Ballet BC presents an evening of intriguing works that lack sufficient craft but showcase some spectacular dancers.
Ballet BC is the other major company at this year’s Laguna Dance Festival, and though all the fuss has understandably been lavished on Paul Taylor’s better-known ensemble and work (and it’s a treat for Taylor’s company to be seen in an intimate local venue), this Vancouver-based group presented choreography on Friday that contrasted well with Taylor’s program of classics.
The Paul Taylor Dance Company brought us three Taylor pieces that exemplify the first generation of choreographic postmodernism. Ballet BC artistic director Emily Molnar has programmed an evening of three ambitious works, all created by her and two other female choreographers, which reveal the highly stylized path that some post-Taylor modern dance has taken. It was illuminating: we clearly saw the strengths and weaknesses of this aesthetic.
The evening began with Molnar’s “16 + a room,” set to a loud, often cacophonous sound design by Dirk P. Haubrich. The 13 dancers stride with intent, stand in robotic stillness, and often burst into jagged bursts of sliding, off-center tilts, rapidly flung arms and lots of frenetic running.
It’s hard to miss the influence of choreographer William Forsythe in Molnar’s work – she was a member of Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt – but “16 + a room” lacks a sense of Forsythe’s sense of proportion, long-term shape and compositional rigor. It’s all process – interesting ideas and moments that beg to be harnessed to an overarching structure. Without that, the work is undermined by a sense of sameness and lack of development. The signs that occasionally appear – “This is a beginning” and “This is not an ending” – are a red herring. They don’t provide insight. Neither do the black costumes and low lighting, which often obscure shapes and phrases.
Crystal Pite, the best known of the choreographers, created the evening’s strongest work, “Solo Echo.”
Pite, like Molnar a former Ballett Frankfurt dancer, has also been steeped in Forsythe’s work. But whereas Molnar used a soundscape without discernible form, Pite’s music is two cello sonatas by Johannes Brahms, which she wisely employs to help give her work the formal structure that Molnar’s lacked. Inspired by a Mark Strand poem about coldness and death, the piece starts with an enchanting snowfall effect. “Solo Echo” is full of images that depict longing and loss: bodies that slip through and past each other, agitated solos that burst through like an outpouring of spontaneous grief, unusual multi-body shapes. Dancer Brandon Ailey was a standout here.
“Bill,” by Sharon Eyal and fellow Jerusalem native Gai Behar, closed the concert, and it can only be described as classic Gaga. For 18 years Eyal worked at the Batsheva Dance Company with artistic director Ohad Naharin, the creator of the distinctive style.
“Bill” begins with a series of spectacular solos. Every dancer is clad in a flesh-colored body stocking and covered in dust. Their movements are highly individualistic yet related in their sinuous quirkiness and unpredictability. Christoph von Riedemann, Justin Rapaport, Peter Smida, Ailey and Kirsten Wicklund were all outstanding.
That’s followed by a long section of zombie-like stop-start movement: sharp twists, robotic stutter-steps, twitches, quick freezes, all set to an ominous sound design by Ori Lichtik. But what is initially mesmerizing eventually becomes too much; like Molnar, Eyal and Behar don’t shape their fascinating material into a work with momentum and a dramatic arc. The mood becomes oppressive, as if there’s no escape from this dark world.
“Dark” was the operative word for the evening. A few flashes of color notwithstanding, everything was minimally lit, and black was the non-color of choice. These works might all fare better apart, each set in a concert with more stylistic variety. As presented (and they are often programmed like this), it’s too big a dose of a single mood, and (Pite’s work excepted) there’s not enough craft to make the choreography rise above the murk.
When: Friday, Sept. 15
Where: Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach
Next: Paul Taylor Dance Company performs at 7:30 p.m.,; Ballet BC performs at 2 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: $35-$40, students; $65-75, adults
Information: lagunadancefestival.org
