For some reason I can't get the image of Peter Martins as St John Rivers out of my head.

And given X, then Kay Mazzo, his frequent non-Farrell dark haired partner, Y=Jane Eyre.

Appending to what came before it

I forgot to mention that the Tea variation in the OBT Nutcracker had been revised from "tea Chinese tea" to "tea Siamese tea", headdresses, flared shoulders, and all. The costuming is marginally more "authentic", but I'm not sure why the revision is deemed to be any less stereotypical than what had come before it.

Oregon Ballet Theatre, 22 December 2013: George Balanchine's the Nutcracker

[This post was edited to correct a huge casting mistake with regard to Dewdrop.]

George Balanchine's The Nutcracker

Oregon Ballet Theatre

Keller Auditorium, Portland, Oregon

22 December 2013

Orchestra Center, Row X, Seat 6

Without realizing it, Nutcrackers have snuck into my Christmas routine just as surely as have Chinese-food-and-a-movie. It was particularly welcome this year after a cross-continental move. The landscape changes, but by gum, the story won't, even if we can't decide if our heroine is Clara or Marie. I caught the Sunday matinee and was greeted by confused glances when I plunked my lonesome down between several populations of little girls and their adult attendants.

Oregon Ballet Theatre promised live music in select performances. Unfortunately Keller Auditorium is not ideal for music. The richness of tone suppresses any semblance of texture at any volume greater than piano, overexposes tuning problems in the brass, and turns the whole thing into soup by the time sound reaches the balconies. However, the conductor gave a brisk performance despite acoustic limitations, never falling into melodrama even when there were moments that threatened to dive headfirst into tubercular French novel territory.

This Nutcracker was rife with sartorial confusion and uneven in the quality of its dancing, all in all having a better time with the first act than with the second. Frau Stahlbaum's bustle and hobble skirt read as late Victorian (1880s) while her guests wore circular hooped styles from the early 1860s. Guests were comfortable enough to mix day and evening dress, enough that some came in dark plaids and calicos more suited for rough work.  On the fantastical side, the Kingdom of Sweets was rebranded as a Kingdom of Pastels, with a very pink Sugar Plum Fairy presiding over a menagerie of pretty but anonymous feature dancers, including Candy Cane in a photo negative of a Tron Legacy battle suit.

The children were the highlight here, having an excellent time playing with each other on stage under the eyes of indulgent parents. Marie (Jenny White) is clearly the queen bee of her social set, dolls included, and Noah Hug made me feel sorry for his Fritz. While he could be played as just a pest, Fritz wandered the stage looking lost, kitted out in an unusual peach-colored sailor suit among a sea of velvet suits. His mischief looked like that of a lonely little boy convinced that he could make a place for himself, if he ran at one fast enough.

In contrasts, the adults were a great deal less memorable. Luckily, the choreography provides sufficient detail so that they were not wholly homogenous. Drosselmeyer (Brett Bauer) was a benevolent guest who seemed determined to play down his mysteriousness. I wanted him and his cape to have more flair than dutifulness. Even the mice seemed similarly functional, sufficient to move Clara from the familiar to the fantastical with the smallest amount of dramatic impact needed to be seen under dim lighting. Granted, the dancers were likely very tired from a long performance season, but I wish the whole house sequence seemed less perfunctory. It shouldn't be just a placeholder until the good bits start.

Luckily, good triumphed over evil, and a beautifully turned out Nutcracker (Wyatt McConville-McCoy), and led Marie into the forest and the start of the "good" dancing. The Waltz of the Snowflakes is a sentimental favorite, and I have discounted many productions after seeing their treatment of this sequence. While the OBT is not a Balanchinean company, its corps de ballet responded beautifully to the choreography. Most of all, they looked like they enjoyed dancing it and were hungry for more of the same. This was the only place where I wished that the tempi could have been more dramatic (another 10-15 ticks on the metronome wouldn't have gone amiss), but for smaller favors, I would settle for a more human-like and less shrill choral sample.

Act II drags everyone into the Kingdom of Sweets, or in a desperate search for more appropriate descriptors, the Pastel Boudoir Kingdom Situated in an Enchanted Forest Glade. Given that this was Portland, I shouldn't be surprised that Clara and the Nutcracker weren't given sweets for feasting, but the odd costumes and sets seemed determined to break any mental connection between the plot in progress and Nutritionally Empty Items.

Some blurriness in the footwork was inevitable given that the company does not specialize in Balanchine, but in general the soloists danced them well. My only disappointment was Dewdrop (Xuan Cheng Haiyan Wu [Sorry for the incorrect attribution]), whose dancing shrank as the Waltz of the Flowers proceeded. Cheng had lovely clarity in her footwork, but it came in such tiny dancing that the effort seemed wasted. By contrast, Haiyan Wu, formerly with the Miami City Ballet, gave an orthodox interpretation of Coffee, though Exoticism in her costuming seemed to have been mostly transmuted into suggestions of Harem instead. It seemed too obvious a turn into sexpot territory, and I was rather uncomfortable with the wiggling.

Luckily, the Sugar Plum Fairy (Ansa Deguchi) and her cavalier (Michael Linsmeier) rescued the fizzle with a truly grand pas de deux. It was perhaps not true to style, but I couldn't mind a slight detour into Ballet Russe ardor if the dancers were absolutely sincere in their dancing. Deguchi is a small woman, but on the shoulders of her cavalier, she glowed with loveliness and triumph as she whipped the entire auditorium into a screaming frenzy.

I staggered to the theater wondering whether the OBT could become my new "home" company. In December and even now, I'm glad that I went, but given my limited resources and my absolute need to see my "home company" (now on the opposite side of the country), I'm not likely to attend again unless multiple factors (read: ticket prices/dancing/sartorial decisions) improved.

[Edited minutely on 20140730 for Drosselmeyer's grammar and sexpot wiggling.]

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, Program A, 7 November 2013

Program A: Mozartiana, Episodes, Romeo and Juliet

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet

Thursday, 7 November 2013

Eisenhower Theater, Kennedy Center

Washington DC

Orchestra Left, S3

Everything was a little off-kilter in Mozartiana tonight, as if the energy hoarded for last night had bursted at a few seams. We were left with some interestingly conceived dancing that didn’t seem to belong to the same ballet.

Natalia Magnicaballi has a luscious rubato and uses it intelligently. While I liked Ogden yesterday, she anticipates the music too much and that occasionally comes off as a lack of confidence. Magnicaballi allows her phrasing to flow through the music, never hurrying her movement for the sake of the next beat. Part of that power comes in her calm upper body, extending her head, back and arms so that the movement always feels completed to its full potential.

Perhaps it’s part of Magnicaballi’s emploi, but there’s always a sense of fragility in her dancing. Today it colors the Preghiera (as it did in the Riccercata yesterday) as tragedy. It was not an invocation as yesterday, asking divinity to use her as instrument; it was instead a sacrifice and she was the courtly victim, Andromeda on the rocks as appeasement or intercession.

There was a new cast of girlish attendants, attendants to the doomed bride. These girls are older than yesterday’s cast, and there is not enough physical contrast between them and the womanly attendants, nor between them and Magnicaballi.

It was yet another interpretation from the four (or five) that I have seen, and I was looking forward to how that theme would be developed. Unfortunately, the Gigue happened.

Kirk Henning has elongated limbs that seemed more suited to the geometry of petit allegro. While still not quite satisfactory, it was an improvement over Grosh. However, his usual musical intelligence seemed to have failed him today. This was a frolic worthy of the Soviet clown out of Swan Lake. I won’t say that he simpered, but the uncomplicated cheeriness made the fine music insubstantial. It did not follow what has come before and made me wonder whether I had sleepwalked into a different ballet between movements. Once again, as with Grosh, he was most effective while standing still in the Menuet. His leave-taking was flirtatious and seemed oddly inappropriate for a courtly jester, whose dreams of dignity exists only on my soapbox.

Again, not much to say about the Menuet. Once one sees the shepherdess curls, one cannot unsee them.

In the Theme et Variations, Magnicaballi gave a command performance of the solo variations. It was a masterclass in phrasing. Again, like Ogden, the execution seemed spontaneous and yet endlessly complex.

Pavel Gurevich is Magnicaballi’s cavalier today. While the two are long-limbed and seem physically suited, their dancing was less harmonious than what was promised by their promenade. Gurevich moves well for his size and build, but his upper body lurches oddly upward when jumping. The partnering looked curiously underrehearsed. Their spacing was off, and there were a few parts in which he looked like he was manhandling Magnicaballi in the partnering.There was one turn en attitude in which I could only focus on his hand gripped around her wrist, while her hand trembled above like an autumn leaf. Magnicaballi looked visibly off-center after the pas de deux, and all but staggered off the stage. It was more than a little disastrous, and the whole thing made me think longingly of Momchil Mladenov, one of Magnicaballi’s former partners of a similar build, since retired from the company.

The Finale was an uncomplicated relief. Henning and the girlish attendants came together in joy, Gurevich and Magnicaballi tried to remember the distance between their respective limbs, and the whole thing came to a triumphantly relieved end.

Allan Lewis conducted the orchestra. As with last night, it was a finely textured rendering, marred only by the clarinetist, who seemed to have forgotten his fingers. The reed also seemed suspect in the higher notes. The lighting changes were more noticeable than tonight. I started to squint during the pas de deux and realized that my eyesight was not in error. It is a modern intrusion and was unappreciated. Also as with last night, I tried very very hard to ignore the flouncy flounces on Magnicaballi’s gown. It was easier today with all of the other bewildering things that were happening simultaneously.

I mentioned last night that black-and-whites are hard for me to digest. Unlike the gentleman sitting next to me, I cannot follow the tone rows without sheet music. I spent most of yesterday’s performance sorting the bodies on stage so that I can match the action to the music. It’s a cheat, of course, but repetition and a perverse appreciation for arbitrary musicality yields enough amusements to make the endeavor equitable.

Last night I ranted on the opacity that is Episodes. Episodes of what indeed. My growing suspicion, planted last night, that these were episodes of episodes. In other words, it’s a sequence of events that loop back upon themselves in reference. It is much like the Four Temperaments, except the repetition is not both melodic and choreographic. Instead, it is only choreographic, integrating thematic ideas and the choreographic conventions that came before in tighter and more enclosed rounds.

At intermission today, I mentioned that the whole thing reminds me of PDQ Bach’s Art of the Ground Round (Opus 3.19/pound). That was a tour de force of parody upon the convention of the round (think row, row, row your boat). The idea of rounds is something that keeps popping up in this piece, and the whole thing makes me wonder whether Balanchine has constructed one hell of a joke.

Symphony, Movement 1, is a masterclass on rounds. The opening tableau is even vaguely circular, as are the opening arm isolations. The dancing starts with simple rounds, in which one couple does a movement, the next couple replicates two beats later, repeat until finished.

The dancers then start a second round, escalating the complexity as dancers find rules to play with. First, the corp chooses to replicate the main couple in the same direction, in the next round they choose to replicate in contrast. Then the corp decides that moving in unison among themselves is boring and that they should move in tight contrast to each other even as they are still moving in counterpoint to the leads.

The pairs then get tired of each other, and suddenly it’s time for rounds with genders. First it’s straightforward rounds with men and women, but then for added complexity, the lead man and woman extract themselves to create two more layers of moving bodies. I felt like a giant game of choreographic Twister and I was a little cross-eyed, trying to keep score.

Valerie Tellmann and Matthew Renko were the leads today. Both the music and the dancing were more confident when compared to yesterday, which also made it easier to keep track of the action.

Webern is difficult, and the dancing can be obscure. I heard one audience member behind me muttering in dismay. She was advised to “try to take a nap, if she could”. Disappointment is to be expected, but I wish it didn’t have to be so loud during the dancing.

Jordyn Richter and Ted Seymour were the leads again in Five Pieces today. At first glance, they seem like anecdotes that seem to to have nothing to do with rounds, but they provide thematic material for integration later.

I labeled these as “episodes of unreadyness” in my head. The woman and the man are never in the same physical or mental place. Richter plays it straight. Her acrobatic antics are tools to befuddle poor Ted even further. He wants to look up, she looks down. He looks for her, she hides behind him, legs in the air creating the ballet equivalent of bunny ears (antlers!). Ted wisely does not overact, letting the absurdity of the choreography enhance his guileless expression.

Concerto, the third movement, puts elements of the first two movements to work. The dancers start in a simple round, but as they escalate in difficulty as in movement 1, the lead couple incorporates the juxtaposition of purpose seen in movement two into their dancing.

Michael Cook and Elisabeth Holowchuk danced again today (Holowchuk substituting for the scheduled Paola Hartley). I hadn’t particularly liked his dancing with Magnicaballi, as their reciprocal comfort often looks like complacency, but he’s working out quite well with Holowchuk, who seems to to have an adversarial relationship with him on stage.

The last movement of Concerto made me laugh, as it was literally a round of women surrounding Cook. Just to make sure that we haven’t missed it, we also start with Holowchuck tightly encircling Cook with all the limbs she could find. It’s got to be some sort of a joke, but the final choreography for Cook is that of a man desperately looking for a way out of a round.

Last night, the preceding contrast of bodies stood in counterpoint to the physical homogeneity of Riccercata. Tonight, the preceding fugue of choreography was startling when we arrive at the conventional choreographic voicing of the Riccercata, an orchestration of Bach’s Fugue in 6 voices from Musical Offering (BWV 1079). Webern’s orchestration adds instrumental texture even as it preserves the (dare I say) conventional harmonics of Baroque music. It was a weird return to normalcy after the stringent compositions that preceded it. (I felt the audience members behind me stir in interest, and then in appreciation. Nicely done, Mr B.)

Six groups of dancers, five corp groups and the lead couple, represent the six moving voices, though the lead couple retains the singing melody at all times. It is a moving tableau of bodies, exploring permutations on a motif. Heather Ogden and Ian Grosh were the lead couple tonight. She was majestic in contrast to Magnicaballi’s restrained melancholy, and Ian Grosh found the dignity and simplicity in movement that should have gone into Mozartiana. When they finally bade the curtains to go down, Ogden gestured with authority, imbuing her hands with weight. Here endeth the masterclass, they say.

I don’t have anything to add to last night’s observations about Mejia’s Romeo and Juliet. Holowchuk and Henning make it work despite the choreography, though they were less spontaneous in performance tonight. Despite some sour flourishes by the french horn, Tchaikovsky got another elegant performance, its floridity sufficiently subdued to keep it on this side of parody.

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, Program A, 6 November 2013

Program A: Mozartiana, Episodes, Romeo and Juliet

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

Eisenhower Theater, Kennedy Center

Washington DC

Orchestra U 107, V103

Mozartiana was the first ballet that I ever saw live. I love the solemn pageantry, the evocation of French courtly manners, and best of all, the feather light displays of petit allegro.

What continues to amaze me is the range of emotion that different ballerinas call forth in the same choreography. Suzanne Farrell, in her 1983 televised performance, was joyfully spiritual, even triumphant; Whelan, the first woman I saw in the role, evokes dignity and command even seen years apart, though the initial imperiousness seems to have melted into a calmer self-reflection; and Veronika Part, an earthly Dulcinea, warm and loving.

Heather Ogden in the same ballet called forth serenity. Her dancing brought to mind teachings from the taoist canon, which emphasizes naturalness, simplicity and spontaneity. It was not a static performance; there was always the sense that we see only those bright facets that the ballerina chooses to show to us, that there is more of the enigma hovering just out of reach.

Preghiera is an invocation, but last night my mind veered off of Christian prayer to that of invocation of the Muse at the beginning of the Iliad, asking for divine inspiration to guide his hand in dance. It's rather appropriate: his first surviving masterpiece is a celebration of Muses (Apollo, 1927), while what is more or less his last work calls on them for their favor.

Ogden sets the stage with four girl attendants. Despite the mismatch in size, as some attendants were visibly and bigger than others, their solemn dignity complemented Ogden's prayer well. Ogden has a very lovely and calm bourrée, and she uses it well, though I would have liked to see Ogden utilize her back and head more fully to match.

Ian Grosh was the courtly jester in the Gigue. He is not yet comfortable in the role, more concerned with the fiendishly difficult footwork than the proper conveyance of manner. However, this is a complaint not unique to this performance. I continue to scream (in a vacuum, it seems) that this jester should be the most dignified person in the room. He is not a clown, and nobility bearing should permeate his upper body. I have yet to see sufficient consideration and weight given to the sparse simplicity of the port de bras. In this respect, Grosh was more effective in the Menuet, as he remembered to give proper attention to his carriage as he took his leave of the audience.

On that note, I would like to give a discommendation to his execution of the petit allegro. The dancing should give more consideration to distance covered rather than the height attained during steps. What I saw last night was all up-and-down and flattened the choreography to an unhappy extreme. 

I continue not to have much to say about the Menuet. From memory, I think it's a piece better seen straight on than from above. It was excellently performed, but it is the choreographical weak link in Mozartiana and thus hard to make much of. Despite the suggestions of Dresden Shepherdesses in costuming and hairstyle, these women are courtly attendants. I wanted the women to demonstrate solemnity that their girlish counterparts had displayed to great effect, as I think the elegance would keep the pastoral portrait from imploding in triteness.

Mozartiana is a ballerina's ballet, and Michael Cook very intelligently recognizes this, devoting himself to displaying Ogden like a shining treasure. Occasionally his bearing is too ardently yearning, but that is a slight correction.

Despite the disparity in petit allegro — that is, Cook demonstrates an understanding of its execution and goal (that of clean, fleeted footwork that hovers over and across space rather than simply measuring its height) — the casting demands that we compare he and Grosh as doppelgängers. They are sufficiently similar in coloring and build, calling back to the mirroring of girl and woman attendants, and who are ultimately refracted shadows of the ballerina herself.

Cook initially tries for sharply etched movements in his solos, calling equal attention to the choreography as well as the occasionally blurry execution of it. I think I (and he) enjoyed it more as he relaxed into the music, and it showed in his increased ease (and ironically, clarity) of movement.

I wish that I have other Farrell stagings of this ballet for comparison, especially when it came to the final tableau. What came to mind was not of the ballerina ascendant, but a sense of reconciliation, of disparate parts reaching rapport, celebrating a harmonious oneness in purpose. It was joyous enough to make this perpetually grumpy observer burst into discreet tears.

Allan Lewis is the new(?) conductor this year, and he lead the orchestra in giving a finely textured performance. However, I will note that like cowbells, one can never have too much glockenspiel in the variations.

Holly Hynes's costumes worked well for the female attendants, but the fringes on Ogden's bodice detracted from its elegance. The swooping excess seemed more appropriate for a gypsy dress meant for the tavern scene in Don Q. Similarly, Michael Cook's vest was too low cut. The objective is courtliness, not Eurotrash.

Ballet Austin provided the corps for my first and last experience with Episodes in 2008, which incidentally was my first experience with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet. I find that I rather miss them in this iteration. I miss the full-bodied physicality that their dancers brought to the round. It is too refined this time.

I won't bore my gentle reader with too many wild theories about the name. After all, Episodes? Episodes of what? They could be called "anecdotes", but episodes imply repetition and continuity.

Episodes is a weird, dreamlike echo of Four Temperaments and Agon. We see quotations from both works, some weirdly abandoned in the middle of its execution. When I first saw it, I stared at blankly and wondered if perhaps Balanchine was having me on. Who, what, antlers?!

On a more serious note, if we were to talk about progressions, we could talk about the progression of womanly bodies from the petit, short-waisted Paola Hartley in Symphony, to the statuesque but long-waisted (shades of Aroldingen!) Jordyn Richter in Five Pieces, to the shapely but humanly sized Elisabeth Holowchuk in Concerto, to the Balanchine archetype that is Natalia Magnicaballi in the Riccerata. The juxtaposition of soloist and (where available) corps bodies in the first three movements is especially piquant when compared to the physical homogeneity of the Riccerata.

But then, I could be reading into it too much.

I don't do too well with black-and-whites on my initial viewings, so I will save more detailed choreographic comments for the second night. The first movement (Symphony) was tentatively performed, though it settled down as the orchestra grew in confidence. Jordyn Richter was all cool nonchalance in contrast to Ted Seymour's guilelessness. He is a very intelligent dancer and carefully rations his theatricality to delicious effect. Holowchuk and Henning  (substituting for Cook) performed the Concerto. Holowchuk never makes the same movement twice, and she coolly twists Cook into knots of bodies and limbs. I really appreciated Cook's ability to make the choreography look natural rather than silly (which did happen later in the program, but more on that later). Magnicaballi and Guervich were the courtly leads in the minor-key Riccercata, conveying a sense of subdued personal tragedy into the moving tableau. Their downward sweeping gesture at the finale is done with great delicacy; it is equal parts request and reminder that we must now leave them.

(I moved to V103 for this portion of the program)

While I enjoyed Mejia's Eight by Adler, I didn't hold much confidence for his Romeo and Juliet, if in part because I have no confidence that anyone can overcome the musical cliché of the Tchaikovsky suite. I am sad to say that my suspicions were mostly confirmed. Holowchuk and Henning did marvelous acting (poor Ian Grosh had a thankless job as a thrashing Tybault), but it wasn't enough to save the brawny and sometimes anti-musical choreography, by which I mean that the action on stage clashed against the musical mood. Mejia does have a fine sense of theater, and I liked his neo-German Expressionist staging, especially in the costuming. Some of the action made me think (rather uncomfortably) that the choreographer had a series of striking tableau in mind, but not the steps to fill and link them. At the end, I remarked to my friend that I liked it better when they weren't dancing, and I still can't bring myself to retract that statement.

Ballet West, 6 October 2013: On Tour in Chicago

Ballet West on Tour
6 October 2013, 3 PM matinee
Auditorium Theater, Chicago, Illinois
Orchestra U 405

Program:
Rubies
Presto (world premiere)
Diamonds pas de deux
The Lottery (Chicago premiere)

Feeling disappointment is one thing, but actually writing a negative review is quite another. For days, the only thing I could think to put down was, "Well, it happened and I saw it."

Of course, prior to achieving that particular non-reaction, the whole experience had me feeling like Simon Pegg's character in Hot Fuzz, eyes widening and head tilting back in horrified incredulity as the village panto imploded under the weight of its own well-intentioned obliviousness.

For reference's sake, feel free to see for yourself.

With that said, I don't want this to stand as a condemnation of the company itself. Ballet West's intentions and the foundations (especially their corp de ballet) are good, but the matinee program, both the choreography and the company's presentation of it, threw up sufficient barriers to enjoyment that left me to mark time until I could escape for vodka and pierogi*.

When performed in isolation, Rubies is an appealing choice with which to open or close a performance. I compared the third movement on my previous viewing to choreographic champagne, chasing after the piano as it burbles along on double speed. However, there were two movements before that and the soloists complete them shakily.

In general, the soloists looked competent but not personable. This may be a function of my row U seats in Orchestra Left, but I was hardly at the back of the auditorium. Experience and coaching in these roles (not that I know how long they have already danced these roles) will help with projection, but in the meantime it didn't make for very memorable watching.

Elizabeth McGrath was uneventful as Tall Girl. There were too many limbs flailing in the beginning, as if her torso was not fully engaged in the dancing, but she eventually settled in. Showgirl, hostess, or some permutation of both, she does not have enough authority in her stage presence to stand out sufficiently against the corps.

Beckanne Sisk and Christopher Ruud were the main couple. Ruud has an eye-catching languidness in his jumps that contrasted intriguingly with the quicksilver choreography. I did notice that there were a few spots during his romp with the gang where movements looked like they were performed 'as choreographed' rather than towards the intended party, but on the whole he was closely attentive. Sisk in the McBride role faired slightly less well. Sisk dances gently, which can be used to great effect but made this role look slightly blurry. Occasionally the geometry of her choreography looked off. In one particular moment in the pas de deux, Ruud pulls her arms stage right, and what I expected to see was the ballerina's working leg extended parallel to the floor, as if someone else is pulling that limb from the opposite side. Instead, we see Sisk in a full split with working leg pointed to the ceiling. The opposing force has disappeared and instead the moment just looks vulgar.

The corp were a treat to watch as they scampered through the choreography. I did want to commend one particular corp artist (by her coloring, most likely either Sayaka Ohtaki or Jenna Rae Herrera — I regret not being close enough to identify her). There is a moment where two members of the corps women pose downstage, facing the audience. This artist did so with notable assurance and sex appeal, rare enough to make me take note and speculate on the prospects of expanding that quality into McBride's role.

I group Rubies and Diamonds together as they exhibit similar insufficiencies of performance. Unlike Rubies, however, Diamonds is not as dancer-proof and is particularly exposed during the pas de deux; its success hinges on the couple's ability to convey their understanding of the music and choreography to the audience. Beau Pearson was an ardently attentive cavalier, with what I would say is now a very standard and Russian portrayal.

There's a saying that the object of one's regard reflects something intimate about one's own self-image, or at least the image of his ideal woman. If I take this as given, then his regard for Christiana Bennett in Suzanne Farrell's role would suggest that he, like Franz in Coppelia, longs for an uncomplicated automaton as partner. There were no dynamics to contrast one movement from the next. While all of the shapes were carefully and correctly placed, the ballerina did not demonstrate that she understood what the choreography, both in the beauty moments and in the transitions between them, were meant to do. At the moment, this is not her role.

Presto, the world premiere, was performed by four dancers to slashing violin music. There are pieces that are fun to dance, and there are pieces that are fun to watch. The two intersect somewhere, but this piece was not it. Like Douglas Adams's bowl of petunias, my only reaction was to gird my loins, think 'oh no, not again' and prepare for the long drop ahead.

As the inaccurate paraphrase goes, put a man and a woman onstage and you've already got a story. As with countless contemporary ballets before it, it is a relentless battle of physicality between men and women in shimmering leotards as they dance at each other. If there exists a relationship between the dancers, the closest comes in the duet challenge as the former pose the latter into a variety of shapes in a bonus challenge round. At one point, one of the principal women (possibly Jennifer Lawrence) slipped and took an audible fall. There was palpable concern from her fellow dancers, and I would argue that it made the dancing better as the dancers seemed more aware of each other than they had been. The choreography, however, soon overwhelmed that.

The dancers were well-rehearsed and danced very well, but it's difficult to make anything out of the ugly music and the flashy but empty choreography. Truly, it is a piece fit for the CW.

I understand why the Chicago premiere of The Lottery merits the closing position by virtue of prestige (and logistics). I would have wished for greater clarity to accompany prestige, however. The Lottery, as I am told by the program, is by Shirley Jackson is evidently a famous short story. It is so famous that my home state (infamous for having the lowest public school teacher salaries in the country) does not teach it to its students. I very intelligently inferred that there was a lottery from the obfuscating liner notes and read Wikipedia for the plot at the first intermission**.

The piece's fidelity to the story's structure was problematic both for its pacing and structure. I very intelligently remarked to my friend that this piece aspires to de Mille-ian drama by way of Tharpian obfuscation. Really what I mean to say in that piece of snooty name-dropping is that it aspires to a very American melodrama through interminable and idiosyncratic port de bras.

What is possible and even engaging in writing made for tedious and confusing viewing when the same actions were rendered in dance. Similar costuming made it impossible to identify different characters without a working knowledge (as well as good opera glasses) on the dancers themselves. The victim (who jsmu on BalletAlert had identified as Katie Critchlow) danced well, but I had no idea who she was beforehand and was unimpressed with the gimmick of her screaming.

The Lottery gives all of the dancers multiple somethings interesting to do, and they all dance well, but as a ballet, it fails as good dance drama. Like a Soviet Swan Lake, it demands too much foreknowledge from its audience (knowledge that was not augmented by the program), and in this case (possibly intentional, though not wisely), the staging does not augment one's understanding of these characters sufficiently to sympathize with the losers.

The program sponsors were able to provide live music from the Chicago Sinfonetta for most of this performance (Presto was prerecorded). The Lottery's percussive score was performed very well, but Rubies and Diamonds sounded under-rehearsed and Rubies very sluggish and careful. The woodwinds in particular needed tuning help.

*In the interests of getting to my train on time, I did not get the vodka.

** I have seen many analogues in the popular media, but the story was not immediately clear to me by title and reputation.

Ballet Chicago, 6 May 2012: Balanchine Masterworks

Balanchine Masterworks

Ballet Chicago

Sunday 6 May Matinee

Harris Theater, Chicago, IL

Orchestra O109

Balanchinean first nights seem to invite overbearing scrutiny. I plead in part excessive caffeination while trapped on a slowly moving train, but the other half of the argument is that first performances of Balanchine works often resemble dress rehearsals (I'm paraphrasing from someone, but whom?) and the dancers often haven't fully worked out how to relate to the audience. Perhaps the strategy for greater commercial success and/or artistic acceptance for me (insert laugh here) is to post the second night's review first, then post my initial querulousness when no one is looking*.

There's a moment in Barocco's Second Movement when the cavalier carries the First Violin across the stage on, her legs surging into the air like waves. The corps mirrors their journey in waves of bodies, surging and subsiding, to the opposite shore; it intensifies the impression of distance, and brought strongly to mind the Act II Panorama from Sleeping Beauty. The closeness of the camera, along with the forced narrative that it imposes on the proceedings (which may or may not be in sympathies with the choreographer's intentions), really cannot not prepare a viewer. This was my favorite discovery of the night.

Courtney Wright Anderson continues her excellent dancing. She is generally very 'correct' in her Balanchine performance, but I think recorded music make dancers complacent. In this case, Anderson finishes her choreography before the music does and then poses until the music catches up. I still don't see much awareness of Ted Seymour. I did wonder whether the choreography (or just my very finicky aesthetics) could support such an interpretation. After all, Seymour is not given an instrument but is an auxiliary of the First Violin; his function is to help her in developing the singing lines in the Second Movement. However, I ultimately don't find unawareness interesting to look at. While the partners moved together beautifully, they were ships passing in the night emotionally, even despite Seymour's careful attention and increased security in the lifts.

Ellen Green continues to perplex me. She obviously has the idea of the choreography (as I had mentioned, the shifting of the weight), but she sticks out stylistically and musically, especially against the other two soloists. I've admired quite a few Danish men in the Balanchine repertoire but have not had that pleasure for the women. Is this endemic to the current company or just a quirk of the dancer?

The curtain began to come down before dancers got into position in the final tableau, cutting off any suggestion of expansiveness in space that the dancers' open arms would suggest. I have already noted previous problems with the lighting, but allowing the house to determine when the dance ends instead of the reverse seemed like a serious misjudgment.

A drive-by perusing of Wikipedia tells me that Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra was begun on Christmas Day, 1928, with the Third Movement begun first. Some call it wit, but Your Critic finds it to be the musical equivalent of laughing gas. Mr Stravinsky's tossing off epigrams on champagne and I'm giggly on the effervescence alone.

That said, I would recommend that dancers warm-up to the Third Movement before attempting to perform Rubies on stage, so that they can firmly fix the humor and wit and fun in their minds before going on for the whole thing. Holowchuk on Saturday night visibly perked up during the Third Movement, as if she had finally stopped worrying over the choreography and decided to have a little, which carried marvelously into the Sunday matinee. While Holowchuk initially couldn't figure out how to make some of the posing work, her dancing gave us some elegant mischief. She isn't quite the lady who goes slumming with the local bad boy (Renko was too wholesome looking for that!), but I can easily see her dazzling the catering staff into doing her bidding, possibly to create a manmade river of champagne in the salon. And if she and the hostess convinces everyone to dive in and take a swim, so much the better.

Matthew Renko's energy was better focused than on opening night. He still appears too wholesome, but I think that looking the paragon suits him, especially in getting out of scrapes that his devilish energy gets him into. Who, me? says he as he runs away, while the women shake their heads in fond exasperation. His troupe of men were noticeably sharper in their marching precision today, trailing behind him in admiration and emulation.

After an excellent Saturday performance, Jane Morgan needed half a movement to get into character Sunday, as if our hostess had just woken up and hadn't quite got her face on before going downstairs. But a cup of coffee later and her amused worldliness was back in force. As with Saturday night, her shaky adagio technique drew attention to itself instead of keeping our attention on the character. But then again, it is a nervewracking sequence of slowly unfurling arabesques after an already difficult movement. The hostess exits, slightly disheveled by the fun she's orchestrated, but golly, even that is rather fetching.

My karma likes to bludgeon me with whichever ballet I don't particularly care for until I capitulate into at least detached appreciation. The candidate for my recent reconsideration has been the excerpted Who Cares?, courtesy of Ballet Chicago. To be honest, the work is pleasing mostly due to its musical familiarity, but it can rather trying to sit through, especially as a program closer, for someone not raised in Americana,. To paraphrase from Miss Austen, too much of Who Cares? is rather too light and bright and sparkling. The corps looks thrilled to be dancing on stage and seemed like such nice hardworking cityfolk in their variations. In general, the work wants shade, which the soloist choreography provides much too late in the sequencing.

I didn't see much difference in the soloist work between the Saturday night and Sunday matinee performances. Ted Seymour was his usual excellent self*** and I wish that I could see him in more roles to stress test that thoughtful musicality. Susan Belles seemed more in control of her nerves/legs today and built on her previous performance. The other two soloists (Ellen Green and Robyn Wallace) were technically secure but intellectually perplexing. Who are these women, and what is this man to them? These dancers have not yet found the narrative within their dancing to engage us emotionally.

*The other option for fame and fortune, that of writing stream of consciousness commentary to endless after-Petipas à la Russe by third-rate touring companies, make me long for a lobotomy.

**Case in point, Union Jack. I'll invite the Wrath of Karma and mention it if it means that I get to see it live, at least once.

*** Excellence is not boring, but finding new ways of describing it can be.

Ballet Chicago, 5 May 2012: Balanchine Masterworks

Balanchine Masterworks
Ballet Chicago
Saturday 5 May 2012
Harris Theater, Chicago, IL
Orchestra M110

I didn't expect a car wreck, but I did approach these performances with a(n un)healthy anticipation when I heard that Elisabeth Holowchuk would be taking the lead in Rubies. We talk of emploi mostly in reference to Russian companies, but Balanchine ballets have their own emploi*. The bottom line is that Holowchuk is not the most obvious dancer for a McBride role. She is reserved, introverted and more naturally suited at first thought (by association or style) to Farrell's repertoire and, being a member of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, can seem in danger of being cornered into those roles. I am pleased to observe that she did find a satisfying and valid interpretation of Rubies, though it did take two movements before she revved up to it. On the whole, the performance was uneven. Performers had opportunities to shine, but it wasn't a wholly cogent program.

Duell announced before this performance** that this was the 25th anniversary of Ballet Chicago and the 15th anniversary of the studio company. The Balanchine Masterworks program is designed to showcase the dancers' progress in three different "Balanchinean" moods, and it is interesting to see the company react so differently in each.

I know Concerto Barocco primarily from film (list available upon request), as I had never seen it live until now. I am pretty sure that one is not supposed to find the corps more interesting than the soloist, but the casting didn't work quite as intended.

Ellen Green returns from the Royal Danish Ballet as Second Violin. Her movements were brilliantly sharp, inappropriately so against the phrasing in the recorded music. Her port de bras was soft and blurry in contrast, but tense when posing. I wasn't sure what was going on and can only conjecture that it was two techniques, usually thought to coexist harmoniously, fighting a turf war with each other.

Courtney Wright Anderson as First Violin was, in contrast, a serene presence. She sketches out a good framework of the choreography, but needs more guidance to populate it more fully. Her dancing anticipates the recorded music and the phrase consequently looks incompletely developed, even static. Occasionally I got the feeling that she's forgotten about her cavalier, Ted Seymour, when she was not looking at him, but whether that's a valid reading on the partnership requires discussion. Seymour is an attentive partner but is too tall for her, which occasionally disrupted the geometry in the partnership.

So, as I said, I ended up watching the corps more often than not. Surprisingly, Balanchine the classicist is not in their bodies as is Balanchine the modernist or the showman. Concerto Barocco is, according to Marie-Jeanne, about a shifting of the weight, and I don't think that the corps is as yet secure enough to bring that out in the choreography. Bows occasionally do not go down*** but shrink inward like a crumpling piece of paper. No, down in this case, as Ender Wiggins would inaccurately remind us, is down. Here, the bow provides the visual anchor for up as well as the four planar directions.

The entry for Barocco in the Balanchine Foundation's database remarks that the piece "was begun as a School of American Ballet exercise in stagecraft". The corps work is true to that mission: the dancers never go off stage, and every movement is exposed as it is not in Rubies or Who Cares?. Toward the end, I noticed that one of the corps member's skirts had slipped to mid-thigh and threatened its own solo burlesque. The dancer trooped through it as if nothing happened. This is professionalism in the teaching, but has not fully stuck yet, judging by the other ballets.

I did notice that the corps's port de bras is rather more florid than the music (the bowing?) would suggest. This is stylistically correct (probably), but I found myself preferring the calmer port de bras, possibly a result of the busier floor work, in the Third Movement. That same calmness, fullness, even efficiency, in the arms should be aspired to.

Duell commented before the second performance that the middle piece in any program (as formulated by Mr Balanchine) should be the most 'challenging' work for the audience. This company ate up the challenge with large dessert spoons, presenting sense of commitment to the choreography that I wish was more present in the other works.

Digressing a little, we bandy about the term "black and whites", but I wonder if we should invent a category for Balanchine's "red" ballets, so unimaginatively labeled for the prominence of red in the ballerina's costumes. Candidates here include Tarantella, Rubies, Tzigane, with more nominees welcomed at my inbox (and vetted by a fully blind peer review process). Many (two, anyways) were McBride roles, and often gives of the vibe of, to paraphrase the late popularlibrary "a classy lady in a party dress who goes slumming with the local bad boy", which usually meant Villella.

As I mentioned, Holowchuk is counterintuitive casting. She appears reserved and occasionally (and visibly) retreats into herself while dancing. We did get half a pas de deux that looked like it would turn into a production of "Diamonds in Rubies". The pas de deux is demanding, and she looked like she was worrying through the choreography instead of dancing it. However, she had relaxed sufficiently by the Third Movement that what had been flashes of wit ignited into amusement and vivacity. This was an elegant lady letting her figurative hair down, and the effect was marvelous.

Her cavalier, Matthew Renko, is more the neighborhood Quarterback than the local bad boy. His musical intelligence complements Holowchuk's in creating a story. Lady delicately sashays toward him. How about a tour of the wild side, she coos. Hubba hubba, reply his shoulders, all anticipation of hijinks. First night energy could have been better channeled into precision, but however unfocused, nowhere is Matthew Renko barreling downstages at the audience not a terrifying sight. Maybe tonight's the night that the boy decides to turn bad and dive at someone in orchestra.

Jane Morgan was pitch perfect casting as the tall girl. Whatever lushness she lacks in physique, she makes up for in her dancing. As a hostess, Morgan reminds me of Gypsy Rose Lee, all vivacious cheekiness, holding court for some salon of notables. She occasionally needs more attack, but the performance was utterly musical and always deliciously in character.

This was on the slow side for a performance of Rubies, and the company looked like it couldn't quite keep up. At one point, Renko waves a hand at his boy posse. It is meant to be a gesture of inclusion, but it looked like he was urging the boys to catch up instead. With more bodies on stage, Rubies is not as exposed in the corps choreography as other pieces on the program, and that invites a certain amount of fudging. One of my cardinal rules of performance is to always look like one knows what one's doing. In this case, when the choreography is faster than the dancer, the dancer must stay where she has landed. Otherwise the eyes are led immediately to where the dancers are trying to sneak back into place. It's nothing several million more Rubies can't fix. I would volunteer to watch them. It's an entirely disinterested motive on my part, of course.

And in the same vein, I want to give a giant discommendation to the lighting design. It did not trust in the choreography to do its job and made the dynamics obvious and a little cheesy. We didn't need more narrative when the dancers have already created their own.

Surprisingly, the Balanchine the pop showman was the hardest to perform. I've seen Ballet Chicago do it to greater effect a year ago, but they did not have to contend with Rubies and Barocco on the same program. Specifically, the corps and the soloists look mismatched. The corps sold their energy hard enough to reach nosebleed and looked hungry for more, but the soloists didn't convey enough drama or character. Over all, the piece was the most uneven out of the three and felt flat.

Miss Green was in Who Cares? last year and I remarked favorably on her potential to make more of the role. McBride's role should smolder in a deep and dark and wonderful way (a conflagration that one would gladly walk into, my brain supplies on the train home); unfortunately this performance only looked like a fire. It was technically correct but emotionally absent, and almost all of the accents were missing. Ted Seymour's ardent partnering covered some of the problems, but his absence underlines the weaknesses in her solo.

Robyn Wallace in Morris's role looked generally delighted to be there. Unfortunately that delight wasn't a function of Ted's presence. She gave a very able performance of the My One and Only solo with that same stage demeanor. Who needs Ted Seymour if you've got pas de chat en tournant****? Somehow I don't think the choreography is meant to work like that.

Susan Belles wasn't in full control of her legs during her duet, but she was demurely sweet and danced with great delicacy and mental presence. From start to finish, and not just in Who Cares?, Ted Seymour was a thoughtful dancer and an attentive partner. He builds his solo in Liza from introspection to a rousing finish. Is he searching for or remembering love? His partners do not give any hints, but his dancing invites the speculation.



*subject to discussions yet to come
**Please have your people talk to my people about flattering stage attire thnx
***What made put me in mind of it was a comment by Marie-Jeanne and John Taras, who noted that bows by the corps were originally flat backed, not round.
****That whooshing sound you hear is Your Critic raising her hands.