Barnard - Susan Reiter

New Dances at Juilliard

The New Dances at Juilliard, Edition 2006
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
New York, NY
December 16, 2006

by Susan Reiter
copyright 2006 by Susan Reiter

Doug Varone is certainly on a roll. His recent program at the Joyce Theater offered three rich, beautifully crafted works; he’ll have another New York presentation at BAM this spring; and his “The Constant Shift of Pulse,” for the Juilliard Dance Division’s junior class, was the highlight of this program. And that’s saying a lot, because the overall level of this imaginatively conceived annual project was impressive.

Anything can happen when you commission four very different choreographers, as Juilliard does, asking each to create a work for one of the Division’s four classes. One knew going in that the program would be varied, but not how each individual choreographer — David Parker, Matthew Neenan, Aszure Barton and Varone — would take to the task of communicating their ideas and approach to a group of students. Since the project requires that their piece should include all the students in the class, they also had to create works for a much larger complement of dancers than they do with their own groups.

The works were shown with the youngest group — the Class of 2010 (aka the freshmen) — and proceeded
in order through the group that will graduate next spring. This made for an interesting opportunity to observe the developing maturity, authority and individuality as each successive class took the stage, but it did not present the works in the ideal order, had this program been assembled without that consideration.

David Parker got things off to an appropriately lively, playful start with “About 15 Minutes,” in which the 23 freshmen spilled vigorously onto the stage to engage in rough-and-tumble exchanges while providing the sound score through claps, body slaps, foot stomps and occasional vocalization. The action had a sporty, robust flavor, as did the costumes: black trunks, brightly colored kneepads, and tank tops in colors and patterns that gave the stage the look of a display of many nations’ flags. Large groups kept appearing, dispersing and then returning, clearing the stage for brief encounters for two or several dancers. These interludes — featuring interlocking body positions, deep lunges and exchanges that suggested games and competition — appeared only to be quickly swallowed up by the next big, busy stage picture. The large hanging mirrors hanging upstage did not really enhance the piece, nor did they distract.

Parker’s work certainly challenged these young dancers in terms of having to sustain the crisp rhythms through their own sounds, and also required a good deal of cooperation and trust. It was all pleasantly engaging, unpretentious, and full of youthful good spirits.

The pretentiousness level rose with Aszure Barton’s “Still,” a moody, somewhat strained effort that had the full complement of 20 Class of 2007 dancers looming moodily onstage, swaying gently, as the curtain rose. Whereas the other choreographers fed off the massed numbers of bodies, evoking a palpable energy, Barton’s work often arranged the large forces across the stage with lesser impact. The gloomy look shifted when the black backdrop rose to reveal a creamy brighter one, which then gave way to darkness again towards the end. So were these imprisoned figures led briefly to feel some hope of escape, only to find themselves entrapped again? Periodically, most of the dancers retreated upstage where they were swallowed up by smoky darkness, leaving a soloist or pair downstage. Isolated moments stood out — one woman’s beautifully expansive leaps; two men flopping to the floor and seeming to bounce right back up; a couple wrapping around one another to form a Pilobolus-like intertwined shape — but overall, Barton achieved more in terms of atmosphere than choreographic design.

The music she chose, Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Quintet, was a bleak atonal score with lots of pauses and not much shape to hold onto; it was not always clear where each of the five movements began or ended. But her costumer, Fritz Masden, came up with elegant, beautiful flowing dresses for the women, soft shirts and pants for the men, in black tipped with iridescent blue.

Matthew Neenan, who choreographs frequently for Pennsylvania Ballet, created “Otono” for the Class of 2009, set to three intriguing movements from two of Alberto Ginastera’s string quartets. This was a bright, invigorating, expertly crafted work for the largest of the four groups — 26 dancers in all. But while Neenan kept the stage picture vibrant and ever-shifting, with overlapping squadrons coming and going, it was a surprise to see the full size of the cast during the bows. Wearing stretchy costumes in bright orange and red, they moved with an electric charge, and the stage seemed extra-bright, not just from the warm colors but from the exhilarating, deft attack, crisp shapes, and intriguing formations. Neenan interwove groups from opposite sides of the stage and generally kept the stage picture consistently vibrant and exciting, yet always clear and uncluttered. The dancers responded with juicy, personable performances, and this class seems to boast a particularly strong male contingent.

Both Barton’s and Neenan’s works benefited from live performances of their chamber scores, with the musicians positioned at the front corners of the stage. Varone made use of a recording of his score, John Adams’ “Hallelujah Junction,” perhaps because this version by pianists Nicolas Hodges and Rolf Hind of one of the composer’s richest and most sublime scores could not be bettered. It truly shimmered.

The 19 dancers of the Class of 2008 also gave off an exquisite glow, so deeply and completely did they give themselves to Varone’s deceptively casual onslaught of movement. A major motif was that of the body falling to the floor and remaining prone; often one saw one body stretched across another. But the way these falls — and all of the fluent, surging movement — seemed to spring from the music, and the eloquent mastery with which Varone clustered and shifted those bodies, gave the piece a ravishing and mesmerizing power. He made the dancers, in jeans and simple tops of various colors, looked wonderful; they performed with terrific authority and spontaneity. The spiraling energy of their torsos, the charged intensity of their running entrances, the complete articulation they devoted to every movement — one could only admire and hope that this richly resonant work has a further life.

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