Above: from Martha Graham's HERETIC
Saturday December 6th, 2014 - Three new choreographic works by Carrie Ellmore-Tallitsch, David Zurak, and Jennifer Conley, plus selections from works by Martha Graham were performed this evening at the Martha Graham Studio Theater by members of Graham 2 and students from the full-time dance programs.
The evening opened with an unsolved mystery: Carrie Ellmore-Tallitsch's OU EST ANNE-CLAIRE? The title character appears wrapped in a shroud at the rear of the stage. How did she come to be there and, more importantly, who is she? Clearly a victim of foul play, as the concluding Tom Waits song ("What's He Building?") would imply.
The piece opens in silence, with the dancers taping out the stage floor (a crime scene?); they all wear black trousers, white shirts, and suspenders, and each clutches a piece of fabric. Eventually they bustle about, pausing to strike poses, and they speak in a stylized gestural language. A notebook descends from above, revealing mysterious clues. As the dancers cluster around the enigmatic title-character, we are no closer to knowing what's transpired. Quirky, full of unanswered questions, and very well-danced, we're left wondering...
In the Graham solo SATYRIC FESTIVAL SONG (1932), dancer Danielle Stringer dons the iconic stretchy green-yellow-black-striped dress for an animated performance: her musicality was sure, her hair an added source of animation.
David Zurak's EURYDICE REDUX was an inventive re-telling of the Orpheus myth; Eurydice tells us: "This is what it is like to love an artist.." for she feels - rightly - that Orpheus is more enamoured of his own music than with his faithful wife. Mr. Zurak, using a collage of music spanning from Michael Jackson to Tchaikovsky, employs his large cast in skillfully-structured sync passages, including a male quartet set to a club beat. "I will not back down!" cries one incarnation of the hapless Eurydice. Overcome by trembling, Orpheus finds calm thru his wife's tender ministrations. But in the end, to a tender violin melody, the music in his head again draws the couple apart. The dancers did an excellent job of story-telling thru the dance.
Martha Graham's HERETIC (1929) was shown earlier this year at the studio. It's a powerful, all-female ballet about an outcast seeking acceptance, or at least forgiveness. The music (based on an old Breton song) is heard in repeated fragments and the black-clad ensemble Anja Zwetti tonight was the sacrificial victim, a fine performance in a role both physically and emotionally demanding.
Choreographer Jennifer Conley gave us a colorful and space-filling work entitled TAKE TWO, set to 'blue' works by Dave Brubeck. Opening with some very athletic sequences - the dancers clambering over chairs, moving swiftly about the space - the music turns jazzy and there's a nice rush of energy. Then things go cool: a romantic-triangle looms up - one boy and two girls - which includes an interesting palm-to-palm duet passage.
And then a Graham finale: an excerpt from her 1987 ballet NIGHT CHANT, specially re-staged for the evening by Virginie Mecene. Here the young dancers of Graham II moved with assured physicality and expressive emotional nuance thru the choreographer's inspired (and inspiring) steps and gestures of this myth-imbued work. As the gorgeous ritual moved forward, we could envision some of these faces and forms as future torch-bearers of the Graham legacy.