Wednesday September 23, 2009 - The Fall for Dance Festival at New York's City Center this year celebrates the 100th anniversary of Serge de Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Several of the participating companies are bringing reconstructions or re-inventions of works associated with Diaghilev's success as a ballet impresario. Above, AFTERNOON OF A FAUN as presented by Boston Ballet/photo by Andrea Mohin.
FAUN and the story of its scandalous premiere are legendary; I've always wanted to see the 'original' setting (we are accustomed to the Jerome Robbins interpretation at NYCB) and Boston ballet tonight presented a lovingly detailed recreation of the work with Leon Bakst's magical backdrop beautifully reproduced.
The young Mongolian danseur Altankhuyag Dugaraa (above) danced the Faun with a wonderful sense of awakening; he used his expressive body to delineate the character thru Nijinsky's highly stylized movement. Dugaraa's youthfulness gave the Faun an innocent and at times slightly frisky quality which plays well into the scenario. I suppose everyone who is familiar with the story of the work's premiere was waiting to see whether the masturbatory gesture at the end would be subtly implied. And it was, though probably not as blatantly as Nijinsky portrayed it in 1912. Lorna Feijoo looked exotic in the rather brief role of the Nymph.
Paul Taylor's
OFFENBACH OVERTURES may not be exactly my cup of tea stylistically - it's pretty much a balletic souffle: tasty but not really satisfying. But my god the Paul Taylor dancers danced up a storm. While the piece is frothy and sometimes downright silly, it is technically demanding and shows off the individual Company members delightfully. Photo above by Andrea Mohin.
Jacques Offenbach (above, in caricature) produced reams of melodious, rhythmically piquant music which invites choreographic witticism; and Paul Taylor has woven together a 'suite' culled from various of the composer's stage works. Each 'movement' is just a shade too long to sustain our interest in the choreographic content but the dancers more than compensated with their lively, technically impeccable characterizations. While certain segments of the work veered close to slapstick, Amy Young's solo (which she danced so persuasively) was an oasis of genuine lyricism: beautiful
port de bras from this dancer who both Kokyat and I so admire. Everyone is the cast danced superbly and I doubt any of them will begrudge special mention of Michael Trusnovec who is surely one of the most thrilling performers on the current dance scene. Although I wasn't crazy about the work itself, seeing the Taylor dancers on such peak form really whetted my appetite for their
City Center season (February 14 - March 14, 2010). The troupe were received with enthusiastic whoops of delight from the packed house tonight.
B/OLERO has been choreographed by Ohad Naharin to the Japanese composer and
synthesizer expert Isao Tomita’s interpretation of Ravel’s classic
score and it is a refreshing take on the thrice-familiar music. The synthesizer produced an interesting layered-effect in the music which seemed far more colourful that I would have expected and while it will never replace the orchestral version it works excellently for Naharin's rendering.
In Naharin's
B/OLERO, dancers Iyar Elezra and Bobbi Smith move in sync, in mirror-image or in echo effects to the choreographer's athletic combinations. Dressed in simple black tunics, the two girls fed off the mounting energy of the score and gave Naharin's demanding physicality their all. Kokyat especially liked this and felt the image created was one of a dancer dancing with her shadow.
Savion Glover's remarkable talents as a tap-dancer are unquestionable but the excrutiating volume at which his score was played at tonight made the piece, STARS AND STRIPES FORVEVER FOR NOW seem painfully endless. Several people around me were covering their ears. I've encountered this situation with amplified live music before at City Center: someone needs to turn it down. Sure enough: this morning I have a case of disco deafness.
One aspect of the evening that was somewhat dampening was the long pauses between the two works on each half of the programme. The din of conversation in the auditorium was deafening during these breaks and really killed the atmosphere. If you need that long between numbers you really might as well just have an intermission.
Yes, I definitely agree. To me, the highlights were on either side of the intermission: Paul Taylor and Batsheva. I can't even pretend to be objective about the Paul Taylor dancers right now—so frickin' good—so I'll just say that Offenbach Overtures was a perfect choice, a pure crowd-pleaser.
The remarkable, synchronized movements of the Batsheva dancers (along with the inexorable advance of that familiar music) was downright hypnotic. I'm sure my jaw was hanging open for most of it.
Posted by: Michael | September 24, 2009 at 11:39 PM