Ballet West: Swan Lake

It’s hard not to be impressed by Swan Lake. The heavy, dripping sprawl of its monumentally megalithic iconography is… eternally overwhelming. The music and choreography live outside of themselves in my brain, and maybe in yours too. Working its way from a dismally received premier through many revisions to its present form and engendering a vast cultural legacy and innumerable derivatives; Tchaikovsky’s most fêted handiwork has been performed for 142 years. I have learned it and performed it and seen it performed countless times, both live and in recordings from all over the world. And I have to say I’ve never seen one I truly enjoyed more than Ballet West’s current production.

The Capitol Theatre itself isn’t overly grand or spectacularly sprawling. But it’s cozy and charming (as prosceniums go), which makes it a wonderful locus for intimate, storybook detail and concentrated, emotional storytelling– a strength Ballet West has been cultivating with excellence in its story ballets of late. As in recent productions of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, they have again created a thoroughly illustrated, richly peopled world full of color and character and spirit, distilling something exquisitely different and special from a story I thought I knew very, very well.

Beyond nuanced updates to choreography, aesthetics, and staging, spectacular performances by the dancers made the ballet thrilling in a way that had me mentally calculating if I could return for a second viewing before I even vacated my seat. The company is full of skillful and smart actors; more and more, I seen in them the impulse towards a descriptive expansion of humanity and the slow razing and retrofitting of old prescriptive tropes. From the smallest page to the featured soloists, the production was awash in distinctive, fresh, and textured personality. Brought to life in vivid saturation by David Heuvel’s richly colorful costumes, they formulated a collective depth that kept the stage buzzing electrically the entire evening.

The parade of national dances in the third act, the princesses proffering themselves as candidates for Siegfried’s hand, was especially enlivening. Usually, that scene is when I find myself most empathetic toward our hapless Prince Siegfried in his exasperation with his matchmaking mother, the Queen (“Come on, another one? Really? Give it up mom.”). This time it hit me completely differently, like I was eight years old again and watching Act II of The Nutcracker for the first time, each of its series of divertissements wildly new and colorful and exciting. Here, each princess had a unique personality and all were terrifically funny in their various reactions to princely rejection. Throughout the Czardas, the repetition of grave, delicate gestures, the dance’s whirlwind finish, and the shivery intensity of Lillian Casscells, Dominic Ballard, and their ensemble had me on the edge of my seat. They smoldered and I found myself taking back every curse I’ve hurled under my breath at that particular folk dance in the past.

Even better was the Neapolitan. Jenna Rae Herrera is an incredibly warm, bright spot of sun in the company. I love watching her dance in every production, her joy always palpable and generous. It fills you and lifts you straight up. Here, both dressed in yellow and each with a tambourine in hand, she and partner Alexander McFarlan stole the show during their variation. The choreography for Ballet West’s version of the Neapolitan was fantastic and everyone around me was elated, cheering and laughing aloud as the pair’s antics took them spinning and dashing wildly around the stage.

Throughout the two acts that take place in the royal court, it was plain to see the great care taken in subtly re-imagining and reinvigorating the classic choreography to keep momentum moving, every successive dance exciting and unique. The buoyant whirl of courtiers in beautiful, airy blue costumes flooded the stage in Act I before pulling back to reveal a delicately piquant pas de trois. The wide, laughing grin on Tyler Gum’s face was a sharp point of touching sweetness as he partnered Sayaka Ohtaki and Katlyn Addison. The large, intricately pinwheeling dance of the young courtiers and Ballet West Academy students, led by Mia Tureson, was funny, cute, and marvelously well-executed. As others have noted in earlier reviews from this season, the young Academy students are impressively capable performers and always exceptionally well-rehearsed. Tureson in particular was absolutely sparkling.

And then there were, of course, the swans. Rising out of just the right amount of billowing fog, their synchronicity and intensity made hearts soar (and my eyes sting). Sharp head movements and powerful sweeping wings gave this flock a little more strength and animal quality than others I’ve seen in the past. In the dance of the Cygnets, I loved the sharp focus of heads cast to each corner of the proscenium, rather than the often-opted-for slow roll down and around.

Also exciting was seeing the degree of variation in the corps de ballet. The dancers both looked and moved differently. Each was distinct unto themselves, and the double-down on a commitment to diversity that Ballet West has begun to enact over the last few years is starting to manifest in an appreciable way on stage. They were perfectly, ferociously, and crystalline-clearly in sync, as I remembered all the times in my youth that I heard that a perfectly identical body of bodies was the only way to achieve eternal and ethereal beauty. The satisfaction and elation of seeing a corps de ballet of swans like this one was piercing. I sincerely hope Ballet West continues to push in that direction.

Chase O’Connell portrayed Siegfried with signature elegance. Lofting about in technical excellence, his natural connection with Beckanne Sisk made for some beautiful moments in the two white swan pas de deux. I will say, though, that he appeared more at home in the moments when things were going well for his character. Harried despair didn’t hang quite as naturally on him, his moments of circling the stage in anguish maybe a little dry.

Sisk fulfilled the expectations that always precede her and then some. Fiercely technical with buckets of personality, I fully admit I expected her to hit the height of her shine as the black swan rather than the white. Both were excellent, but in fact it was almost the opposite. Forgoing some of the frailty of other swan queens, she had powerful wings like her corps, which served her better in highlighting the strength of her choice to trust the hunter and the eventual tenderness of that connection. She hit all the most iconic moments of Acts II and IV with a force that sent the room spinning, a rushing wave of divine recognition as her image lined up with the primary referent that lives at the back of my brain.

Her black swan was all sass all the time. Not even bothering to construct a facsimile of Odette and quiver her wings, she took over poor Siegfried with sheer force. I might typically expect a more paced build-up of devilishness to those fourth-wall breaks and that moment all the trickery is revealed, but honestly I’ve always found it hard to buy that the hapless prince really didn’t know the shiny new girl at his party wasn’t his true love from the forest. Whether it was a conscious artistic choice or not, I preferred interpreting that his character really does just fail miserably for a moment. It makes the betrayal even more wrenching and turns the final resolution into something much sweeter and more powerful, with layers of emotional verisimilitude that are more relatable. At any rate, Sisk’s wicked and hungry eyes are just so winning that it was incredibly fun to watch.

In the end, of course, Odette forgives her wayward lover and he continues to whirl her around tragically even as she starts to weaken and fall apart. In one especially striking moment during that final pas de deux, Sisk penché-d to the full extent of her powers towards a kneeling O’Connell before crumbling with almost ugly ferocity into a deep lunge. That simple horrifying fall into gravity carried all the weight of the couple’s despair as the evil Baron von Rothbart herded them towards death. Finally, the swan maidens returned to human form, their curse broken with the new light of day, bringing the story to a satisfying close.

Principal Artist Beckanne Sisk as Odette. Photo by Luke Isley.

Ballet West’s Swan Lake continues this weekend and next, through February 23, at the Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre.

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: Jewels

While George Balanchine’s Jewels may be best known as the first full-length abstract ballet, I find its magnificence resides in other features: its brilliant display of ballet’s history and the ways dancers and music convey different moods or atmospheres. Ultimately, I find the three sections of Jewels speak to the values of diversity and inclusivity, and by extension to the importance of honoring different artists and cultures.

This was especially apparent Saturday night when there was a special ceremony for Bruce Caldwell, honoring his 50 years of work with Ballet West as a dancer and currently as ballet master and company archivist. As the audience applauded at the end of the performance, Caldwell was on stage to receive a rose from many partners he worked with during his dancing career, including Jane Wood, Maggie Tesch, and Sharee Lane. It was a poignant acknowledgement of the commitment and love dancers bring to their profession.

It was also a fitting ending to a ballet that has a celebratory vibe: the richness of the costumes in Jewels, plus the size of the cast (34 dancers are on stage for the polonaise that closes the performance), make the evening a dazzling affair. On Saturday night I found the women in particular, both in leading roles as well as in the corps, were exceptional.

Emeralds, the first section, set to music by Gabriel Fauré, was a dreamlike series of encounters, and Katlyn Addison and Emily Adams were exquisite. They conveyed the sense of mystery and detachment that makes me think of Romantic ballet when I watch Emeralds. The longer tutus (designed by Barbara Karinska) recall the costumes of La Sylphide or Giselle, and the relationships between the men and women tend to be unresolved. There were lush, reaching gestures that looked like the dancers were being swept and blown through the phrases. A pas de deux ended with the dancers walking backwards into the wings, their chests lifted to the sky in a moment of reverie or surrender. The ballet ended with three men kneeling and raising one arm towards the wings, a gesture that evoked a sense of longing since the women had just exited. In last night’s performance it seemed to mark a moment of gratitude for the elegance of these women. The 10 women in the corps were incandescent: their bourrées suggested the shimmering of a gem. This was especially impressive Saturday night because the cast included dancers of Ballet West II––Jordan DePina, Savannah Lyle, Alexandra Terry, and Victoria Vassos­­––who blended seamlessly with the company members.

Artists of Ballet West in George Balanchine’s Rubies. Photo by Beau Pearson.

Rubies presented the slinky atmosphere of a jazz club (Igor Stravinsky’s score for this section was first performed in 1929). The section opened with the dancers standing in 4th position, arms high in V-like shapes, with the women en pointe. They jutted their hips with sassy thrusts and instantly the reverie of Emeralds dissipated: now we were in the land of “cool.” On Saturday night the four men, Kyle Davis, David Huffmire, Ryo Munakata, and Joshua Shutkind, were riveting: exquisite in their execution of fast phrases and precise steps. When they partnered Addison, who appeared regal and queen-like in Rubies, they attentively placed her wrists and ankles in développé and arabesque positions. They seemed to be displaying her fantastic lines like a ruby would be displayed on a pedestal; and Addison’s confidence recalled other powerful women in Balanchine’s repertory, like the Siren in Prodigal Son. Her headpiece made me think of the crown worn by Wonder Woman, an apt comparison given that Addison stepped into this leading role in Rubies for Emily Neale just after performing in Emeralds. Other corps dancers who shone in this section included Jenna Rae Herrera and Chelsea Keefer, both soloists with the company, who performed with an infectious joie de vivre.

The moment the curtain opened for Diamonds, there was applause from the audience. This section recreated the stately opulence of Tsarist Russia. The score by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the white tutus worn by the corps of 12 women conveyed the refined sophistication of a royal ball. Typical of Balanchine’s ballets, the corps took a central role and again the dancers included members from Ballet West II––Terry and Vassos plus Cy Doherty, Robert Fowler, Noel Jensen, Joseph Lynch, and Jake Preece––who contributed to the magnificent vision of courtly elegance.

In the leading roles, Beckanne Sisk and Chase O’Connell were gorgeous, and special moments included the way he knelt to her during the beginning of their pas de deux, as if to ask, “Can I have the honor of dancing with you?” Their solos, especially his execution of à la seconde turns, were phenomenal, and again the audience applauded. Sisk’s choreography included gestures that recalled Swan Lake, with arms like wings, yet without any reference to a specific character or narrative. Instead these moments, that evoked the 19th century, reminded me how Balanchine was updating ballet’s vocabulary, making it relevant to the 20th century. On Saturday night there were exceptional performances by female soloists––Gabrielle Salvatto, Katie Critchlow, Chelsea Keefer, and Amber Miller––who danced with the speed, precision, and joy that are Balanchine’s trademarks. They continually captured my attention, an impressive feat when the cast numbered 34 dancers.

Artists of Ballet West in George Balanchine’s Diamonds. Photo by Beau Pearson.

A week before this performance I watched a rehearsal of this section led by Sandra Jennings, who performed, and now stages, Balanchine’s repertory. Her cues to the dancers to “really step out” while maintaining exact positions, revealed the ways that Balanchine extended the classical vocabulary. Jennings’s attention to detail was impressive: noticing how a slight shift in a dancer’s shoulder in arabesque distorted the feeling of uniformity among the soloists. I imagine Jennings would have appreciated how thoroughly the cast embraced her directions and presented a gorgeous performance of Balanchine’s aesthetic.

A through-line of the evening was the exceptional music, conducted by Jared Oaks, Ballet West’s music director. Each section conveyed a different characteristic, from dream-like to jazzy to elegant, that was generated by the musicians as well as the dancers. Jewels is known for its close connections between the scores and the steps, and any time musicians and dancers are working well together, there’s a distinct synchronicity: we are watching how artists in the orchestra and artists on stage are generating this work of art collaboratively. When I attended the rehearsal led by Jennings, I noticed that Oaks was present as well: his deep knowledge of the dancers’ needs, combined with his attentive conducting, made watching Ballet West perform Balanchine’s ballet an extraordinary experience.

The costumes, courtesy of Cincinnati Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet, added to the evening’s glamour, and it was exciting to see how each jewel’s costume was created by combining multiple shades of its color: green for emerald, red for ruby, and white for diamond. This diversity added to the ballet’s theme of embracing multiple nations and styles.

When Balanchine made this ballet in 1967, he was fortunate to be working with a special cast of artists: Violette Verdy and Conrad Ludlow, Mimi Paul and Francisco Moncion; Patricia McBride, Edward Villella, and Patricia Neary; Suzanne Farrell and Jacques d’Amboise. What was exciting about Ballet West’s production last night was noticing how many talented artists in Ballet West II could become new members of the company, and how many artists in the company, like Kyle Davis, Jenna Rae Herrera, Chelsea Keefer, and Gabrielle Salvatto, are thriving and could soon be moving into more featured roles. Just like Jewels is a celebration of different countries, as well as artists from different countries, Ballet West is a company that has a rich diversity of dancers in terms of backgrounds, body types, and countries of origin. At this particular moment in the States, I find this celebration of difference an important message about the richness of cultural diversity, and the contributions that people from many nations make to our definitions of what it means to be American.

 Kate Mattingly is an assistant professor of dance at the University of Utah. She has a doctoral degree in performance studies from UC Berkeley, and has had writing published in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Dance Research Journal, Dance magazine, and Pointe magazine, among others.