danceviewdc The
DanceView Times, Washington, D.C. edition |
Volume 2, Number 9 March 1, 2004 An online supplement to DanceView magazine
Hamburg
Ballet: Nijinsky—Lost in the Chaos Nijinsky Clare
Croft Vaslav
Nijinsky is a ballet icon. His ballets and life story have cemented his
place in dance history. But with iconic status sometimes comes a flattening
of character, and John Neumeier’s depiction of the famous dancer
in the evening length Nijinsky has fallen into this trap. Neumeier
devotes most of his two-and-half-hour ballet to placing Nijinsky’s
inner landscape onstage, creating a swirl of impossible-to-digest dance
that presents Nijinsky as a one-dimensional figure, lost in the swirl.
The man who created the first truly modern ballets and passed through
two complicated relationships, first with impresario Serge Diaghilev,
then later his wife Romola, appears the same throughout Neumeier’s
ballet. Though the relationships were, in fact, very different, Neumeier's
depictions are not. The
lack of subtle character development was even more striking after having
seen Norman Allen's "Nijsinky's Last Dance" at the Kennedy Center
this past fall. Nijinsky: Madness and Metaphor Nijinsky by
Alexandra Tomalonis It’s
not often one gets to see identical twins take on a leading role. John
Neumeier provided just such an opportunity by casting Jirí and
Otto Bubenícek as Nijinsky in his evening-length work of that name.
In this case, curiosity was well-rewarded: there were not only differences,
but each man had contrasting strengths. (I must state that my comparison
is from viewing the two only in this one role in this season, and that
I’m trusting that each twin danced at his announced performance.
The two also alternated as Nijinsky in the Faun, each playing Faun to
his brother's Nijinsky.) J. Bubenícek, who danced the role
opening night, has a stronger technique; O. Bubenícek’s,
at the Saturday evening performance, danced with more plasticity and more
expression. Nijinsky and the Ballets Russes Nijinsky by
George Jackson The
conception is sweeping. Call it symphonic or cinematic, there is cohesive
movement at the core of John Neumeier's Nijinsky. It has an effect,
it makes a splash, Act 1 more so because it never stops. Transitions are
part of the continuum. Choreography, characterizations and narrative are
fused inextricably. Batsheva: Breaking Down Walls Deca
Dance by
Lisa Traiger Ohad
Naharin likes to line up his dancers across the front of the stage letting
them spout off tightly packed phrases of movement, sequentially or, to
increase the effect, all at once. This is how his Deca Dance
opens and the formation returns in different costumes with different movement
over the course of the evening. It's as if Naharin wants to break down
that invisible but necessary barrier between performer and audience. And
then he does. Dance with Texture—and a Heart
Ronald K. Brown/Evidence by
Clare Croft Ron Brown’s
choreography displays the best of a postmodern approach—diverse
fusion of movements --while still embracing the capital letter ideals
of Modernism, Truth and Beauty. Watching Brown’s company Evidence
in their Sunday night performance at Dance Place, particularly in “Come
Ye” a work that received its Washington premiere on Thursday at
George Mason University, I felt I was watching a choreographer borne of
the postmodern generation dismiss the relativist, flat-line tendencies
that make so much of today’s choreography look the same. In Come
Ye, a celebration of singer Nina Simone, Brown and his dancers (he
performed with the company) defer to something bigger and higher than
themselves. Repeatedly, they raise their arms, hands balled into fists,
and arch their chests upward, embracing the air and at times each other
with a reverent, almost sacred quality. But, this call to something beyond
the stage does not have the dated air of the twentieth century classics
because Brown’s seamless fusion of West African, modern and club
dance solidly ties the universal to contemporary everyday life.
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What's On This Week March
3-7 March
2, 2004 March
5-7, 2004 March
5-7 March
6-7 March
6-7, 2004 An Acrobatic Showcase Choreographers
Showcase by
Tehreema Mitha Programs
like 21st Annual Choreographers Showcase are usually a good opportunity
to see a variety of companies and styles. But if I had been told that
one person had choreographed this whole show and that it was presented
by just one company, I would have believed it. There was an amazing uniformity
to the language used to create the pieces, an even keel that ran throughout
the whole evening. Zoltan Nagy C.
Voltaire Before
the performance proper began, a tiny toy tank attracted attention. Around
in a circle it rolled, making a whirring noise. Other paraphernalia apparent
right away were four strings suspended from the ceiling, four stools to
each of which a reproduction of a famous portrait of a woman was attached
and, standing in a niche, a statue of the Madonna and Christ child that
was a little larger than life. The floor of the space (the Kogod is a
black box theater) had a layer of brown wood chips.
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