Ballet West: Carmina Burana, with Serenade

Ballet West’s fall offering is loaded with icons. The world premiere of Nicolo Fonte’s Carmina Burana, a co-production with the Cincinnati Ballet, draws inspiration from Carl Orff’s well-known score that set the poetry of medieval clergy to music. The opening song, “O Fortuna,” is shorthand for drama, as frequently heard in commercials as it is in theaters. Serenade, the other ballet of the double-bill, is the first work choreographed by George Balanchine in the United States and a masterwork of twentieth-century ballet. Its opening tableau of female dancers in sky blue, ankle-length tutus extending their hands as if shielding their eyes from the sun is central to the origins of American ballet. Ballet West danced both works with spirit and indulgence, the expert clarity of Serenade contrasting with Carmina Burana’s excessive flourish.

The familiar refrain of “O Fortuna” bellowed as cloisters housing the Cantorum Chamber Choir in an actual choir loft were unveiled. A bone-like light fixture recalling the raftered ceiling of a Catholic church floats over a writhing tangle of bodies. Wearing nude leotards and briefs, the dancers twist until broken shapes emerge. Featuring a full orchestra, full chorus, three vocal soloists, impressive scenery, pointe shoes as well as soft shoes, too many costume changes, and intricate choreography, Nicolo Fonte’s Carmina Burana is a true spectacle.

The poems Orff chose to include in his cantata examine themes of fortune, love, and lust. Like many versions of Carmina Burana, Fonte uses the sensual words as a muse and aesthetic choices reference the authors of the lyrics, though the costumes have a trendier bent with metallic leotards and hooded crop tops paired with bronze circle skirts that recall monk’s robes. With the men and women of the ensemble clothed in the same hooded costume, the emergence of the monks is a magnificently anonymous moment.  

The ensuing vignettes are visually impactful and only occasionally overwrought. The dancers clearly delight in the movement, giving a heightened energy to Fonte’s choreography. Demonstratively musical, the choreography charged the stage with tension and hinted at the idea of humanity’s dual nature. Even in calm moments, Fonte can skillfully craft drama. This intensity can get exhausting, but Arolyn Williams had a refreshingly joyous solo that interrupted the turmoil.

Though Carmina Burana’s movement was rigorously detailed and sinuously danced, I craved a through-line. There were hints of this in an elegantly ambiguous duet between Alexander MacFarlan and Oliver Oguma that lightly referenced an earlier embrace. The arc of Beckanne Sisk and Chase O’Connell’s roles also felt like a potential theme.

Principal Artists Beckanne Sisk and Chase O'Connell in Nicolo Fonte's Carmina Burana. Photo by Luke Isley.

At first dancing separately, O’Connell appeared in a solo that showcased his spaciously sophisticated movement and Sisk emerged as a broken bird with only one wing and one pointe shoe. Though I did not understand why she was only wearing one shoe, Sisk expertly navigated the challenge, embodying a character trapped by her halved nature.  The pair’s eventual union in a climactic pas de deux was the highlight of the ballet. Much of the partnering in the rest of Carmina Burana felt manipulative but O’Connell met Sisk as a peer, supporting rather than controlling her. They danced with abandon and trust. O’Connell’s elegance and seamless partnering skills perfectly matched Sisk’s technical consistency and emotional intensity.

Unlike the embellishment of Fonte’s Carmina Burana, Serenade is brilliant in its refined clarity. As the emotive chords of Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings in C Major” swelled, the corps de ballet extend their fingertips, floating their wrists down to rest on their foreheads, then their hearts, their arms finally arriving in low circles and feet opening to first position below the hems of their tutus. These first gestures of Serenade, choreographed in 1934, are emblematic of Balanchine and of American ballet. Despite being over eighty years old, Serenade feels vital.

Serenade exemplifies the idealized feminine qualities of Balanchine’s ballets, only turning problematic when one of the soloist men “awakens” the collapsed Waltz Girl. The distilled movement and calming yet innovative arrangement of the dancers are an ode to the foundations of the art form: the corps de ballet, the ritual of class, and the crystalline technique it fosters. Most of the ballet’s striking moments are simple and based in class exercises. The stage erupts in unified repetitions of pirouettes. Staccato port des bras illustrates the interplay between the orchestra’s instruments. Dozens of dancers extend their legs into tendus that perfectly slide into fifth positions, a movement that signifies the start of an exercise.

In Ballet West’s production of this classic, the corps de ballet artfully and effortlessly lays the ballet’s technical foundation without feeling cold or removed. I have admired the unity of Ballet West’s corps before, but I have never seen them as easily connected as they were on opening night. The balance between their singular openness and the meticulous choreography is enthralling. If I had the words to laud each individual corps member, I would.

At its heart Serenade is an ensemble work, but an abstract relationship between five soloists, three women and two men underpins the ballet. Weaving amongst the corps de ballet in the first movement, joyfully expansive leaps and pizzicato steps introduce the three female soloists. Katherine Lawrence’s calm warmth permeated her sparkling technique and Emily Adams brimmed with vitality and confidence. Adams was superb, playing with the music and enticing the audience with her fully enlivened physicality. The role of Waltz Girl magnified Beckanne Sisk’s unique and growing ability to convey emotional depth. Her performance was lush, exhilarating, and sincere in its gravity. While the ballet is renowned for being story-less, Sisk imbued Serenade with an emotional resonance often only found in narrative. She stretched her arms backwards and opened her chest to the heavens as the masthead of Serenade’s iconic final lift and I saw all the complexity of ballet, the torment, joy, sacrifice, and transcendence, embodied in her arch.

Ballet West's Carmina Burana with Serenade runs now through this Saturday, November 11. 

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: National Choreographic Festival, Part II

Billed as the “Sundance Festival for dance,” Ballet West’s National Choreographic Festival spanned two weekends and received significant regional support for its presentation of works by five ballet companies and seven choreographers.

 Below, Liz Ivkovich considers works from the first weekend while Ashley Anderson responds to the second. The two conclude together in conversation about this new platform.  

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Trey McIntyre’s The Accidental featured three couples (male and female), in pas de deux to the crooning voice of Patrick Watson. The piece was four distinct segments to four different songs. The almost-mariachi beat drove the dancers, in leafy leotards and flat slippers, through a series of intricate lifts. The partnering was well-executed, yet I felt the Pennsylvania Ballet dancers seemed to miss each other in their focus on the audience.

As the lights rose on Sarasota Ballet performing In a State of Weightlessness, I thought I saw five floating Buddhas. This image resolved into women in light tan leotards suspended in the air above darkly-clad male partners. Throughout the work, composer Philip Glass drove the men as they lifted their female partners like Bunraku puppet masters. I challenged myself to actually see the men, which was difficult because the work seemed designed to draw focus solely to the women. I was struck by the beauty and nuance in Ricardo Graziano’s choreography, where a simple head movement could define the pas de deux.

I wish I could see Nicolo Fonte’s Fox on the Doorstep two more times before I had to write about it. It was perfectly ordinary and extraordinary, folding me into their world.

Fox began with a heavy stage left; a mass of dancers that resolved into duets and solos, to dissolve again into the group. Beckanne Sisk and Rex Tilton discovered the unseen edges of the music with sharp flicks and easy extensions as they danced together, alone, and with others.

A single light shone from upstage down at the audience. At times it became the moon, at others an interrogation. And when it struck the dancers so that we saw them - strength of movement, sweat lines on costumes - they could see us. Performers and observers, we were there together.

A woman contorted in the center of dancers arranged like a flock of geese, while they watched. At moments, they tried to join her, only to stop and watch again, with cold eyes.

The piece seemed to end when the group melted off stage. It began anew with falling snow, and a lone figure (Chase O’Connell) who was joined for a brief moment by a woman in a gray leotard and soft slippers.

I feel odd singling out these few artists whose faces I recognize. If each dancer had performed their own part alone, it would still be captivating, a mash up of the ease of release technique, the intense exploration of Gaga, and iconic ballet lines.  

Yet, it was the company’s commitment to really being together on stage that lingers in my memory. I had the feeling that one gets when seeing someone hold their baby - that they are actually touching another person, not performing what it looks like to touch someone.

This connection between the dancers was so lovely in its ordinary-ness that the performance became extraordinary.

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Terra is not the first work by Helen Pickett that Ballet West has presented, but it is one of the most lovely. Working from Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth, Oregon Ballet Theatre performs both creation and opposition with dancers who appear at once Paleolithic and extraterrestrial. The choreographic structure measures up to several of Campbell’s functions of myth: to marvel at the universe, to show the scientific boundaries of these beliefs, to demonstrate sociological support for this ideas, and to live life within the aforementioned.

This last function, wildly living, falls short at times, perhaps because of the homogenous nature of the group (ballet-trained dancers of the same demographic) and perhaps because of a lack of practice in performing a visceral soundscape (grunts, shouts, etc.). Although vulnerable relationships are presented in a number of mythical contexts and formations from virtuosic masculine circles and romantic pairings to lone and longing women, the dance deals more with the structures and the outward marveling than it does the living.

Before/After by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa makes this concert happily equitable in terms of gender (a hot topic in ballet) and the brief duet presents a refreshing counterpoint to other festival offerings. A sparse text is repeated -- changes, the sound changes, changes, before, after, the light changes --  and each directive comes to pass over the 7 minute work. Light and sound cues progressively change before the “after” of departures from the stage by Angelica Generosa and James Moore.  Watching the duet I’m reminded about the powerful form of duets, especially in a regional dance fabric that so values an ensemble: the audience can focus deeply, marvel at intricacies, and also have the pressure of a “masterpiece,” lifted from their shoulders.  

The return of Oliver Oguma’s Tremor was exciting and curious. I reviewed the premiere at the Eccles in Park City and had such a remarkably different experience the second time around. I can’t pinpoint changes to the work beyond my own proximity (closer in Park City, from a distance in Salt Lake) that made the androgyny and ambiguity read and the performance by the dancers more keen and structurally refined. Perhaps this viewing was also seeking a hopeful precedent of truly new voices, outside the choreographic canon, to be included in future festivals.

The evening cycled back to explorations of ritual in Dances for Lou, by Val Caniparoli, a previous resident choreographer with Ballet West. The title refers to the accompanying composition by Lou Harrison, known for his use of Asian musical influences. With impeccable framing by visible stage lighting, brief vignettes revealed ideas similar to Terra although more formally framed. The vignettes carried largely the same implications -- wonder, boundaries, and questions about using specific cultural histories on specific, but non-representative casts.

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The National Choreographic Festival is certainly a relevant, ambitious pursuit resulting in exceptionally skilled performances presented in Salt Lake’s newest venue. The festival also  meets at least one Sundance measure in its vision of a gathering place for new works in ballet. Though ballet receives more public support compared to other dance forms it is also met with unique challenges, namely the expectations of ballet’s oldest patrons (read: Swan Lake).

Yet these accolades, the “broad, diverse, and ever-changing landscape of new choreography that exists today” promised in Artistic Director Adam Sklute’s program notes, are fraught, given that the public funding received by Ballet West is hardly comparable to either the early independent days of film festival metaphor or the payment that any regional choreographer outside of ballet is eligible to receive. Regional, independent choreographers are only eligible for $2,000 a year in public funding, or $4,500 if they are fiscally sponsored. Ballet West received $1.6 million in government grants in the 2014 fiscal year, and the festival garnered an additional $100,000 in support from the Utah State Legislature.

There are both valid and invalid reasons for these discrepancies but it does leave these two writers wondering what the cost of performance will be in an ever-tightened picture of funding. Is a reading of ballet as synonymous with choreography fair? Should models like the National Choreographic Festival promise a festival of new ballet rather than a festival of dance, a promise which Ballet West can unequivocally deliver? Or, could the National Choreographic Festival grow to become, like Sundance, a festival that “actively advances the work of independent storytellers” from a wider range of aesthetics, expertise, and identity?  

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