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| Les Noces © Kat Stiennon 2018 |
by Susan Kepecs
Madison Ballet’s repertory program
of works by women choreographers, SHE, at the Bartell last
weekend (Feb. 2-3), was almost entirely wonderful. But the real gems in SHE were the dancers themselves. For the first time, this company – like all
companies, a mix of dancers moving up the chain from apprentices to seasoned
veterans – really gelled. Madison Ballet finally became what it’s always wanted
to be. Gone were the traces of unevenness and amateurism that marred
performances in the past. Even though none of artistic director W. Earle
Smith’s own works were on the program, SHE revealed the full fruits of his long
labors, just as his retirement looms on the horion.
There’s been a lot of uncertainty at Madison Ballet since Smith's announcement in October, which feels wrong when growing, thriving Madison
finally has a ballet company that’s full-fledged and poised to fly higher. And the city deserves no less. The citizens have finally fallen in
love. Nutcracker isn’t so much about
ballet as it is about Christmas – people with little interest in the
intricacies of the steps or the stars of the big companies show up at Overture
Hall for the holiday monster, but a year or two back there were plenty of empty
seats at the repertory shows. For SHE the house was packed, even for the snowy
Saturday afternoon show that I attended.
The only fly in the ointment was “Bow,” a piece meant to
evoke the sea by hoofer / movement educator Katherine Kramer, whose fluency in
the language of ballet left much to be desired. The women were on pointe, but they didn’t need
to be. Pointework by itself doesn’t define
ballet – in Balanchine’s (1970) Elegie,
for example, the women are barefoot, their hair worn loose, but the elegance
and complexity of the movement, plus the flow of the dance itself, are
unmistakably neoclassical. “Bow,” a
long, simple, often static work, consisted mostly of wave-like undulations that
changed in intensity to fit a storm-to-sun narrative. This would be a good piece
to set on UW-Madison dance majors, but it didn’t belong in a Madison Ballet
repertory show.
Watching “Bow,” I wondered why Smith chose Kramer for this program
while overlooking noted postmodern ballet choreographer and UW-Madison dance
department professor Marlene Skog, who’s set several of her thoughty works on
Madison Ballet in the past. Perhaps
Smith was aiming to bring in someone new instead, but he did bring back for the
fourth time Chicago/New York urban/contemporary choreographer Jacqueline
Stewart, whose quirky un-ballets make expert use of the neoclassical vocabulary
and the dancers’ talents.
Stewart’s “Gait N Heel,” a
premiere, was the best piece I’ve seen from her – it popped with color and
action, though I have to complain about the sexploitation in the first movement. Lithe,
loose-limbed Catherine Rogers, in a
hot pink leotard, tossed her hair, pouted, and stalked around three men – Shea
Johnson, Andrew Erickson and Jackson Warring – then climbed onto their laps and
let them manipulate her, their fingers in her hair, her legs gesticulating in
second position as the soundtrack whispered “I have a new crush...” A couple of
times she pushed them away, or lept over them, but these acts weren’t nearly
enough to shift the emotional dynamic. Rogers was terrific in the role, and OK, I get
it – we’re supposed to be mad about the objectification of women. But in the
age of #MeToo and #Time’sUp, do we really need to see it onstage?
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| Rogers, Johnson and Erickson, Gain N Heel © Kat Stiennon 2018 |
The rest of Stewart’s piece, a tango of sorts, was dynamic, contemporary,
and edgy as hell. Its message (there
were lyrics: “these girls, these golden girls who sparkle…”) was sexualized,
but also diffuse and abstract. Five women in very high heels (Bri George,
Kristen Hammer, Elisabeth Malanga, Mia Sanchez, Doria Worden) and three (Shannon
Quirk, Annika Reikersdorfer, and Rogers) on pointe strode and stomped like
Amazons and danced in varying combinations with each other and with the men. At
the end Quirk and Johnson turned a short, angular bravura pas to a T as the
women in heels stalked their perimeter. I’m not sure what it meant, but it was
fun to watch.
To add historical context to a program of women
choreographers, Smith re-staged Bronislava Nijinska's (1923) Les Noces, with its relentlessly dramatic Stravinsky
score. It’s a powerhouse Bolshevik ballet,
the modernist aesthetics of the Russian revolutionary avant-garde written in
every move. Balanchine, and especially Martha Graham, were indebted to its new
forms.
In Smith’s re-staging Quirk and Johnson were the wedding
couple, though the death-defying life-leaps they’re known for are absent
in this ballet. In Les Noces, as in communism, the
individual is (mostly)
inseparable from the group (here the full company, plus two very advanced
students from the School of Madison Ballet). Everyone’s essentially onstage all
the time. The ballet’s four movements
are tribal, ritualistic, rhythmic. The
dancing is constant, the groups, shapes, and patterns through space
ever-shifting, the counts wildly unpredictable. Arms sweep upwards over a thousand
jumps in sixth position; little sideways bourées are punctuated with flicking
feet; peasant steps mingle among pirouettes and saut de chats. The work demands
strength, precision, and unwavering teamwork.
The company gave it all that, plus a lot of heart.
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| Les Noces © Kat Stiennon 2018 |
Les Noces was a triumph.
For its sheer power, Les
Noces should have been the finale. But the two works at the end of the bill
were captivating in their own rights. First was “Mingus Dances,” a two-movement
piece by New Orleans-based choreographer Nikki Hefko, whose deep neoclassical roots
and bebop style were honed, at least in part, at Dance Theater of Harlem and
Madison Ballet. “Mingus Dances” played
to both sides of that package. It opened
with revered bassman Charlie Mingus’s quiet, lush piano
improvisation “Myself
When I Am Real,” which has a measure of swing but tilts toward toward modern
classicism. To this inspired score Hefko
made a luxurious neoclassical adagio / andante pas de deux with short solo
variations, which she set on Kaleigh Schock and Damien Johnson – powerful
dancers making their debut as Madison Ballet soloists in this piece. They were perfectly
matched and utterly transfixing together, investing the dance with all the
tender emotional nuances of Mingus’s song.
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| D. Johnson and Schock © Kat Stiennon 2018 |
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| Murphy in "Mingus Dances" © Kat Stiennon 2018 |
And then suddenly there was Pepper Adams’ famous baritone sax
line that opens Mingus’s “Moanin,” off his legendary 1959 Blues and Roots album, and Mary Bastian pranced in swingin’ ahead
of a line of women – Reikersdorfer, Rogers, Michaela King, Mia Sanchez, and Kelanie
Murphy – wearing short black dance dresses and reveling in the sound, digging
hips and shoulders into their jivey moves.
Murphy’s solo was the standout here.
Grinning and delighted with herself she lept and spun, pushing through
space – woman, dancing.
While Hefko’s piece was reminiscent of Balanchine on
Broadway, Stephanie Martínez’ “Non è
Normale,” originally commissioned by Joffrey Ballet Chicago in 2015 and set for
this show on
eleven of Madison Ballet’s dancers, was angular, percussive, gestural,
contemporary. Mylar-sliver skirts (on the women) and tights (on the men) caught
the light, charging the atmosphere with visual electric buzz. The first segment
was filled with shifting patterns. Three men joined a line of women, morphing the movement into multiple pas de deux with changing partners. At one point Erickson dipped Elisabeth
Malanga into a deep penché and then zipped her into the air for an Italian pas
de chat, that little kick at the end coming through like an electric shock. There was a lovely pas de trois for
Quirk with both Johnsons (Shea and Damien), who swept her high into the air.
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| Quirk and ensemble, "Non è Normale" © Kat Stiennon 2018 |
Suddenly – like the break in Hefko’s piece – the flow stopped
short and Murphy scored again, this time with Jackson Warring in the spunkiest
little jitterbug ever. He slapped her butt, she kicked
him in the chest, then wrapped
her legs around his waist and pumped her fist in the air in triumph as he whirled her around.
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| Non è Normale © Kat Stiennon 2018 |
The ensemble flow resumed, with a whole string of
new patterns that rested smartly on the steps in the first two movements.
Bravo.
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