Fri 5/22-Sat 5/23
We went to Verb Ballets’ Fresh Inventions program during the Memorial Day Weekend and saw eight new dances, one choreographed by each of the Verb dancers.
All but one of the dances at least touched on a dramatic narrative with some reference to character and emotion.
In three of the dances, based on the writings of visiting Creative Fusion Artist Beatriz Garcia-Huidobro, the dancers and choreographers navigated very dark territory indeed. Short excerpts of Garcia-Huidobro’s stories read aloud before each dance presented situations of extreme family dysfunction: marital rape, a daughter who abandons her unconscious mother, an abusive mother likened to a cat who kills and eats her kittens. True to her background in psychology as well as literature, Garcia-Huidobro presents everything matter of factly and without moralizing.
Dark psychological ballets are nothing new and their potential pitfalls are many. It’s to the credit of Verb’s choreographers — Kara Madden, Christina Lindhout, and Lieneke Matte — that they struck nary a false note in these short works in progress despite the difficult material.
Three more of the dances dealt with romantic/sexual relationships, less perilous territory for ballet choreography. Megan Buckley set her dancers — Matte and Victor Jarvis — moving to music from Downton Abbey. Partnering featuring lifts and arabesques was bookended between a beginning and ending of formal social dance. Buckley and her dancers allowed the contrasting dance genres to do the work of depicting the difference between social façade and private emotions. Wisely, neither dancer overdid the acting.
In Enough, choreographer Michael Hinton had his dancers — Lindhout and Jarvis — depict a romantic break-up. At first it seemed that Lindhout, rolling her eyes as she turned away from Jarvis, would be the one to leave. But as the dance progressed things became more ambiguous until Jarvis walked away and Lindhout tried to bring him back.
Like the dances based on Garcia-Huidobro’s stories, we found the conflict in Enough understated, but we were thankful that acting and facial expression were kept to a minimum. Perhaps a longer period of development would have allowed the choreographers to discover more and stronger choreographic metaphors for the situations and emotions they set out to depict.
In Absent, choreographer/dancer Jarrod Sickles put aside all restraint and virtually chewed the scenery to depict the situation after the big break-up — with surprisingly good results. Dancing to an emotional cover of Always on my Mind, Sickles embraced an empty suit of clothes that stood in for the departed lover.
“Maybe I didn’t treat you/Quite as good as I should have.”
He rests his cheek on the shoulder of the empty coat and dries his tears on the coat sleeves. He’s pathetic and ridiculous after the break-up, and aren’t we all?
As our readers probably know by now, we’re seldom more than lukewarm on narrative ballets and when it comes to dancers acting, we mostly wish they wouldn’t try. So it was with happy anticipation that we looked forward to the final dance on the program, a music visualization.
Unfortunately, choreographer Victor Jarvis papered over the rhythmic subtleties of Ivan Trevino’s Catching Shadows with standard material from ballet class. A missed opportunity.
Our favorite dance of the evening? Perfume: The Story of a Murderer tells a melodramatic fable much like the movie of the same name. Through eight short dance scenes, dancing rather than acting defines the deliberately exaggerated characters. A chorus of dancers in black neatly begins and ends the narrative. At 15 minutes it’s the longest dance in the program but still too short for our taste. In Perfume, Verb dancer Stephaen D. Hood shows that he has skills as a choreographer. We hope to see more of his work.
Yes, Fresh Inventions is a no-frills production, taking place at Verb Ballets’ studio in Shaker Heights. We wish that Verb’s studio had more lighting options but it’s a rare treat to see such excellent dancers from a few feet away. At PlayhouseSquare you could not get as close to the dancers without jumping onstage and tackling them. And the tickets, $15 for adults, must certainly rate among the most cost-effective arts events in Northeast Ohio. Although…
Don’t miss your chance to see Verb Ballets and other outstanding dance companies FREE and OUTDOORS at the Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival. Performances begin Fri 7/24 and Sat 7/25 with Neos Dance Theatre at Firestone Park in Akron. Verb Ballets performs Friday 8/7 and Saturday 8/8 at Hardesty Park in Akron.
Verb Ballets presented Fresh Inventions on Fri 5/22 and Sat 5/23 with support from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the Cleveland Foundation, and Dominion.
[Written by Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas]
[Photo by Erin Craig]