Tag: Julieta Cervantes

Posted on

CEDAR LAKE CONTEMPORARY BALLET OPENS ITS FIRST JOYCE SEASON

 

 

 

(Two top photos by Julieta Cervantes, third photo by Karli Cadel)

Small company Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet opened their first season at the relatively large Joyce Theater in Chelsea Tuesday night to a nearly packed house. (Big kudos to them!) They performed an evening-length work by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, called Orbo Novo, which translates to “the new world” and kind of takes off from the book My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, about her experiences suffering a stroke.

Large chunks of text are taken from parts of the book where Bolte Taylor talks about the onset of the stroke — feeling the searing pain behind her left eye, suddenly speaking gibberish while still understanding everything going on around her, hearing only gibberish out of the mouths of others (though she recognizes their voices over the phone), not being able to operate her right arm, seeing her body change form before her eyes, etc. etc. Immensely interesting — and frightening, and read very well by the dancers.

The dance, which (I assume) like the book, becomes a kind of meditation on right-brain versus the left. It is bookended by the dancers being trapped within a red structure (designed by Alexander Dodge), like prisoners, then eventually finding ways of crawling through the holes. At times the dancers wrap their legs around the holes in the structure, their bodies dangling down, hanging limply. At times, the structure is wheeled away and dancers take center stage — sometimes dancing in solos, sometimes in ensemble — their bodies at times writhing in a contorted manner, at times moving more fluidly to music (composed by Szymon Brzoska and performed live by the Mosaic String Quartet) that is at times mellifluous, at times sharp and discordant.

All of the dancers were wondrous, but as usual with this company, those who impressed me the most were the astounding  Acacia Schachte (in center of middle photo, and in bottom), Jason Kittelberger (top and bottom photos), and Ebony Williams. Fun too to see some faces that are familiar from other companies but new to Cedar Lake: Gwynenn Taylor Jones from Alvin Ailey and Manuel Vignoulle from Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve.

The company performs at the Joyce through October 25.

Posted on

LUCY GUERIN’S KAFKAESQUE, FOUCAULDIAN "CORRIDOR"

 

 

Friday night I went to see Australian choreographer Lucy Guerin’s Corridor at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. I love these more avant garde (for lack of a better term) kinds of dance pieces — where the choreographer clearly has an idea in mind and wants to make you think about it. I seem to see a lot of this kind of work at BAC.

Corridor is about the effects of modern forms of communication on the human body, and the body’s ability to receive and transmit those forms of communication. Guerin said the work was inspired by a scene from Kafka’s The Castle, which was partly about the comings and goings of various people down a long corridor.

Here, there was a long walkway, a corridor that looked a bit like a catwalk, and chairs for the audience were set up on each side. The piece opened with one dancer receiving a call on his cell phone. He was sitting in one of the audience seats so it wasn’t at first clear that he was a performer and this was part of the performance. He sauntered around on the walkway as other dancers, likewise seated, received phone calls as well and followed him onto the walkway. As soon as the audience realized the performance had begun and quieted down, a sharp buzz sounded over the speakers (some of which were seated under our chairs) and the dancers immediately put their cell phones in their pockets, widened their eyes and, as if on command, began making lots of sharp, angular movements. Ambient sound (traffic, construction, chattering voices, chirping birds, etc.) now played over the speakers.

There was so much going on in this piece, which was, unbelievably, less than an hour long, and there were so many different parts to it, it’s almost impossible for me to remember them all (which is one of the things I liked about it). So I’m just going to talk about what I most remember.

At one point, toward the beginning, the dancers broke into pairs. There were three men and three women and each pair (comprised of one man, one woman) stood in three different sections of the corridor. The man of the couple would make various movements — an arm circling above his head, another arm jutting out, bending over sideways, etc. — and the woman standing facing him would follow him. Each man was facing the same direction, each woman was facing each man. At one point, it became clear that the man and woman farthest to the west end of the corridor were the “leaders.” Or rather than man was the leader. The men farther down the corridor kept watching him, and imitating him. Their women followers, who could not see that man since they were facing their own men instead, imitated their man. The more rapidly the first man moved, the crazier and more chaotic and confused was the movement of the other couples, particularly the women who basically were following a man following another man. It was really interesting, and you could see the frustration growing on the faces of the male followers and their women.

Continue reading “LUCY GUERIN’S KAFKAESQUE, FOUCAULDIAN "CORRIDOR"”

Posted on

DANCES PATRELLE DOES JUDY GARLAND AND EDGAR ALLAN POE

 

On Friday night I saw Dances Patrelle, who is celebrating its 20th anniversary, to see their Murder at the Masque: The Casebook of Edgar Allan Poe, a world premiere, and Come Rain / Come Shine, a revival from 1986, both choreographed by artistic director Francis Patrelle. Funny, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone besides Dance Times Square perform at the Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, so, I was a slight bit confused throughout the evening because of that. I couldn’t figure out what Marcelo was doing on the stage instead of Pasha and what people were doing in pointe shoes instead of Latin stilettos… I guess it’s fitting I brought with me my ballroom friend, Mika.

And I’m so glad I did. She had a blast. Said it was some of the best ballet she’d ever seen. AS I KNEW IT WOULD BE!!! Said Marcelo was very Slavik (as in Kryklyvyy, as in man drama queen total show-off show-stealer, as in I’m totally predictable in my taste in male dancers whether it be ballet, ballroom, or whatever style. Oh well…)

Anyway, Murder, on first, was a dramatic ballet murder mystery that was interestingly told. The figure of Poe seemed to be writing the story as we were seeing it, from afront a scrim, and it seemed to me he was changing things throughout. I’m still not sure who committed the murder in the end (but that may well be because I was so excited about the second piece of the night). It had an air of Balanchine’s La Sonnambula about it — unsettling, foreshadowing tragedy, and set at a ball and in the same period — and Patrick Soluri’s music set that tone perfectly. Matthew Dibble, guest starring with the company (he’s danced with Twyla Tharp’s company), danced the lead very well, expectedly.

 

 

Second on was Come Rain / Come Shine, Patrelle’s longish but lovely set of dances for three couples set to a group of Judy Garland songs. Sorry I’ve posted that picture above about 10,000 times on this blog; it’s the only one I have of that dance 🙂 All six dancers in that ballet were guesting from ABT: Roman Zhurbin (ballet god) and Gemma Bond danced the first, youngish, romantic couple; Isaac Stappas and Kristi Boone (who BLEW ME AWAY) danced the second, more mature, argumentative couple; and Marcelo Gomes and Maria Riccetto danced the third couple, consisting of cocky, taunting, teasing, out-of-control man and the poor woman whom he’s got his eyes on. Of course Marcelo had to have the cocky part, and his role, which was very “That’s Life” from Tharp’s Sinatra Songs, consisted of him flying all about and around her, doing every trick in the book — ginormous jetes, Balanchinian continuous twisty jumps, turns and turns and jumps jumps jumps galore — which of course I love 🙂 Oh, and Maria’s tiny, so he did a bunch of the one-handed assisted pirouettes he often does with Julie Kent that drove the audience here WILD. The guy behind me was seriously orgasmic. Mika and I were giggling throughout, and finally, on the last assisted pirouette, I just burst out laughing.

What would the world be like with no Marcelos? Ballet would just not be fun. To say the least.

Roman was Roman — not doing a thing wrong, everything perfect, perfect form, perfect precision, perfect acting, just sheer perfection.

Gemma was likewise perfect and Isaac was strong and Maria sweet.

(But it was Kristi who really blew me away. Where did she come from?! I guess I’ve never really seen her up close before … well, I did notice her before — in Tudor’s Jardin des Lilacs, which ABT put on in their Tudor centennial celebration last season — she danced the role of the lover of the man betrothed to another and she danced with such longing for him and anger at the situation and beautiful composure in the face of despair. But time got away from me and I never had time to write about that performance… Well, she had a similar character here: a woman fighting with her man, seemingly not able to fully trust him, not wanting to give herself completely to him for that reason, but unable to stop loving him nonetheless. She and Isaac (who happen to be real-life husband and wife) are really the emotional centerpiece of this ballet and she acted it with such intense emotion. She made me feel everything her character was feeling, really took me to that place. And she made such amazing shapes with her body! Isaac kept throwing her into these overhead and waist-high fish positions and she’d raise her arms up and curve them over, turning her head to face the floor. At times it looked like she was letting him lift her but was also rejecting him, couldn’t bear to look at him. At other times, she kind of looked like a dove, and in a way she was trying to make peace, so the image made sense. So she didn’t just make original, remarkable shapes; she made shapes that had meaning, and were also original and cool.

And also, her feet and legs — such strength! Her feet were almost like Veronika Part’s her points were so pronounced!  If I was a ballerina I’d want people to notice that — strong feet and legs. I wouldn’t want to look like I was floating through the air like a feather, I’d want to look more strong and toned and powerful, like my legs were carrying me through the world. Anyway, I am a new Kristi Boone fan, needless to say.

It was an intoxicatingly rich evening and I felt like I always feel when I leave the Kaye Playhouse after seeing divine dancing: deliriously high, and then kind of sad…