying a prince and those cruel stepsisters or a fairy godmother who turns a pumpkin into a silver carriage, not to mention transforming Cinderella’s dirty servant rags into a bejeweled ballgown tutu.

Photos: Alexander Iziliaev

Ben Stevenson’s 1970 version of Cinderella, modeled after Frederic Ashton’s lavish Royal Ballet adaptation has plenty of delights with its storybook visuals looking all the lusher in the gilded opera house environs of the Academy of Music.

Equally captivating is Serge Prokofiev’s entrancing ballet score that is cinematic in its narrative power. From emotional dramatic strings to oompah music hall comedy to score that ignite the vaudevillian comedy as stepsisters get ready for the Royal Ball where the Prince is searching for his true love to be his bride. Meanwhile, they have plenty of time to taunt and bully Cinderella.

Photos: Alexander Iziliaev

The first act pantomime and character dancing performed with flair; standouts include- Jack Sprance’s Dancing-master comedic turn as he attempts to teach Cinderella’s stepsisters a simple waltz but is more intrigued by Cinderella’s perfect stillness in 5th position pointe in her raggy dress off in the corner.

Yavol Cohen and Russell Drucker are the Ugly Stepsisters bringing a dirty laundry list of cliche travesti girly camp as they attempt to turn out, jete, entrechats or flirt with the Prince.

When an old crone seeks shelter from the forest, Cinderella takes her in, warms her by the fireplace and give her bread. Meanwhile, she dreams of going to the ball herself and later that night the old woman makes it happen. In a sprinkle of dust, she reveals herself as the Fairy Godmother, flawlessly danced by Principal Dayesi Torriente, who escorts Cinderella to the magical world of the ball, but warns that she must return before midnight, or the spell will be broken.

First soloist Sydney Dolan is luminous as Cinderella, as an actor and dancer. Dolan’s dramatic pacing, dazzling pointe work, regal arabesques, and gorgeous pirouettes command the stage.

Act II’s Forest dancers are ignited by the male quartet in full unitards- Federico D’Ortenzi, Austin Kyler, Juan Montobbio Maestre and Pau Pujol- are the acrobatic Dragonflies that make way for the seasonal Fairies- Kathryn Manger (Spring), Thays Golz (Summer) Lucia Erickson (Autumn) So Jung Shin (Winter) all making the most of their brief solo variations.

the full Corp de ballet enters for the Palace ball, but Stevenson’s choreography is particularly static in the ball scene. The comic vamps by the Stepsisters runs out of steam and the corps de ballet court dances are little more than pageantry, with a lot of posey unison phrases and little footwork.

 Fortunately, first soloist Ashton Roxander rescues these scenes in a captivating, technically fiery performance as the Prince’s court Jester. Roxander’s steely pirouettes, breezy tour en l’air, lightning jetes, and witty gestures as he spins in the air.

photos: Alexander Iziliaev

As he has proven many times Sterling Baca is a natural in Princely roles and he brings a strong characterization to his Prince. Baca and Baca had beautiful storybook moments in this performance, but the central love pas deux was wound too tight as the midnight clock ticked. and their chemistry looked a bit strained at key moments.

Meanwhile, Sergei Prokofiev’s dynamic score to brought to full detailing and balance with searing moments of dramatic catharsis brought to full bloom by conductor Beatrice Jona Affron and Philadelphia Ballet orchestra.

Prokofiev was at the mercy of Stalin’s regime when he wrote this ballet score in the 40s. After he started it he was ordered to compose a full opera based on Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace.’ He was also had scored Russian films ‘Alexander Nevsky’ and Ivan the Terrible. All to be approved, or banned, by Stalin’s musical censorship committee that scoured scores for any hint of ‘decadent’ expressionism or western ideas.

Prokofiev wrote later that he thought of Cinderella as a real person with full emotions, not a character in a fable. Prokofiev used the story’s plot of a downtrodden servant girl to express universal messages of hope to the hearts of the Russian people living under tyranny. More than one subversive message in that grim fairy tale still, no?

PhillyDanse

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BALLET, BalletOrchestra, ClassicalDance, dancers, musicians, PhiladelphiaBallet, Tchaikovsky

Corps de Ballet | photo: Alexander Iziliaev

Send in the Swans

Philadelphia Ballet

Swan Lake

Academy of Music

March 3-13

www.philadelphiaballet.org

Speaking to a near sold-out audience at the Academy of Music on March 3, Philadelphia Ballet artistic director Angel Corella invoked prayers for Ukraine before presenting his production of Swan Lake. Indeed, it was hard not to think of the dire situation in Ukraine as the curtain went up on the most famous Russian ballet in the world.

It was initially a flop with Russian audiences at its premiere 125 years ago, composer  Peter Illich Tchaikovsky died before he knew of its enduring success that still attracts audiences the world over. It carries the artistic lineage of Imperial  ballet classicism created by Imperial Ballet innovator Alexander Pushkin and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov.

The folkloric story ballet of Prince Siegfried falling in love with the Princess Odette who is turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer.

At Philadelphia Ballet,  he continues to dust off the classical repertory, and adapts for contemporary audiences, from the many productions of Swan Lake he performed at the height of his career as principal danseur at American Ballet Theatre.

The lavish production look terrific in Philly’s historic Academy of Music. Vivid period costumes by Benjamin Tyrell, from the Swan’s jeweled embroidery to the Prince’s doublets and steely crossbow.

In this revival, Corella has condensed the four acts into two, and from the start he animates the background action in the court scenes celebrating the Prince’s 21 birthday. The corps de ballet men and women really on the mark in the ensemble sharpness and esprit.

 The ballet opens with Prince’s 21^st birthday party, the Queen presents her son with a new crossbow and after some lively dancing and drinking by the guests, the Prince staggers off with his pals for a late-night hunting party. that unfolds with strong ensemble esprit and precision.

Arian Molina Soca is a most lyrical Prince Siegfried, in a starry eyed, well-acted performance. Meanwhile, Soca soars through the air with ease, his turns are centered with exquisite line and finish.  At the lake, Siegfried encounters The Swan.

Daysei Torriente & Arian Molina Soca | photo: Alexander Iziliaev

Principal dancer Dayesi Torriente shows her full range, dancing Odette/Odile. if a bit tentative in her opening scene, but then unlocks the haunted  character of the cursed woman, who can only  transform back to human form at night  as she reveals her true self to Siegfried and , he falls in love with. It’s a tricky role of swan poses and princess radiance.

Torriente’s swan  is a little too skittish as first. but her classical technique regal. In the ball scene As Odile, who Siegfried believes is Odette, Torriente commands every moment, nailing all of the demanding, high voltage pas de bourrée, impeccable jumps and pumping  out 34= fouettes, with a few doubles in the scene finale, before she reveals that she has fooled Siegfried as Odette is still trapped under the spell of Von Rothbart.

 As Benno, Siegfried’s bestie, Ashton Roxander, steals the scene with warm characterization and swagger in the extended solos. He hooks up with equally dynamic partners Thays Golz and So Jung Shin in duets and spritely trios.

 Later, The audience burst into applause at the four Cygnets- those arm-entwined quicksilver ballerinas with their witty arm-entwined pas de quatre, in this performance flawlessly danced by Alexandra Heier,  Thays Golz, Kathryn Manger, and Lucia Erickson.

Principal dancer Sterling Baca is the villainous Von Rothbart, swirling around in a black feather wingspan and horned headdress. Baca was met with lusty hisses his curtain call. He will get his turn as the Prince later in the run.

The ACT II ball scene is packed with character and folkloric dances, The Spanish couples dance with Thays Golz and  Alexandra Heier partnering Etienne Diaz and Russel Drucker; The Russian Czardas troupe led by Kathryn Manger and Aleksey Babayev lead the folkloric Czardas procession and Peter Weil and Nicholas Patterson dazzle as  the tambourine wielding Neapolitans with their a balletic flashdance.

The lakeside denouement pointed up the clarity of the corps de ballet Swans with sumptuous ensemble line and supple pointe work scored to some of Tchaikovsky’s most famous symphonic music.

Philadelphia Ballet’s conductor Beatrice Jona Affron pacing and detailing of the full score even though the overture got off to a shaky start in this performance. Among the many high points, were the virtuosic solo passages by  principal violinist Luigi Mazzocchi and principal harpist Mindy Cutcher.

 Corella typically rotates dancers in the lead and soloist roles throughout the performance run and is luminous Ukrainian principal dancer Oksana Maslova will perform Odette/Odile during the performance run.

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BalletX ~ ready for their close-up

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BALLET

BalletX

Philadelphia, PA

Christine Cox, artistic director

www.balletx.org

BalletX is ready for dancefilm close-up

BalletX has been confronted with an industry shutdown of theaters and venues with a slate of specific limitations to work around to train, create, rehearse and perform dance and do it safely for all concerned. But the company hasn’t paused creating new works. Artistic director and executive director Christine Cox a platform to nurture new ballets, residencies and commissions with a new generation of vanguard and seasoned dancemakers.

 They are maintaining and even reaching new audiences through the production of BalletX Films with single ticket and subscription access digital on media platforms through their website.

 Vitally, BalletX’s realized that dance on film is a separate collaborative art that requires rethinking everything to transfer the same aesthetic and energy that the dancers conjure in a live performance.

Their current Winter series features three films by choreographers Tai Hai Hung, Manuel Vignoulle and Francesca Harper, has proved to be their best so far, artistically and production wise.

The dancers are performing in the film dancing without masks in these pieces, but were sequestered or ‘bubbled’ a method being used by sports teams, during the rehearsals, and filmed performances.

Tai Hai Hung’s ‘Two X Two’ a dance duel starring Roderick Phifer and Princess Grace Award winner Stanley Glover is set in a wood panel room ensconced in Philadelphia’s historic Franklin Institute. In this scenario it evokes an exclusive academy, the dancers costumed in long silk coats and the duet punctuated with ritualized gestures. They are locked in each other’s gaze as they circle each other in an antagonistic athletic duet. pugilistic attitude and some martial arts moves are laced with balletic turns, jumps and arabesques. Are they friends, adversaries, competitors, intimates or simply dance duelers?

In Manuel Vignoulle’s ‘Heal’ a neo-baroque chant underscores a trilogy of scenarios simultaneously. Dancers Shawn Cusseaux and Skyler Lubin in a hypnotic duet in a hillside where they tumble, collapse, and vault into elegant lift sequence conveying support, commitment and resolve. Meanwhile, on a rocky outcrop Roderick Phifer is prone in a black suit, writhing and unwrapping surgical gauze from his face and torso. Then, a flash cut to Blake Krapels, cowered in a corner of a mirrored cell, in corrosive postures and anguished backbends. Then, in another part of the forest, Krapels does the earthiest dance imaginable in a mud pit. All of these primal screams in dance, and their resolves, linger.

The longest of the films is Francesca Harper’s Thaw, with six dancers- Shawn Cubbeaux, Savannah Green, Blake Krapels, Chloe Perkes, Ashley Simpson, Richard Villaverde, Andrea Yorita- was filmed at BalletX studios in South Philadelphia. Harper created the work with the dancers via zoom, not easy, but the choreographer is already an accomplished in the dance-film genre. 

With themes of social activism, a pas deux of about a bi-racial couple and reaction to the events of references of the violent politics around the election. The ballet also evokes what dancers have faced in a year of pandemic and industry shutdown. Now a negotiation with a virtual world as the new normal stage in which to perform.

They use their mobiles as their images of their bodies float off of their screen in the air around them. In an effect that is so seamless effects that don’t upstage the dancers or deflate the energy of the performance. Credit Daniel Madoff, a former dancer with Merce Cunningham and now a filmmaker working in several genres filmed these works with a dancer-centric sensibility, and vitally, a masterful skill for editing, so crucial in filming dance.

They line up along the wall with no barre, they lock into mechanicals, but are automatons, their eyes blank. Yorita moves with an illuminated tech wire wrapped around her body. Chloe Perkes, many months pregnant, oscillates her body with in protective determination. They write words SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE. The music is metallic and dissonant; Yorita slashes her arms around in a primal dance out.

 The dancers pantomime protecting their faces with their hands up protectively from something unknown. The music becomes more propulsive and they break out in liberated expression. Richard Villaverde flies into some slam ballet phrases that etch a sharp ballet line as he presses against the wall. A voice over poem with piano accompaniment in an intimate & choreographically inventive love duet between Simpson and Krapels.

All three works evoke a cathartic dance in passionate ways and each with moments of a choreographic primal scream. Dance artists who display their art in the ways they have trained for, in the studio culture, the necessary lab and exchange of creative energy and over this extended period, without the alchemy of the energy of live performance with an audience. BalletX is proving that live, or virtual, they are ready for their close-ups and so much more.  

 BalletX Beyond is available- www.BalletX.org/Beyond:

BalletMetros

Tags

Balanchine, BALLET, classical dance, dancers

Mr. B’s Nutcracker dances on

Pennsylvania Ballet

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker

at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia PA through Dec. 31

http://www.paballet.org

Artists of the Pennsylvania Ballet
Photo credits: Alexander Iziliaev

 For years Pennsylvania Ballet’s production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker had little competition from other live productions, but now all through December there is a bounty of holiday fare (and alternatives) to choose from.   But, The Nutcracker remains one of the biggest audience draws, a family affair for many, and if the Dec. 8 performance was any indication it has turned into Saturday date night for both young straight and gay couples.

Pennsylvania Ballet is one of only a few companies that is licensed to perform it, (in the current version since 1987) and some years have been better than others but consistently solid revivals even with some inevitably rote performances during the near month long run. And part of the reason was the ballet itself. 

Act I can lumber along if everything isn’t moving with character energy as the adults socialize with each other, while their children play games, open presents, before the guests break into a tepid parlor mazurka. Then there is E.T.A. Hoffman’s scary Russian 1816 folk tale about a young girl’s Marie’s fantasy dream about her toy Nutcracker coming to life and battling the Mouse King, can come off as too bizarre or even campy.

Marie’s brother Fritz is the bad boy little brother and otherwise the life of this dull holiday party. Herr Drosselmeier enters with his oversized toy boxes with his life-size dancer dolls. First the Concubines in a charmingly mechanical duet. Next the toy soldier is wound up and dancing to Tchaikovsky’s symphonic march by Ashton Roxander with steely eyed (and haunting) precision,  Later Roxander is the sinewy hoop jumping commando of the buoyant Candy Cane troupe.

Charles Askegard doesn’t modernize Herr Drosselmeier, he gives a vintage classic performance punctuated with pantomime of old world theatricals.

Balanchine’s minted version had its premiere on New York City Ballet in 1954. It remains an amalgam of Russian classical ballet from the Imperial Ballet school of his youth, but in a more streamlined Americanized version. The Dewdrop scene, for instance, has the luster of clever showdance that Balanchine was fond of after working in Hollywood and the Broadway stage.  Still, by now this 50s classic can look dated to contemporary audiences.

The ballet kicks into high gear at the end of act I as when the ballerina snowflakes blow through the corps de ballet Snowflakes scene.   The voices of the mighty Philadelphia Boys Choir serenading the dancers from the Academy’s balcony boxes. The Snowflakes fly, in this choreographically intricate scene with its breezy, quicksilver pointe work and unison patterns that keep evolving. The PABallet corps de ballet women danced it with in this precision and glittering esprit.

Since becoming PABallet artistic director Angel Corella has been polishing Act I to make it more animated within the aesthetic requirements of the Balanchine Trust. Also fueling performance vigor throughout the run by rotating five lead casts in the principal dance roles as well as switching off plum character roles among the soloists, demi-soloists and corps de ballet, and most vital, sharper focus on the technical aspects of Balanchine’s neoclassicism.

And the Act II Divertissements allows for vintage Russian choreographic magic by Balanchine. Among the standout soloists in this performance.

Sydney Dolan commanded as Dewdrop, with mile-high battement, and breezy jetes and point work. A little jagged transitional phrases, but overall a gives a dazzling performance.  

Russell Drucker and Marjorie Feiring flawless in their deportment of European drawing room hosts, get to let loose in the Act II with Drucker as a clown drag diva Mother Ginger, with her 8 Polichinelles children dancing out from under her skirt.  And Feiring proves the sultriest spell (and technique) as Coffee in the Arabian dance solo.

Balanchine’s most lustrous classicism is built into the grand pas de deux in the Nutcracker finale, danced by principals Mayara Pineiro and Zecheng LIang as The Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. Thrilling pacing and clarity of movement by these dancers in their technical and interpretive artistry. Liang is a muscled and a lyrical prince.  He can execute adagio grande pirouettes as controlled and centered before he pumps them out at high speed.  His circular jete run around the Academy stage is one for the books. Pineiro arabesques are diamond hard, her pirouette runs and expressive carriage is riveting prima ballerina classicism .

And kudos to all of the child performers, many attending PABallet’s school of dance. Ellie Sidlow as Marie and Aoile Mary DiPalma her little brother (and scene stealing mischief maker) Fritz. Rowan Duffy returns as Drosselmeier’s gallant Nephew/Nutcracker.

Ballet Orchestra Conductor Beatrice Jona Affron detailing and pacing with the dancers sumptuous.  Tchaikovsky’s vibrant symphonic rhythms fueled by Ballet Orchestra’s percussion line, pulsing through the strings and powering those flute arabesques. Among the outstanding soloists in the Academy pit, Harpist Mindy Cutcher, violinist Luigi Mazzocchi who once again makes Tchaikovsky’s violin lines breathtaking every year.

BALLET

Tags

BALLET, Choreographers, dancemetros, dancers, neoclassical

PABallet premieres thrill

Pennsylvania Ballet

World Premieres

Nov. 7-10

Merriam Theater, Philadelphia

http://www.paballet.org

Pennsylvania Ballet’s recent World Premieres program at the Merriam Theater featured danceworks created for the company by three contemporary choreographers- Yin Yue, Garrett Smith and Juliano Nunes. The concerts proved a substantive modern ballet sampler bursting with choreographic muscle and thrilling artistry by the dancers.

Cast of Yin Yue’s ‘A Trace of Inevitability
~Photo: Alexander Iziliaev~

 The curtain came up on Chinese choreographer Yin Yue’s ‘A Trace of Inevitability’ scored to original music by Michel Banabila for the cast of nine dancers. Yue is director of her own internationally acclaimed company and was BalletX’s first choreographic fellow in 2015 and has created what could be a signature piece on PAB.

Yue’s ballet idioms fused with grounded modern movement and cultural classicism is vital choreographic ground. As danced in the November 9 evening performance, it flows with urgency and liberated technical precision.

Yue‘s  opening duets stating some of the intricate choreographic themes, and vividly danced by partners Aleksey Babayev-Kathryn Manger, and Alexandra Hughes-Albert Gordonas, and soon other partners  sweep onstage  in distinctly different movement scenarios, some more abstract that others, and not hinting at any gender character roles.

Banabila’s score ‘Dragonfly II’ progresses from lyrical themes to a more industrial rhythmic drive, as the full ensemble gathers in cryptic unison configurations that seems cut loose from what came before. Though the final partnering with one of the dancers slumped in another’s arm adds another layer of mystery.

The propulsive drive of ‘Inevitability’ is matched by the dramatic images of the next ballet, Connection by Brazilian choreographer Juliano Nunes. Scored to haunting orchestral music by Enzio Bosso, the curtain comes up on 10 dancers in fleshtone micro-corsets in sculptural ensemble circles with bodies seeming to bloom out in communal ritual.

Artists of Pennsylvania Ballet in Juliano Nunes’ Connection
~Photo: Alexander Iziliaev~

But at the end of one of those configurations Zecheng Liang is shoved away and it becomes a different narrative. 

Lyrical classicism is laced with explosive solos and duets. Liang is a consummate technical dancer and dancer-actor in both story ballets and abstract works. Also in top form, a dramatic duet by So Jung Shin and Russell Drucker who hypnotize with Nunes’ geometric interlocks.

There is a most riveting moment when Nayara Lopez flies in the air in an arc-back leap partnering Jack Thomas and an electrifying trio danced by Oksana Maslova, Jermel Johnson and Arian Molina Soca. 

American choreographer Garret Smith’s Reverberance is scored to Bach Cello suites ‘recomposed’ by virtuoso Peter Gregson who plays the live accompaniment with passages also supplemented with electronica. 

Even though the cellos are danced in and out against the cobalt blue light and visually has playful charm, enhanced by bluenoir atmospherics by lighting designer Michael Mazzola. Garrett’s uncluttered choreography has such a naturalness of ballet classicism, but the hook of the cello props, however playfully the partnering, runs out of steam.

But Reverberance has many entrancing pure dance elements and admirably Smith keeps Gregson’s musical variations of Bach the equal partner onstage.

Smith’s concept is the varying responses to the music, perhaps in moments, ala Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, where the dancers embodying the string lines, but also idiosyncratic reactions of the music, that are abstract and not meant to be symbolic and unforgettable moments like Yuka Iseda and Sophie Savas-Carstens darting through the air in a gravity defying straight line. Wonderful silky blue ensembles designed by Monica Guerra also give a dreamlike quality.

Peter Weil, Sophie Cavas-Carstens & Yuka Iseda in Garrett Smith’s Reverberance
~Photo: Alexander Iziliaev~

Since becoming artistic director Angel Corella has been upping Pennsylvania Ballet’s expansive artistic goals, with productions both on conventional tracks with revivals of story ballets, as well as a re-alignment of a neoclassical aesthetic of George Balanchine. This program definitely one of the most dynamic for PABallet dancers making the most of in ballet fusion styles and Corella continuing to strengthen a new generation of stars.

Summer (Dance) reading&writing

Tags

anthologies, BALLET, Choreographers, Contemporary Dance, Dance in America, dancewriting, literature

Summer (Dance) reading & writing

Dance is the most ephemeral of the performing arts and writing about dance, as a reporter or a critic in meaningful ways is a precarious journalist venture.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, how does a dance writer report two hours of living, breathing moving pictures in a dance concert with three choreographers presenting different concepts in dance? 

The challenge brings to mind Hans Christian Anderson’s observation “Where words fail, music begins” which definitely applies to dance, since both art forms are languages unto themselves. For dance writers, translating movement into concrete and hopefully interesting text is often insurmountable.

Consider Martha Graham sage words “The body doesn’t lie.” Not to mention her metaphysical pronouncement that “Dance is the hidden language of the soul,” so perhaps beyond the realm of what can be articulated in words. But that doesn’t stop journalists who write about dance from trying to decode what they see and hear. A dancewriter’s checklist would include things like aesthetic intent of the choreographer, the music, the production values, the performances of the dancers- and substantiate the critical points that brings it all together or make it deflate. And usually in under 700 words.

In the 20th century during the heyday of daily American newspapers, dance writers dealt with editors (still) routinely considered the dance a merely decorative art at best and many clueless about the genuine artistic or physical components. Music critics were often dispatched to cover dance, sometimes a sportswriter would have been better suited. Now, with few exception dance as a subject worthy of consistent coverage in any newspapers ‘Arts’ section is to be consistently on the chopping block.

The good news is that there are more outlets online that provide comprehensive coverage, and it’s not a stretch to think that it will ever get better for print publications, including dance niche magazines, which continue to shrink. The bad news is that fees for all arts writers continue to be reduced almost all across the board. Meanwhile, dance writers, cultural archivists and arts journalists continuing to document the art form in all of its manifestations continues no matter how meager the pay. 

Feature stories about dance usually interface with broader cultural resonance and that is fine, but often to the exclusion of other areas of dance, which remains as important from a technical understanding alone, but as an ephemeral art form, a vital record of dance expression over millennia, as important as any of the allied arts. Outside of popular tv dance contests, dance-theater and the world’s most influential choreographers and dancers are virtually invisible to the popular media culture.

Also he movie reviewing with its thumbs up, thumps down mindset has had a dumb-down effect on live performance in general and sad to say that dance magazines in their physical form continue to shrink.  

To write about dance with authority one must have a working knowledge of a schools of dance, both cultural and formal dance disciplines. A partial list would include- the various schools of ballet technique, and no less important, neoclassicism, folkloric, acrobatic, sacred, |social, baroque, ritual, mystical, abstract, classical, postmodern, tribal, fusion, ceremonial, showdance, psychological, comedic, erotic- and any combination of those categories including of course the physics of dance that evokes pure movement of bodies in space without any literal or defining an inherently enigmatic context- (see Cage & Cunningham as a starting point).  

For a business that continues to be in freefall, one positive trend, for the moment at least, is that there are more dance books being published and here is a preview of three this year’s notable titles, starting appropriately enough, with a compendium of the good, the bad and the ugly of more than a century of indigenous dance writing.

Dance in America | Library of America | www.loa.org

With commentary by editor Mindy Aloff and a foreword by Robert Gottlieb | Library of America

Library of America’s ‘Dance In America’ is a fascinating, and an often frustrating anthology of articles, reviews, essays, poems, and bio-history of dance in America. 

Editor Mindy Aloff  contextualizes each entry with bio-history of the writer and subject of the piece.  Aloff teaches dance history and criticism at Barnard College, how difficult it was to chose the pieces to include in the book and admits to giving in to subjectivity.  In his forward to the book, Robert Gottlieb also explains in some cases there also may be difficulty in getting author, publisher, or in the case of deceased authors, estate permissions. Also costs also might be a factor that would prohibit re-publication. 

But even with these disclaimers, this volume covers a lot of ground and many of the entries belong in everyone’s permanent dance–theater-music library. If just for the words of American dance legends Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis & Ted Shawn, Martha Graham, Katherine Dunham, Paul Taylor, Jerome Robbins, Merce Cunningham, Twyla Tharp, Agnes de Mille, and Russian ex-pat George Balanchine and Ballets Russes/Red Shoes star choreographer Leonide Massine, among many others lesser-known, but equally important dance artists.

Then there are the literary figures who are inspired by the dance- from poet Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harte Crane, Charles Dickens, and 20^th century dance enthusiasts from American balladeer/songwriter Johnny Mercer to writers Susan Sontag and John Updike.

 Thumbing through the book, here are a few indelible passages: Stuart Hodes’ essay ‘Onstage with Martha Graham’ takes us through Martha’s rigorous technique class with always started with which always began with Martha cueing the dancers with “And” to execute the rigors of her meticulous methods. Hodes writes “Working with Martha was like going into battle. Physically demanding, emotionally charged and fraught with danger…an adventure of a lifetime.”

African-American Choreographer Katherine Dunham who was also a ethnologist, anthropologist applied to her choreography and ‘physical anthropology’ of dances of Africa, Caribbean and island culture. Dunham was also an international stage star of the American musical theater and social activist who knocked down racial barriers on stage and screen. In her essay “Thesis turned Broadway” she writes of her growing interest “to know not only how people dance but, even more importantly, why they dance as they do.”

Isadora Duncan was the earth mother of dance, embracing classicism as a new form of modernism as the anti-ballet creating modernist movement template by reclaiming pagan classicism and putting it all in perspective by writing “I am asked to speak upon the “Dance of the Future” – yet how is it possible?In fifty years I may have something to say.”

Meanwhile, the clarion voice of Mark Morris has a lot to say in his essay on the relationship of music and dance as vital human ‘ritual’ in a reprint of his commencement speech at the Longy School of Music.

Aloff’s collection is both a survey of dance literature side-by-side with dozens of samples of critical writing over the last century from the leading dance critics including Anna Kisselgoff, Jennifer Dunning, Joan Acocella, Deborah Jowitt, Alastair McCauley. Et, al. and genre defining writers like critic and poet Edwin Denby.      

One of the most interesting, and instructive aspects in this collection is how the same critic, can completely hit a home run in describing a performance but also, completely strike out, by being overly descriptive or not descriptive enough. The challenge remains, if every picture tells a story, then movement onstage can tell a thousand in one night. We can all take a lesson from their journalistic hits and misses. 

 Dance in America is slight on a lot of important aspects of contemporary dance history. Just glancing reference to Lucinda Childs, Anna Sokolow, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane, for instance, so one can only hope that there is a follow-up more inclusive volume, to make up for this edition’s slights to giants in the field and a new gen of dance artists that have emerged in this century.

 There are three articles by Arlene Croce, but missing is any commentary about Croce not attending choreographer Jones’ 1994 docudance ‘Still/Here’ in The New Yorker but still reviewing it, because she argued that it was outside her critical reach because Jones cast with people living and dancing with terminal illness, insisting it was “victim art.”  Putting that aside, does include Croce’s seminal piece ‘Dance in Film‘ that is not only engrossing dance history but a masterclass essay in critical analysis.

And there is a huge chunk of missing history with little reference about a generation of gay dancers and choreographers lost during the 80s & 90s to AIDS, many of the artists creating dance while battling the disease. The impact of their work and deaths and the impact on the entire dance world is inestimable and should never be forgotten.   

look for part 2 of this essay later this month- Dancemakers finally explain it all for you –   Three upcoming titles of indelible note are autobiographical books by Jerome Robbins, Mark Morris, and Twyla Tharp.

~DanceMetros~

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AfricanAmericanDance, ArthurMitchell, BALLET, Choreographers, dancers, DTH

Dance Theatre of Harlem returns to Philly

The Dance Theatre of Harlem

Artistic director Virginia Johnson

Annenberg Center, Philadelphia

March 1-2, 2019

50th Anniversary Tour

www.annenbergcenter.org

Dance Theatre of Harlem returned to the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia the first weekend in March as part of their 50th Anniversary tour and a year of commemoration in memory of legendary founder Arthur Mitchell, who died last year.

Coincidently DTH’s performances in Philly fell on the same days that the other New York premier black company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, was performing at the Academy of Music across town. Both companies played to sell out houses with many Philly dance fans getting to both on successive days.

The concert opened with Garland’s ‘Nyman String Quartet, no. 2’  set to British composer Michael Nyman’s lush chamber work. The wending string lines have with some baroque DNA laced through and choreographer Garland is expert in characterizing the music itself.  His choreography a fusion of ballet vocabulary-  impeccable line, dynamic pointe work, air slicing jetes, tight ensemble unison, pirouettes, and arabesque variations, but Garland works in witty and unexpected has transitional phrasing with club dance moves and post-modern idioms. 

Garland essays fluid choreographic dialogue of styles, both propulsive and inside Nyman’s music.  Garland uses Nyman’s adagio movement to choreography a meditatively and arresting solo by principal dancer Da’Von Doane.  The blending of many idioms, and with movement quotes- from Nijinsky’s angular Faun to a raised fist iconic gesture of black power. 

Next was a work by African American choreographer Diane McIntyre, that had its premiere in 2016, a work inspired by women she writes in the program, black, brown and beige- who have been warriors for change in the world. At this performance Lindsay Croop, Yinet Fernandez and Daphne Lee danced this inspiring trio.  McIntyre scores the ballet with African – American historic songs performed by the Spellman College Glee Club and original percussive music by Eli Fountain.

The women are first costumed in sheer black dance gowns, are subdued, fragmentary but expressive movement, as if in anguished mourning. Croop breaks away on her own path, she lets out the first vocalization, a primal scream as she steps powerfully on pointe and reaches skyward.  Each of the women has solos, now dressed in vibrantly colored singlets and moving with uninhibited grace and fearlessness.  McIntyre symbolically expressing the black women through history who triumphed over oppression and adversity.

Choreographer Darrell Grand Moultrie’s 2017 ballet ‘Harlem On My Mind’ was scheduled for this performance but was switched at the last minute.  One of Garland’s signature pieces ‘Return’ was performed instead. The ballet is set to music by the Godfather and the Queen of Soul- James Brown and Aretha Franklin, but a great concert finale nonetheless, with soul hits including  ‘Baby, Baby, Baby’ and ‘I Got the Feeling.’ Opening with the extended version of Brown’s ‘Popcorn’ which takes off with infectious funk exuberance right out of the gate. Garland combining modernist neoclassical ballet of black dance in America during the 60s & 70s. 

Aretha Franklin’s ‘Call Me’ opening scene with soloist Crystal Serrano who moves between three potential male partners, as she humorous playing the field as Aretha coyly sings ‘I love you’ to each one. Serrano navigates these partners to dance with Dylan Santos after some intricate group lifts. Serrano and Santos smolder in this beguiling dance.

Philly native choreographer Robert Garland, told the DHT audience before the premiere of his ballet, that both companies paid a surprise visit to Joan Myers Brown at her Philadanco studios in West Philadelphia, Meyers-Brown’s school and company, Philadanco was where many dance artists from both companies started their professional careers. Myers-Brown was in attendance at the performance, just back from her own company performing that day at Longwood Gardens in suburban Chester County.

The finale of the Brown’s ‘Superbad’ for the full ensemble, Christopher Charles McDaniel’s breakout solo grooves drew audible delight and applause, not only for his James Brown glides, but his thrilling grande pirouettes and entrechat quatre.

Garland uses the original extended track of‘ Superbad’ he lets break into a Soul Train dance line. The full ensemble cuts lose with signature inventive Soul line moves from the day, with some updates from this generation of dancers that had the audience panting for more.

Former principal dancer Virginia Johnson, now DTH Artistic Director re-established the full Dance Theater of Harlem after an eight-year performance halt but keeping the school and touring ensembles going. Arthur Mitchell was then director emeritus, as Johnson piloted DTH’s full rebirth in 2012. Since then her vision and leadership technically and artistically on full display on their 50th Anniversary Tour, where the company will be performing different programs of company signature ballets, from Balanchine classics to newly commissioned repertory.

Johnson’s vision for the company is ballet forward, visionary contemporary dance and bringing the company’s technical and artistic excellence to a new generation. All of Johnson’s goals were present on the Annenberg performances in this performance.

for complete information on DTH’s 50th Anniversary tour schedule check  www.dancetheatreofharlem.org

 

BalletMetros

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BALLET, BalletMetros, BalletOrchestra, dancers, George Balanchine, Tchaikovsky

PABallet continues to polish its Nutcracker

On New Year’s Eve, Pennsylvania Ballet finishes up their marathon three-week 50^th Anniversary run of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker. The ballet a technical barometer of Balanchine’s vintage neoclassical style and it is a showcase for the whole company, that highlights Angel Corella’s core goals as artistic director to nurture an elite roster of dancers from the principals to the company apprentices.

Balanchine’s minted 1954 production of Nutcracker if not done at the highest performance level, can, by now look dated and shopworn, but happy to report that a mid-run performance December 21 proved PAB’s current Nutcracker is as lustrous as ever.

The biggest challenge is the first act, depicting a 19th-century Euro-centric Christmas celebration that is largely pantomime acting, which can devolve to ballet pagaentry and can lumber along.  Corella makes sure that does not happen, with precision pacing and having the scenes burst with ensemble esprit and characterizations. No one is in the background, everyone onstage is animated with naturalized intent, especially the children from the PAB school.

Principal Ian Hussey, (who danced the Cavalier at the matinee performance Dec. 21) delivered a magical performance that evening as Herr Drosselmeir, full of character intrigue. He brings with him the Harlequins and making the most of their brief scene, Nayara Lopez and Kathryn Manger captivated with their steely pointe work.  Then, the highlight of the party scene, dance wise, the thrilling Tin Soldier solo by Peter Weill, flawlessly executed in soldierly sync with Tchaikovsky’s galloping scherzo.  In the Act II diversessments, Manger is captivating also leading the Marzipan Shepherdess quintet.

It is so easy for the mousey fight scene to lumber along, Balanchine was not too inventive with fantasy fight scenes, there is a lot of scrambling around, but the pacing and the campy attack by the corps in those bulbous costumes make this scene fast and fun. For the children in the audience, a feast for the eyes, with the engorged Christmas tree and spectacular light show, the life-size Nutcracker soldier and the junior military band and troops bringing storybook visuals.   

As Marie and her brother Fritz, Audrey Tavor and Ellie Sidlow, are complete scene stealers. Rowan Duffy reprises his always valiant performance as The Newphew/Nutcracker who battles the Mouse King and escorts Marie into the land of the Sweets.

Many years of Balanchine’s Nutcracker opening nights in the Snowflakes scene ending act one, the corps de ballet can struggle with Balanchine’s requisite ensemble precision that ignites the ballet. Not an issue in this mid-run performance they proved of crystalline ensemble precision and esprit de corps. Serenaded from the first balcony by the Philadelphia Girls Choir, this was a perfect scene to experience on this Solstice eve performance.

All of the divertissement in Act II, vintage Balanchine distillations from his training years at the Imperial Russian court. Among the outstanding soloists in this performance- Etienne Diaz nailed the candy cane hoop dance, punctuating it with his silky aerials and glint in his eyes and the backup troupe equally buoyant.

There have been, thankfully, adjustments made to some the ethnic stereotypes in productions of the Nutcracker including Balanchine’s version. ‘Tea’ for instance, with its cartoonish stereotyping which by now represents nothing more than an offensive racial stereotype, thankfully have been erased. 

Marjorie Fierling as Coffee in what used to be called The Arabian Dance, in her silky, harem costume.  It’s Balanchine exotica and Fierling is anything but submissive to it, owning it with sultry mystique and smoldering gaze.

Alexandra Hughes as lead Dewdrop Flower for Tchaikovsky’s Waltz, Hughes captivated with air slicing jetes and shimmering pointe work. The corps Flowers, led by Nayara Lopes and Jacqueline Callahan, all sustaining flawless ensemble balletic line.

In the finale, Sterling Baca and Dayesi Torriente have shimmering chemistry as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier.

Torriente seemed a bit tentative in her first appearance with the little Angels, but from the moment she took the stage with Baca in the grand pas de deux, Toriente she danced with breathtaking artistry and lyrical expression.

Baca a most attendant Cavalier and the sparks flew when this couple hit those romantic penche arabesques and crucial lifts. Palpable chemistry and drew lusty applause by the time they landed that famous Poisson signature dive.

Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra conductor Beatrice Jona Affron continues to ignite this score with clarity and dimension in countless performances of the Nutcracker in the Academy of Music over her 25 years as Pennsylvania Ballet’s Maestro.