Ballet West: Balanchine's Ballets Russes

For the premiere of its 56th season, Ballet West is presenting a mammoth historic revival that also offers - and asks of audiences - something acutely new and different. Assembled for the 110th anniversary of the iconic and incomparable company the Ballets Russes, the bill includes three of George Balanchine’s oldest works, created during the years he spent experimenting with the Ballets Russes under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev: Le Chant du Rossignol, Apollo, and The Prodigal Son. 

The production, Balanchine’s Ballets Russes, is an impressive window to the inception of tools, images, and themes Balanchine would carry into the work he did throughout his lifetime. All of the flexion, angularity, layering of bodies, and familiar archetypes were evidently present even then, as were the first inklings of an ethos that would someday define an entirely new approach to ballet. These three one-act ballets are also an incredible view into the rich collaborative relationships fostered by the Ballets Russes, with opulent intricate costumes designed by Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault and scores by Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev. 

Ballet West’s casting for each ballet was gorgeous and precise. I especially enjoyed Adrian Fry, Katie Critchlow, Sayaka Ohtaki, and Beckanne Sisk in Apollo, and Hadriel Diniz opposite Katlyn Addison’s steely, nuanced Siren in The Prodigal Son. 

The three ballets were presented sequentially, in the order of their creation dates, which allowed the audience to trace the progressing results of Balanchine’s experimentation and collaboration. While each ballet was a stunning and cohesive achievement in its own right, each is now also made exponentially more powerful and relevant both through juxtaposition and a new ethos of presentation. 

The sparks that made this program truly noteworthy were fueled by its endeavor to be not just a series of beautiful ballets rich in legacy and refined in craft but also an ambitious, eye-opening, and socially conscious course of study. 

A bulk of this attention fell to the revival of Le Chant du Rossignol. Bringing back this lost piece of history demanded a precise and nuanced balancing act to recover its essential charm and beauty, as well as demonstrate its influence as Balanchine’s first ever work for the Ballets Russes – without the undertones of racist exoticism that infused the original. 

Addressing the racial and cultural issues at play with even more up-front and earnest clarity than during the redux of The Nutcracker’s Chinese divertissement last year, Ballet West took an approach involving partnerships with multiple specialist and community collaborators to effect this modernized revival. The process was three-fold: a project of in-depth research and dialogue; concrete changes made in response to that work; and a campaign to provide enrichment, transparency, and accessibility for audiences. 

Following extensive research done by the restaging team of Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, who recovered existing knowledge of the original production, Ballet West invited leaders of the Asian American community, including Phil Chan, of the organization Final Bow for Yellow Face, and local arts advocate Max Chang, into the rehearsal process to begin a dialogue and develop a path forward. This was followed by further discussions with and feedback from local schools and the general public, prior to opening weekend. 

It was wonderful to see Ballet West show up for this challenging, complex, and necessary conversation. It is also of utmost importance to note that Ballet West is responding to a pressure and cultural shift in the landscape that has been ongoing for some time now. The momentum begun and directed by dancers of color like Chan and his partner at Final Bow for Yellow Face, the New York City Ballet dancer Georgina Pazcoguin, may be attributed to the force now pushing companies across the country to expel outdated, harmful, or appropriative choreography in recent years. Final Bow’s website features a slew of information and resources for dancemakers looking to make more responsible choices and a pledge “committing [the signer] to speak up against Yellowface on our stages, and work[ing] to create more positive and nuanced representations of Asians in ballet.” Chan and Pazcoguin advise performing organizations in their re-staging of classic works, and, since 2017, have succeeded in gaining the pledges of nearly all major American ballet companies (information taken from the website and Instagram account of Final Bow for Yellowface). 

In Le Chant du Rossignol, these efforts culminated in the elimination of choices in costuming, choreography, and characterization that were deemed the most problematic. Ballet West has enumerated several of these changes, including the choreographic replacement of caricatured hand movement, shuffling of the feet, and bobbing of heads, and also specific changes to the makeup design for all characters to eliminate traces of yellowface and exaggerated exoticism. 

To me, these changes certainly appeared to result in a more respectful and educated perspective in performance. It felt less uncomfortable and upsetting than similar ballet productions I’ve attended previously. But, not being a member of the Chinese or Chinese American communities, it’s really not for me to say whether they went far enough in alleviating the damaging insensitivities of the past. I sincerely hope they did, so that those communities may feel seen, welcome, and respected. 

The final key to making these efforts truly effective was in the transparency and resources that Ballet West offered their audience to create an experience that far surpassed mere entertainment; the audience was expected to learn something. A program note four times longer than any I’ve seen before, from artistic director Adam Sklute, doubled as a history lesson; a letter from restagers Hodson and Archer about their process gave insight into their arduous treasure hunt, complete with juicy details from mythic figures of ballet past; multiple panels in the lobby covered costume design, reconstruction in conversation with representation, and the history of Chinese railroad workers here in Utah; and a letter from Phil Chan of Final Bow for Yellowface articulated the need for these kinds of changes and his experience with the production process (there was also a pre-performance lecture that I sadly couldn’t make it to). Many of these resources are also available online - they are fascinating and I would highly encourage anyone to make time to peruse them and then to visit yellowface.org for further context on the critical work that Final Bow for Yellowface is doing. 

It is incredible and exciting to see a company like Ballet West digging into and committing itself to a journey down this road. This performance was a very far cry from the experience I had just three years ago reviewing their production of Madame Butterfly for this publication, and I am grateful for the many voices inside of and outside this company that are pushing them into a new and better future. 

I hope to count on Ballet West’s future endeavors (looking at you, Nutcracker Arabian and sundry gendered stereotypes) following suit – no longer feeling indebted to a self-serving and self-destructing nostalgia but instead examining, creating, and re-creating with respect, accountability, and transparency. This willingness to adapt without preciousness and engage audiences and communities in meaningful conversation will be a vital new way for Ballet West to stoke fresh interest, provide leadership in the arts, and keep its legacy alive and vibrant. 

Ballet West’s Balanchine’s Ballets Russes continues through Saturday, November 2, with a matinee at 2 p.m. and a final performance at 7:30 p.m.

Emily Snow is a Denver native who now calls Salt Lake City home. She has most recently been seen performing with Municipal Ballet Co. and with Durian Durian, an art band that combines electronic music and postmodern dance.

Ballet West: Choreographic Festival

The future of ballet may very well look like the third annual Choreographic Festival presented by Ballet West, only more so. The performance itself was breathtaking. The sheer range and breadth of artistic perspectives, institutional development and support, and scaffolding of public engagement made it an unforgettable experience.

A night of mixed repertoire is expected to be stylistically diverse. The Festival’s choreographic works were diverse not only in style but also across vital metrics that may be consistently problematic in the culture and institutions of ballet.

Three of the five choreographers presented on the program were women, a noteworthy majority in a field in which women are radically underrepresented, or tokenized, in the commission and presentation of new works. A United States premiere performed by the Scottish Ballet and a premiere by the artistic director of another major American ballet company, BalletMet, were presented alongside three creations from Ballet West company artists. The Ballet West choreographers represented different ranks from within the company’s internal structure, as did the dancers each choreographer featured - ranging from the corps de ballet to principal artists.

In addition to the Festival’s performances, a screening of the documentary film Danseur on a previous night, with a post-film discussion led by professor and journalist Kate Mattingly; a visual art installation showcasing local artists; and a pre-performance lecture/Q & A with the program’s choreographers deftly mediated by Ballet West artistic director Adam Sklute all worked together to enliven the intimate Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center with a sense of community and critical viewership.

Sophie Laplane’s Sibilo opened the program with a joyful provocation superbly executed by the Scottish Ballet, for whom Laplane is choreographer-in-residence and a former dancer. As mentioned in the program notes and elaborated in the pre-performance lecture, Sibilo began as a silent duet articulating the two dancers’ personalities. The conceptual framework was drawn from pairing the duet with a whistled song, which then led to the commision of the original score and expansion of the ensemble piece.

The whistling theme threaded through an electronic pulse and drone, pacing the shifting vignettes. It began with four pairs of men in suits and women in dresses dancing in stunning unison. Fluid transitions through angular and iconic postures set the tone. A woman shed her outer layer to actively reveal a (fantastically costumed) nude-colored top and bottoms and began a quirky and intricate duet. Many iterations of duet, trio, and ensemble followed, with different facings, pacing, and affective quality, including a gorgeous dance that twined two men together and apart through the arms of one suit jacket. Other clothing articles were whisked into the wings by wire; the donning and shedding felt like an integrated allegory for personal revelation but never a gimmick. The end was familiar but fitting, the dancers in a line downstage facing out. They fully committed to individual signature movements, which the audience was by now conditioned to recognize, and then together executed the signature motif of a full-body shimmy that really must be seen to be believed.

The three works by Ballet West choreographers followed an intermission. First, principal artist Emily Adams interpreted archetypes with the high-flying, and thoughtfully cast and costumed, But A Dream. Though occasionally overwhelmed by the music and widely spaced freneticisms, the piece was an effective exploration of interacting and contrasting qualities, and reminded me of early Ballets Russes collaborations with the Surrealists. Assembling a trio of Tyler Gum, Arolyn Williams, and Jordan Veit as The Seekers, all clad in modish gender-neutral garb, was a pitch-perfect decision. Corps artist Olivia Gusti completely inhabited Adams’ mode of graceful strength as The Racer.

Ballet West first soloist Katlyn Addison’s Hidden Voices established a beautiful dynamic with its selection of an Antonín Dvořák string quartet, inspired by African American spiritual music, and the recurrent theme of hummed hymns. This musical choice, and in fact every choice in Addison’s work, indicated a commitment to the marrying of aesthetic beauty and meaningful context - a hallmark of consummate artistry and craft. The primarily classical/neoclassical vernacular was refreshing and evocative. Particularly moving for me was the stunning Gabrielle Salvatto in the Humming Section as well as the return to the stage of new mother Allison DeBona.

Demi-soloist Trevor Naumann’s disquiet was unsettling, as its title forewarns, but quite crowd-pleasing. My initial reaction was to note the strikingly vampiric quality of the undulating, scantily-clad Victorian-Gothic cluster. The cluster jerked and contorted, then emerged into controlled chaos, a surprisingly mature expression of themes that could have been less tasteful in hands other than Naumann’s. Hair whipping, lightning quick piqué turns, and group undulations in canon, the combination of which could have easily bordered on too much, were integrated here into something darker and sharper.

Edwaard Liang is both a sought-after choreographer and the artistic director of the Columbus, Ohio-based company BalletMet, following a career dancing with many internationally renowned companies. He is therefore in a prime position to encapsulate what he, Adam Sklute, and Scottish Ballet artistic director and CEO Christopher Hampson espoused in the pre-performance lecture: the creation and production of new work in collaboration with company dancers, in support of their company dancers’ artistic growth.

It was clear that Liang has a strong stylistic vision, and as readily apparent that he recognized and valued the strengths and qualities of the Ballet West dancers on whom he set his new work, Constant Light. The piece began with dancers moving in full silhouette. Warm lighting came up on a large ensemble in ombré unitards, with white on the top that transitioned to red down through the flat shoes and pointe shoes, accentuating full lines.

Constant Light was aptly named, evoking an unremitting beauty that the piece achieved both technically and expressively. Innovative partnering and interesting formations and spatial densities enlivened the abstract interpretation of string and piano concertos. An ensemble of men performed some truly lovely fouettés, a step usually reserved for women. Principal artist Adrian Fry looked at home in the style of the piece, especially during a brisk petite allegro. Soloist Chelsea Keefer caught the eye with the best onstage breakaway run I’ve seen - a surprisingly difficult task - and held that attention throughout the remainder of her section. The sparing use of silhouette was reprised only once, with a single dancer, who was discernible as the inimitably poised Emily Adams, well before the lights came up. Constant Light was a great opportunity to appreciate the individual artists familiar to Ballet West’s audience through different eyes.

Ballet companies face the challenge of continuing to broaden their horizons, while fostering the creative growth of their own artists, if they wish to remain vital. There can, and will be, documentation that addresses gender inequities in ballet through a lens even more inclusive than that of the film Danseur. The same goes for more accessible or immersive venues than the Rose Wagner Center, and for more, and wider-reaching, educational outreach than the pre-performance lectures. There will be more interdisciplinary intersections, beyond those of figurative and portrait paintings and photography that depict dance. There will also be greater institutional support for the continuing artistic development of company dancers and choreographers, especially women, especially women of color (and the list goes on). Having seen the third annual Choreographic Festival, hosted by Ballet West, I am more hopeful than I have been for quite some time that these things will happen - because they have more than begun to happen, here and now.

The Scottish Ballet in Sibilo by Sophie Laplane. Photo by Jane Hobson.

Nora Price is a Milwaukee native living and working in Salt Lake City. She can be seen performing with Durian Durian, an art band that combines post-punk music and contemporary dance.

Ballet West: The Shakespeare Suite

David Bintley’s The Shakespeare Suite, the title piece of Ballet West’s spring season, opens with Kyle Davis as Hamlet and a chorus of four couples slinking across a maroon carpet, the women dressed like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face and the men (save Davis) in kilts and mesh shirts. Davis and the chorus’s repetitive sharp gestures usher the audience into the comical world created by the marriage of Duke Ellington’s music, Shakespeare’s characters, and Bintley’s tongue-in-cheek choreography. The Shakespeare Suite humorously portrays the most famous Shakespearean characters from both tragedy and comedy in a series of vignettes set to Ellington’s big band sounds.

Christopher Sellars and Katherine Lawrence charmed in the first duet as a Converse-clad, pop punk Kate and Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew. Lawrence’s eye rolls and huffing marches, all done in a fluffy wedding dress, argued with Sellars’ spiky-haired, jaunty prankster. Typically cast in sparkling but demure roles, it was exciting to see Lawrence’s amusing over-exaggeration.

The only solo of the work was Davis’s portrayal Hamlet, which both opened and closed The Shakespeare Suite. Beginning with a pinpoint focus off stage, Davis, whom I have not had the pleasure of seeing in soloist roles before, showed a confident coolness, even while going mad. His technique skillfully folded into the character, making him an apt guide for Bintley’s surreal world populated by beatnik Shakespeareans.

It was a treat to see Ballet West’s dancers portray characters so far beyond the scope of their typical repertoire. I hardly recognized Adrian Fry stalking across the stage as Othello, and Allison DeBona’s devious smiles made her a delightfully manipulative Lady Macbeth. The ballet showcased a rarely revealed, comedic side of Ballet West. With all its character and wit, The Shakespeare Suite doesn’t try to be more complex than it is; it’s a romp, a gleeful amusement both for the dancers and the audience.

Soloist Jenna Rae Herrera and Demi-Soloist Joshua Whitehead, as Titania and Bottom, in David Bintley’s The Shakespeare Suite. Photo by Beau Pearson.

The first work of the evening, Jiří Kylián’s Return to a Strange Land, was the most benign. Dedicated to John Cranko, Return to a Strange Land presents two pas de trois and two pas de deux, each featuring Kylián’s often imitated style of smoothly intertwined partnering. Costumed in academically simple blue or gold leotards and soft-hued tights, the dancers begin on an autumn-colored stage, piles of leaves in the background, as they wind and unwind their arms, tangling their bodies until interwoven connections emerge. A dancer is lifted in an arch and spun into a deep plié while her partners draw connected circles around her. When the dancers do separate, they rush away from each other, flying around the stage like the leaves piled upstage.  Eventually they come together again, knotting themselves into moments of delicate, embracing balance as their kaleidoscopic shapes, perfectly symmetrical yet complex, emerge and disappear. The partnering is intricate but was deftly handled, especially by Chase O’Connell. Paired with Emily Adams, whose musicality is entrancing, the blue pas de deux was clear and heartfelt without being overly earnest.

Principal Emily Adams and Chase O’Connell in Jiří Kylián’s Return to a Strange Land. Photo by Beau Pearson.

Artists of Ballet West in Jiří Kylián's Return to a Strange Land. Photo by Beau Pearson.j

Principal Emily Adams and Chase O’Connell in Jiří Kylián’s Return to a Strange Land. Photo by Beau Pearson.

I will confess, I was most excited about Ballet West’s spring season because of Summerspace, Merce Cunningham’s masterwork that premiered at the American Dance Festival in 1958. The work was created with Cunningham’s unique collaborative process in which composer, choreographer, and designer each created independently, only coming together at the premiere of the work, a process still imitated as the work is reset on new dancers. Summerspace features colorfully dotted unitards and a backdrop designed by Robert Rauschenberg, as well as a spacious score composed by Morton Feldman. This type of collaborative process is obviously risky, but in this case yields a work where each element is fully realized, able to simultaneously stand on its own and interact with the other elements. Granted, it’s a great help for Summerspace to have had such accomplished collaborators. To quote Feldman, “Say you’re getting married and I tell you the dress won’t be made until the morning of the wedding. But I also tell you it’s by Dior.”  

Though it was the oldest work of the concert, Summerspace was the most unconventional, challenging both physically and conceptually for a typical ballet audience. Its clarity and simplicity made it an easy work to watch, however. Dancers charge through the space with impossible sequences of spins and springs. Spacious lines that lean toward balletic, speedy turning sequences, and simple patterns of skips, triplets, and leaps are juxtaposed against abrupt stillness. The music drifts in and out, filled with silence, almost fluttering past your ears. Ballet West’s cast was spritely in their charming interpretation, and their youthful verve was dazzling. Katlyn Addison’s open presence anchored the work. She kept the lift and speed of Summerspace from flying away, grounding the performance with her voluminous dancing.

Summerspace was clearly a challenge for Ballet West’s dancers: the movement passages are physical non-sequiturs, technically brutal in their composition. But seeing such accomplished dancers struggle is its own reward. In one moment, Katie Critchlow balanced on the subtlest of relevés, shaking as she shifted her weight to one leg. There was a sense of concentration that I have never seen at a Ballet West performance, an almost palpable air of risk. That the dancers were able to maintain humor and playfulness made their attempts and successes even more intriguing to watch. More than once the audience giggled and burst into spontaneous applause, reactions that are as rare as they were delightful and well-deserved.

Mary Lyn Graves, a native of Tulsa, OK, studied dance at the University of Oklahoma. She currently dances with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company.

Ballet West: Journeys and Reflections

For the close of their season, Ballet West presents a program that spans over 80 years of dance making with three astoundingly diverse works. Beginning with George Balanchine’s Chaconne, dancers in softly draped dresses cover the stage as Gluck’s pastoral score drifts through the theater. They gently weave symmetrical patterns and float into statuesque poses as Emily Adams and Adrian Fry impeccably set the tone for the ballet. Chaconne is blissful, regal, pure in its clarity. The ballet’s movements are deceptively simple, creating a peaceful ease for the viewer. Your eyes can relax and take pleasure in the tranquil balance of Balanchine’s masterful organization of dancers. Katherine Lawrence and Christopher Sellars offer a bright break from the calm with a sweetly uninhibited duet flourished with jester-like wrist twirls and Mercurial attitudes. Jenna Rae Herrera also stands out with her warm and girlish energy. Another dancer might feel overdone, but Herrera’s bubbling-quality comes across as genuine.  

The high point of Chaconne is Adams and Fry’s second pas de deux. Both dancers possess an intriguingly royal quality, luxurious and crystalline without being cold. Fry, with his delicately flicking wrists and sudden drops into deep second, is endlessly gracious in his performance. The brighter yet still regal tone of the pas de deux showcases Adams’ gift for performing Balanchine. She joyfully plays with the music, flirting with timing until you can no longer find the boundaries between her dance and the orchestra. Her movement has an invigorating dignity and feels spectacularly spontaneous.

As heavenly as Chaconne is, Façades offers a more fraught mood. Opening with two baby-blue suited men in white wigs and heavily powdered faces hidden by lace fans, Garrett Smith’s revised ballet uses abstracted Baroque references as a way to address ideas of reflection.  Utilizing the ballet trope of two dancers creating the illusion of a mirror, Smith matches Adams in a red tutu with Allison DeBona in black. At first an impressive feat, the trick devolves into predictability as the relationship between the reflections never develops. Though their costumes are inversions of each other, the pair’s movement remains identical. I wish Smith had heightened DeBona’s mirthful quality against Adams’ timidity.  

Façades is satisfyingly fluid and Smith has a gift for crafting transitional moments. One of the more interesting sections found Adams staring into a string of dancers, giving the illusion of an endless hall of mirrors. As Adams moves, they echo and the slight delay of passing motion adds richness to this simple idea. I particularly enjoyed a moment where the two baby-blue Baroque men from the opening conduct the ensemble in a sweep of the stage, each woman lifted with stabbing legs to give the impression that the room had shattered.

However, the clear highlight of the evening is Kurt Jooss’ The Green Table. Created in 1932 on the eve of Hitler’s rise to power, The Green Table is indisputably a masterpiece. Dissonant, foreboding chords resound as the curtain rises to reveal The Gentlemen in Black spread across a green table. To a sarcastic tango, these ten masked diplomats with cavernous black eyes and white gloves cartoonishly converse. A veneer of politeness diffuses the ever-present violence in their gestures. As one man offers his hand, he raises his other in a fist. One bows to hide another shooting someone in the head. Two fingers point like a pistol across the table. The audience around me began to laugh. The Gentlemen in Black were funny and innocuous until the unexpected shot of a gun. Suddenly, we arrive in Death’s stark world. A glowing skeleton with wide luminous eyes, black boots, and a Trojan helmet, Beau Pearson as Death moves with precision and relentlessness. His eyes glow and widen, imbuing his percussive movements with powerful terror.

As Death presides, the patriotic Standard Bearer enthusiastically waves his blank flag and welcomes soldiers past Death’s clockwork arms. The Young Girl says goodbye to her sweetheart and The Woman comforts the Old Mother. The Profiteer slithers through, scanning the ranks for his next goldmine, and each soldier passes under the arm of Death who cooly turns his head to the audience as if asking if we understand yet. The next five scenes enact different atrocities of war. The soldiers grapple over the stained flag as Death circles the stage with unforgiving whips of his arms. The Profiteer slides through the carnage with greedy hands to steal a coin from a corpse. The Young Maiden sways listlessly from soldier to soldier until Death protectively hovers over her limp body. In a heartbreaking solo, Beckanne Sisk as the Old Woman offers herself to Death with small resigned steps and clasped hands. Sisk was transcendent in this role, her pained gaze reaching beyond the audience with a weighted resonance that brought me to tears. Death welcomes her gently and softly carries her passive body off stage. Katlyn Addison as the Woman (a role also called the Partisan) rushes the stage with uncompromising pride. She powerfully challenges the audience as she stands in front of a firing squad of soldiers, refusing to bow to anyone save Death.

Pearson as Death approaches each scene with astounding nuance. He greets the Partisan as an equal, meets the Old Woman with tenderness and is menacing towards the Profiteer. He is efficiently cold with the soldiers. After each new kill, he looks directly at the audience, silently asking us again if we understand. In the last scene, Death bears the flag as each broken sacrifice parades past. Death returns to his earlier solo, even more powerful as if fed by the destruction. A shocking fire of a pistol brings us back to the green table. As the pianos begin the now familiar sarcastic tango, the Gentlemen in Black repeat their polite charade. Witnessing the futility of the diplomats’ twirls and bows, the audience did not laugh this time.

Ballet West’s choice of The Green Table for the last performances of their regular season is unbelievably, even disturbingly, prescient. Jooss’ seminal work, relevant as long as men profit from war, feels even more necessary given that our country, barely a day before opening night, bombed a nation to whose refugees we refuse to offer asylum from a devastating six-year-long conflict. The Green Table, a masterpiece already, becomes more vital. The ballet rises above the rest of the evening. It transcends the concert, unequivocally and eloquently speaking of the futility of war in all circumstances. I cannot imagine a more timely and needed message.

Mary Lyn Graves dances with Ririe-Woodbury, appearing in a new work by Ann Carlson this week. She will also be seen performing in the upcoming ‘very vary’ by Molly Heller in May.

Ballet West: Works from Within at Eccles in PC

Formerly known as Innovations, Ballet West has moved the newly titled Works from Within to the Eccles Center in Park City. Works from Within shares choreography from company ranks and 2017’s presented world premieres by Oliver Oguma, Trevor Naumann, Kazlyn Nielsen, and Adrian Fry. While the Eccles Center primarily presents touring groups who may stop in Park City during larger tours of the West (think Jessica Lang), it’s this Salt Lake based company who had the best turnout of any dance that I’ve seen in the space.

One choreographer, Kazlyn Nielsen, was new to the Works from Within platform and her work, “Rendering Stillness,” was perhaps the most conventional offering of the evening. But, inarguably, Nielsen achieved her goal of offering a breath in a fast-paced world with her presentation of delicate partnering to Satie. Also traditional in concept and execution was Adrian Fry’s second work for the platform, “Kinesis.” Much like his 2015 work, “Pulse,” the work relies on the propulsion of music to move large groups through the space in a neo-classical tradition. “Kinesis,” featured more than just the company dancers in performance, as principal dancer Emily Adams costumed the work.

Two former Works from Within participants offered more specific aesthetic perspectives. Last year, Trevor Naumann premiered a dance about the philosophical views of Homer and I wrote in a review that the work was reminiscent of certain moments in Martha Clarke’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” because of styling but also its content. With another score by Boaz Roberts (deliberately driving and equally grating) the dancers in Naumann’s new work, “Grief and Integration,” explore something similar and reminiscent of different portions of the same dance by Clarke. This comparison is not just because of the return of nude unitards but because of the physical explorations of confusion and pain which are outside the norm of Ballet West’s typical fare.

Some of Naumann’s metaphors in “Grief and Integration” are clear (death comes for you in a black hood and mask) but others are less so (some dancers have human adornment like suspenders and jackets while the rest are clearly dressed for dance). In this mixed bag there is nevertheless an ongoing exploration of the way contemporary ballet might interact with the contemporary moment and its address of pain and pleasure. Further, it suggests that Naumann’s ongoing investigations may take place both in and outside of ballet’s own idioms. While this dance won’t remain my favorite piece, it will always be in the trajectory of where Naumann ultimately takes these ideas which seems to be the purpose of Works from Within.

Oliver Oguma similarly fulfills this purpose as he connects threads from last year’s “Fragments of Simplicity” to the premiere of “Tremor.” In both works, the movement for men is stunning and subtle. Also in both, it appears that women are added because that’s what usually happens in this situation. Clad in androgynous tanks and leotards, I can see the case that the dance includes traditional partnering as a way to break down the common gender stereotypes held within dancing bodies and theatrical structures. But having been at more than one modern dance rodeo I can attest that an androgynous dancing body usually ends up being a male dancing body (see: Nikolais repertory with women binding their breasts and men existing ‘androgynously’ in their same dance belts and unitards).

My desire for Oguma to explore a ballet for the male movers he is so adept at carving space for ironically competes with my ongoing desire for the inclusion of more female choreographers both in Works from Within and in the Ballet West season. Last year after consulting a professor specializing in political statistics, I came up with the figure that in a randomized selection of Ballet West company members there is less than an 8% probability that only one woman would be selected for this platform given the company makeup. That this systemic bias continues to be inadvertently reflected in the programming but corrected in the choreography is an interesting counterpart to the concert itself.

In an ongoing commitment to presenting contemporary ballets, Ballet West will soon be at another Eccles venue: Eccles Theater, in downtown Salt Lake, with the new National Choreographic Festival. Tickets and information about the program can be found here.

Ashley Anderson is the director of loveDANCEmore community events as part of her non-profit, ashley anderson dances. See more of her work on ashleyandersondances.com