Monday August 13, 2012 - Smuin Ballet have opened their engagement at The Joyce. The centerpiece of their programme is Michael Smuin's MEDEA, a 1977 ballet set to Samuel Barber's opus 23. Barber wrote the score in 1946 for Martha Graham, and the resulting ballet eventually was re-titled CAVE OF THE HEART. Michael Smuin's ballet, created some 30 years later, certainly has a Graham feeling to it with its mythic central character (Smuin dancer Robin Semmelhack, above, in a Marty Sohl photo) and its danced-thru narrative compressing the tale of Medea and Jason into a fast-paced drama.
Ms. Semmelhack is alone onstage at curtain-rise; opening her cape, billowing smoke flows out. She dances (on pointe) a powerful opening solo. We then meet her sons: not children but already young men. Jason (Joshua Reynolds) appears - there is an athletic pas de trois for him and his two sons - but he is soon lured away by Creusa (lyrically danced by Janica Smith). Medea is swift to take revenge, first strangling Creusa and then murdering her two sons and presenting their corpses to the distaught Jason.
Smuin's ballet seems to celebrate the male form in this pre-AIDS work; the three men wear thongs which made me think of Dame Janet Baker's remark about a production of ALCESTE in which she once appeared: "The ballet boys were showing a lot of bum." The Smuin men looked superb, though their near-nudity prompted some tsks from the two women next to me.
Smuin's MEDEA is definitely of a certain era and I was glad to have seen it; it certainly holds the stage, especially with this strong ensemble of dancers.
The opening work, OH, INVERTED WORLD was well-choreographed by Trey McIntyre; again the boys were scantily clad in gym shorts. The dancing was excellent but the work was undone by the innocuous pop music of The Shins (played a bit too loud, with lyrics that I could rarely comprehend) and it was too long by half. With other music, this dancework might have had more staying power.
The chatting ladies to my left and the coughing, restless gentleman behind us sent us home before the final work. I'd like to have seen more of these dancers but my tolerance level for audience distractions seems to get lower and lower with each passing season.