Of Meat & Marrow review

The piece begins with humor: a Gilbert Gottfried soundbite that speaks of the body as an excessive weight, vegetative, without the operating mind – easier to reconcile with, humorously, if dead and done. The character of the piece, situated discretely amongst the audience as one of us, is then summoned unwillingly to the stage with a lottery ticket. Thus at the onset of the piece, we are called to identify with our character as we try to understand whatever chaos has demanded her presence in the grotesque world that follows.

In this world, skin ripples. Flesh melts. Bodies on stage fold as though millions of cells emit final breaths – repetitively, microscopically. The dancers onstage introduce us, with conviction and startling continuity, to the quality of this dimension.

A duet between Toni Lugo and Christine Hasegawa, bathed in red illumination and suspended by meat hooks, becomes the profound epitome of this world of decomposition. Here we become all at once disgusted, confused, and intrigued by the slapping of skin and the molding, folding, and gyrating of the human form.

As so often seems to be the case in life itself, the piece becomes a battle between body and mind. Our character returns, giving voice to the ego: I am, I am, but – “Where am I?” she asks, confused, anxious, alone. We recognize her questions throughout the piece – “Is this the line to heaven?” – as expressions of a way of thinking (and hence, a mode of living) where all action is guided by the belief in a divine, transformative ending. But this world is no heaven as we’ve been told to expect. The bodies on stage provoke and disassemble our character, sweeping her up with an asterisk-shaped prop, turning her over like a leaf in a compost bin.

A morgue cart becomes the most necessary and powerful prop, weaving together a beautiful solo performed by Juan Carlos Claudio with duets and full-cast dances, and underlining the rolling movement quality of decompositional break-down. There are large metal tubs, too – utilized most powerfully when collecting and consuming the human form, their presence evokes meat, blood, and slaughter.

The character we have been asked to identify with is always terrified or skeptical of her inevitable decomposition, even as it happens. As the piece concludes, she is swallowed by waving folds of fabric. The body disappears, becomes motionless. But the ego persists with its commentary – “it must be karma!” – as we discover that her transformation through decomposition has turned her into a carrot, an earthly thing that is picked up and bitten into.

Executed beautifully, “Of Meat and Marrow” exhibits the exceptional potential of dance to root us in our bodies and remind us of our mortality. I take issue, however, with the humorous context in which the piece begins and concludes because all other elements of the piece powerfully evoke the idea that dance, an artistic form that directly involves the physical potentialities and – most importantly – the physical limitations of the body, could be compelling all participants to internalize their mortality more deliberately, and could be asserting itself as the most powerful vessel of empathy and compassion.

The fact that we, as an audience, are expected to accept within the comforts of humor a truly thought-provoking piece that reminds us – through physical, empathetic sensation – of the vulnerability of our flesh speaks volumes regarding our pervasive, tired world view. I oppose the framing of this piece with humor because I believe we should instead be seizing the moment to emphasize the communicative power of dance, well-demonstrated in this piece, as a potential means for a transformation in perception – for what we need now most of all in our world view is the reminder that the organic world, of which our bodies are a part, has limits and repercussions that our intellectual realm does not.

The state of humanity is now too dire to merely chuckle at our cultural fear of death and the unknown. We must be called to do more than just laugh in the face of our uneasiness – otherwise we are permitted to leave the theater and return to whichever of many microscopic groups, by which we define ourselves through a false sense of belonging. And there, in that dangerous state of isolation and illusion, the salience of our mortality again becomes lost. We must be instead called to act, to live with full consciousness, in accordance with the belief that everything is connected – beyond death, across time and place – and that nothing can be resolved sustainably in isolation.

Moving forward, let us embrace dance as a means of communicating compassion and empathy, of encouraging communion with all that is. Let us be reminded that these are the qualities that we are so desperately lacking in our relations with others and with the natural world, that must be embodied on a massive scale if we truly want to live in a more just society.

Alison Hoyer re-located to SLC after completed a degree in linguistics at McAlister. 

Having it All

If a test of civilization be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of that half of society over which the other half has power.  – HARRIET MARTINEAU from “Society in America” (1837)

Times change, societies progress and things get better.  In 1952, the word “pregnancy” could not even be uttered on American television; today, the sight of a baby emerging from its mother’s vagina is an everyday occurrence on The Learning Channel. Ballet company directors used to say things to dancers like: “No more babies.  Enough is enough.  Babies are for Puerto Ricans.”  Ballet company directors now say things like: “Children are part of the human condition.  We need to have women who have [given] birth to portray characters with depth.”

What has caused these remarkable changes in America? Feminism and the loosening of Puritanical values have played an important part, as has the fact that 74% of mothers are in the labor force.  “Historically, women have borne and raised children while doing their share of necessary productive labor, as a matter of course.  Yet by the nineteenth century the voices rise against the idea of the ‘working mother’ and in praise of the ‘mother at home’” writes Adrienne Rich in her seminal feminist work Of Woman Born.  She goes on: “The nineteenth and twentieth century ideal of the mother and children immured together in the home, the specialization of motherhood for women, the separation of the home from the man’s world of wage earning, struggle, ambition, aggression, power…all this is a late arrived development in human history.”  Female dancers and choreographers have long ignored these “raised voices” and “historical ideals.” Choreographers Branislava Nijinska, Isadora Duncan, Doris Humphrey and Twyla Tharp and dancers Melissa Hayden, Allegra Kent, Sylvia Waters and Natalia Makarova have studded the pages of dance history with prototypes of the “having it all” superwoman.

How did these women combine motherhood with a career as demanding as dance? Each forged a new path and found support in different ways, from a spouse to an extended family to a nanny to an understanding company director. Shockingly, the American Guild of Musical Artists did not add a maternity clause to its contracts until 1990; until very recently, even dancers in unionized companies have had to rely on the largesse of their company director if they wanted to have a child and keep their job.

In this article I will examine three major American dance companies: New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and American Ballet Theater.  I will look at the origins, history and leadership of each company to find its unique “motherhood culture.” Certain attitudes, beliefs, experiences and policies have produced threads running through each company’s history. These threads from the past continue to form the current fabric that supports dancing mothers; each of the companies is a little “civilization” and can be “tested” accordingly.

NEW YORK CITY BALLET

Rarely has a figure in the dance world been so reviled and so loved as George Balanchine.  Long an easy target for feminists and disgruntled dancers, he has been accused of everything from causing anorexia in all dancers to “denying women their agency” and producing “sado-masochistic” choreography. Merrill Ashley thought that “Balanchine held the keys to the kingdom. All knowledge, all power was his and, as I saw it, I had no choice but to place my faith and trust in him.”

This king was a jealous one, and his ballerinas agreed. “No babies, no husbands, no boyfriends,” was Balanchine’s unwritten rule. Merrill Ashley remembered his “notorious aversion to the husbands and boyfriends of his female dancers.” The truth of the matter is that there were New York City Ballet dancers who did have boyfriends, did get married, and did have children. Melissa Hayden, who had two children while dancing for Balanchine, has said that although “there was an underlying feeling at New York City Ballet that dancers shouldn’t get married or have children, he was very generous to the dancers who did have children – giving them time off and keeping them on the payroll.”

Balanchine was outspokenly opposed to unionization, and the atmosphere of subtle dehumanization he created seemed to make his dancers passive and apathetic about salary, benefits and other union matters. Although Balanchine is dead, his legacy lives on. Currently, the New York City Ballet offers its dancers the least generous maternity benefits of the companies researched for this article.

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER

Section 13, subsection H, paragraph 9 of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement between Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the American Guild of Musical Artists states: “The Employer will provide space at its New York Studios during two (2) weeks each year, as selected by the Employer, for children of the Artists with a paid caregiver during the rehearsal day. The Employer shall provide a total of Four hundred fifty ($450.00) per week to subsidize the expense incurred by the parent(s). This childcare providing paragraph is unique among the dance company contracts examined for this paper. The maternity benefit offered by the Ailey Company is also far more generous than the bare minimum suggested by the American Guild of Musical Artists. The Ailey dancers are allowed up to 21 days of sick leave, followed by extended sick pay of $250 per week for six months, followed by a four month unpaid leave. Dancers are guaranteed re-employment “without loss of seniority.” The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s contract illustrates Andrea O’Reilly’s contention that “mothers and motherhood are valued by, and central to, African American culture…black culture recognizes that mothers and mothering are what make possible the physical and psychological well-being and empowerment of African American people and the larger African American culture.”

The Ailey dancers were listened to and were “encouraged to be outspoken.” Historically, the company “gathered regularly to air difficulties and differences of opinion, or simply, as Sylvia Waters put it, ‘to tell Alvin how we felt, how we needed him to tell us what he was seeing, what we were doing.’” Judith Jamison, prior director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, continues to “listen to what the dancers are saying onstage as well as off.” She writes: “Alvin never wanted dancers to be parochial-minded. You have nothing to offer on stage unless you’ve lived your life. He encouraged everyone to experience his or her life.” This Africanist spirit of acceptance, care, humanity and love is reflected in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s generous support of pregnant dancers and new parents.

AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE

The maternity leave offered to the dancers at American Ballet Theatre is the most generous of the companies researched for this article. The reason for this is the unique relationship between dancers and management at this particular company. American Ballet Theater was not the result of one artist’s vision, as New York City Ballet and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater were. “Ballet Theatre has had no single choreographer whose development could be traced through the years. When its founders opted to present an eclectic repertory, they in effect declared that Ballet Theatre would not be bound by any set artistic policy in the generally accepted meaning of the words,” writes Charles Payne. Although Lucia Chase was very important in the founding and bankrolling of ABT, she never inspired in her dancers the kind of devotion and loyalty lavished on Balanchine and Ailey by theirs. Still, she, “for better or worse, made most of the vital decisions that dictated the course of the company’s progress through the years.”

“In the fall of 1979, the dancers at the ABT took a historic step. With the aid of an energetic labor lawyer, Leonard Leibowitz, they decided to reject the offer of small increases in salary and benefits put forth by the ABT management during contract negotiations. In response ABT locked the dancers out of their studios and cancelled its winter season. Dancers and management haggled for eight weeks, during which – for the first time in ballet history – dancers brought their cause to the public, as they picketed, leafleted, negotiated and stated their case to newspapers, television and radio.” The dancers had raised a strike fund to support themselves and they voted unanimously on every offer from management. Finally, the dancers prevailed and “their actions have resulted in significant changes in wages and working conditions at the ABT.” Subsequent contract negotiations netted the dancers even more concessions and benefits. At last, sure of their power, the American Ballet Theatre dancers eventually left AGMA to form their own union. Now, guaranteed a generous maternity leave and a job when they return, dancers like Julie Kent can say: “I’m so looking forward to raising a baby in the ABT family.”

Times have indeed changed. In her 2005 article on American Ballet Theatre Erika Kinetz writes: “Today dancing during pregnancy and after childbirth, once a privilege of only the grandest stars, is unexceptional.” Many women today, dancers included, choose to “have [their] kids while, not instead of following [their] other dreams.” Although star dancers in the past have successfully blended motherhood with their careers, they were dependent on paternalistic permission and special generosity from their bosses. Strong union regulations have allowed the rank and file company members the same opportunity to “have it all.”

Things do indeed get better, yet in America women’s reproductive freedom is under constant threat. Women will never have equal status until they have control over their own family planning and the full support of a society which values working mothers and their children. Adrienne Rich ended Of Woman Born with the following: “We need to imagine a world in which every woman is the presiding genius of her own body. In such a world women will truly create new life, bringing forth not only children (if and as we choose) but the visions, and the thinking necessary to sustain, console, and alter human existence – a new relationship to the universe. Sexuality, politics, intelligence, power, motherhood, work, community, intimacy will develop new meanings; thinking itself will be transformed. This is where we have to begin.

Brenda Daniels is the interim dean at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Below you can find the footnotes from this article which a revised version of a paper written for the Hollins/ADF MFA program in 2006. The article is printed in the current issue of learning to loveDANCEmore which can be ordered from the journal tab above.

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“These words were written in 1976, but their message and call to arms is just as necessary and urgent today.This note refers to the television show “I Love Lucy.” “On December 12, 1952, ‘Lucy is Enceint’(French for pregnant, which the CBS censor would not allow) aired.” Karin Adir, The Great Clowns of American Television (London: McFarland, 1988),14. See also TV ACRES Website: “Censorship and Scandals – Lucy’s Pregnancy,” http://tvacres.com/censorship_lucy.htm.

This note refers to the television show, “A Baby Story.” See Pie Town Television Productions, “A Baby Story – Show Info,” http://www.pietown.tv/shows/babystory.html.

George Balanchine, quoted in Allegra Kent, Once a Dancer, (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997), 187.

Stanton Welch (director of Houston Ballet Company), quoted in Erika Kinetz, “Belly Dancing,” New York Times, Arts and Leisure section, April 10, 2005.

“Among mothers ages 15 to 44 who do not have infants, 74% are in the labor force.” U.S. Census Bureau, “Women by the Numbers,”  http://www.factmonster.com/spot/womencensus1.html.

Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: W.W. Norton, 1976), 44.

Ibid.,46.

“While still in Russia, Nijinska had also separated from her husband and was raising two children and supporting an aged mother on her own while running her school.” Sally Banes, Dancing Women: Female Bodies on Stage (London: Routledge, 1998), 120.

“It seemed as if Isadora had at last found everything she needed in life: a great career on the stage, funds at last to establish and keep going the school of her dreams, two adorable and beautiful children, recognition in the country of her birth and in the great capitals of Europe and a lover who would give her anything she asked for.” Walter Terry, Isadora Duncan: Her Life, Her Art, Her Legacy (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1963), 48.

“Humphrey’s own life as a wife and working mother were unconventional for her time. Devoted to her art and her career, Humphrey refused serious relationships with men until at the age of 36 she married Charles Woodford, a seaman who was away on duty most of the time. Pregnant at 38, Humphrey worked the entire term, and she even induced labor early, so as not to miss a concert date. She was never inclined toward domesticity, and often her colleagues and even her colleagues’ relatives helped care for her child, sometimes taking him on trips while Humphrey worked.” Banes, Dancing Women, 145. See also Doris Humphrey, Doris Humphrey: An Artist First  (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1972) , 122-153 and Marcia B. Seigel, Days on Earth: The Dance of Doris Humphrey (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 130-205.

“In a way, Jesse (her son) conducted rehearsals as we all took turns changing diapers and feeding the baby.” Twyla Tharp, Push Comes to Shove (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), 158.

Molly Glenzer, “Baby Boom: Motherhood Gets an Ovation,” Dance Magazine, April 2004, 35.

“’The Look’ as dancers refer to this idealization of the thinnest of the thin, is, most critics and dancers concur, a concession to taste, taste that has largely been formed by one man. That man is George Balanchine – America’s chief arbiter of ballet style and aesthetics.” Suzanne Gordon, “Ballet in America: The Art and The Anguish,” GEO, January 1981, 46.

Ann Daly, “The Balanchine Woman: Of Hummingbirds and Channel Swimmers,” from chapter 3, “Theorizing Gender” in Critical Gestures: Writings in Dance and Culture (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002), 286.

Ibid., 83.

Ashley, Dancing for Balanchine, 62.

Patricia Neary, quoted in Glenzer, “Baby Boom,” 35.

Ashley, Dancing for Balanchine, 121.

Hayden, in discussion with the author.

“And so the choice is to stand up for ourselves, our security, out financial security, or to give second place to such values and act on respect, devotion, love and deep belief in one man. Balanchine is more important and valuable than we are individually. If personal security is our primary aim, dancing is not the career for us.” Bentley, Winter Season, 88.

“City Ballet offers 21sick days, followed by a brief disability leave and up to three months of unpaid leave.” Kinetz, “Belly Dancing.”

Collective Bargaining Agreement between Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and American Guild of Musical Artists: June 1,2002 through May 31, 2005, http://www.musicalartists.org/HomePage.htm, 35.

Ibid., 42,43.

O’Reilly, From Motherhood to Mothering, 11.

Dunning, Alvin Ailey, 244.

Ibid.

Judith Jamison, Dancing Spirit: An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 244.

Ibid.,172.

“Members of American Ballet Theater receive four weeks of sick leave, at full pay; when that’s used up, they are eligible for state disability pay for up to eight weeks and an additional $400 a week in disability from the company for up to a year.” Kinetz, “Belly Dancing.”

“Lucia Chase…is both the hub and foundation of American Ballet Theatre. For almost thirty years since its inception she not only took the most active part in its overall artistic direction, but was its major source of financial support, diminishing her own private fortune to keep the company alive.” Franklin Stevens, Dance as Life: A Season with American Ballet Theatre (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 87.

Payne, American Ballet Theatre, 23.

Ibid., 48.

Frank Smith (former ABT soloist), in discussion with the author, October 2005.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Warren Conover (former ABT soloist), in discussion with the author, September, 2005.

Glentzer, “Baby Boom,” 38.

Kinetz, “Belly Dancing.”

Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender, eds., Breeder: Real Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers (Seattle, WA: Seal Press), xiii.

Rich, Of Woman Born, 285-286.

Innovations in review

Last night Ballet West opened its fifth installment of “Innovations,” a program where Ballet West dancers present new choreography alongside one established artist. Principal Artist Michael Bearden, Artist Aiden DeYoung, Soloist Easton Smith and Demi-Soloist Emily Adams showcased their choreographic work alongside a revival of Susan Shields’ “Grand Synthesis.” As a whole I agree with Director Adam Sklute’s assessment that the evening was diverse and creative. “Innovations” expressed a range of artistic interests from traditional narrative ballet to the cool of more contemporary choreographers; at it’s best the show was innovative, as the title promised and all pieces offered an exploration of the effort it takes to craft a ballet.

Michael Bearden’s “Descent” handled a tragic, historical romance which wound its own path around recognizable narrative ballet traditions. It was freeing to follow a story without expected full length features of a Grand Pas or large Corps but the path was not without difficulty. The use of props was sometimes distracting and certain plot elements, namely the Russian revolution, were dealt with too briefly and in ways too comical or melodramatic for the overall tone. Bearden should be applauded for continuing to work on the project since 2010; when you imagine that many ballet stories have been performed endlessly it’s clear that with more growth Bearden’s concluding dance of the dead could become beloved and fixed as other wicked ballet fixtures like the Willies.

Easton Smith dealt with narrative more abstractly in his premiere of “With You”.  The opening scene was evocative with dramatic lights warning of looming tragedy. The dancing that followed might have been linked in the eyes of the choreographer — emotions spilling out of a tragedy resulting in lush partnering — but the resonance of the dancing didn’t match the strength of the opening imagery. In dancing what we feel matters, but in choreography it’s creating the realm for the audience that matters, not just what the dancers are sensing. Much like Bearden’s work the kudos are for diving right into the process and taking risks. I’ll be interested to his how his aesthetic evolves with new projects.

If Michael and Easton posed choreographic problems for which they strive, as young artists, to find solutions, Aiden DeYoung and Emily Adams demonstrated the importance of new voices in the more codified forms of ballet. Aiden’s work “Eenvoudig,” and Emily’s “Forces at Play” were remarkably fresh and complex. “Forces at Play,” benefited from being the only piece to feature live music. Many of the dancers, specifically Tom Mattingly, were able to dance from within the score and highlight the quick, light sections that mark the dance. While it seems there is more to address within the staging, the choreography had come a long way from its preview in the fall and I found the duets among the men were truly unique.

While Aiden’s preview of “Eenvoudig” last fall seemed too derivative of William Forsythe, this revised version moved beyond the shock of ballerinas in black socks and into new territory. Using a choppy selection of music and approaching movement directly and succinctly the choreography offered a sampler of non-narrative vignettes. Aiden seemed apt at choosing dancers for each section, particularly a solo in which Katie Critchlow walked past the wings smacking each one with an open palm. To think of how many dances I’ve watched, or how many times I myself have tried not to touch a wing, and then to see her hand purposefully erase what I thought I knew was important or what I should expect was  magical. This was just one taste in which Aiden explored unconventional choices. Some were obvious (exposing a back wall and lights) and others less so, like the subtle incorporation of alternative movement styles.

The magic continued to the last piece of the evening with “Grand Synthesis” as a reminder that longevity is what makes any choreographic career worthwhile. Susan Shields’ ability to move bodies through space with ease created complicated and surprising patterning from which joyful dancing emerged at every turn. While she could have used a more contemporary look at costuming from her younger counterparts it was a great way to end the evening.

“Innovations” continues at the Rose today at 7:30 and next week (Weds-Sat).

Ashley Anderson runs loveDANCEmore community events as part of her 501c3 “ashley anderson dances” she regularly choreographs and teaches in SLC.

Iridescence at the Rose

As much as I ever have been, I was wowed by the six dancers who currently comprise Ririe Woodbury during the opening night of Iridescence (running through Saturday at the Rose). That’s saying something, given that I’ve been watching this group on and off since I was a little kid. Throughout, I found myself thinking a lot about how the company has shifted over the years and what has remained the same.

Iridescence opened with "Duet" by Bill T. Jones. It’s clearly a dance made not by the Tony award-winner we’re used to seeing on PBS, but a younger man, with different questions on his mind. Jones here is not dealing with anything overtly political as in much of his other work. At first the exploration seems very formal, the space is cut by masking tape that divides the floor into a grid. Jo Blake moves with a clear coolness I’ve never seem him employ. He’s isolating different body parts. But not with the fake, blank sense of “neutrality” some of us might associate with (a parody of) postmodern dance. Instead there’s a true sense of play, like he’s trying all the ways he knows to move each piece and as if for the first time. Tara McArthur walks in on the middle of all of this with a casualness that seems at once to complicate and explain everything Jo has done. There is a kind of accord with what at first glance might seem an arbitrary score. It set to “folk” songs from Madagascar, Iran and the Ivory Coast. This is coexistence, but not in the Cage/Cunningham sense. There’s an awareness of the otherness in this music within an American Modern Dance setting. In general, there’s a sense of felt space, real and metaphorical. There’s play between the steps and subtle humor as this man and woman feel each other while the choreography repeats itself, seeming to be rewritten on the spot to be more clever with each try. (Brad Beakes and Bashaun Williams will dance Duet on Friday. Elizabeth Kelly-Wilberg and Alex Bradshaw dance it Saturday.)

 "Duet" was unique within the evening in that it showcased individuality in the performers. All of the dances that followed (with the exception of one) included the entire company. "West" and "Those in the Desert" by Artistic Director Charlotte Boye-Christensen, sought to evoke places: the American West and the Middle East respectively. Both works featured her trademark use of balletic lines breaking and remaking themselves in rapid succession, pulling the dancers through long limbed partnering that seems directed by some unseen masochistic order. "Those in the Desert" was set to instrumental music by Ibrahim Maalouf which allowed the formalities and rigor of the choreography to dominate, albeit flavored with Arabic harmonies. In "West" however, these taut machinations were performed to (among others) Johnny Cash, Tom Waits and Cat Power. The choreography re-postured itself slightly against the backdrop of each new song, relating to the emotional bravura of Power and Cash and the fast paced word-play in Waits. Sadly for me, this train never really slowed down enough in any of these places for me to see where we were going. What I really wanted was to stop off to look around at the landscape.

"It’s Gonna Get Loud," by Karole Armitage, was ironically one of the quieter pieces of the evening, both in actual volume and in scope. It was similar to "West" in pace, but in a straight-forward, playful way. This dance, set to a triple electric guitar score by seventies composer Rhys Chatham, was trying to be fun and sexy, but it didn’t try too hard, and I think that’s why it succeeded to the extent it did. I was reminded of popular NY choreographers of the nineties and early eighties like Doug Varone and David Dorfman, men who move big across the floor and enjoy themselves immensely. The company enjoyed themselves too and didn’t take it too seriously.

Perhaps the most ambitious piece of the evening was by Keith Johnson, a Californian with strong Utah ties. "Secret Dark World" was full of dance-theatre tropes looking for a home. Throughout, there was an expectation set up that we would view violence. Muted aggression was performed, but never explained or developed. The tone of the work seemed to want to be abrasive and European in the way we might like to imagine European dance as being cutting-edge, but it wasn’t. Deep down it was a very American piece and even a pretty Western piece, more so than Boye-Christensen’s "West." Men and women dance together in couples and then in their respective groups of three. There are chairs in which everyone sits and then slumps as though shot by imaginary bullets. Some of these images seem to find themselves and others don’t. I didn’t feel any catharsis with what I think might have been the central images of the piece. At times this really bothered me. Why was Bashaun Williams crawling, then walking, at the behest of a taunting voice that spoke to him like a dog? And why did the same crawl-walk get re-enacted by Brad Beakes, just one more time, while wearing a dog collar held by Tara McArthur. At other times I didn’t care about the why, though I still wondered. Why did Elizabeth Kelly-Wilberg do that gorgeous, precarious solo while the chairs closed in on her? Perhaps it was just a beautiful goodbye, she’s leaving the company after this season and will certainly be missed.

Sam Hanson choreographs and makes dance film in SLC. You can see his newest project on dancesmadetoorder.com

Emeralds, Roughly Cut

In the three years that I have attended Ballet West shows I have been thoroughly impressed by the company’s breadth. Under the artistic direction of Adam Sklute they have grown to be a leading force in the American ballet scene. For this year’s Spring Season Ballet West presented a brief history in ballet. Beginning with one of the most revered ballets from choreographer Marius Petipa, the Grand Pas from Paquita was a lesson in the roots of the classical ballet. Moving to a more modern take on ballet, Emeralds from George Balanchine’s Jewels was presented as the “main event” for this bill. Lastly, a drastically contemporary piece choreographed by Jiří Kylián, Petit Mort closed the evening.

It was not my expectation, but Petipa’s Grand Pas turned out to be my favorite piece of the evening. Originally first staged on the Imperial Ballet in Russia, Petipa ushers the audience into a Spanish royal court. Heavily influenced with Spanish flavor with simple wrist flicks and coquettish smiles much of the corps movement frames and mimics the main action of the principal ballerina (played by Christiana Bennet on April 14). The corps members themselves worked quite lovely as individuals, though they had a particularly challenging time working as a group. While it was not the strongest technical evening for Christiana Bennet, her commanding presence on stage would easily deceive an untrained eye. I will note that she very laudably executed a full 32 fouette turns, a tradition that has been fading out of vogue that I was pleased to see endured. She remains a mature and artistic dancer taking on leading roles with the gravitas and conviction needed. Rex Tilton (in the male role on April 14) brings a similar assertiveness that is as convincing as it is entertaining to witness. He works as an admirable partner and was particularly impressive both in his pirouettes and tours. I would like to acknowledge a singularly exemplary performance by new member Beckanne Sisk whose variation was exceptionally performed eliciting more than a few well deserved “Bravo’s.” Overall, the Grand Pas was a terrific reminder of why classical ballet formats are so enjoyable to watch.

Typically, Balanchine’s Emeralds is shown as the first in a triptych of his Jewels. It serves as a visually glamourous and lyrical interlude to the rest of the ballet. Within the context of Jewels it reads well and lives up to the splendor of late Balanchine work. In regards to the Ballet West production, it seemed to not know it’s place and was, pardon the pun, a little lack luster. The choreography mimics the costumes; refined and delicately embellished. Balanchine knows how to use a corps as both compliment and counterpoint. The ever changing tableaus were charming and easy on the eye, but the lack of development seemed to make me question it’s placement within the program. While the lighting (including a fully lit “emerald” cyc) was very accurately reconstructed, it seemed at times to swallow the attention away from the dancers. Emeralds is also not a piece that I would say accurately depicts Balanchine’s true nature. Perhaps a more appropriate inclusion to the performance would have been Rubies which demonstrates the harsher more angular and even cold personality that is generally associated with Balanchine’s work.

Petit Mort by Czech choreographer Jiří Kylián was the piece I had anticipated the most for this evening. I regret to say that I was not nearly as impressed as I had hoped to be. Kylián created this work in honor of the death of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart utilizing two of his most beloved piano concertos. The piece begins with a rumbling of drums that sets the tension. As the curtain rises six men are revealed balancing swords upon their fingers. Thisdelicate image was slightly tainted as one of the men was merely holding his sword in his hand. This was the first of several illusions that was not successfully accomplished during the piece. Kylián’s highly demanding work requires not only a deep understanding of artistic development but also a confidence in one’s own actions. Unfortunately, the Ballet West ensemble was unable to evoke the tragic, clever, and sensitive nature that is inherent in the choreography. While they certainly have the chops to pull of the physicality of more contemporary work, there seemed to be a lack of credence and more pronounced uncertainty in the performers’ attitudes.

While Ballet West remains in my eyes a promising and continually invigorating company, this program did not seem to showcase their skills as an entire group quite adequately. I am looking forward to their Season Finale, Innovations running May 18, 19 and 23-26 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center downtown. Here Ballet West Artists are able to showcase their own work which will hopefully showcase their dancers as equally impressive.

Katherine Adler is a BFA candidate at the University of Utah and an intern for loveDANCEmore