We drove to Akron on Sunday afternoon to see Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. This company made a very positive impression in their 2010 performance in Cleveland, so it was no surprise to find the main floor of EJ Thomas nearly sold out. As we said in our earlier review, “Contemporary ballet is cool and if DanceCleveland will bring it, area audiences will come out to see it.”
The concert began with Over Glow, a work choreographed for ASFB by Jorma Elo. Six of ASFB’s 11 dancers, 3 men and 3 women, danced in a beautiful glowing green light (Lighting Design by Jordan Tuinman) to music by Felix Mendelssohn and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Like much contemporary choreography to classical and romantic music, Over Glow added movements of the torso and hands to the traditional ballet vocabulary, so instead of fast footwork, the opening allegro music was met with quick and playful wiggles through the dancers’ torsos. The adagio second section for 3 couples was punctuated with frantic hand gestures by one of the women (Was it Emily Proctor?) as she was partnered. “Let me out,” her hands seemed to say as her partner’s arms encircled her. “Put me down,” her hands seemed to say as she was lifted.
Another ballet convention, the dominance and strength of the male partner, was subverted as Over Glow‘s adagio section continued. The odd-girl-out manipulated her male partner by turning his shoulders (“Face that way,”) and changing the position of his arms (“Arms like this.”) Later in the adagio, she reclined and, when her partner attempted to drag her off stage, he failed.
The misadventures of Odd Girl Out continued in the third, allegro movement. After a fairly typical apotheosis characterized by bigger and faster dancing, Odd Girl Out convinced 2 of the couples to fully recline on the stage. As she built momentum for a conventional exit-stage-left-with-a-leap she was caught and held aloft by her partner, her legs pedaling in the air. Poor Odd Girl Out. Nothing went right for her and conventional expectations were dashed.
The second dance on the program, Return to a Strange Land, was choreographed by Jiří Kylián, for years the artistic director at Nederlands Dance Theatre. Like Elo, he has a substantial presence on both sides of the Atlantic. In Return, Kylián and the dancers are too intent on inventing dance steps appropriate to the music by Kylián’s fellow Czech, composer Leoš Janáček, to concern themselves with ballet conventions. Whatever fits the music.
Return is choreographed for 2 women on pointe and 4 men. The grouping that occurs in the first and fourth sections of the dance is a trio, one woman partnered by 2 men, and — strange land indeed! — the men cooperate to partner the woman without rivalry or hierarchy. Typically each man uses one arm as they cooperate to lift her overhead or lower her to her knees.
The second and third sections of Return are fairly traditional pas de deux, but new ideas and old conventions are worked together. The man is the dominant partner, lifting and turning the woman, but the partnering is innovative and all the easier to see thanks to the immediate, literal repeats, a device that dates back at least to http://www.abt.org/education/archive/choreographers/petipa_m.html MARIUS PETIPA and the 19th century.
In choosing work by Elo and Kylián, ASFB was making a safe bet, for both are major choreographic voices with well-established reputations in Europe and the US. But much as they did in 2010, ASFB also brought the work of an emerging American choreographer, Square None by Norbert De La Cruz III.
Square None takes a kind of throw-the-kitchen-sink approach; we have spotlights and fog on a dark stage (lighting design by Seah Johnson) and music that ranges from baroque opera to Aphex Twin. But once the lights came up, we found we liked the dancing. It was juicy and sexy in contrast to the mechanical quality that Elo had used for comic effect. And judging from the applause, Square None was the crowd favorite.
See upcoming DanceCleveland performances on their website.
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet performed at E. J. Thomas Hall presented by DanceCleveland and the University of Akron’s Dance Program. Funders, sponsors, and supporters included Akron Community Foundation, GAR Foundation, the Mary S. & David C. Corbin Foundation, and the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation.
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.
University of Akron, Akron, OH 44304