A lament and a plea

In the past, I have written about ballet documentaries, a thriving genre of which there are many fine examples. But sometimes, one is in the mood for the escapism of narrative fiction. When you look for lists of top ballet films, very few of them are fiction; somehow, the two art forms seem to exercise a kind of anti-magnetism on one another.

However, I recently rewatched The Turning Point, which is absolutely the best ballet movie ever. Ordinarily, Shirley MacClaine is not one of my favorite actors, but in this film she is absolutely brilliant as DeeDee, the early-middle-aged ex-ballerina who gave up her career to raise a family in Oklahoma City with her husband, also former dancer (played innocuously by Tom Skerritt). Her wistfulness, which I usually find so annoying, is perfect; beguiled by the might-have-beens, she nonetheless manages to keep a household running and provide some reasonable parenting to her three kids. The main plotline has to do with her return to New York to supervise the apprenticeship at the (thinly disguised) NYCB of her eldest daughter, played by the ethereal (then) up-and-coming NYCB star Leslie Browne and her relationship with her former bestie, who is still a principal dancer, played by Anne Bancroft, with brittle but human grace. More than the plot, though, the setting is what makes the film – I get such a distinctive sense of a New York before Disneyfication and Giuliani made it a “safe” place for tourists, and the developing independence of Emilia (Browne) is so touchingly limned. Of course, the very best part of the whole film is the transcendent scene where Emilia and the predictably named Russian principal, Yuri (none other than a very young and very beautiful Misha), rehearse that wrenchingly erotic pas-de-deux from Romeo and Juliet which then segues into a love scene back in Yuri’s apartment. I mean, WOW, if you ever thought ballet was stiff and formal, or that it glosses over sex, um, watch this. And then add a chaser of Ingmar Bergman’s Summer Interlude, from 1951, in which Maj-Britt Nilsson plays an older ballerina reminiscing about a youthful love affair with the usual smouldering, Scandinavian angst one expects from the great I.B.

Ballet is hard (Summer Interlude)

Most ballet movies in the narrative fiction genre leave me pretty flat. Center Stage, which often gets cited as “the best ballet movie ever” by people who obviously haven’t seen The Turning Point seemed to me just a jazzed up version of something you might see on Nickelodeon; teen striving, teen angst, some catty byplay, a sympathetic gay black guy... give me Dance Academy any day for character development. In the same category of teen melodrama we might place Save the Last Dance (Julia Stiles, racial tension, ballet vs. hip-hop); and Flashdance, which is a bit grittier (just as the eighties were grittier than the nineties), but basically the same story – girl wants to dance, girl is told she can’t dance, girl dances anyway, and in the end she is a star and gets the guy. What a feeling!

Really?

 On the darker side, Black Swan, though it had its moments as a psychological thriller, was a horror show as a ballet film; talk about perpetuating the worst stereotypes about dancers and the world of dance while exploiting cheap, vulgar-Freudian thrills in order to revel in the victimization and self-destruction of yet another innocent, virginal young thing.  Also, there was this weird lack of actual dance. File Dancers, the 1987 film with a similar plotline (dancers' lives parallel the plot of the ballet they’re preparing, only this time it’s Giselle… starring Misha and Julie Kent, so some real dance) under the same heading of “trite and exploitative.” Oddly, it’s by the same director as The Turning Point, but the film poster pretty much captures the cheese factor: Why does Baryshnikov look like an aged Luke Skywalker here? Why? 

Basically, both these films are remakes of The Red Shoes, in which life imitates art and the ballerina does some kind of fatal (swan) dive at the end, ala Anna Karenina.  As much as I despise the boringness and antifeminism of this plot, at least The Red Shoes was great, even innovative filmmaking in its time; the color (which has been restored) is lush, and the acting is hammy (it’s 1948 for heaven’s sake) but also pretty lush. Moira Shearer is really lush (that red hair!). And lushest of all are the extended scenes of original choreography for the ballet within the film; who can resist all that mid-century modern goofiness? Plus, the people who made the film were by and large pretty well-versed in the ballet of the time… notice Leonide Massine there in the cast.

Vavoom!

Cinema verite.

Robert Altman’s The Company made a strong effort to portray the real psychological drama that goes on offstage, and it also had more dancing of better quality than any of the “demise of the dancer” psychodramas.  I love Altman – his McCabe and Mrs. Miller is an all-time favorite of mine and also goes a long way to explain Warren Beatty’s status as a sex-symbol in the 1970s. The Company was made as a close collaboration between the Joffrey and Mr. Altman, and has a documentary feel to it. Even so, in its fidelity to life it is actually a bit messy and dull, despite a carefully understated performance by Neve Campbell as the heroine, a young ballerina on the cusp of big success, pondering what this means for her life. Similarly true-to-life in its content but less artistically sophisticated is Mao’s Last Dancer, a bio-pic about Li Cunxin, the Chinese-born and –trained principal for the Houston Ballet and then Australian Ballet. It has some good dance footage, but by and large the acting is a bit uninspired. 

Then there is White Nights, which I haven’t seen in years, so I cannot really critique it except to say that the dance scenes are of course so fun to watch on YouTube (not that that’s a regular, late night occurrence with me). Really, both Gregory Hines and “I am in every movie made about classical ballet between 1970 and 1990” Baryshnikov are not at the top of their games anymore at that point, but it doesn’t matter, because that’s sort of like saying that by 1985 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was no longer at peak performance… true, but he was also MVP of the NBA finals that year, which the Lakers won. Now I’m really showing my age. Ouch. Anyway I sort of recall that the dynamic between Hines and Baryshnikov essentially playing themselves was way more interesting than anything else that happens in what is essentially a late-Cold-War stock narrative with a little racial tension, a dash of Helen Mirren, a jigger of Isabella Rossellini, and a top-forty hit by Lionel Richie just to liven things up a bit (say you, say me, say it together… that’s the way it should be). Without spoiling the film for those of you who haven’t seen it, let’s just say that it ends with everything “the way it should be” from a 1985 Hollywood perspective. And what perspective is that, you might ask? Well, among the top grossing films that year: Rambo First Blood Part II, Back to the Future, Rocky IV, A View To a Kill, Pale Rider. U.S.A! U.S.A!

He can jump.

So can he.

One film that is not about ballet but that has a ballerina as one of its main characters is the not-so-spectacular sci-fi thriller, Adjustment Bureau (2011), in which Emily Blunt plays a member of the Cedar Lake Ballet involved romantically with a politician played by Matt Damon. In that film, the fact that she’s a dancer is treated as pretty much equivalent to the fact that he is a politician – both have demanding careers that involve certain sacrifices on the personal front, and that require seriousness and a fairly exclusive focus. I think more films in which ballet dancers are portrayed not as swan princesses, cuckoos, or fainting maidens, but as serious artists who are also real people might be nice.

Speaking of princesses, one might expect there to be lots of ballet movies for the younger set, but there really aren’t. The horridly adorable Emma Watson aka Hermione Granger starred in an adaptation of Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild (written in 1936); the novel, for children, is of that dotty but delightful and sneakily serious strain of British children’s literature. But it’s not really about ballet – it’s about children in the theater business in 1930s London. Meanwhile, Angelina Ballerina is a dancing mouse who made the grand jeté from books to animated films, and when my daughter was much younger I am pretty sure we had a movie starring none other than Barbie that purported to be a version of Swan Lake. Maybe there are others that I just cannot remember or haven’t seen? Anyway, slim pickins.

Anna Pavlova, 1912

It seems strange to me that the vast junior fiction universe of ballet stories have not been translated onto the screen. A quick check of GoodReads reveals an almost limitless virtual bookshelf of ballet-themed books for young and old. Eva Ibbotson’s critically-applauded YA novel set in 1912, A Company of Swans, about the rebellious daughter of a Cambridge classics professor who joins a touring Russian ballet company that takes her to Manaus, where naturally she falls in love and all sorts of drama ensues, now that would make a good BBC historical drama. I’ve heard Julian Fellowes is leaving the helm of Downton Abbey, so why not take this one on? 

Sadly, I come to the conclusion that narrative fiction films about ballet generally tend to disappoint. They get too maudlin about the psychology of the artists, or they take too much pleasure in the spectacle of the ballerina’s disintegration, or they merely drape ballet over a plot that could just as easily serve tennis or motorsport. Often, they don’t bother to show much real ballet. Of course, there are technical reasons for this; ballet is difficult to film well: ballet dancers are not Hollywood stars (generally) who can draw audiences to the theater to see a film: you can’t fake it when it comes to portraying a ballerina (sorry, Natalie Portman, you are luminious, but not a ballerina): ballet films are not going to appeal to the biggest money-making audience sector, which is male and aged 14-25 or something about like that. Also, it’s hard to imagine how you could turn a ballet film into a violent digital game.

But who would play Dame M?

Still, I just want to throw this one out there. I would like to beg Gillian Armstrong (the Australian auteur responsible for such films as Oscar and Lucinda and Mrs. Soffel, both must-sees) to pick up Colum McCann’s Dancer (see link on right) and cast Daniil Simkin in the Nureyev role. Now, that would be a ballet movie worth its salt (and salty it would be).

A Ballet for (mostly) Very Short Dancers: The Hobbit in Three Acts

The traditional three-act story ballet is a timeless form. From Giselle to Dracula, the appeal of the danced narrative has endured the slings and arrows of cruel modernism and the arch laughter of the po-mo. Since story ballets are the money-making bread and butter of most ballet companies and are especially crucial to the well-being of small, regional or civic companies, and because of the recent success of such fare as The Lion King and The Little Mermaid, I propose that a series of ballets based on popular fantasy literature be developed for performance by your typical small, semi-pro or amateur ballet company; heavy on roles for short people (e.g., child performers).  I envision such hits as The Harry Potter Suite (a condensation of the seven novels); Star Wars Lake (an interlude based on fan fiction); and of course Where’s Waldo Now? (in which audience participation plays a critical role in the form of texting in guesses as to what scene from which famous ballet Waldo has invaded).

Not this kind of hobbit.

Just to give a sense of how this would all work, here are program notes to The Hobbit: a ballet in three acts.

ACT I

Scene 1: Bag End

Bilbo (likely played by a pre-adolescent girl) enters, capering youthfully, but when he realizes that the audience is watching, he assumes a more ponderous and mature air. We see him being domestic; a dance with a broom as his partner is whimsical, while a short coda featuring a dishrag and some teacups charms us.

Gandalf appears, upstage left, in a cloud of smoke. A great deal of pantomime ensues, its meaning obscure to all but those intimately familiar with Tolkien. Gandalf performs the famous “pipe dance” solo.

Exit Gandalf. Bilbo dances a mournful waltz.

Scene 2: The arrival of the Dwarves

The dwarves arrive in twos and threes; they dance wildly around the stage, throwing props such as plates and antimacassars as Bilbo flutters about ineffectually.

Thorin dances the famous “King of the Dwarves Variation” and with help from the corps of dwarves (played by small girls wearing beards and pointe shoes), relates the tale of the Dwarves of Lonely Mountain, complete with a battle scene involving a dragon.

Scene 3: The departure

A party on the village green features variations representing the different races of Middle Earth; entertainments include the Waltz of the Wood Elves, the Ranger’s Rondo, the Gondor Gavotte, the Orc Fire Dance, and the Hobbit Pas-de-Trois. If you are not familiar with this episode from the novel, just deal with it.

Bilbo and the Dwarves leave Hobbiton to the distress of the Hobbits. Some of Bilbo’s relatives are eager to occupy Bag End. Gandalf appears upstage left in a cloud of smoke, and the lights go out.

ACT II

Nils Blommér, Ängsälvor, 1850 -- appropriately Nordic (Wikimedia Commons)

Scene 1: Un ballet blanc

Bilbo, alone, wanders onto stage and lies down. He falls asleep. To the haunting strains of harp music, the corps-de-ballet enters in a slow and stately procession, all in white. Who are these ghostly ladies? What are they doing in The Hobbit? How does this fit into the story? Stop asking such pointless questions.

Scene 2: The Gollum Pas-de-Deux

For the purposes of this ballet and in order to accommodate the usual male-female ratios of civic ballet companies, the character of Gollum has been transformed into an elfin maiden named Annabelle. Annabelle rescues Bilbo when he is lost in the mountains; they dance a touching pas-de-deux which culminates with Annabelle bestowing a magical ring on Bilbo, etcetera. Since we are not planning on setting The Lord of the Rings as a ballet, this total derailment of Tolkien’s plot doesn’t matter, so enough with your objections. Just applaud when Annabelle performs eighty-four fouetté turns with the help of a little CGI and video editing.

Scene 3: The Eagle Scene

Set to the Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like an Eagle,” this is a “lyrical-modern” piece in which the dwarves, Bilbo, and Gandalf take flight using stage magic (harnesses) and a bunch of people in really ugly costumes (goblins) roll around on the floor and gesticulate wildly.

ACT III: The rest of the story

Scene 1: The Wood Elves

Nothing much actually happens during this scene, except that there’s some great choreography for the corps, some good solos for senior company members, and we don’t have to watch Bilbo and the Dwarves do much dancing. If you’ve read the book, you know what happens with the Wood Elves anyway. The scene ends with Bilbo and the Dwarves being rolled offstage in barrels by the water sprites (we reused the Dewdrop Fairy costumes from our Nutcracker).

Scene 2: The Lonely Mountain

Bilbo enters the mountain. There’s a lot of stage business involving a giant mechanical dragon. Oh yeah, and Bilbo is invisible, so we don’t actually have to see him dance. The Gold Coin Fairies, a group of our youngest students, are incredibly cute as they tumble about on stage and wave to their moms and dads in the audience.

Scene 3: Laketown

Heartwrenching drama as Smaug nearly destroys the town. Heroics. Throw in a girl who’s not in the book as a love interest for the guy who shoots the dragon. A big wedding dance with more “ethnic” variations, including the memorable “Toast Fairy Variation.”

Coda: Hobbiton

Bilbo returns home – he dances a jolly pas-de-deux with Gandalf for the last time, and throws his unpleasant relatives out of Bag End. He slips on the ring, and vanishes.

Hey look what The Guardian published just days after I posted this! What's your fantasy story ballet?

Toast fairy... fairy toast... big diff!

Plus ça change

Choreography, along with dance criticism, strike me as two of the most difficult art forms to master. Choreography, because it demands that one imagine the possibilities of body-time-motion-sound relationships within a particular vocabulary of movement in order to express usually quite abstract ideas; also, most choreographers have to be able to imagine what bodies other from their own might be able to do. Dance criticism, because it requires of the critic the ability to both immerse herself in the role of dance-spectator and to later recall the stream of fleeing perceptions occasioned by the work and to retrospectively critique them in some kind of coherent, streamlined way. This is why Joan Acocella is one of my heroines. She does this panache and precision

Joan Acocella

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So, being neither a choreographer nor a dance critic, I am still going to attempt to talk semi-intelligently about Innovations the showcase of new choreography performed by Ballet West that I saw last night at the Rose Wagner Theater in Salt Lake City. I should start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed myself; I went with my mom, who is visiting town, and a group of women from my ballet class, including the instructor. We had a nice dinner out, then walked through the relatively balmy evening to the theater, which is a lovely, small and very modern space, mostly used for drama and for screening Sundance films. The intimacy of the theater certainly contributed to the feeling that the audience was somehow in cahoots with the performers – an impression heightened by the enthusiastic hoots of approval from a group of audience members who were obviously friends and familiars of the company members.

Christopher Rudd and his lovely wife, Christiana Bennett

The program opened with Trapped, a “revival” of a piece by one of the company’s senior principal dancers, Christopher Ruud; it wasn’t clear to me from the program notes when this had originally been performed, but so be it. Ruud is the artistic director of the development company, and is one of those danseurs of the Apollonian rather than the Dionysian type – that is to say, he’s not particularly tall, but very muscular, with a broad chest and trim hips, a somewhat Byronic head of dark hair, and the kind of handsome face that ages well. I give these details not to dwell on his manly beauty, but rather to suggest that there is some connection between his physical type as a dancer and his choreography. Thus: he is broody, explosive, more athletic than graceful, intense, and bundled with muscle. His choreography for this piece is, likewise, emotionally charged, rhythmically staccato, almost gymnastic at moments, and tinged with intimations of violence. 

Would you like some angst with  that?

The piece begins with the curtain down, and the sound of someone striding heavily and quickly on stage. As the curtain rises, a crowd of dancers is revealed – they’re all standing facing in various directions, arrayed across the stage somewhat at random. Around them walks a woman (Katherine Lawrence), dressed, like the rest of them, in a white tank-style top and bicycle shorts; she is the only one moving, and her movement is simple and vernacular – an angry, heavy-footed, stride with the head thrust forward on the neck. When the music begins, she summons movement (or so it seems) from one dancer or another; these are brief, highly individualized, complicated little tangles of steps from which the dancer returns to stillness. In a neat turn, the first dancer to move is joined by a second in the second “pass” by the angry woman, and then in the third pass, dancer #2 is joined by a third, while dancer #1 remains still, and so on, until everyone has done their thing. Meanwhile, the angry woman, in her clockwise perambulations, inserts into her walk these agonized passages of writhing gesture and stuttering pointe work – the control it takes to look as if one is at the mercy of some kind of possession or seizure while still maintaining the center-strength necessary for a high-speed forward bourrée is not to be sneezed at, and Lawrence pulled it off. The whole first movement involves this large group of dancers moving in increasingly complicated patterns either as a group or in male/female pairs while the angry woman grows more and more despairing and frantic. The stage, lit as if from high, sun-filled windows, has strong bands of light and shadow and a disconcertingly asymmetrical  enclosure of black cloth, increasing the sense of confinement and angst.

I just play one on TV.

Ruud embedded three pas-de-deux in the first movement. I would characterize the partners’ relationships in each as successively icy, abusive, and mutually aggressive; given that the angry woman is always there as a sort of narrator-like presence, these pairs seem to embody perhaps her history, perhaps her perception of her interactions with men, while the relentlessly marching corps that forms and reforms as each new couple takes shape are ominously indifferent to her distress. Of the three pas-de-deux, the most striking was the central piece, performed by the always-fascinating Allison DeBona; Ms. DeBona plays herself on the silly but nevertheless irresistible TV reality show, Breaking Pointe as a career-focused, somewhat cold-hearted, insecure and ambitious vixen.

As an actress, she is quite convincing in that role, but the fact that it is acting was highlighted by the degree to which in this role she performs a completely different persona. Here, she is the reluctant partner to the pushy, show-offy male, letting herself be picked up, thrown, twirled about, but then falling into a kind of regretful stillness that verges on despair. The choreography here was really a little uncomfortable; the force exerted on DeBona’s body as she is pushed backwards along the floor on the tops of her feet, hanging in her partner’s arms face down, her upper torso collapsed but her lower body stiff, hints strongly of male violence against women.

Scene from Ghosts of Violence, a ballet that is actually about violence against women.

Q.E.D.

Madness and death!

In this sense, Ruud is not particularly doing anything new or groundbreaking. Ballet can be violent towards women’s bodies; not only does it carry with it a long history of self-starvation, emotional abuse by sadistic ballet masters (and mistresses), the grueling and sometimes cruel regimen of training, injuries, the horror of pointe shoes, but it also quite often represents and romanticizes violence against women – poor Nikiya, bitten by a snake, Giselle, collapsing from the wound of love, Juliet, taking her own life, and so on and so forth. Even non-narrative ballet seems to revel in exploring the limits of the ballerina’s fragility and strength – Agon, for example, has those really combative, violent passages, especially in its pas-de-deux. And this got me thinking – is Trapped a commentary on the psychic damage implicit in traditional ballet forms and narratives?  Or is it just an exploitation and exaggeration (less critical than reactionary) of that dark subtext? I found the second movement, a solo by Lawrence, in which she seems to dance out her emotional and psychological collapse (and possibly self extinction – there is this repeated motif of her walking around her own arm, planted with a flat palm on the floor, that looks like she is drilling down into the earth, perhaps hoping to vanish there) moving and technically very impressive, but in the end, it’s the same old story – girl dances herself into madness and death.

This is what happens when you Google "Star Trek Ballet"

Two pieces by young company members (both male) reflected Ruud’s influence in terms of incorporating incredibly tricky footwork, athleticism, and show-stopping lifts and jumps. The first, Mechanism, by Easton Smith, had a Studio 54 like setting that felt a little at odds with the Bach Violin Concerto No. 5 in F Minor (BWV1056); as a continuous stream of dancers traversed two “catwalks” of light and performed a series of individualized movements during their time in the light, I was impressed by their agility and athleticism, and again by the complexity of the sequences, but at the same time it felt a little like a défilé de mode with particularly acrobatic models. Perhaps if the costumes had not reminded me so strongly of Star Trek (black jazz pants, silver hip belts, sheer or partly sheer black tops) I would have been able to get past the disco feeling of it all; certainly, when the dancers moved into a series of pas-de-deux and –trois, there was plenty to be impressed by; the throws and lifts showed the men’s incredible strength and timing, and showcased the trust that these dancers must have between one another. More than once I was unable to stifle a gasp as a ballerina was tossed, spinning, through the air, like an ice-skater, but without the whole business of landing on slippery ice. Had she not been caught, and caught well, it would have been a disaster. I can only imagine the nervous laughter at rehearsal when these moves were first set.

The problem, in the end, is that when ballet becomes too much about the gasp, it stops really being ballet and becomes, well, disco, or So You Think You Can Dance, or Vegas-style showmanship. The whole conceptual angle that makes dance interesting goes up in smoke, and I start to get a little bored. Thus, the thirty-two fouettés in Odile’s solo in Swan Lake only really work if the rest of the ballet has been staged to make them seem like an expression of her character (brilliant, aggressive, a show off); if Odile is just Odette in a black tutu, then it’s b-o-r-i-n-g (one of the things that Darren Aronofsky got right, surprisingly, in Black Swan, was that Odile has to be a real psycho). Essentially, the throws and the disco lights and the fashion-show setting, which could have been staged as a wry comment (ala Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room which seems to me like a critique of her own impulse to be more Broadway than Broadway) on popular uses of dance, of the body, of performance, turned into the sort of thing it was imitating, Entertainment. The whole thing had a gimmicky feel to it, which was too bad, because the dancers were really fantastic and it was also clear that they were having a great time (who wouldn’t, at a disco?) executing the incredibly challenging choreography

.

Not this.

Another piece with a strong dose of spectacle, Spun, by Adrian Fry, transcended its own gimcrackery beautifully. Inspired by Ray and Charles Eames’ wonderful short film, Tops, to music by Ólafur Arnalds (an Icelandic composer), it explored the theme of spinning, without getting to trite about it (there were chainé turns aplenty, but not too many – other circumambulations, loops, revolutions, and rotations were expanded upon in interesting ways). Anchored by Elizabeth McGrath, who has an unusually earthy presence for a classical ballerina, Spun gave the dancers the chance to show their individual strengths through some lovely ensemble work. It really captured the whimsy-flavored but ultimately serious character of the Eames’ film, which has always been one of my favorite shorts – it’s a kind of koan based on the idea of a very simple toy that is endlessly entrancing to adults and children alike, a kind of eraser of social distinction. The use of short lengths of silvery ribbon to connect partners by the wrist in the pas-de-deux sections could have been hopelessly gimmicky, but it worked, not entirely without a hitch (there were certain passages where the sketchiness of the device showed through), but well enough not to distract from the dance.

The lovely Ms. B.

Equally respectful of its sources was Christopher Anderson’s short ballet, Behind Closed Doors, set to selections from Bach’s solo violin Partita no. 1 in B Minor (BWV 1002) and Sonata no. 2 in A Minor (BWV 1003). More classical in its vocabulary than the other three pieces by corps members, and perhaps therefore more influenced by the company’s turn toward Balanchine repertoire in recent years, this work was also the most musically sensitive of the evening. The violinist stood downstage left, in front of the dancers, who first appeared silhouetted against the  softly luminous back screen, standing in pairs (well, three pairs and one solo). I had the fleeting sense memory of watching Indonesian shadow puppets as their limbs made complicated, anatomically impossible patterns together; each grouping’s choreography was unique – thus one pair of two women partnered each other in very different ways from the two male/female pairs, while the solo woman’s gestures seemed almost a punctuation mark to the complex grammar of the others’ poses. This was also the only time we got to see the flame-like Christiana Bennett on stage, but even that brief appearance was worth the ticket price; she just flows like water.

Henderson Smith: Has legs, will travel.

The final piece on the program was by a much more seasoned choreographer, Jodie Gates, who is the head of the dance program at USC and has an impressive list of accomplishments in her long career as a ballerina, teacher, choreographer and dramaturge. Unsurprisingly, her Mercurial Landscapes was more abstract, high-concept, and developed than the other works on the program. It also had the feeling of having been more rigorously edited; though there were definite motifs in the highly neoclassical choreography, the reliance on repetition was less visible. Set to an annoying score – selections from a “recomposition” of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by Max Richter – the dance sometimes transcended the banality of Richter’s somewhat lazy renditions of the Baroque chestnut. Like Mark Morris (do I mention him at least once in every post?), Gates seems to have a nice feel for the movement of the old music (a fact somewhat obscured by the reworkings), though with her reliance on the tropes of pas-de-deux, corps, solo, the structure of the work is far more akin to Christopher Wheeldon – a fluid interlude featuring Haley Henderson Smith and Beau Pearson reminded me, in tone more than vocabulary, of the second movement of After the Rain. Though it was lyrical and well constructed, the costuming for this world premier was almost the best thing about it (beside Henderson Smith’s beautiful, perfect feet and long, bare legs); chilly, shimmering metallic fabrics in shades from ice blue to cool copper clung to the dancer’s bodies and gave them a, well, mercurial appearance. The use of stage lighting to expand and contract the space of the dance also worked well, and gave play to the notion of “landscapes” on what was otherwise a bare, black stage.

PNB's Next Step is a program dedicated to new choreos.

The best thing about the evening (aside from the company with which I was fortunate to share it), was that Adam Sklute, the artistic director of Ballet West, has made this commitment to allowing his dancers to develop as artists working with and as choreographers who are pushing the envelope of “classical ballet.” This is a trend among directors of major companies, and I think it is to be applauded, and loudly. When Jennifer Homans lamented the decline and announced the inevitable and impending death of ballet a few years ago in her (otherwise perceptive and intriguing) Apollo’s Angels I think she missed out on this new receptiveness on the part of senior choreographer/directors and audiences alike to seeing works by journeyman (or, one hopes, journeywoman) choreographers brought to the stage. Not everything will be of equally enduring stuff – I would not particularly hope to see Mechanism ever again. But I know I could watch Spun multiple times, and I think Mercurial Landscapes could grow on me; I would guess that there’s an audience (young, angst-ridden themselves) who might really warm to Trapped even if it’s not so much my thing.

I remember distinctly that as a young ballet student I would sometimes come up with ideas for ballets I wanted to set; I wrote them down in my journals, complete with notes on the music, a sort of ad hoc dance notation, and ideas for the costumes, sets, and lighting. At the time, I had no idea how one would make such a thing come to life.  I wish that I had been exposed then to this kind of encouragement of young choreographers and this interest in experimentation. As it was, the one time I actually got to realize my imaginative schemes was in fifth grade, when as part of a social-studies unit on Native Northwest cultures, I put together a ballet based on a Coast Salish story. I cast my friend Johanna, who was already in the top class at PNB, as the heroine. My non-ballet-trained friends got parts that involved moving like animals or wind… very modern. I don’t have very clear memories of how it turned out, but the process was so great. My dad, who was not a dancer and knew next to nothing about ballet or theater, was so into the whole thing; he got me a Salish-English dictionary, so that we could give the work an “authentic” name (we called it Chembesh Kabahai, though I cannot for the life of me recall what this was supposed to mean – you have to understand that Salish is notated using Americanist phonetic notation, which is a means of representing the very non-European phonemes of north American native languages (e.g., xʷləmiʔčósən is the name of the Lummi language). So much for my career as a future Nijinskaya.

Women make ballet too: Emery LeCrone

Anyhow, kudos to Sklute and his crew for an evening of challenging, surprising, and sometimes sublime moments. I look forward to future editions of Innovations, especially when they will feature some of the women from the company in the driver’s seat. 

Just to beat that old gender horse a bit, I recently read an article focusing on works by several women choreographers that drew my attention to the fact that fewer than 10% of works performed by professional ballet companies in this country in 2011 were by women choreographers. Ouch! Modern dance has always been so much more open to our fair sex in this regard. In 2010, only four women were artistic directors of big-budget companies. It's not as if ballet is alone of the classical art forms to suffer (and it does suffer) from the dearth of women in the upper echelons of management; classical symphony orchestras with women artistic directors, for example, are hardly a dime a dozen. Maybe it's the very classicism of these art forms that acts as something of a drag... just to quote something that's been in the meme-o-sphere of late,  "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."