Live Opera: “The Flying Dutchman”

by Jane Rosenberg

A cursed sea captain doomed to sail the world without rest, an ill-fated Norwegian girl lost in her obsessive desire to become his means of salvation.  Add to this already explosive mix a father willing to sell his daughter for the captain’s riches and a faithful hunter trying desperately to hold on to his deluded love, and you have a fantastic scenario of German Romanticism, as potent as Goethe’s Faust or one of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s macabre tales.  With Richard Wagner’s deeply melodic and moving score, evoking the watery wanderings of a soul in torment, one would think little more is needed for a successful production than a top-tier orchestra, great Wagnerian voices, and a gorgeous set.  Much of this was accomplished on Saturday evening when Los Angeles Opera’s The Flying Dutchman opened at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in a shared production with The Lyric Opera of Chicago and The San Francisco Opera.

Matthew Plenk and members of the Los Angeles Opera Chorus

The Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, conducted by Maestro James Conlon with his usual sensitivity and intelligence, beautifully conveyed the drama’s sublime immersion in music.  From the overture, which contains all the leitmotifs and embodies the entire score, to the final, closing chords, the orchestra delivered the turbulence and subtle shadings of Wagner’s music.

The drama unfolded within Raimund Bauer’s effective minimalist set, which conjured the inner workings of a ship.  Unfortunately, here is where the confusion set in.  The production, conceived by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, created a conflicting array of dramatic and visual allusions.  Inventive though they were, the costumes of Andrea Schmidt-Futterer did little to advance the narrative – more often they confused and impeded the drama.  Were the sailors of Act I samurai astronauts from the future?  Was Captain Daland, with hair like a hedgerow and round spectacles, a comic book mutant from outer space?  And the Dutchman?  He appeared out of the mists like Nosferatu in a German Expressionist film.

Tomas Tomasson

The dramatic tension in “Dutchman” has a lot to do with the juxtaposition of the real and the unreal, the material and immaterial, the rational and irrational: Erik, the hunter, Mary, the nurse who raised Senta, and Captain Daland with his greed for gold, represent the rational, material world.  Their costumes should be rooted in their characters.  The Dutchman, his ghostly crew, and Senta represent the metaphysical and uncanny. When the distinctions blurred, the audience, unable to evaluate the nature of the characters, was lost in confusion.

Even with his unfortunate costume and make-up, James Creswell as Daland sang with a sumptuous tone and effortless grace.  As directed by Daniel Dooner, he played the greedy Sea Captain with an odd comic touch, subverting the tragedy of a father who, unthinking, offers his daughter for a pot of gold.  Matthew Plenk, the Steersman, rendered his very human song of Act I, with warmth and nuance. Tómas Tómasson, as the satanically cursed Dutchman, arrived on shore with a steely dignity.  Tentative at first, his voice seemed to grow and blossom as the evening wore on, particularly in his duets with Daland and Senta.

Julie Makerov

The surprise of the evening was the last minute appearance of Los Angeles native Julie Makarov, substituting for an ailing Elisabete Matos. Fortunately for the audience, she flooded the hall with her powerful soprano.  After the joyful spinning song of Act II, adroitly performed by the women’s chorus, garishly dressed in what looked like steel hoops over black taffeta, and grooming themselves like a pack of flying monkeys from “The Wizard of Oz,” Senta sang her ballad.  With its howls and halloings, the song delivers us more forcibly into the drama and Senta’s obsession with the Dutchman.  No neurotic schoolgirl, Makarov’s Senta is a woman accepting her fate – to break Satan’s curse and conduct the Dutchman to everlasting peace.  Also of note, Ronnita Nicole Miller’s portrayal of Mary, Senta’s nurse, beautifully sung and well acted.  More problematic was Corey Bix in the role of Erik.  Stiff and plodding, both in voice and mien, one wished he had delivered a more lyrical rendition of Erik’s plight and pain.

Throughout the acts a scrim was lowered at the front of the stage, unfortunately distancing us from the action.  If used sparingly it could have been effective, as in Act II when it displayed the Dutchman’s massive silhouette.  While Senta stared, hypnotized by his portrait, we saw her gazing upward, as the shadow hung over her, a constant reminder of his mythic presence in her life both past, present, and future.

Act III was rife with visual confusion.  Sailors who looked more dead than alive swarmed the stage.  It was difficult to keep in mind that they were the living crew of Daland’s ship, not the ghostly riders of the Dutchman’s vessel.  Their taunting song was robustly performed, however, driving us towards the disembodied answer of the Phantom Song by the Dutchman’s crew and propelling us towards the awaited end: the Dutchman’s departure and Senta’s self-sacrifice.

Yet, in spite of the mixed metaphors and failed symbolism, this “Dutchman” lingers in the mind.  At two hours and twenty minutes and without intermissions, the curious production entertained, leaving an appreciative audience in its wake.

To read more reviews and posts by Jane Rosenberg click HERE.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

.

Jane Rosenberg is the author and illustrator of  SING ME A STORY: The Metropolitan Opera’s Book of Opera Stories for Children.  Jane is also the author and illustrator of DANCE ME A STORY: Twelve Tales of the Classic Ballets.

T

Ballet: The Joffrey Ballet “The Rite of Spring,” “Son of Chamber Symphony,” and “After the Rain”

by Jane Rosenberg

It’s hard to believe that one hundred years have passed since Igor Stravinsky, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes premiered Le Sacre du Printemps. As famously reconstructed by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer (under the artistic supervision of Robert Joffrey) and in performance by the Joffrey Ballet at the Dorothy Chandler through February 3, “The Rite of Spring” remains startlingly modern and vivid – a breathtaking evocation of pre-Christian Slavic man – still working its magic in the twenty-first century.

Diaghilev, Nijinsky and Stravinsky

By now, dance and music lovers are well aware of the notorious 1913 premiere in Paris, branding “Rite” as one of the most controversial and important works of art of any century.  The music, with its complex rhythms and pounding dissonances, and the choreography, the antithesis of classical ballet with its hunched postures, bent arms, and turned in feet, enraged the audience, eliciting boos and fistfights in the aisles. By most accounts, Stravinsky was in despair. Diaghilev, however, was delighted with the scandal, while poor Nijinsky had to count out the rhythms over the roar of the jeering crowd because the dancers were unable to hear the music.

Seated with a respectful and enthusiastic audience Friday evening, I couldn’t help but reflect on the arc of modernism and its integration into our contemporary vocabulary.  No longer are dance audiences shocked by quaking bodies or the sexual implications of dancers writhing on stage. No longer do music audiences balk at percussive dissonances and polyrhythms.  And no longer are dancers unable to follow offbeat accents and shifting time signatures (as Nijinsky stated, while in rehearsal he had to pound a floorboard so the dancers could feel the cues.).  After all, we’ve absorbed and assimilated Stravinsky’s musical achievements and Nijinsky’s groundbreaking choreography.  Yet when one thinks of what the work must have represented in 1913 – how shocking and advanced it was – it only adds to our appreciation of this seminal piece of art.

Thanks to Archer and Hodson’s exhaustive research, not only does the stage come alive with Nijinsky’s genius, but also with Nicholas Roerich’s sparkling backdrops and costumes.  An archaeologist, folklorist, and painter, Roerich worked closely with Stravinsky on the scenario for the ballet. The result is the perfect marriage of music, visual art, and dance, which stands at the summit of artistic achievement.

The Joffrey Ballet

Under the baton of the Joffrey Ballet’s music director, Scott Speck, the orchestra –composed mainly of L.A. Opera musicians — did full credit to Stravinsky’s iconic score.  First, the plaintive bassoon wove its spell, then as other instruments joined in, the curtain rose on Roerich’s verdant landscape.  As the insistent pulse of the music gained momentum, the dancers, dressed in white, red, and ochre began the foot stomping choreography that so enraged Parisian audiences.  The men, crouched and bent, exploded into motion, their movements emanating from their hips and stomachs; the women raced in with their legs flying and then quickly reverted to flat feet with toes turned inward, their heads slanted on necks like rag dolls.  As I watched Act I, “The Adoration of the Earth” unfold, I felt as if I was witnessing early man’s encounter with the mysteries of existence.

Act II, “The Sacrifice,” features a circle of young girls trudging counter-clockwise in a fatal march towards destiny.  As the music grows ominous, the sacrificial maiden, dubbed The Chosen One, is forced into the center of the circle.  Men, dressed in bearskins, lumber onto the stage and surround her, pawing the earth with their feet like feral creatures.

The Joffrey Ballet

In a bravura performance, Erica Lynette Edwards danced an uncanny range of emotions, cycling from fear to supplication to anger, her body bursting into bent knee jumps, her hands chopping air, her arms flailing, her fists pounding the earth.  With knees shaking in terror, she spasmed into violent arcs and mad spinning – a dance to exhaustion and imminent death.

If the measure of a ballerina’s dramatic abilities in the nineteenth century repertory is Giselle and her mad scene, then surely the twentieth century standard should be the agonized terror of The Chosen One. Here we have a ballet for all time, a moment when sophisticated Western civilization meets the roots of man’s consciousness.

Opening the evening was Stanton Welch’s “Son of Chamber Symphony” with music by John Adams followed by Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain” with music by Arvo Pärt from “Tabula Rasa” and “Spiegel im Spiegel.” Both dances were an intelligent pairing with “Rite of Spring” bringing the radical artistic lessons of the past into the minimalist present.

“Son of Chamber Symphony,” with Adams’ winning score, was securely handled by the orchestra.  The ballet displayed the beauty of classical dance coupled with the geometric abstraction of bodies in space, defined by the elegant lines of legs and arms and the sharply spherical tutus that bounced and swayed, taking on a life of their own.

“After the Rain” mesmerized, particularly when the female corps, exhibiting a strong technique, crouched in a row, each rotating a single leg in unison.  The movement seemed to refer to the hands of a clock, circling the dial, as time and the music flowed on.  The reverence on display in Pärt’s music was at its height in “Spiegel im Spiegel,” when, against a rose colored background, Victoria Jaiani and Fabrice Calmels danced a stirring pas de deux.

With “Rite of Spring” and these two additions to their repertory, the Joffrey dancers once again prove a company worthy of the treasures of the world’s most interesting choreographers.

To read more reviews and posts by Jane Rosenberg click HERE.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Jane Rosenberg is the author and illustrator of  SING ME A STORY: The Metropolitan Opera’s Book of Opera Stories for Children.  Jane is also the author and illustrator of DANCE ME A STORY: Twelve Tales of the Classic Ballets.

To read more iRoM reviews by Jane Rosenberg click HERE.

Ballet: The National Ballet of Canada’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

By Jane Rosenberg

In a rut?  No need for magic mushrooms or secret elixirs to transport you to another mind set.  A trip to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles for the National Ballet of Canada’s U.S. premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” ought to do the trick.  And if you think Lewis Carroll would be surprised to see his White Rabbit dive through a wobbly jelly mold to access Wonderland, think again.  With artistry, imagination, and twenty-first century technology, Carroll’s beloved tale of sense and nonsense comes to manic life.

With his first full-length ballet, Christopher Wheeldon, former New York City Ballet principal and resident choreographer, scored a mega-wattage hit.  In collaboration with the playwright, Nicholas Wright, he has conceived of an older Alice with a romantic interest, in order to create an overarching narrative in the tradition of nineteenth century story ballets.  There the similarity ends, however.  This is contemporary sensibility all the way, from Joby Talbot’s eclectic score to Bob Crowley’s stunning sets and costumes to Jon Driscoll and Gemma Carrington’s brilliantly realized video projections.

Opening on a summer afternoon, we are outside an imposing façade in the garden of the Liddell family (Carroll’s inspiration for Alice being the young Alice Liddell) where friends and family assemble for a garden party, among them Lewis Carroll, himself.  Here we meet the gardener’s son, Jack, who becomes the Knave of Hearts in Wonderland and Alice’s love interest. When Jack is banished from the garden by Alice’s domineering mother, Carroll comforts a disheartened Alice by taking her photograph.  Draped under the camera cloth, he twitches and twists, coming to life as the White Rabbit.  Plunging into the ever-expanding jelly mould sitting on a platter, with Alice close on his heels, the Rabbit takes off for Wonderland and we follow for the wild and rollicking ride to come!

Sonia Rodriguez

A puppet Alice, swirling Escher-inspired video of a trip down the abyss to Wonderland, stacks of Edward Gorey-like doors, a rain of confetti on the audience, Alice’s pool of tears conceived as a Baroque opera set with an animal water ballet, a pig butchery with a Sweeny Todd-ish cook, a demented Duchess channeling Frederick Ashton, and near strangulation by sausage links; and we have a visual feast to knock any Disney production off the block.  And this is only Act One.  With so much to see and so much to absorb, the feast was in danger of overfeeding the audience.  More mime than dance, too much information – programmatically, visually, and even musically – overwhelmed the senses. The orchestra, under the baton of David Briskin, met all the demands of the shimmering score brilliantly.

Sonia Rodriguez

It was with a sigh of relief, then, that Act II opened quietly on a darkened stage with a beautiful and poetic Cheshire Cat puppet floating, disembodied, around Alice.  Alice, danced pitch perfect by Sonia Rodriguez, who at forty is uncannily able to portray a teen-aged Alice in all her eager innocence, was never off the stage in a role that required performing choreography both classic and contemporary, lyrical and angular.  No tourist in Wonderland, this Alice participated, injected in every dance sequence.  When she arrived at the mad tea party, she found the Mad Hatter tap dancing inside a re-creation of an English Toy Theater, and jumped up to share the stage with him.  A Mad Tapper – what a marvelous invention – the role originating with Steven McRae, a noted tap dancer.  Robert Stephen, who performed on Friday night, seemed a bit tentative in the tap sequences, his ballet posture unable to adjust to what one assumed should be jazzier body language.

Sonia Rodriguez

Alice escaped the Hatter, the sleepy Dormouse, and the mischievous March Hare to find herself alone and lost, in search of the Knave of Hearts, whom she has glimpsed in the first act.  Knowing from the White Rabbit that they are all headed for the garden, Alice asked the way of a hookah-smoking caterpillar, danced by Jiri Jelinek.  In a sensuously choreographed sequence, the caterpillar and his entourage of female attendants put me in mind of the “Arabian Coffee” divertissement from “Nutcracker.” Jelinek managed the clever choreography, pumping his stomach like a belly dancer, while exuding intensely masculine charm.

Alice found her way to the flower garden, and we finally experienced Wheeldon’s mastery of ensemble choreography.  To a waltz that sounded like Johann Strauss on magic mushrooms, the flowers bent and swayed: part Petipa, part Busby Berkeley, yet overlaid with Wheeldon’s sense of humor.  And in classic tradition, the Knave, as danced by the virtuosic Guillaume Cote, partnered Rodriguez in a tender pas de deux.

When the curtain rose on the fabulous Queen’s garden of Act III, the audience let out an audible gasp of astonishment. This scene was perfection, not only in its interpretation of Carroll’s tale, but also for the clever and hilarious choreography.  An opening pas de trois for three gardeners, who unsuccessfully attempted to paint the roses red; followed by ballerinas bedecked as flamingos; and four small children tumbling across the stage as hedgehog croquet balls was an imaginative delight.

Greta Hodgkinson

But the award for the wackiest, most inspired performance of the ballet goes to Greta Hodgkinson as the Red Queen. In a musical and choreographic spoof of the “Rose Adagio” from “Sleeping Beauty,” Hodgkinson danced, not with Aurora’s four princely suitors, but with four terrified, browbeaten cards.  Alternately posing sweetly in attitude or glaring angrily, she was lifted off her feet, only to be deposited unceremoniously on the ground. And instead of offering roses, the cards handed her jam tarts, as she stuffed her face and danced.

Aleksandar Antonijevic

In the courtroom scene, stacked mile high with cards, we were treated to dancing hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds, a vaudevillian solo for the White Rabbit danced splendidly by Aleksandar Antonijevic, and a pas de deux of the Queen and Executioner. The Canadian company shines through this and every scene with their high level of craft and artistry.  Though Alice danced tenderly with the Knave of Hearts (Here Talbot’s music, so magical throughout, was at its weakest, conjuring sounds of bombastic movie soundtracks.), the Queen remained unmoved and ordered his execution for stealing the tarts.  With no hope in sight, Alice knocked over a witness, causing a domino effect, as all assembled toppled over.  Alice and the Knave made their escape, and Alice was propelled back into the real world – one with a slightly different spin than the opening scene and rather intriguing in its message: that despite the fact that Carroll’s novel was penned nearly 150 years ago, it’s as fresh and timeless as the day it was published.

The ballet is on view at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles through October 21^st and will travel to the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. in January 2013.

Sonia Rodriguez photos by Bruce Zinger.

Greta Hodgkinson and Aleksandar Antonijevic photos by Cylla von Tiedemann.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Jane Rosenberg is the author and illustrator of  SING ME A STORY: The Metropolitan Opera’s Book of Opera Stories for Children.  Jane is also the author and illustrator of DANCE ME A STORY: Twelve Tales of the Classic Ballets.

To read more iRoM reviews by Jane Rosenberg click HERE.

Live Dance: Akram Khan’s “Vertical Road” at Royce Hall

BY JANE ROSENBERG

A darkened stage, the sound of running water, a translucent curtain covering the breadth of the stage, and a barely perceptible figure behind it.  As the figure pushes his head against the plastic sheeting, desperate to emerge, intent on entering our world, we find ourselves propelled into the mythic world of Akram Khan’s Vertical Road.

Akram Khan Dance Company

The Los Angeles audience for contemporary dance gathered for a CAP UCLA program at Royce Hall Friday night to witness Khan’s company perform a work that grappled with a subject that has engaged the poets, philosophers, and scientists of every generation: man’s place in the cosmos and his need to understand it.  From man’s birth, through the nature of the animal self, to the pursuit of enlightenment, the choreography attempted to reflect man’s struggle to gain knowledge.

The opening of the piece was visually stunning.  Our hero, the dancer Salah El Brogy, moved against the sheeting, and with the sound of water as accompaniment, we witnessed a metaphorical “ultrasound” of the womb.  Then the “child,” in a flurry of movement set the plastic sheeting rippling in concentric waves, and with that gesture, the throbbing, pulsing dance of the tribe began.  Dancers gathered in the foreground like nomads on the desert, while our hero, off to the side, “played” alone, soon to be inexorably pulled into the dynamic of the group.  The music, composed by Nitin Sawhney, intensified, evolving into a roar of pounding beats.  Powdery dust flew spectacularly from the stamping bodies of the seven dancers.  Their movements — rising out of rounded backs and hunched shoulders — grew into violent arcs, rising arms, and spinning torsos.  This was ensemble dancing at its best.

Akram Khan Dance Company

For the first half of the seventy-minute piece, Khan’s narrative intentions seemed coherent.  Though there was no programmatic explanation of his drama, I followed his references, as he seemed to trace man’s evolution in his quest for meaning. Kathak dance of India, a strong influence on Kahn’s work, with its ritualized dance forms and ancient sources, fit neatly into his storytelling bent.  Rumi’s poetry and Sufi traditions were referenced.  And the Mahabharata, the Sanskrit epic that follows the fates of battling princes (alluded to in the costumes designed by Kimie Nakano) lent a mythic quality to the dance drama.

But the very notion of epic storytelling was also the piece’s undoing.  Without any specificity as to what the action represented, after the first half my mind worked overtime to follow the unfolding dance.  Rite of Spring, Nijinsky’s historic work, still startling in its daring dance forms and Stravinsky’s visceral score, had clarity of purpose.  And though the ballet was ritualistic, fierce, and abstract in nature, it’s tribal dances followed an unmistakable line of thought.

The Minimalist principles of abstract dance follow a logic and structure.  Clearly, Kahn was not after abstraction.  He favored narrative where it intersected myth.  And though the dancers’ fine performances drew on movements from world dance, often achieving mythic proportions, it was unsustainable as patterns unraveled, leaving solo dancers and duos dancing beautifully, but unfocused, as the piece unwound.  Towards the end of the work, the plastic sheeting, once again, became a breathtaking canvas for a shadow play of dance, reminiscent of the shadow puppetry of Asia.  I couldn’t help but feel that with the visual acumen of Kahn and his lighting designer, Jesper Kongshaug, the piece was exploring fascinating territory, often achieving heights of beauty, but would have benefited from a shortened, more concise vision.

In spite of my reservations, however, I can’t help but applaud a choreographer, who, in spite of our society’s race to master technologies and speed through existence, feels an imperative to slow down and search for layers of meaning within his art form.

Photos courtesy of CAP UCLA.

.

Jane Rosenberg is the author and illustrator of  SING ME A STORY: The Metropolitan Opera’s Book of Opera Stories for Children.  Jane is also the author and illustrator of DANCE ME A STORY: Twelve Tales of the Classic Ballets.

To read more iRoM reviews by Jane Rosenberg click HERE.

Dance and Visual Art: Sharon Lockhart/Noa Eshkol at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through September 9

By Jane Rosenberg

Modern art and dance had a unique relationship in the world of twentieth century performance.  To name a few collaborations: Robert Rauschenberg and Merce Cunningham, Alex Katz and Paul Taylor, Isamu Noguchi and Martha Graham.  And early in the century, Ballet Russes choreographers such as Fokine, Massine, Nijinsky, and Nijinska utilized the artistic genius of Bakst, Benois, Goncharova, Picasso, and Matisse.

At LACMA, in a somewhat different vein, a singular collaboration between artist and choreographer is on view.  Consisting of five freestanding screens, a film installation by artist Sharon Lockhart displays dancers from Noa Eshkol’s Israeli company performing her system of movement.  Visually arresting, these horizontal screens inhabit the galleries, offering the viewer an intimate relationship with the dancers, who, projected life-size, move across our field of vision in hypnotic patterns.

To be precise, the photographer/filmmaker Sharon Lockhart’s collaboration is with the Noa Eshkol Foundation.  The Israeli choreographer died in 2007 at the age of 83, and it was her foundation that approved the filmmaker’s proposal in 2008.  The company, consisting of both younger and older dancers, offers us a glimpse into the mind of Eshkol, largely unknown outside of Israel.  Eshkol, along with architect Avraham Wachman, created the Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation system, “a combination of symbols and numbers to define the motion of any limb around its joint, this system can describe virtually every perceptible movement of the body.”

Faces impassive, dressed in black footless tights and black leotards, the dancers, move to the rhythm of a metronome, the only “music” in any of the dances.  To call them dances seems somehow imprecise.  It might be more appropriate to call them kinetic sculpture. Sometimes circling one another like warriors, sometimes moving like sleepwalkers on a nighttime prowl, or shamans praising the sun, the dancers offer up a catalogue of Eshkol’s fascinating gestures, putting the viewer in mind of tai chi, tribal rituals, animals and birds.  The LACMA website describes her work as “dance practice”; Eshkol chose to call it chamber dance – either description fits; and seen in five minute segments, it rewards the spectator who is willing to stand and focus.

Interestingly, there are no benches provided, and many museum goers gave the dances a cursory glance and moved on, which made me ask: is this work that can be sustained in live performance as dance concert or is it simply illustrated notation brought to life – a demonstration rather than a performance?  No matter what the answer, the conceptual and minimalist nature of Eshkol’s practice seems most aligned to the investigations of the visual artists who rose to prominence in the sixties and seventies, such as Sol Lewitt, Kenneth Snelson, and Agnes Martin to name a few.  Further proof of Eshkol’s allegiance to minimalist structures is evidenced in Sharon Lockhart’s attractive photos of wire and mesh models created by Eshkol and Wachman as teaching tools.  They are described as “models of Orbits in the System of Reference.” These beautifully constructed pieces illuminate in three dimensions the Eshkol/Wachman system and bring to mind Russian Constructivism, an art movement that had a profound impact on the Minimalist art that followed. Pages of notation, drawings, and archival material shown alongside the photos shed light on Eshkol’s concerns.

Also on display are “wall carpets” created by Eshkol from found and donated fabric scraps, which are entirely independent of her dance investigations.  Lockhart found these textiles interesting and chose to place them in the films as improvised set design.  This is not only the weakest decision in the show, but also absolutely contrary to Eshkol’s desire to have her dances performed without the interference of sets or costumes.  Unhappily, Lockhart manages to not only distract us from the dances, but also undermines the purity of her own filmmaking as well as the purity of the choreographer’s compositions.

Nevertheless, without Lockhart’s efforts to intertwine their two sensibilities, the “dialogue” between filmmaker and choreographer would not exist and those of us outside Israel would have been the poorer for it.

* * * * * * * *

.

.

Jane Rosenberg is the author and illustrator of DANCE ME A STORY: Twelve Tales of the Classic Ballets

Jane is also the author and illustrator of  SING ME A STORYa: The Metropolitan Opera’s Book of Opera Stories for Children. 

To read more reviews by Jane Rosenberg click HERE.

Photos courtesy of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Live Music: The American Contemporary Ballet in a Da Camera Society Concert

By Jane Rosenberg

George Balanchine’s spirit hovered over a concrete warehouse on Friday evening, when the Da Camera Society in partnership with American Contemporary Ballet offered a pleasing mix of chamber music and dance.

Performing at the audience’s eye level on a padded masonite floor, the musicians and dancers occupied a loft-like space constructed of cinderblock (with carpet padding part of the walls to create an acoustically acceptable arena).  I mention this to set the stage for an evening that was unique in some ways, disappointing in others.

It’s always a treat to sit in proximity to musicians, something the Da Camera Society, with its mission of playing chamber music in historic sites, has been offering the grateful concertgoers of Los Angeles for over thirty years.  Placing the group in a modern industrial venue was both exciting and inspired – an integration of the classical with the avant-garde. But the intimacy between dancers and audience, unlike that of chamber music, is a rare occurrence, unless one is privileged enough to sit in the rehearsal studio of a ballet company.

The American Contemporary Ballet.  L-R: Marie Buser, Abby Avery, Theresa Farrell and Zsolt Banki

So when the dancers of ACB took to the floor for Josquiniana by Charles Wuorinen, after music attributed to Josquin des Prez, anticipation was high.  Dressed in the classic dance uniform of pink tights and black leotards, the dancers Theresa Farrell, Regina Park Suh, Sara Stockwell, and Marie Buser were partnered by Zsolt Banki – the lone male dancer of the company.  Though lovely as it was to occupy the same space as the dancers, I never felt that I had left the rehearsal studio.  The dances seemed unresolved, never quite growing into a fully formed work.

Lincoln Jones, the artistic director and choreographer for the troop drew heavily on Balanchine’s vocabulary, and so my mind couldn’t help but wander to the master’s innovations.  To name one: Balanchine’s ballet, Duo Concertant, in which pianist and violinist, in intimate relationship to a pair of dancers, play Stravinsky’s piece on the stage. More than mere accompaniment, the music inhabits every gesture, every movement.  Had Jones been more innovative, the comparison wouldn’t have leapt to the forefront.

Still, there were moments of individuality in Josquiniana, particularly in the second section, with the lovely offhandedness of a coyly gesturing Regina Park Suh, the most musical dancer of the ensemble.  And the push-pull partnering of Zsolt Banki and Sara Stockwell when, after a symbiotic pas de deux, he releases her to dance alone like a colt on newfound legs.   The string quartet played Wourinen’s settings (composed 2002) of six secular works by the Flemish master, des Prez, in regal style, yet delved deep to produce warmth and luster.

The second ballet of the evening, to Benjamin Britten’s sprightly and expressive Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 6 displayed more finely honed ensemble dancing.  Once again, Balanchine loomed large as the repetitive hip thrusts in Jones’s choreography channeled the maestro’s ballet The Four Temperaments.  Missing, however, was the razor sharp footwork needed to carry off a Balanchine-inspired creation.  Britten’s music was a perceptive and appealing choice for a ballet and was played to full effect by Tereza Stanislav and Kevin Fitz-Gerald.

Without the accompaniment of dance, the DaCamera players: Tereza Stanislav and Norman Brick on violin, Robert Brophy on viola, John Walz on cello, Fitz-Gerald on piano, and Edward Murray on harpsichord brought a thoroughly engaged audience the music of Walter Piston and Henry Purcell.

Stanislav and Murray opened the evening with Piston’s neoclassical Sonatina for Violin and Harpsichord.  Stanislav’s performance brought out myriad textures and mood changes, while Murray’s harpsichord had an agile and fluid character. In the final section, the cascading notes of the harpsichord juxtaposed with the legato line of the violin were compelling.  Interspersed between the dances, two Purcell trios, Sonata No. 7 in E and Sonata No. 9 in F, were beautifully rendered by Stanislav, Norman Brick, Walz, and Murray. There was something magical about hearing Purcell’s glorious chamber music echoing throughout an industrial space devoid of baroque associations – the past and the present merging into perfect harmony.

As for the fledgling ACB, they’ve embarked on an innovative way to showcase dance, and, as the company grows and matures, one looks forward to their contribution to the L.A. dance scene.

Photo by Damon Casarez.

.

.

Jane Rosenberg is the author and illustrator of DANCE ME A STORY: Twelve Tales of the Classic Ballets

Jane is also the author and illustrator of SING ME A STORY: The Metropolitan Opera’s Book of Opera Stories for Children. 

Live Ballet: Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet at Royce Hall

By Jane Rosenberg

The UCLA Dance department and dance lovers from all over Los Angeles turned out Friday night at Royce Hall for the first of two UCLA Live performances by the singular Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.  With versatile dancers who are as comfortable en pointe as they are perched flat footed on tabletops, the Cedar Lake ensemble of sixteen dancers executed the three evening’s offerings with arresting style.

On a bare set, white paper helixes suspended above them, the dancers proved their mettle in Regina van Berkel’s poetic ballet, Simply Marvel. Nowhere else was their versatility more in evidence, as when elegant classical line merged and morphed into modernist gesture.  Accompanied by a recording of solo piano, the first variation offered more posing than dancing and a series of disconnected, seemingly chaotic patterns. Rather than the music propelling the dance forward, it created a mood of contemplation, interrupted by sudden outbursts of movement that worked in juxtaposition to the score.

When the piano concluded and the violin took up one of Paganini’s Variations, the mood changed and the piece took off.  Partnerings became compelling; patterns gained in interest and complexity; and humor was injected into the proceedings.  There was a freshness and vibrancy to the dancing, particularly in the lovely lyricism of Soojin Choi.  The insouciant pseudo-tutus on the ballerinas and peplum vests on the male dancers abetted the humor, reminding me of a Commedia dell’Arte cast of characters and their childlike antics.

Echoing footsteps, the roar of traffic and trains, relentlessly coming and going, provided the soundtrack for Crystal Pite’s Grace Engine.  With Jim French’s stark lighting, she has created a dystopian universe set in a black void with a single neon strip of light to illuminate the chaos on stage.  This dance/drama is an apocalyptic vision of man trying to cope in a hostile world. Left to crawl, hobble, and struggle against an invisible crowd, a single male dancer opened the drama.  More frightened characters entered, all dressed in dull business attire, all at the mercy of forces beyond their control.  They appeared to be faceless, nameless workers, toiling in a subterranean world, attacked by a row of flashing floodlights that suggested approaching subway trains.  Running away from pursuers or facing off in lines approximating a gang war or crazed sporting event, they found no relief from their crippling anxiety.

All this was admirably conveyed with movement, sound, and light; undercut when the dancers occasionally contorted their faces into screaming masks of pain – then the piece became too literal minded and lost some of its power.  In an all male pas de quatre, the dancers effectively segued from classical form to the rigorous movement-vocabularly of Pite.  Two pas des deux, one all female, offered the only moments of real human contact, but true to Pite’s vision, they were moments of shared pain, devoid of warmth or eroticism.  In another potent sequence, the dancers, their arms connected, formed an anguished parade, marching without volition into an indifferent world.

Concluding the program was Alexander Ekman’s Hubbub, a comical romp, set in a rehearsal hall where an omniscient narrator provided the voice-over for the doings of the dancers.  Alternately teasing the audience or satirizing the art of contemporary performance, the narrator unfortunately overpowered the proceedings.  The dance had humor and charm, but the drone of the overly long voice-over distracted.  A few choice comments would have sufficed, and then, the joke understood, we could be left in peace to appreciate Ekman’s choreography.

Toppled chairs and bodies in varying states of crooked repose opened the piece. The ensemble put us through the paces of ballet basics, ending ultimately in invented, comic positions.  In one inspired section, the dancers’ breaths grew louder and louder until its rhythms sounded like a locomotive, and the performers became engines of their own creation as they heaved and rocked in synchronization.  In another charming variation, a couple rehearsed a dance, accompanied by a background track of their internal thoughts – clipped choreographic directions or bemused commentary on their states of mind.  This created an hilarious push and pull of comic brilliance – a kind of Annie Hall/Alvie Singer delight, danced effectively by Nickemil Concepcion and Harumi Terayama.

All and all a provocative and fascinating night of dance provided by the exhilarating Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.

* * * * * *

Jane Rosenberg is the author and illustrator of DANCE ME A STORY: Twelve Tales of the Classic Ballets and SING ME A STORY: The Metropolitan Opera’s Book of Opera Stories for Children. 

Jane has also just published “The Story of La Boheme,”  an online flip book, in cooperation with the Los Angeles Opera,  based on the story and the art from “La Boheme” in her book, “Sing Me A Story.”

Photo by Francois Rousseau courtesy of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.

Ballet: The San Francisco Ballet’s “Nutcracker”

By Jane Rosenberg

Last Wednesday my twenty-three-year-old daughter surprised me with matinee tickets to the San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker, on view through December 27 at the War Memorial Opera House. Premiering in 2004 and choreographed by Helgi Tomasson, the company’s artistic director (and a famous alumni of New York City Ballet), this production offers as many delights as the renowned Balanchine version.  Forgoing the usual nineteenth century German setting, we find ourselves in San Francisco in the year of the Panama Pacific International Exposition.  Everything, from the costumes to the sets to the characters inhabiting the comfortable San Francisco town house of Act One, is rendered with such intelligence and taste that the transformation to early twentieth century America seems wholly believable and natural.

From the moment the overture of Tchaikovsky’s glorious score began, played with Christmas spirit by the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, we were plunged into the life and times of 1915 San Francisco.  A policeman, a flower seller, a delivery man, a nanny with a pram, a pair of nuns all toddled across the stage against a backdrop of beautifully realized middle class townhouses, created by scenic designer, Michael Yeargan.  Herr Drosselmeyer, the toymaker, has left his shop carrying a large package and joined the parade going by, to finally enter the bustling party inside the Stahlbaum house.

When the dancing began in Act One of this delightful production, we knew we were in for two hours of ballet performed at the highest level.  A lovely young dancer, Fiona Zhong, inhabited Clara, here recast as a slightly older teenager, nearing womanhood.  Val Caniparoli as a dignified Drosselmeyer was captivating in his role as the magical toymaker, creator of wonders. And the wonders began when a life size Harlequin tumbled out of a giant box.  Among the most memorable choreography of the ballet, this doll, as danced by Francisco Mungamba, stretched and slid across the floor in a costume of brilliant yellows, part rubber Gumby, part ragdoll.  As the grandfather, Sebastian Vinet was an intoxicated delight, and as his regal wife, Patricia Keleher completed the pairing.

Nowhere in this production was the excitement more palpable than after the guests departed, and Clara was left to witness the transformation of her living room into a bewitched battleground.  The tree, the gifts, the furniture grew as Clara dashed to and fro.  No sleepy witness, Clara took an active part in the battle that followed.

Organized, fanciful, and daring all at once, this battle of mice and men took on an almost heroic glow.  No slipper would do here to distract the Mouse King from stabbing the Nutcracker.  Instead, Clara marshaled a regiment to carry in a giant mousetrap.  With a snap, the King was caught, allowing the Nutcracker to thrust his sword and claim the day.

Drosselmeyer then reappeared and transformed the Nutcracker, at Clara’s behest, into a Prince, danced expressively by Jaime Garcia Castilla.  Clara and her prince shared a brief pas de deux before their surroundings morphed into the Land of Snow.  I found myself missing the excitement of Clara journeying out into the snowy night, but all was well with the arrival of the Snow Queen, danced with crystalline delicacy by Wan Ting Zhao and her King, Daniel Deivison. Unfortunately, the live children’s chorus, which normally adds such exuberance to the scene was not heard at this matinee. With Tomasson’s satisfyingly classical choreography, however, we reveled in the sheer beauty of line and pattern of the dancing snowflakes.

The second act found Clara and her prince not in the Land of Sweets, but in a Crystal Palace – a reflection of the 1915 exhibition.  Instead of the usual candy infused greeting, Clara was met by ladybugs, dragonflies, and butterflies.  Though the set was modest, with each divertissement, the lighting, designed by James Ingalls, changed color; and stylized objects appeared: fans, a tent, an Aladdin’s lamp, Russian Easter eggs, even a dancing dragon. The effect was charming.  The dancing was charming as well: notably the French showgirls with twirling ribbons, the Russian dancers, Benjamin Stewart, Daniel Baker, and Francisco Mungamba (choreographed by Anatole Vilzak in 1986), and Madame du Cirque complete with little clowns and a dancing bear.  The only disappointment was the Arabian Dance.  Though the arrival of Arabian Coffee in an Aladdin’s Lamp carried by two attendants was inspired, the choreography failed to reflect the sensuousness of Tchaikovsky’s score.

The Waltz of the Flowers was beautiful for its changing patterns, but lacked an intensity to match the score.  The Sugar Plum Fairy of Courtney Elizabeth, her role curtailed in this production, danced majestically.  In a surprising twist, Sugar Plum no longer danced the grand pas de deux with her cavalier.  Instead, the fairy escorted young Clara into a magical cabinet, only to disappear and reappear as her adult self.  The adult Clara danced with the Nutcracker Prince, lending emotional power and poignancy to the pas de deux. It is the dream of adulthood as envisioned by a child, and the effect was poetic in concept and execution. Frances Chung was a glowing Clara, and Castilla matched her in grace and power.

The matinee audience, comprised largely of mothers with their velveted and beribboned little daughters, sat for two glorious hours, wholly transported to a fairy tale world.  So complete was the magic that my grown daughter, a writer and baker living in San Francisco, turned to me and, half in jest, said, “I want to be a ballerina when I grow up.”  Me too.

Illustration ©1985 by Jane Rosenberg.  Photos courtesy of the San Francisco Ballet.

Jane Rosenberg is the author and illustrator of DANCE ME A STORY: Twelve Tales of the Classic Ballets and SING ME A STORY: The Metropolitan Opera’s Book of Opera Stories for Children. 

Ballet: The Joffrey Ballet’s “Nutcracker” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

By Jane Rosenberg

Whenever I approach a production of the “Nutcracker,” I bring along my seven-year-old self and wait expectantly for the holiday fantasy to begin.  Thursday night at the opening performance of the Joffrey Ballet’s “Nutcracker” was no exception.  I never tire of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic tale or of Tchaikovsky’s perfect ballet score, and when the house lights dim, I’m transported, whether to nineteenth century Nuremberg or, as in the case of the Joffrey production, to America circa 1850.

Did the Joffrey production, conceived by Robert Joffrey, with additional choreography by Gerald Arpino, meet my expectations both as child and adult?  The answer is yes and no.  The excitement of Christmas, set in a suitably cozy and inviting house, was conveyed in Act 1; and both Clara, danced on opening night by Anastacia Holden, and Fritz, danced by Ricardo Santos, brought a sense of childlike eagerness to their respective roles.

Anastacia Holden

Holden, petite and believable as an adolescent girl, harmonized beautifully with the real children around her; and Santos was exceptional in his portrayal of her taunting and mischievous brother, adding levity and spice to the scene.

With the arrival of Godfather Drosselmeyer and his nephew, the plot begins in earnest.  Drosselmeyer was intriguingly captured by Michael Smith, playing a younger version of the usually white-haired godfather. This Drosselmeyer was more stage magician than eccentric toymaker, more Johnny Depp than Christopher Plummer.  All was well, and my child and adult selves were content, until I saw Drosselmeyer’s nephew beside Clara.  Though danced competently by Dylan Gutierrez his tall stature was entirely out of scale with Clara’s petite frame.  It felt as if a college grad had crashed a children’s party, and this lack of a believable pairing jarred me throughout.

Which brings me to another odd decision, this time a question of production rather than casting.  When the battle of the mice and toy soldiers erupted, where was Clara?  She was offstage – an unfortunate choice. Clara, frightened by the arrival of the mice, is normally left onstage to face the conflagration and witness her beloved Nutcracker about to be vanquished by the Mouse King. The audience feels for her, reacts with her; and Clara, overcoming her fear, throws her shoe and becomes the instrument of the Nutcracker’s salvation.  Instead, here she was ferried on high by Drosselmeyer and “dropped in” to drop the shoe.  It is Clara’s bravery in the face of her fear that makes her truly heroic.  Her heroism is rewarded by a fabulous journey to the Land of Sweets, where her act of bravery is applauded by the inhabitants and the Sugar Plum Fairy.  In this version, when Gutierrez as the Nutcracker prince/nephew recounted Clara’s heroic deed in mime, we could only wonder why she deserved our admiration.

Nevertheless, there’s a lot for any adult or seven-year-old to love in this Nutcracker: the marvelous owl clock, ticking away like Tick-Tock from The Wizard of Oz books; Drosselmeyer’s mechanical dolls in their Commedia dell’Arte costumes; the shimmering Christmas tree that grows before our eyes, the battling mice riding ratback, and best of all, the sixty talented children who perform throughout the acts, along with the voices of the Los Angeles based National Children’s Chorus.

Their rapturous voices are heard in the exquisite music of Act One, Scene Three as twinkling paper snow billows down onto the dancing snowflakes.  Tchaikovsky’s music, interpreted in this production by the excellent LA Opera Orchestra, all but defines Christmas and the marvels of a winter wonderland.  The corps looked sharp as dancing snowflakes led by their Snow Queen, Kara Zimmerman, who also took a sinuous and seductive turn as Arabian Coffee in Act Two. Ricardo Santos, dancing as the Snow Prince, again gives a joyous performance, leaping with exquisite abandon and musicality into his jumps and turns despite the hazards of fifty pounds of paper snow on the stage floor.

The sets by Oliver Smith for Acts One and Two are pleasant enough, but once we arrive in the Land of Sweets, I found myself asking, where are the candy canes, gumdrops, gingerbread, and all manner of sugar that should form the scenery for the divertissements to follow?  After twenty odd years, the wan pink set looked more like a backdrop for a 1950’s variety show than a modern child’s fantasy of candy land.  And yet, the background melts away as we watch spicy Hot Chocolate (Valerie Robin), sultry Coffee (Kara Zimmerman and Fabrice Calmels), playful Tea (Abigail Simon and Ricardo Santos), Russian Nougats (all four marvelously danced by Erica Edwards, Derrick Agnoletti, John Giragosian, and Alberto Velazquez), and charming Marzipan Shepherdesses (a delightful pas de trois for Katherine Bruno, Yumelia Garcia, and Caitlin Meighan).

When Mother Ginger, conceived as a giant puppet by Kermit Love, waddled onstage bearing her little clowns, there was an audible cooing among the audience.  And when scores of children toddled out from under her skirts, so total was the pleasure that when Mother Ginger took her leave, a tiny voice in the audience on Thursday night shouted “ No! Don’t go bye-bye!”

The rapturous Waltz of the Flowers was notable for a lovely pas de trois, but all the dance sequences felt oddly punctuated by Herr Drosselmeyer who, in this version, inserts himself into the proceedings as a kind of impresario – a role normally bestowed on the Sugar Plum Fairy. Victoria Jaini, as Thursday night’s Sugar Plum, was elegant and technically precise, but lacking in poetic nuance.  Partnered by Gutierrez, they proved a better match than his Act One pairing with Holden’s Clara.

Instead of Clara’s departure for home in the usual sleigh, Drosselmeyer and Clara fly home in a hot-air balloon.  A fanciful and inventive touch, I couldn’t help but think of the Wizard and Dorothy.  How about a new production of the Nutcracker set in 1900’s Kansas?  In the meantime, Los Angeles, with its real and imagined seven-year-olds, has the good fortune to have the Joffrey Nutcracker here until Sunday.

Illustrations ©1985 by Jane Rosenberg.  Photos courtesy of the Joffrey Ballet.  Anastacia Holden photo by Herbert Migdoll.

 

Jane Rosenberg is the author and illustrator of DANCE ME A STORY: Twelve Tales of the Classic Ballets and SING ME A STORY: The Metropolitan Opera’s Book of Opera Stories for Children. 

Ballet: “The Bright Stream” from the American Ballet Theater at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

By Jane Rosenberg

Where in Los Angeles can you see a Shakespearian, gender bending romantic comedy of mistaken identities, replete with a milkmaid cavorting with a tractor driver, a dog riding a bicycle, a swaggering accordionist, an-anxious-to-be younger-than-she-is flirt, and Death wielding a scythe, all set in a collective farm in the steppes of the North Caucasus?  It’s on view at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and it’s the astonishing ballet entitled The Bright Stream by the Russian choreographer, Alexei Ratmansky.

The American Ballet Theatre in "The Bright Stream"

After premiering with the Bolshoi Ballet, where Ratmansky was the artistic director for a number of years, The Bright Stream became part of the America Ballet Theatre‘s repertory in January of 2011.  We have the good fortune to have it on view at the Music Center through Sunday, July 17.  Brave the freeways despite the 405 closure, and drive to the Dorothy Chandler; because if you see only one ballet this year, this should be it.

The original ballet, composed by Dimitri Shostakovich and choreographed by Fyodor Lopukhov, premiered in Stalinist Russia in 1935.  A light-hearted romp, it was one of a genre of “tractor ballets” extolling the virtues of Soviet agriculture.  Too irreverent for Stalin’s taste and purposes, The Bright Stream was cancelled: the choreographer lost his job, the librettist, Adrian Piotrovsky, was exiled to the Gulag, and Shostakovich never composed another ballet score.  And what a score it is: breezy, syncopated rhythms, jazzy waltzes, poignant adagios.  No wonder Ratmansky wanted to restore this lost ballet.  The music alone made me want to jump out of my seat and dance.  All that was left of the original choreography were Lopukhov’s notes.  So much the better, as it left Ratmansky on his own to unleash his own choreographic wonders.

Those wonders are based on the academic vocabulary of dance.  Unlike many of his contemporaries,  who see the venerable dictionary of ballet steps as old-fashioned and prefer a postmodern interpretation of ballet, Ratmansky embraces them.  I imagine he thinks of them as his paint, paper, and paint brushes – fundamental tools of his art form.  And with these materials – the pas de bourrées, glissades, piqués, etc. he creates ballets that embody the beauty of classical dance but are surprisingly contemporary and idiosyncratic.

Although the farm collectives were disastrous to the Russian peasants, the ballet presents a comical version of their lives.  We enter a topsy-turvy world of joyful contradictions: sophisticated city folk romping with farmworkers; rich, elderly Dacha dwellers flirting with and partnered by youthful entertainers; a pas de deux with a man with a bicycle; and finally a male dancer on point disguised as a Romantic ballerina à la Giselle.  The plot is a frothy mass of flirtations and gender crossing disguises.  What shines through is the unique characterization of each and every soloist through the beautifully realized choreography.

Paloma Herrera and Marcelo Gomes

Paloma Herrera as Zina, the local amusements organizer, at once lovelorn, tender, funny, and defiant, has an ability to convey misery and grit with her beautifully articulated feet and undulating torso.  Marcelo Gomes as Pyotr, her womanizing husband, brought bravado to the role with his masterful dancing and flawless fouettés.  Gillian Murphy as the ballerina and Cory Stearns as the ballet dancer were a remarkable pair: Stearns on point in drag was hilarious and dazzling – his characterization right up there with the likes of Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in “Some Like it Hot.” And Murphy, likewise in drag, gave a splendid imitation of the ballet dancer.  In a simple yet audacious stroke of inspiration, Ratmansky had her dance the exact choreography given to Stearns at the ballet’s opening and she did it with spot-on male swagger.

Charm exuding from every glance and step, Maria Riccetto was delightful as the schoolgirl, as was Craig Salstein as the accordion player who romances her unsuccessfully but endears us to him in the process.  It was a delight to see Martine Van Hamel, who I remember so vividly in the roles of Myrta, Queen of the Willis, and Odette/Odile in her ABT principal days, dance the role of Anxious-to-be-younger-than-she-is Dacha Dweller with such verve and humor. Partnering her in the role of her roguish husband, Victor Barbee danced with finesse, flawless comic timing, and strength.

Highlanders, fieldworkers, peasant girls, old men – the ABT corps de ballet – danced as a true ensemble, making us believe in the life lived on stage, drawing us into Shostakovich’s and Ratmansky’s world. The Act 1 waltz with its lush beauty is the type of music usually reserved for palace ballrooms and danced by the nobility.  In The Bright Stream it was performed by the corps – a hodgepodge of workers and peasants – and the irony was sublime. Instead of a grand ballroom, we’re in a plowed field furnished with a tractor, lined with sunflowers, and the waltz was danced, not by the aristocracy but by the working class.

Transported by this exhilarating ballet, I found myself comparing Ratmansky to other brilliant choreographers: Nijinsky and Fokine for their Russian souls; Bournonville for his folk-style subjects and classic vocabulary of steps; Frederick Ashton for his tender story ballets full of goodwill and insightful interpretations of literary sources; Balanchine for his musicality and ability to show the female dancer in all her beauty; Robbins for his contemporary settings and humor merged with classic form.  And though all these influences are there in Ratmansky’s work, it is uniquely his own, leading us to believe that he might, someday, take his place among these masters of dance.

Photos courtesy of the American Ballet Theatre by Rosalie O’Connor.

Jane Rosenberg is the author and illustrator of DANCE ME A STORY: Twelve Tales from the Classic Ballets and SING ME A STORY: The Metropolitan Opera’s Book of Opera Stories for Children.