Sarasota Ballets Gifts of Ashton and Gomes

Victoria Hulland & Marcelo Gomes in The Two Pigeons Act II. Photo by Frank Atura

Sarasota Ballet’s visit to the Joyce Theater last week brought things I have been wistful for of late—the repertory of Ashton, and the performing of Marcelo Gomes. The August 19 show led off with There Where She Loved, a suite by Christopher Wheeldon from 2000, to music by Kurt Weill and Chopin performed live. The seven sections featured small groups—four men and a woman, a trio, duets—emphasizing the difficult and sometimes knotty partnering that the choreographer endlessly explores. In the quintet, Ryoko Sadashima’s toe shoe-clad feet rarely alight as she is hoisted, flown, and manipulated in myriad ways by her four squires. (The main theme is danced by the men in shirts and pants, and later without shirts.) Some moments feel awkward: a couple lies head to head, holding hands, and rolls upstage; a woman scooches backwards offstage, seated. The singers (Stella Zambalis and Michelle Giglio), accompanied by pianist Cameron Grant, add luster.

Works by Frederick Ashton comprise the rest of the program. Monotones I & II are performed periodically by ABT, but on the larger Koch Theater stage. Each is done by a trio in yellow and white unitards with sparkles and toadstool headcaps. The three often move in unison, or in canon, or the two women partner one man, and vice versa. The pace is stately and even-paced for the most part; abrupt moves might include a jump into fourth position, or a sissonne into a low arabesque. The close proximity at the Joyce adds even more possibilities to scrutinize off timing or bobbles. But the company essentially fared well under pressure.

Ryoko Sadoshima, Samantha Benoit & Alex Harrison in Monotones I. Photo Frank Atura

Ryoko Sadoshima, Samantha Benoit & Alex Harrison in Monotones I. Photo Frank Atura

Four wide-ranging Ashton miniatures closed the bill. La Chatte, a study of a cat woman, features cliched air-clawing and ear cleaning gestures, and a comedic loud meow at the end; it shows Ashton’s earthy sense of humor. Les Patineurs pas de trois demonstrates Ashton’s fluency with capturing the essence of expression, in the case of ice skating. Elongated chassees and strategic hops impressively create the effect of the real thing, and the simple joy skating evokes is conveyed by the dancers’ luminous faces. Méditation from Thaïs is a more traditional pas de deux with “exotic” costumes of orange and apricot, and numerous technically difficult lifts and partnering maneuvers.

It was only when Marcelo Gomes appeared at the start of The Two Pigeons that I was reminded of how great stage presence can be relayed even while simply walking (albeit with a live dove on his shoulder). Lost in thought, it’s clear he is consumed with emotion as he tenderly places the dove on a chair. Victoria Hulland enters, settling into a “dying swan” pose; he impulsively plunges his arms around her waist to pick her up. It’s during such elemental moments, and not necessarily bigger moves, when Gomes is most moving—like he has created a backstory and lives that character. As they dance together, absorbed in romance, another dove flies onstage and joins the first. The poetry of the parallel pairs carries great pathos and reminds us of the power of theatrical ballet, of which Ashton is exemplary. And also of the recent absence of Gomes, one of his generation's finest performers, but the glimmer of hope that he will periodically return.

Gabe Stone Shayer in Whipped Cream

Gabe Stone Shayer as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Photo: Gene Schiavone

Gabe Stone Shayer, a corps member of ABT since 2012, made his debut in the lead role of The Boy in Alex Ratmansky's Whipped Cream on July 4, dancing with Sklyar Brandt as Princess Praline, and alongside Gillian Murphy (Princess Tea Flower) and James Whiteside (Prince Coffee). While Shayer is perhaps a bit larger in frame than the role calls for, his fresh youthfulness and exuberance are entirely appropriate.

Fittingly for the holiday, there were fireworks onstage as Shayer soared and leapt high, with his outstanding ballon and scissoring legs, and spun breezily, showing his solid balance. Besides his technical ability, honed by years studying and performing with the Bolshoi, the Philly native has a magnetic personality and an infectious enthusiasm that has won audiences’ affections. He dances with tremendous confidence and with a relaxed joy more commonly held by far more experienced dancers. (This relaxed attitude unfortunately applies to the carriage of his arms and hands, which could be crisper and might convey less flourish.)

Whipped Cream finale. (Gabe would be in the gold shorts suit at left center; this cast featured Herman Cornejo.) Photo: Gene Schiavone

He has been steadily garnering meaty roles at ABT, notably performing the lead pirate recently in La Bayadère and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie announced season promotions recently. Zhong-Jing Fang (at last!), Catherine Hurlin, and Katherine Williams are now soloists. I was half expecting Shayer to receive a promotion this season; no doubt it will follow soon given his abilities and appeal. I'm looking forward to seeing him in even more primary roles.

Mark Morris Dance Center Shows—Welcome Home

Pacific. Photo: Nan Melville

Mark Morris' choreography captures the full breadth of being human. For him, music elevates the quotidian into art. We can all walk or run to get somewhere, but when his dancers do so in time to music, it becomes a spirit-lifting pleasure. A jaunty tune provokes a hand gesture that can appear inelegant, but it's what the music asks for whether you're a professional dancer or a little kid. By the same token, a soaring melody can be visualized by a gravity-defying leap or an ecstatic leg extension that take full advantage of the years of dance training by each of Morris' dancers. 

The two 2018 spring programs performed by the Mark Morris Dance Group showed the choreographer's range, in scale from intimate to large. Solos, Duets, and Trios (Program B) was a survey of smaller cast pieces and excerpts that fit naturally within the cozy studio venue. Lou 100: In Honor of the Divine Mr. Harrison (Program A) comprised another solo suite plus some large cast pieces to music by Harrison.

Little Britten. Photo: Nan Melville

Each program had one (more or less) premiere. Little Britten is built on a solo suite made by Morris for David Hallberg for last year's Fall for Dance. The Isaac Mizrahi toga-over-t-shirt is now worn by Lesley Garrison; she is joined by Brandon Randolph, sporting gym shorts, leg warmers, and a long chiffon scarf, and Aaron Loux, in a cropped bee-striped unitard. To piano studies by Britten, each song featured a movement motif, from a simple tendu with open face palms, to turns with an upper back arch, to exuberant extended-leg jumps. Morris has the ability to play with both quotidian and balletic movement, and is able to divine a relatable essence. 

On Program A, Numerator was a New York premiere using Harrison's fascinating Varied Trio for violin, piano, and percussion. Six men wearing brightly-colored camp shirts crawled on their bellies, crawled, and rose up to standing, like an evolutionary chart. Much of the piece uses big movement that eats up space. A man pretends to pass something to another; there are many lifts and partnering feats. The dynamic flicks between controlled and untethered. The pace builds until they're all moving swiftly and powerfully, their individual energies humming in a kind of spatial harmonic.

Grand Duo. Photo: Nan Melville

The older repertory included the beloved and audacious Grand Duo. It is perhaps too large for the studio, but seeing it so close gave me a new appreciation for the hard work, speed, and machine-like cooperation on behalf of the dancers, whose precision prevents whacking one another. The mysterious opening features a double row of dancers crowding the apron, their semaphoring fingers shot with light, and the rousing, wheeling "Polka" finale invariably makes me want to jump onstage and join in (See? It's that thing he does, making you think you could do it!). Pacific, which opened the Harrison program, was made for San Francisco Ballet in 1995; the vocabulary is thus more classical, with lots of sweeping arabesques and turns (performed in soft ballet slippers rather than the usual bare feet). Serenade featured Garrison in a kabuki-like outfit moving through a series of seated and kinetic studies—just the arms and upper body, shoveling hands, and dense, detailed moves that echoed the guitar, percussion, and castanets (by Morris) played live onstage.

In Program B, Morris put his castanet chops to further use in From Old Seville (2001), the only dance in which he performed in the run. This hilarious trio pits Lauren Grant—sleek and assassin-serious—against Morris in a faux flamenco dance-off. Morris seems more interested in the frequent drink breaks (poured by Noah Vinson) than the dancing, but never have more evil eyes been thrown in a modern dance. One Charming Night (1985) was another anticipated revival; Morris originally performed the role of the vampire, which this season was taken by his contemporary doppelganger, Dallas McMurray, dancing with the elegant (relative newcomer) Sarah Haarmann. Its lengthy bout of neck-biting seems a bit overly literal for Morris, but it showed McMurray's suavity and plush movement.

These "studio shows" toe the line between full-out proscenium productions and more casual events. What is perhaps most appealing about them is the family-style atmosphere, with Morris and his staff and ex-dancers greeting people warmly, and down-to-earth technical director giving the pre-curtain "phones off, exits are there" speech as a bus driver might announce the next stop. In a good way, of course. And last but not least, kudos to the six fantastic musicians led by Music Director Colin Fowler, who accompanied every minute of the two programs.

V.4 Dance Festival—Innovations from Eastern Europe

Guide, by Vera Ondrasikova

Mini-series such as Skirball Center's V.4 Dance Festival are good for navel-gazing New York dance-goers as they remind us of innovations taking place in dance-theater abroad, specifically Eastern Europe, which we wouldn't likely see in New York otherwise.  

April 19's program, curated by Laurie Uprichard (ex-director of Danspace Project), led off with Guide, by Czech native Vera Ondrasikova. The first eight rows of house seats were blocked off, presumably so the lasers and fog wouldn't bother audience members as much. The two elements combined to create some mesmerizing effects. Lighting technology has advanced so that light can be emitted in very precise shapes, and manipulated into planes that undulate, so when the light captures floating fog, it looks eerily like an ocean wave; or the beam can be shaped into a precise box, forming a pyramid around a performer. Two dancers, largely seen in silhouette due to the overall darkness, appeared to push the light, and also break the plane. It evoked some sort of sci-fi scenario about passing through a portal into a different realm.

Pawel Sakowicz in Total, by Dawid Grzelak

The second piece on the program was Pawel Sakowicz's Total, for which the crew laid down white marley during intermission. While Guide relied on technological advances to transform the theater, Sakowicz, of Poland, performing solo, simply utilized his moving body, a lecture-like monologue, and a small notebook which he consulted at times. His lecture involved virtuosity and the different ways people value it. The piece consists of four parts, each beginnning with a challengingly cerebral intro, followed by a section of movement. Sakowicz spoke of "eco-virtuosity," and minimizing energy output in a given dance phrase. As he demonstrated, the range of his limbs and amplitude diminished until he was using merely his eyes to suggest direction. 

Another topic involved imagining one cell undertaking the basic range of bodily functions, delivered while doing a chain of poses on his knees, accelerating each time through. He polled us to see if we wanted to see him dance his own choreography (we did), which turned out to be a section by Merce Cunningham, most recognizable in bent torso stag leaps. Finally, he said that for himself, there is no virtuosity without an audience present. While I wished he would have danced more, his intellectual musings were certainly thought-provoking and performative in their own right, delivered with wry wit and charm. 

A second program of V.4 is tonight, including Wow! by Debris Company (Slovakia) and Timothy and the Things: Your Mother at My Door, by Emese Cuhorka and Laszlo Fulop (Hungary).

Martha Graham Dance Company—Sacred/Profane

Leslie Andrea Williams and Lorenzo Pagano in Embattled Garden. Photo: Melissa Sherwood

It's remarkable to see the Martha Graham Dance Company standing relatively strong, 92 years after its founding. It has survived the death of its founder, an ensuing legal battle over her creative output, moving its headquarters, then flooding which destroyed much of its costumes and sets, and the inexorable company turnover as time moves on. Yet at City Center on April 11, as part of Sacred/Profane, the company and its supporters gathered to celebrate its survival, and indeed growth, albeit as a limb off of a big trunk.

So often Graham's classic works are accompanied by taped music, and the recordings tend to sound tinny and worn, old as they are. So it was a pleasure that the opening performance of Embattled Garden was elevated by the use of live music, written by Carlos Surinach, and performed by the Mannes Orchestra. Noguchi's sets remain singularly sculptural and functional; here the downstage piece becomes a safe harbor and a lookout point, the upstage the pseudonymous garden of Eden. The young cast of four (Anne O'Donnell, Lloyd Knight, Leslie Andrea Williams, and Lorenzo Pagano) was well-balanced; the men look as strong as the women, who in this company have often drawn the gaze. 

Laurel Dalley Smith and Ari Mayzick in Histoire. Photo: Melissa Sherwood

The evening marked the premiere of Lucinda Childs' Histoire, an expansion of a 1999 duet to music by Krzysztof Knittel. Laurel Dalley Smith and Ari Mayzick perform the duet, a kind of abstracted tango in which they face one another, arms angled like goalposts, and move about the stage at a fixed distance, as if there was a force field between them. Childs' signature arabesque spins and extended-leg lunges punctuate the dance. Knittel's synthesized, recorded score evokes the bandoneon that soon accompanies the next sections, playing two of Astor Piazzolla's songs. (They will be familiar to Paul Taylor audiences from his Piazzolla Caldera.) 

Three other couples, in grey, populate the stage; the couples' interactions are more physical and in keeping with how tango is usually done. But there is tension between the passionate, warm music and the rectilinear, formal attitude of Childs' choreography. In a sense, this sense of tension is not unlike when you watch traditional tango, in which sensuality simmers beneath a social veneer.

Leslie Andrea Williams and So Young An in
Legend of Ten. Photo: Ani Collier

Lar Lubovitch was awarded the Martha Graham Award, which, as Artistic Director Janet Eilber joked in a brief onstage presentation, Graham would never give to another choreographer while she was alive. Lubovitch created The Legend of Ten to Brahms' Quintet for Piano and Strings in F minor. In the first sections, the choreographer's signature fluid, looping movement is on full display; a repeating hook features the dancers tap-stepping and rolling their heads side to side, arms rippling softly. They form various patterns, shapes, and tableaus, which Lubovitch excels at. 

In the work's later movements, the dynamic becomes more percussive. Folk steps strengthen the sense of community. The dancers face inward, form a circle, and hold hands, stomping and kicking their legs back. They gesture as if strewing seeds, and mock clap and stamp their feet, cossack-style. This sense is underscored by their elegant boots; all genders wear the same elegant blouses, tights, and obi costumes in pewter, designed by L. Isaac with Naomi Luppescu. 

No one can match Lubovitch in creating beautiful, seamless movement. The shift in Legend from this pure beauty into a version of a functioning group, be they workers or soldiers, provides some welcome narrative structure. Incidentally, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company will perform at the Joyce next week and celebrate its relatively young 50th season; the Graham dancers will dance Legend of Ten in a guest spot. 

New York Notebook—Giselle and Symphonie Fantastique

Giselle. Photo: John Hogg

By Susan Yung

Dada Masilo's Giselle

Dada Masilo has come up with a way to make classical ballets relevant and meaningful to audiences who are both interested in the romantic canon, and likewise concerned with contemporary dance and ideas. Her Giselle at the Joyce Theater draws on basic plot elements, characters, and musical themes, but reinterprets the essential story line to hew to a more satisfying, feminist ending in which the guys get their comeuppance.

As she did with Swan Lake in 2016, besides tweaking the plot, the dance is freshened in inventive ways. Foremost, the movement mixes snippets of ballet with steps from African and contemporary dance. Each scene's emotional temperature, or message, receives a different treatment of this mixture. So when Bathilde, an aristocrat, moves haughtily through a group of workers, her group's primary language is balletic; the same goes for Albrecht, her two-timing beau. Their costumes made of bright white fabrics and navy brocades. The corps members, comprising the company of 12, wear peasant-style blouses and beige skirts, and when Albrecht poses as a peasant, he slips off his bright white leggings revealing beige ones.

While many of the key plot points from the traditional Giselle remain, Masilo pivots in several places. Giselle (Masilo) attracts Albrecht's (Xola Willie) eye; they flirt and dance hungrily, enraging the hapless suitor Hilarion (Tshepo Zasekhaya) who bears flowers for Giselle. The Wilis appear in a prevision; led by a fierce and terrifying Myrtha (Llewellyn Mnguni) as a Sangoma—a traditional healer—bearing a whip, and thrashing his long hair as well. The mixed-gender Wilis, in maroon dresses, evoke bitter vengeance with a more violent intent than the originals, who merely danced men to death. Giselle is humiliated and ostracized— not shown as being mentally and physically weak, as is traditional—but by being stripped nearly naked by her mother in one scene, and later by baring herself before taking the whip to Albrecht. She tries to cover her bare body in shame, but she also uses it as a strength, to show her true state of mind and her pure, strong self. Giselle undoing her hair and flinging it about typically signifies the passage into insanity, but the bald-pated Masilo instead communicates only through her movement (and the occasional vocal exclamation).

Traditional African beliefs, embodied in the Wilis, stand in opposition to more Western ideology, represented by Albrecht and Bathilde, in their European-style garb. At one point, Giselle is offered a book—presumably a bible—and rejects it. This tension is parlayed into a debate between preserving South African cultural traditions and adopting Western forms, which Masilo's work deals with. The score, by Philip Miller, combines pulsing percussion overlaid with musical themes from Adolphe Adam's original score for Giselle. Artist William Kentridge created the artwork for the backdrop, a charcoal drawing of a marsh with splashes of color. (Masilo choreographed and appeared in Kentridge's Refuse the Hour at BAM in 2015.) Masilo questions and revamps icons of dance while paying homage to them, and greatly expanding potential audiences.

Photo: Richard Termine

Symphonie Fantastique

Hard to believe it's been two decades since Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique took New York by storm, running far longer than thought possible. The production is back at HERE Arts Center, its original venue, presumably freshened with updated technology (well, LED bulbs anyway), but otherwise using the same analog techniques to visually illustrate Berlioz's passionate piano score, played live by Christopher O'Riley. The "puppets" that the performers move through a 1,000 gallon tank range in materials from sequined fabric, glittered circles, tinsel, and bunched fabric, with "screen wipes" made by rising bubbles and cross-swept flags. Drama is created in the musicality, and the shifting lighting adds emotion.

O'Riley plunges wholeheartedly into his piano-playing, coming across as a thespian-like character brimming with emotion. The theater remains tiny, and the tank itself is no bigger than a big large-screen tv. They give backstage tours after the show; it's miraculous how tiny the workspace is, and how many dripping wet props hang from every surface. But most incredible is seeing the banal items that come to life when mixed with music, water, and our ability to anthropomorphize sheets and bubbles.

It's worth revisiting Symphonie Fantastique, and if you missed it back when, tickets are available (albeit not exactly cheap) to see what launched Twist as one of our generation's most accomplished theater artists. Coincidentally, and simultaneous to Symphonie Fantastique, 

Note: Basil Twist's brilliant, tiny puppet person has come to life once again in a retrospective of Jane Comfort's work. Aided by four humans, it stars in Underground River through this weekend at La MaMa.

©️ 2018 Susan Yung, Ephemeralist.com

A Splendid Partnership

Arcell Cabuag and Ronald K. Brown. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

It's hard to believe that Arcell Cabuag is celebrating 20 years with Ronald K. Brown/Evidence. He's the company's associate artistic director, and the steady on-stage soul of the troupe. His partnership with Ronald Brown was on display at the Joyce Theater on February 6, in the premiere of Den of Dreams, a duet created in tribute to Cabuag. He entered, slinky and prowling, moving slowly and fluidly. Brown joined him, and they continuously watched one another even as they moved apart and behind one another. At one point, they shook hands at centerstage, affirming to us the strong bond that obviously exists between these collaborators and friends.

The program was otherwise a mix of older works (the other programs contained another premiere). In Come Ye (2002), the dancers' feet kept in time to the complex drum rhythms, while the torso and arms elaborated on the darting melodic lines. A repeated motif of clenched fists held aloft signaled a call for unity as the company clustered, split up, and traced the perimeter of the stage. Excerpts from Lessons: March (1995) featured Annique Roberts and Courtney Paige Ross moving to a recording of a speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; he said in essence that having money doesn't make you rich, and that there are no superior or inferior races. It's a somewhat futile task to match in movement the power of Dr. King's oration, but Roberts and Ross are both engaging and dynamic presences. 

The Feb 6 program closed with Upside Down, an excerpt from the 1998 work Destiny. It embodied many of the signature elements for which Brown is known and loved—a relentless, pulsing rhythm delineated through movement; a communal experience marking a passage; and the increase in dynamics to a feverishly ecstatic apex. A recumbent Cabuag is carried off, aloft, by the others; it might mark yet another nod to the decades of service that he has given to the company. And well deserved.