San Francisco Chronicle
'R/Evolutionary' review: unique in a way
Allan Ulrich
Published 3:54 pm, Sunday, April 21, 2013
Jeremy Kovitch and Alexsandra Meijer perform in Jessica Lang's "Eighty One" for Ballet San Jose. Photo: Robert Shomler, San Jose Ballet
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Ballet San Jose did itself no favors by affixing the dumb title "R/Evolutionary" to its final program of the 2012-13 season at the Center for the Performing Arts over the weekend.
True, one featured choreographer, Merce Cunningham, did effect a revolution in 20th century dance. Also true that this company seems to be developing in an intriguing way that one might call organic, weeding away what was most provincial about the organization. But this 35-member company should not need gimmicks to lure local patrons. South Bay people should pay attention to what's going on here.
Saturday's matinee seemed unique in a way. Of how many regional American ballet companies can it be said that the entire repertoire was created within many of the dancers' lifetimes? Just two of the pieces, which included a world premiere and two company premieres, even derived from the past century. The dancing from new and familiar faces alike has taken on a more stretched look, though they couldn't all keep up with Jorma Elo's choreography, and they still missed a bit of confidence in elucidating the vocabulary in Cunningham's "Duets."
We must thank Ballet San Jose and artistic adviser Wes Chapman for bringing the ballets of Jessica Lang to town. Her new abstraction, "Eighty One," is first a dazzling theatrical spectacle. Jim French's arresting illumination includes myriad spots and other stage lighting plots. It's smoky and mysterious, and high on a platform looms composer Jakub Ciupinski, creating an electronic score, which he calls "gesture control music," altering meters, harmonies and dynamics as the ballet proceeds. Yes, it does feel like a trendy dance club, but the steps belie the surroundings.
Lang, who debuted in San Jose with "Splendid Isolation III" last season, fashioned her new work in silence, but you'd never know it. The choreography for 11 dancers abounds in unisons, frozen tableaux (upturned palms) sweeping bourrees and transitory relationships in which limbs are stretched and backs bear the weight of partners. The patterning opts for fluidity over profundity. It is not Lang's fault that her "Eighty One" follows Elo's "Glow-Stop," which stresses similar gender interactions, but not so ably.
The Finnish choreographer made his work for American Ballet Theater, but I wish this was one piece Chapman declined to import. Elo's dances too often opt for the clever and the formulaic, (remember "Double Evil" at the San Francisco Ballet?) and seem to make a point about old and new again and again. Here he uses the presto movement from Mozart's Symphony No. 28 (valiantly conducted by George Daugherty) juxtaposed with a movement from a Philip Glass piano concerto.
Elo gets propulsion but no elegance from Mozart; the Glass seems more suited to his limited musicality. The 12 dancers, clad in various degrees of burgundy, seem to enjoy these confrontations, which focus on body parts most choreographers skip. He deconstructs the classical language, like those endlessly fluttering fingers. Elo's day with American companies seems to have come and gone, fortunately.
Happily, Cunningham and his aesthetic will always be with us. "Duets," which ABT performed in 1980, shows us six couples in color-coded outfits entering and passing through while John Cage's percussive score alerts and annoys. As the dancers in this staging by Patricia Lent swing arms and swoon into arabesque, one sees a remarkable artist blessedly at work; and one also senses narratives taking shape in the imagination. Kathryn Meeusen and Maximo Califano brought a noticeably aggressive attack to their encounter.
One dance on the program looked back - to Karen Gabay's 33 years dancing with the company. She retired last weekend, and her parting gift, "Amour gitan," a duet she devised in 1998 to Ravel's "Tzigane," allowed her and Maykel Solas to cavort like gypsies under the spell of Eros. They raised the temperature in the hall a few degrees.
Allan Ulrich is The San Francisco Chronicle's dance correspondent. E-mail datebookletters@sfchronicle.com
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/performance/article/R-Evolutionary-review-unique-in-a-way-4451727.php#ixzz2REgcrxIi
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