Above: Parisa Khobdeh and Michael Trusnovec in EVENTIDE; photo by Paul B Goode
Saturday March 14th, 2015 matinee - The second of four performances by Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance that I'll be seeing during their 2015 Lincoln Center season. The program this afternoon was both appealing and meaningful: three Taylor masterworks, vastly different in both music and atmosphere, and all danced with extraordinary flair and commitment by the resplendent artists of the master's Company.
CLOVEN KINGDOM, with its bizarre mingling of music by Arcangelo Corelli, Henry Cowell, and Malloy Miller, is by turns elegant, feral, and quirky. The opening passage, with the women swaying in gowns of gorgeous hues, is highlighted by two duets: Jamie Rae Walker and Michelle Fleet, who later give way to Paisa Khobdeh and Eran Bugge.
A quicksilver Aileen Roehl (above, in Paul B Goode's photo) leaps swiftly across the stage - reappearing at the oddest moments - pursued (we don't know why) by Heather McGinley, a striking presence in lime green.
Above, top to bottom: Michael Apuzzo, Michael Novak, George Smallwood, Michael Trusnovec; in CLOVEN KINGDOM, photo by Paul B Goode
The Taylor men, in white tie and tails, seize the stage. A tribe of dapper savages, they perform their masculine rituals and build themselves into towering constructs. Their dance is emphatic and relentless.
Mirrored head-dresses for the women add a glittering aspect to the spectacle: Laura Halzack and Christina Lynch Markham bring a touch of the ironic to their vignette. The gentlemen don masks and the work becomes celebratory; but celebrating what? We don't know...eccentricity, perhaps? CLOVEN KINGDOM is a particular favorite of mine from the Taylor catalog.
Above: Heather McGinley and Francisco Graciano in EVENTIDE; photo by Paul B Goode
EVENTIDE, one of Taylor's most lyrical works, unfolds before a backdrop of hazy trees on a late-Summer afternoon. The Ralph Vaughan Williams scores evoke the English countryside, with some lovely playing from viola soloist Maureen Gallagher. Following a gracious ensemble dance (Prelude), there are five gently contrasted duets. In the first, Parisa Khobdeh and Michael Trusnovec summon feelings of slow, elusive tenderness; there's a beautiful, cherishing shoulder lift at the end. Eager and airy, the second duet matches Jamie Rae Walker with Sean Mahoney: both of these dancers have been looking especially fine this season.
There follows a pas de quatre for Laura Halzack, Heather McGinley, James Samson and Francisco Graciano, and then a wistful Eran Bugge enters. She is pursued by the subtly predatory Robert Kleinendorst, and their duet ends sadly with Ms. Bugge left alone. Heather McGinley and Francisco Graciano bring a sense of spaciousness and light to their 'perpetual motion' duet. And finally Ms. Khobdeh and Mr. Trusnovec re-appear in a poignant, consoling passage. The work concludes with an extended promenade for the entire cast. The ballet leaves us musing on our romantic choices over the years, and from it we carry away thoughts of what might have been.
Above: Laura Halzack and Michael Apuzzo in COMPANY B; photo by Paul B Goode
COMPANY B, set to songs sung by those Queens of Harmony, The Andrews Sisters, is a far darker work than people often realize. It took me a few viewings to begin to see that, for all its surface merriment, this is a tragic ballet.
Of the characters and relationships in this dancework, none are likely to have a happy ending. With rumor of war running like a sinister thread thru even the most upbeat moments, we watch a radiantly joyous Laura Halzack and Michael Apuzzo dance the Pennsylvania Polka, knowing he'll soon be drafted and she'll be left forlorn. Francisco Graciano, that handsome devil, is Tico - who "knows of every lovers' lane and how to go there" - but he is already wounded in action (Francisco later nailed his solo in the finale, showing that you can't keep a good man down...)
Nerdy Michael Trusnovec in "Oh, Johnny" might get an exemption for his bad eyesight, but men who don't serve get pummeled at home. Longing for romance, the marvelous Michelle Fleet casts a spell over us with "I Can Dream, Can't I?" but she's unlikely to ever see the object of her affection again once he's been shipped overseas. In "Joseph! Joseph!" Jamie Rae Walker, Aileen Roehl, and Christina Lynch Markham hope to hear wedding bells before their men go off to war; their guys - Michael Trusnovec, Michael Apuzzo, and George Smallwood - know better.
Robert Kleinendorst as the "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" dances the heck out of this cleverly-worded song, but this kid won't be playing Reveille any more: a bullet finds him, and there's no one to mourn his passing. Eran Bugge, the come-hither "Rum And Coca-Cola" girl, has the world on a string at the moment but she'll end up either with an STD or waiting for a monthly check from her baby-daddy somewhere in Iowa - if he remembers her at all. And finally, poignantly, Heather McGinley - that red-haired vision of loveliness - spends a last few moments with her beloved (Sean Mahoney) before he falls in with his comrades and is marched off to the front: "There Will Never Be Another You". Another dream shattered.
The powerful irony of COMPANY B hit home harder than ever today, especially now that we have a family member in the service. War is Hell, in so many ways and on so many fronts.