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| Count Dracula © Kat Stiennon 2015 |
by Susan Kepecs
They believed, so I did, too. I’m talking about the dancers in Madison
Ballet’s fast-paced feast of entertainment, cooked up by artistic director
W. Earle Smith and featuring his own action-packed choreography, Michael
Massey’s indelible rock n’ roll score (played live onstage by his band),
Karen Brown-Larimore’s slick steampunk costuming, and a big Broadwayesque
aluminum-truss set by the late Jen Trieloff. It played Overture's Capitol Theater last weekend, Oct. 16-17.
Dracula premiered at Capitol Theater in March, 2013, and returned in October of that year. In both of its previous runs it seemed like a
series of somewhat disparate dances, held together by a thin thread of story
plus the astute characterization in Massey’s score. But this time the cast reveled
in the plot, taking the tale to new heights while refusing to sacrifice dance
on the altar of drama. The ballet itself, with the exception of choreographic
adjustments to suit the styles of dancers who’ve joined the company since the
last time Dracula was staged, had few obvious changes. Except one.
The action starts with Jonathan Harker trapped in Dracula’s castle, dancing
frantically. This solo of distress formerly
was done behind a scrim, which provided a delicious air of mystery that gave way to spine-chilling shock – when
the dance was done and the veil was lifted, there stood Dracula, in all his
glory. In last weekend’s production that
magic was lost – the scrim was gone, the Harker variation brightly lit.
Other than that I have no complaints.
If Balanchine had created a sex-oozing rock
n’ roll ballet in the twenty-first century, this would be it. The dance for Dracula’s brides is unmistakably
neoclassical, despite its subject matter. Abigail Henninger sizzled and slithered,
Rachelle Butler was lascivious, Kelanie Murphy demonesque – but what really
mattered was how the dancers’ precise pointework exaggerated their slinking
hips.
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| Brides © Kat Stiennon 2015 |
The Dracula corps is packed with talented soloists, so it’s no surprise that some of the show’s best dancing
happened in the ballet’s two large ensemble numbers. In “Gypsies,” eight dancers in goggles and
mohawks in charge of Dracula’s bags of dirt – vampires, of course, can only
rest if their coffins are filled with earth from home – travel with the Count from
Transylvania to England. Ensconsed in
the dark hold of a wave-tossed ship they shifted between partnering and unison
work, rhythmic and expansive like the roiling sea. “Minions” was bigger, wilder, and more
beautiful, full of batlike contractions that marry latter-day Balanchine with
Martha Graham. All ten dancers (six
women, four men) wore long red satin skirts that swirled and flew as they spun
and lept, to dazzling effect.
As eager suitors of the coquette
Lucy Westenra, the doctor (Jason Gomez), the Texan (Cyrus Bridwell), and the nobleman’s
son (Phillip Ollenburg) brought out an arsenal of balletic pyrotechnics, competing
for her attention with leaps and pirouettes. When she became a vampire, their pursuit – and
their arsenal – turned murderous. The
scene where van Helsing (Jacob Ashley) laid out his plan to slay the vampires just
popped. Men bravura dancing in unison,
with guns – pow!
Ashley’s danced this role in
every Madison Ballet Dracula
production to date. He’s always
been a powerful
jumper – grand cabrioles, switch leaps, and tours en l’air are his specialties
– but he’s upped his acting ante since last we saw him in van Helsing’s leather
frock coat. He was so authoritative he
looked presidential (ok, yes, it’s primary season), directing his posse in the
hemovore hunt.
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| van Helsing © Kat Stiennon 2015 |
Jackson Warring, cast again as
Dracula’s lackey (the crotch-grabbing, insect-eating lunatic Renfield), has grown
into his role, too. He came across as blazingly
crazy, and he nailed the intricate rhythmic shifts in Massey’s spot-on maniac
music. This is much harder than it
looks, since it demands complicated counts and an almost constant string of
various kinds of jumps.
The part of Lucy Westenra was
danced by McKenna Collins, one of two current company dancers who’ve come up
through the School of Madison Ballet. At
19, this was her first principal role. A
hint of tension that showed mostly in her shoulders held her back at the start
of her opening number, a wildly flirtatious rock n’ roll romp, but the stress vanished when her boyfriends charged
onstage. It was fun to see her relax and
let go, ripping through the rest of the dance with great delight that didn’t
abate as the plot moved along. Drained
by Dracula, laid out in her tomb, and sensing the
presence of van Helsing’s
posse, she heaved herself up from her icy slab, angry and hissing, feet
pointed. She bouréed across the stage,
pale under the cold light, arms gesticulating, hair flying -- a madwoman in a house of horrors. She bared her teeth and lept brazenly onto her
pursuers, one by one.
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| Lucy in the tomb © Kat Stiennon 2015 |
The Harker role was danced by former
Arizona Ballet principal Shea Johnson, guesting with Madison Ballet for this
show. An accomplished dancer, he exudes
an aura of smoldering lust that he gets a lot of mileage out of, adjusting it
as needed. He approached the ballet’s opening display of male bravura with
relaxed, confident swagger; he swooned and staggered, swept away, in the
vampiric orgy with Dracula’s brides; he was passionate, playful, and protective
in his bedroom-eyed pas de deux with his fiancé, Mina Murray (Shannon Quirk).
Quirk, as always, was a joy to
watch. We first saw her alone, dancing
on air, lyrical and light, dreaming of Harker.
She was liquid; she flowed and soared. Her pas de deux with Johnson was an
ode to
carefree delight. Their chemistry was superb
– they were diggin’ it, you could tell. Sometimes
Johnson pulled her off center, exaggerating her luxurious long lines. The Mina / Dracula pas was the other side of
the sex coin – a dangerous, surreal dream in which Quirk appeared terrified but willing. The powerful Count (Joe LaChance) swept her hungrily into arched overhead lifts; he tossed her over his shoulder; he slung her
deep into fish dives; he tried to bite.
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| Mina / Harker pas © Kat Stiennon 2015 |
LaChance made a compelling
Dracula, tall, proud, and able to slip sideways through the ether while imposing
his will on vampires and humans alike.
In his final variation, shot by the nobleman’s son, he sank to his
knees, slurped his own blood, and, like a wounded animal, rose to fight again. I desperately wanted him to break the fourth
wall and appeal to the audience before van Helsing drove the final stake
through his heart. He didn’t, but the
moment was gripping nonetheless. He
believed, so I did, too.
