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Kansas City Ballet
Evening Stars (presented by Joyce Theater and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council)
Battery Park
New York, NY
September 6, 2006

by Susan Reiter
copyright ©2006 by Susan Reiter

Given a one-night opportunity to re-introduce itself to a New York audience after nearly 20 years, Kansas City Ballet impressed as a youthfully vigorous, robust ensemble. The two larger works that bookended the program called for, and received, a sense of team spirit and mutual support, and the dancers offered that in abundance. This was not a program designed to showcase refined classicism as much as it was a pleasing display of eager American energy and unaffected, committed performing.

The company’s programs blend home-grown works with established classics; its upcoming season includes some Balanchine ( “Pas de Dix” and “Valse Fantaisie”) as well as Limon’s “The Moor’s Pavane” and Tharp’s “Deuce Coupe.” Tharp’s works have played a prominent role in KCB’s repertory of late, since artistic director William Whitener was one of her leading dancers from the late 1970s until she dissolved her permanent company in 1988, creating roles in many of her most significant and enduring works.

He assisted Shelley Washington in the staging of KCB’s production of “The Catherine Wheel Suite,” which had its premiere last May and was certainly the major drawing card on this program, which attracted many major dance journalists and dance world movers and shakers. Instead of presenting the concluding “Golden Section” (which works as a free-standing piece and is entering the repertory of several companies this season) on its own, this suite begins with one of the fiercest sections for the demonic black-clad “chorus” and then segues into a hypnotic duet before the gleaming athletes of the “Golden Section” begin bursting into view.

It’s an intriguing idea, structurally, but one gets such a slight taste of the pre-“Golden Section” material (the often-meandering family saga that made up the “Catherine Wheel”’s first hour) that it cannot really register. The two excerpts were well-chosen, though: “Dinosaur” was (as originally performed) a demonic, propulsive tribal ensemble section, and the “Cloud Chamber” duet was hypnotic and beautifully strange back when originals Christine Uchida and John Carrafa extracted maximum juice from its counterbalancing, push-pull tension and release. In retrospect, the duet is an exploration of the type of isometric partnering that Tharp highlighted, and discussed eleven years later in “Men’s Piece.”

In the KCB performance, “Dinosaur” unfortunately illustrated all too well how difficult it is to recapture the dynamic force and strength of Tharp’s 1981 company. These dancers were far too light on their feet and lacked the earthy urgency required. The duet, aided by the hauntingly simple David Byrne composition for echoing percussion, had a certain riveting sensual flow as performed by Stefani Schrimpf and Logan Pachciarz, but it was smoothed out and lost its eerie resonance.

The 13 dancers of the “Golden Section” tore into the material fearlessly, and sustained a high level of energy throughout. Inevitably, given the breathless mix of athletic and balletic bravura that the dense Tharp choreography here requires, some portions looked smudged or mistimed. But the cathartic celebratory quality of this Olympian choreography came through to a considerable degree.

[The section titles used to identify the sections in the KCB program refer to the titles of Byrne’s musical sections, and do not correspond to the character- and narrative-derived titles that are listed on the commercially available (and invaluable) DVD and VHS edition of “The Catherine Wheel,” recorded in 1983.]

The program opened with Whitener’s “Jaywalk,” which has its premiere last February and was an engaging, enjoyable way to introduce the company. Set to jazz by various masters from several decades, it played around with variations of various hip/beat/jive imagery and stylizations. Even before any music played, we heard Carl Sandburg intoning about the beat movement as the mostly grey- and black-clad dancers assembled in a cluster.

In the opening section, 22 of them strutted and jived playfully as they moved in overlapping and crossing lines of four or five, opening up the space for the occasional solo turn. The women were in toe shoes (except for one designated tapper who appeared periodically throughout the piece). The imagery — youthful, jaunty, with a touch of swing -- at times recalled the look and atmosphere of Robbins’ “Interplay.”

Subsequent sections explored more plaintive and moody jazz selections — three couples flowing through close, sensual partnering to John Coltrane; an extravagantly pliant male solo to Miles Davis — with effective if not wildly original impact, but “Jaywalk” mostly caught fire in its witty, vibrantly rhythmic sections. It showcased Whitener’s gift for manipulating a large ensemble through deft and interesting patterns, and made a bracing impact with its blend of contemporary technical pizzazz and nostalgic allusions.

The middle portion of the program was planned to offer “The Still Point,” a 1955 work by Todd Bolender, who went on to direct KCB for many years and helped establish its profile on the national scene. But due to injuries, it was replaced by two shorter works that together provided a more low-key, contemplative interlude between the two bigger, brasher works. David Berkey’s 1990 “Sentinel,” for four earnest men in white tops and pants, skirts around the potential clichés of an extended male adagio quartet. Set to the slow movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major, it sustained a melancholy, reflective tone as each man got a chance to separate himself from the others for some fluid, unemphatic solo passages, but the four always returned to the mutual support, and sometimes abrupt lunges and unison arm gestures, of their closely connected unit.

Jacques D’Amboise’s “Mediation” — set to Massenet and not to be confused with the Balanchine “Meditation” D’Amboise danced so memorably with Suzanne Farrell — was a sweetly romantic duet — the man in gleaming white, the woman in pink — marked by a lovely sense of suspension. Kimberly Cowen and Juan Pablo Trujillo each entered searching, then found each other, and their one extended, spiraling turning lift as she lay back in his arms was exquisitely delivered.

For an outdoor, temporary venue, “Evening Stars” — a joint presentation of the Joyce Theater and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council — provided a good-sized, well-appointed stage, with the inevitably awkward sightlines from at least some of the seating. The lighting was well handled throughout the program, which flowed along briskly on this comfortable, clear evening with only brief pauses between the dances.

Photos (from top):
The company in Twyla Tharp's "The Catherine Wheel." Photo: Steve Wilson.
Kimberly Cowen and Juan Pablo Trujillo in Jacques d'Amboise's "Meditation". Photo: Julieta Cervantes

Volume 4, No. 32
September 11, 2006
copyright ©2006 Susan Reiter
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