Miami City Ballet, 3 October 2009, On Tour in Chicago

Miami City Ballet in Chicago, Auditorium Theatre
3 October, 8 PM
Row P, Orchestra

Symphony in Three Movements/Valse Fantaisie (1953)/Black Swan/In the Upper Room

There’s a moment in the Vision scene in Sleeping Beauty when Aurora wafts through the Lilac Fairy’s attendants. They are arrayed in rows, suggesting paths, perhaps mazes. Perhaps it’s a foreshadowing of the thorns to come.

The image came back to me upon viewing Symphony in Three Movements for the first time. The curtain rises on a cascade of hair and legs. I was reminded of a slightly unruly hedge with ponytails and arms and legs enough for spikes. Their bodies, clad in white, gleamed (to borrow a phrase from Ms Farrell’s book) like bleached pebbles.  

There was a strong undertone of Rubies in the choreography. In fact the cognitive dissonance became so great at one point that I was forced to look down (alarming Jack in the process) to remind myself of its provenance. The jazz references grew more acute with references from what seemed to be the Charleston. Here was the ghost of McBride doing arabesques in profile, the corp of girls repeating the prancing jog of the boys in a rhythmic march, even the one brief glimpse of the tall girl, face briefly visible upside down. But always they were refracted images, seen in clusters, either in unison or in rounds, briefly glimpsed resemblances that receded into the mist.  

Particularly notable was Alex Wong in the first movement with his wonderfully soft and full-bodied leaps. Tricia Albertson repeats it after him, casually. Anything you can do, she seemed to say, well never mind about the height, here is a lesson on style!

At the end of the first movement, the corp formed a giant pinwheel as Kronenberg pirouetted her way through the criss-crossing ranks. I was sitting too low to see the pattern, but there was a wonderful sense of changing depth even when viewed it straight on. I especially appreciated the Company's clarity in movement. There was a suggestion of great physicality without it looking difficult or fussy which I loved. 

I had not thought to associate the pas de deux in second movement (echoes of Gailliard in the instrumentation!) with stillness. Space, in the absence of the corp, acts as both ornamentation and the ultimate barrier, the deep blue of the backdrop added depth to the movements even as it limited them to their bodies.

In fact the second movement seemed like a meditation on containment, motions and bodies caught up in orbit around each other. We see the motif repeated in the hands, around the bodies, and even how the dancers moved in relation to each other (was this a binary system or a planet with a satellite?).  

Kronenberg and Guerra were deliberate in their partnering – nothing hurried or affected – serenely allowing the movements to bring out their innate sensuousness. Echoing the first movement, Guerra and Kronenberg alternating with each other as they delineated the circular space around their bodies in lazy breaststroke motions (‘helicopter arms’, as Mr Balanchine called them).  

If Sleeping Beauty’s hedge were alive, I thought it might look something like the third movement, terrifyingly beautiful as it grew and moved in near-sentience. In this case, the woman was the hedge, mesmeric and prickly.

After that, I found myself rather weak in the knees! In fact I was in such a daze that I don’t quite remember what happened in Valse Fantaisie (1953), some twenty minutes later. I can report that Sara Esty replaced Jeanette Delgado and that I thought “Apollo with his three Muses, at a (Russian) social?” but beyond that and an image of Les Sylphides that I will come back to in my post about Sunday, it is a blur of waltz music. 

I located some of that lost composure for the Black Swan pas de deux, danced by Rolando Sarabia and Mary Carmen Catoya. I found myself wondering what a full length Swan Lake from the two of them may look like. Rolando Sarabia has lovely carriage and gorgeous air positions, and his Siegfried knew it. 

There is a stillness about Catoya that had a very lovely effect on her dancing (I lost moments speculating on her Emeralds). Her Odile did not deal in superfluities – she allowed Siegfriend to project his own desire onto her, maintaining an amused remoteness throughout. After all, the boy was ready to fall in love, unnecessary motions would have been overkill. However, she seemed to be a bit off of her legs at the night performance, her balances came off fairly well but her pirouettes did not look secure.

It may have been shock at seeing something non-Balanchine after such a feast, but I thought the warhorse was crammed too full of tricks, and the discomfort kept me from enjoying it as much as previously. The partnering looked off that night as well, and Catoya looked like she was about to fall onto the floor when Sarabia took away his hands during the last partnered pirouettes. I should also add that the Russianness became jarring when Sarabia launched into what seemed to be one of the male solos from Theme and variations with a series of double tours en l’air – pirouette in the middle of the coda.

I’ve only seen In the Upper Room through video, and I must admit that I don’t particularly enjoy it. Video flattens the stage and this is one piece that loses much more than average in a recording. Seeing it live restores some of the excitement and depth to the choreography that had been missing.

However, that being said, it’s still not one of my favorites (or even preferred) upon a live viewing. There are figure skating references, yoga references, all sorts of movement ideas thrown in there for an interesting soup, but appreciating the athleticism of dancers can become a bit tedious when the pacing lags and the choreography does not develop toward any unifying idea. The bombers and the stompers dance, occupy the same space, share each other’s clothes, but the choreography is sealed off against each other. They coexist but they do not interact. It became extremely noticeable in the last section, as the music tried to build toward a heart-pounding (and unsubtle) climax that the choreography was simply unable to match.

That being said, I did enjoy watching dancers enjoying themselves. Most of the dancers looked a bit lethargic in the beginning, but woke up (the transition was rather obvious) as they threw more energy and attitude as time went on, but they still looked a bit too much like ballet dancers. One notable exception from the very beginning was Jeanette Delgado, whom my eyes gravitated back to time and again, though she was replaced (I'm told) after two sections by another stomper due to injury. She had a wonderful way of throwing herself into the choreography. Her body radiated tension, as if trying to contain anarchy within its limits as it fought to get out everywhere.

[A few minor edits due to late at night stupidity and for optimistically thinking I could go it along without my program or my notes. Corrections were primarily for grammar and clarity save for a more major one correcting Ms Kronenberg's name. My apologies, Ms Kronenberg, I shan't do it again!