By Elsa Johnson & Victor Lucas
Earlier this month we went to see Verb Ballets at the Dobama. The concert included 4 works by company members and a collaboration with Inspired Veterans Action Campaign.
The concert opened with company member Brian Murphy’s choreography to the first movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. Ballet probably doesn’t look its best at Dobama where the audience looks down rather than up at the dancers. Nevertheless, Murphy makes his dancers look good. Brandenburg is, among other things, an advertisement for the technical proficiency of the Verb dancers. As we anticipated from their bios, new company members Lieneke Matte, Chelsea Pyrch, and Stephen James all have considerable ballet skills. Meanwhile the Verb veterans — Stephanie Krise, Kara Madden, Or Sagi-Woodson, and Jarrod Sickles — continue to hone their ballet chops, so in Brandenburg all 4 of the women seemed absolutely secure en pointe and the men provided strong partnering. Verb bills itself as a contemporary dance company but they can, when they choose, deliver a mean ballet fix with tutus, pointe shoes and all.
New company member Stephen James set his piece, The Raven, to music from The Masque by Shadowbox Live so we can’t help but see it as an advertisement for Verb’s upcoming evening-long Edgar Allen Poe blowout. Prepare yourselves, dear readers, by immersing yourselves again in the poems and short stories of Edgar Allen Poe. See Vincent Price’s readings of Poe HERE only if you feel ready. In Jill Lepore’s book The Story of America read an exceptionally informative and authoritative essay on Poe the writer, Poe the critic, Poe the drunk.
The Raven is, we believe, James’ first choreography for Verb. It was probably assembled in a couple of hours of studio time, yet it is assured and stylish and alludes to a number of themes from Poe’s life and work. We look forward to seeing more of this new company member’s choreography.
Or Sagi-Woodson’s My Own Journey reminded us that global culture — including dance — is not as homogonous as we sometimes assume. Set to popular Hebrew music, this dance provided a highly stylized account of Sagi-Woodson’s life. Because he received his early dance training and much of his professional experience in Israel, it’s appropriate that he tells his story using dance styles and theatrical techniques we’ve not seen in Northeast Ohio since the Israeli company Pinto and Pollack performed at the Ohio Theatre in January of 2012. (See our review of Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company HERE.
Was the very different dancing in My Own Journey in the style of contemporary Israeli theater dance? Did it share many features with European tanztheater and cabaret performance? Whatever, Sagi-Woodson has deployed his resources effectively but with economy, making an eye-catching dance while seldom asking much of the Verb dancers. Strong, simple rhythms and spatial patterns made the most of the contrast between this dancing and the rest of the concert. When the choreography was a straight forward ballet adagio, a simple prop, a bench, made Matte’s solo stand out from all the other ballet adagio movements in the concert. Different is good, but it’s better when it’s done well.
Tacit Knowledge choreographed by Stephanie Krise is set to all 3 movements of String Quartet by Steven Smith, an as yet unpublished recording performed by musicians of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony. Call the dance a music visualization but, given the music’s subtext of psychological tension, we always felt that we were hearing a soundtrack to which dark emotions ran their course and vaguely unsatisfactory relationships played out. In our opinion, Krise finds the perfect contemporary ballet vocabulary for this music. The dancers walk hesitantly across a dimly lit stage; backs are turned; eyes averted. Nothing is overt. Everything is implied. Tacit Knowledge indeed!
The final dance in the concert was the PTSD dance. Titled Warrior Project: Inspiration, its premise is best explained in a video on Verb’s website HERE. Basically, former dancer and distinguished Air Force veteran Christian Dollwet explains how he was inspired to get back into dance and explore the benefits of an arts based therapy in the treatment of PTSD.
A worthy project! But we were disappointed by the first section of the dance in which 3 of the Verb women danced to rock guitars and percussion with their long hair flying. Were they struggling with PTSD or were they auditioning as backup dancers in an arena rock show?
In the second section, we see a woman and a man (Matte and Murphy) sitting quietly together in twinkling lights with the other dancers watching them from slightly upstage. In the scenario that emerges, we learn that she has been killed by an IED but remains present in his mind. Corps and soloists present a collage of loss, grief, and eventual acceptance. We found this the most effective section of the dance.
The third section is a video in which Dollwet introduces himself and describes the beginnings of Warrior Project.
The fourth section begins as the video ends with 5 men facing downstage, Dollwet joined by the 4 Verb men. It’s another short dance, mostly unison, in which the buff Dollwet more than holds his own performing his own choreography with the Verb men but gives himself only the briefest of solo passages.
On stage, on video, and in person Dollwet comes across as an amiable, upbeat guy. He’s highly capable judging from his Air Force career. His funding from Ohio Arts Council is a powerful endorsement.
We can see how dance or any art could raise awareness or even treat a problem like PTSD. Look at Dancing Wheels for and about Americans with mobility issues, or look at various dance programs for Parkinson’s disease, and dance and movement therapy for autism. But we are concerned lest Dollwet and his program slide too far into the voracious maw of pop culture and trivialize his cause.
Verb Ballets performed at Dobama Theatre on Fri 10/11 and Sat 10/12.
Next up for Verb, The Masque: The Stories of Edgar Allan Poe, a World Premiere Rock Ballet in partnership with Shadowbox Live of Columbus. At Breen Center for the Performing Arts on Fri 11/8/2013. http://verbballets.org/masquebreen.html.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.