ABT's Spring Met Season
"Manon"
June 11, 2007 (Ferri-Bolle)
reviewed by Susan Reiter
reviewed by Leigh Witchel
June 13, 2007 (Ferri-Corella)
reviewed by Michael Popkin
New York City Ballet's Spring Season
"Jewels"
June 7, 2007
reviewed by Mary Cargill
June 8, 2007
reviewed by
Tom Phillips
Shush
Pascal Rioult Dance Theater
by Lisa Rinehart
True to his mentor, Martha Graham, Pascal Rioult is fond of freighting iconic musical compositions with rippling musculature and sententious gesture. Unlike Graham, however, he's not so good at it. Even for the Joyce Theater, New York's current temple of mediocrity in dance, Rioult's program is a forced march from the mildly enjoyable to the truly bad. This is partly because of worrisome musical choices that range from jazzified Mozart and synthesized Bach to Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms — a piece of music that should probably never be danced to. But mostly, it's because Rioult chooses to parade regiments of dance cliches through every piece. Not just signature Graham moves like the swastika jump and the gliding running step, but conventions musty as the pregnant pause before the whirl of movement, and the oh-so-potent sharply raised arm evoking wistful longing. Even the dewiest dance watcher has seen these bits better utilized. Rioult wants to be trenchant, but hasn't found a choreographic voice to match his ambitions and the dances feel forced. READ MORE