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Ballet is Woman - Take Two

7x7: Women
The Washington Ballet
England Studio Theater
Washington, DC
Thursday, June 8, 2006

by Lisa Traiger
copyright ©2006, Lisa Traiger

"Ballet is woman," Balanchine so famously said. Why, then, do so few women make ballets? Our 20th and 21st century choreographic rosters of ballet companies are filled with first names like George, Fred, Jerry, William, Kevin, Trey. Where are all the women? And what kinds of ballets would they make? Could they make? Should they make? The Washington Ballet's artistic director Septime Webre felt similarly and this spring for the company's in-studio program, Webre selected a cadre of female dancemakers — some from the ballet world, others representing modern and contemporary dance — to create seven works over a dizzying three-week period.

The 7x7 program, this its third year, provides studio space, dancers, a theater, costumes, lights and rehearsal support for seven dances, each about seven minutes long. The Washington Ballet, then, becomes an artistic laboratory where new works are quickly incubated and birthed before a small, appreciative audience of subscribers and others affiliated with the ballet.

It's a likable idea. The dancers come across looking well honed, fresh, happy at the opportunity to take on challenges of new work. The dances show well in the England Studio with its white panels and draperies and its pearly gray/white floor. And the audience gets an intimate experience, sitting mere feet from the performers.

"Trio in White," by Helen Pickett, is ballerina Michelle Jimenez's final performance with the company before she heads off in late August for the Dutch National Ballet. The lone woman, flanked by Jonathan Jordan and Jared Nelson, Jimenez found expressive depth in Pickett's steel-girded shapes, flexed joints and forced arches. Jimenez, with her rock solid technique and heartfelt presence, could pull emotion from a stone, and she did nearly that in enlivening the abstract lines and planes, angles and jutting elbows or knees of Pickett's choreography. Jordan and Nelson maneuvered and manipulated their foil, but this ballet was about woman, and woman's power, evident in the way Jimenez would implant her pointe shoe sturdily in the floor or insinuate her torso into a sensuous S-curve before her leg arose into a dagger-like glint above her shoulder. Pickett's choreography finds similarities with that of William Forsythe, for whom she danced, but also, as well with Balanchine, particularly in the trio configuration. The white of the title, by the way, referred not to the sleek burgundy practice attire, but to the studio's clean, white décor.

Woman as love interest was central to the luscious curves and gentle supports that encircle Susan Shields' "Uncertain Song." With music by Canteloub, two couples — Sona Kharatian Jordan and Alvaro Palau and Morgann Rose and Jared Nelson — indulge in gentle rocks, arcing lifts and sweeping glides that pour the dancers into one another's arms. But at the work's final moments, one couple, Jordan and Palau, find separation though not discord, while the other, Rose and Nelson, seem to float off into happily ever after. Shields' work, modest and succinct, is artfully crafted.

Tania Isaac, a modern dancer and one-time member of Rennie Harris Puremovement and Urban Bush Women, is discovering ballet with an eye to the future. "Shifting to here," her first foray into the form, presents an intriguing point of view. As the evening's largest piece, with nine dancers, it crosses barriers and oceans, in the music, John Zorn's blend of haunting Eastern European violins and Caribbean drums; in the choreography with weighty heel thrusting walks, interspersed claps, torso shifts and uneven groupings along with more classically appointed arm positions and elongated lines; and in the costuming for the women wear one pointe shoe and one bare foot as the work develops. "Shifting to here" reflects malleable borders for Isaac, herself an immigrant from Jamaica, who here innately understands how cultural blending can elegantly inform a high art like ballet as readily as it can pop culture.

Among the other works, Jessica Lang's "Stearc" featured a complex geometric study for a trio plus three chairs, placed and re-placed upright, upside down, backwards and sideward. Three young dancers from the Studio Company (Giselle Alvarez, Corey Landolt and Jade Payette) with a wiry Bela Bartok String Quartet accompanying, push themselves through complex machinations, like body builders trying out balances and poses on those chairs in studious fashion. In "Minor Loop" Brianne Bland lets her hair down, literally, and partnered by Jason Hartley, the pair discover some frisky and zesty interplay. Slashes of white duct tape splice the stage in "Alarm Will Sound" by Sarah Slipper. A geometric study for four dancers, who make their way through and between and among the taped barriers, before they ultimately break free, fleeing the stage to march purposely through the audience and out of the theater. "Pillow Talk" is a fluffy show closer for four pajama-clad dancers who spend a restless time trying to get comfortable with their pillows. Thematically similar to David Parsons' "Sleep Study" and Susan Stroman's "But Not For Me," the latter to some classic Gershwin selections, it's still merely a pajama party with a few lighthearted laughs. Choreographer Julia Adam has a humorous approach that fulfills the work's purpose, as does the accompaniment, "Orange Blossom Zorbet" by E.T. Rouse and Mikis Theodorakis and "Griffith Andy No. 9," an odd takeoff on the television theme by E. Hagen and H. Spenser.

As likable as the whole enterprise is — and it's one of Webre's many contributions to raising the Washington Ballet to new heights of maturity — not every ballet among the seven fulfills its promise. To begin the evening, Webre and the dancers join in big friendly huddle — a group hug of sorts — noteworthy after the protracted strike truncated the company's "Nutcracker" and its spring season. Meanwhile, in the background, Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" proclaims itself and the evening's intent with obvious irony. If every work did not assert its pro-feminist underpinnings, then, that ironic undercurrent suggests, perhaps that's okay. For, as in previous 7x7 programs, the opportunity to introduce new choreographers to the ballet world and vice versa remains. 7x7: Women continues through June 25.

Volume 4, No. 24
June 19, 2006

copyright ©2006 Lisa Traiger
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