 |
| Quirk and Massey, Mina variation © Kat Stiennon 2018 |
by Susan Kepecs
Madison Ballet – and let me clarify that
I’m talking about the company of professional dancers on season contract, not
the School of Madison Ballet – died as it had lived, with uneven choreography,
evidence that some pieces were better rehearsed than others, and dancing that
was mostly strong, occasionally superb. For
all practical purposes, Rise, at the Capitol Theater last weekend (March 30-31),
was the company’s last show. Yes, there
are plans for the School to put on a holiday Nutcracker with students and pickup guest artists – but that’s a
different kind of company entirely from the one that brought Rise to the stage.
The Rise bill – artistic director
W. Earle Smith’s retirement retrospective – featured six of his works, plus one
by Balanchine and one by Christopher Wheeldon, one of the definitive choreographers of the early twenty-first century. The Balanchine, and also the Wheeldon, were
set on Madison Ballet by Balanchine Trust repetiteur Michele Gifford, who’s set
a number of Balanchine’s ballets on the company in recent years.
Many of the program’s highlights
are attributable to the company’s reigning queen, Shannon Quirk. She was glorious, partnered by Shea Johnson,
in the pas de deux excerpted from Wheeldon’s The American, to the melodic, melancholy second movement of Dvork’s
String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96. Just the look of this pas is stunningly modern –
Quirk in a yellow dress, her hair down and simply tied back; Johnson in white
top and gray tights; the backdrop lit cobalt. Wheeldon has created new
partnering possibilities here, the ballerina expanding and contracting through a
series of daring and unusual lifts. Quirk
and Johnson, whose onstage chemistry is legendary, reveal the American pas as a dance for lonely souls
melded together by Dvorak and breath.
Wheeldon’s abstract portrait made surprising
contrast with the narrative romance in the Mina variation from Smith’s 2013
steampunk rock n’ roll ballet Dracula
(2013), which boasts a brilliant score by Madison composer / pianist Michael Massey.
Massey played the Mina theme live onstage for the Rise performance. Quirk
didn’t originate the Mina role, but she made it indelibly hers in 2015. In this variation she awaits the arrival of
her lover, Jonathan Harker, with baited breath.
The dance is a showcase of neoclassical ballet peppered with classic
Smith-isms: arabesque turns, pique turns, soutinue into pique arabesque; faille,
faille, lunge, chug; a manege of leaps. Set free from the bonds of pas de deux
Quirk’s a marvel, light as a feather, syncopating rhythms, soaring through the
air.
Yet another side of Quirk comes out
in Smith’s jazz ballet Expressions, with
its swingin’ score from the ‘30s and ‘40s.
Quirk appeared in the first and last of the four excerpts chosen for the
Rise bill. The fourth is a full-cast
number; Quirk’s too striking to fade into the crowd, but she was soloist to a
corps of four in the first, to the Harlem torch tune “Stormy Weather.” She was all slink and strut, vamping like mad,
batting her eyes, liquid – American in
Paris-inspired.
No, Rise wasn’t all about Quirk. The rest of the dances from Expressions were just as jubilant as “Stormy
Weather.” What I love most about this
ballet is that the dancers do what they do best – they’re just dancing. There’s a transcendental quality to this kind
of piece – what’s going on under the procenium arch becomes real life,
transporting the audience – like virtual reality – to a jazz club, where they,
too, might be dancing as if nobody’s watching, spot on the beat and having the greatest time.
Jackson Warring and Jacob Ashley
were hilarious in “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” – just two men jazz dancin’,
joyful, flashing their feet. With tons
of attitude Warring and Ashley, who’ve been dancing together for years now, hit
their stride in unison (back cabriole, grapevine, jitterbug), then challenged
each other to show off their best steps: Warring’s dizzying multiple
pirouettes; Ashley’s insane, air-slicing barrel turns. They exalted in each
other’s triumphs with heartfelt high fives.
In “My Baby Just Cares for Me” Kristen
Hammer (who’s danced this piece before), with Elisabeth Malanga and Catherine
Rogers, were jazz princesses, gifting the audience with pizzazzy little prances
on pointe, happy, two-fisted crazy-girl head shakes, and a big kiss blown to
all at the end.
Expressions’
finale, “Almost Like Being in Love,” was therapeutic – all of the dancers out
there flying across the stage in unison, having fun – a shout to the universe
that this is still a company, at
least till the curtain falls.
The vivid third movement (“Invierno
Porteño”) from Smith’s rich Piazzola ballet, Las Cuatro, is a choreographic coup. It appeared second on the bill, but should have
come first to set the audience on edge with its drama, its Latin sabor, its dynamic, shifting patterns,
its startling colors (the women are like sorceresses, in red; the men, in
black, like phantoms; the backdrop is cobalt). There’s a striking segment with three pas de
deux going on all at once, and an abundance of complex corps work throughout, the
men leaping through lines of spinning women.
Smith set his 2008 “Caccini pas de
deux” – another of his best efforts – on Kaleigh Schock and Damien Johnson, the
company’s new “it” pair after their transfixing performance in Nikki Hefko’s
Mingus-scored pas “Myself When I am Real” in this February’s repertory show,
She, a program of works by women at the Bartell. Schock, in a long white dress, was utterly ethereal,
extending a leg far into space while laying back into Johnson’s arms or raising
an arm to the heavens, trailing imaginary stars with her hand like a ghost in
love as he carried her across the stage in a high cambre press lift.
Parts of the rest of Rise were a bit of a letdown after the
consistent excellence of She just two months ago. The program opened with Balanchine’s 1967 Valse-Fantaisie. It’s the second time Madison Ballet’s done
this work. For Rise it featured Bri George with Shea Johnson; in the corps of
four were Annika Reikersdorfer, Kelanie Murphy, Schock, and Quirk. Valse-Fantaisie
is a pretty piece, very formal and more classical than neoclassical except for
its emphasis on constant movement. The corps, for the most part, was tight, and
Johnson reveled in his love of ballet, spinning sextuple pirouettes, sailing cabrioles
and brises through space. But he was not
ideally matched with George, whose cool temprament slowed her down – her long
limbs tended to lag slightly behind the music.
Three excerpts from Smith’s fluffy,
over-lit bathing suit show Nuoto,
which followed the Wheeldon pas, were like falling to earth after floating in
clouds. Nuoto is colorful but clunky.
It’s largely reliant on unison corps work, its neoclassical vocabulary
laden with cutesy, skippy, divey moves that don’t do justice to the dancers who
have to perform them. There’s a little slapstick
interlude for two men – in this iteration of Nuoto, Andrew Erickson and Jackson Warring – about being buck naked
behind a towel. It’s not dance at all, aside from some little gallops and
chasses; the audience laughed heartily, but I was annoyed.
Also on the bill were five excerpts
from Groovy, Smith’s ode to ‘60s
bubblegum tunes and something of a signature piece for Madison Ballet; since
its premiere in the spring of 2014 it has, inexplicably, been performed more
times than any of Smith’s other works, on in-state tours and in repertory shows
at the Bartell. Smith also picked a Groovy dance, “Sugar Pie” (the Four Tops’
“I Can’t Help Myself”) for Overture’s tenth anniversary show, American
Kaleidoscope, in 2014; its simple, repetitive, unrelenting unison did little to
show off what the company’s dancers can do and stacked up poorly against
Kanopy’s formidable performance of Martha Graham’s 1936 Steps on the Street. Groovy’s only saving grace in Rise was Murphy,
whose acting chops are equal to her ample dancing skill – she was a dynamic
force in these bland pieces, getting’ down, gettin’ – well, groovy.
Nuoto
and Groovy have nothing at all on Expressions and Las Cuatro; Smith’s choreographic portfolio would have been much
better represented if he’d chosen to skip the first two and instead do the latter
ones in their entirety for his retirement show.
Excerpts from Dracula
(including the Mina variation) ended the evening. Except for “Mina” they were
done to the recording, made with Massey’s full band during the process of
creating the original production. Dracula,
the undead ballet, is full of life, and there were some showstoppers here.
Smith set the Lucy variation in
“Lovers” on Annika Reikersdorfer, who, next to Quirk, has been the company’s leading
soloist for the last three years. It’s
casting against type, and it was Smith’s gift to this young dancer who came up through the ranks of the School of Madison Ballet. From the beginning, Reikersdorfer – a perfectionist who became a soloist when she was still in high school – internalized Balanchine’s emphasis on musicality rather than theatricality. Dancing the Lucy variation forced her to break
out of that box, to flirt and smile onstage, revealing hidden versatility. Her perfectionism didn’t suffer as a result–
we still got to see those perfect pas de chats, that precise pointework, and
eight fouette turns with a triple at the end.
 |
| Reikersdorfer (Lucy); Warring, Ashley, Erickson © Kat Stiennon 2018 |
Warring, Ashley, and Erickson – Lucy’s pursuing lovers – were a little out of sync with each other,
especially Ashley. But Erickson, a
classicist at heart, threw himself into this punk role with unexpected passion.
He sailed his leaps, unleashed come-hither shoulders; his air guitar playing was
deliciously sardonic.
The “Brides” pas de quatre -- one
of Dracula’s best dances – is a slinking,
lascivious orgy with exaggerated neoclassical lines and the look of Denishawn
porn, though on pointe. Three desire-driven
vampirettes (Murphy, George, and Michaela King) in fin de siècle dance dresses
compete for the attentions of a blood-starved Dracula (Damien Johnson). All three women possess the remarkable
flexibility sex with the Count might require, but George and King looked like
they’d rather be in Valse-Fantaisie. Only Murphy – the only one of the three who’s
been in the full-length show and done “Brides” before – was truly vampiric, licking
imaginary blood from her hands with gusto, hissing and grinning.
The Dracula series – and Rise itself – ended with “Minions,” one of
that ballet’s two large corps numbers. It’s
a wild firecracker, and visually stunning; ten dancers in wide red satin skirts
move in unison, spinning, leaping, rolling over on the floor to Massey’s pounding
score. Out of context, “Minions” is
abstract – it has the feel of bats (the men have batty tattoos on their bare
chests, flight-like contractions are built into the steps, and the skirts move
like wings), but it lacks the concrete narrative drive of the Mina variation, “Lovers,”
and “Brides.” Though Expressions’ rollicking finish might
have been better, “Minions” made a good finale.
Many in the audience, and everyone
onstage, spilled tears as the dancers – most of whom will probably never
perform in Madison again – took their final bows. Perhaps down the road a bit the phoenix will
– rise – and this city will again have a real ballet company with that certain
unity of line and spirit that comes from working and partying together for
months, or years, on end. Most cities
with arts and culinary scenes have relatively stable professional ballet
companies – not just major centers like New York, Miami, Seattle, or San
Francisco, but smaller ones, too, like Duluth, Dayton, Salt Lake City. The fact
that Madison, for all its hifalutin’ image of itself, can’t sustain such a key
component of the performing arts reveals the flyover country cow town that
still lurks beneath its updated veneer.
 |
| Last Curtain 3 photos © SKepecs 2018 |
