This is the beginning of a series on reading the elements and weaving light, language, nature, and the vitality of the dance/theater experience. It is also a new kind of interactive dance and theater review.
Friday, October 3, began with a grand encounter with seagulls at South Street Seaport in New York City. Besides several teaching me about riding the air waves around the Seaport and in life in general, a seagull landed smack dab in my path and basically would not remove himself. Finally, I greeted him, and then we walked around him. Obviously, he had a message for me, which I didn’t understand till later.
Then I received the following:
Bodyscapes and Butterflies and Red, Read, Red
As the butterflies landed in droves, orange and golden, polka-dotted,
their lilac edged wings iridescent,
I knew there was nectar here, waiting:
The flowers, everywhere,
Bodies in water and the New York City falls, a treehouse in the garden,
A woman on a cell phone going round and round a revolving door.
I saw caterpillar bodies upright, not yet cocooned,
Lives in poetry flashing by as though
projected against a muted background of rainbows;
And rain, rain… that theme again…
Before the rain, After…
Dancing in the rain…
The butterflies coming in torrents
Aye, what a rush!
Polyommatus icarus fly!
Phoebis ruina disguised, never revealing your Ashtonian connections to Peru till now: enriched with Inca gold;
Yellow-ringed purple eye of the Costa Rican glasswing beckoning in faerie magic
Juxtaposed with the black-white-red of Parnassius Apollo.
Emperor moth lay for us your carpet of brown and orange,
We will ride
Yes, we will ride
On wings of air, gliding, gliding
To our calvacade, our destiny in flight…
Rising, falling
Arising again
Like fragments of an ancient bewitching sun.
–M.A. Stinson, 2008
I have to thank the company of Morphoses for their exquisite performances Friday night (and Saturday, which will be written about here and there). The company was a welcome sight for someone feeling a bit bereft of such exposure living for the time being in Toledo, Ohio. I almost don’t want to single out anyone because the dancers were so fluid, expessive, and trained to do both classical and contemporary movement. But some seemed to have a special power and having not seen them before I do wish to mention here, Beatriz Stix-Brunell, Leanne Benjamin and Edward Watson, and those I have seen before, Adrian Danchig-Waring and Edwaard Liang, who was riveting in the Molnar piece.
The evening built well, beginning with Wheeldon’s Polyphonia, which I could see was one of his earlier pieces. Why? Because the detail seemed not as rich and something about it felt faded to me. But here is a chance to express one of the things I love about Wheeldon. He learns from the past and moves on. I see it in the new work he does. I did wonder several times if he wanted an arabesque with the knee facing down that I saw on the wonderfully nuanced Wendy Whelan and Stix-Brunell, a position that speaks to me somehow about the ability to turnout from a center of power. The other dancers used a turned out arabesque and it looked more empowered, but may not have been the choreographic effect desired.
I will comment the most on the Emily Molnar piece, Six Fold Illuminate, since it was the one I twice discussed with people asking me what I thought of it. It reminded me of when I was asked the same question about the first Harry Potter book, and I launched into all the glories of it only to hear, “but it’s about witches.” I’m a ballet/modern and improvisational dancer. That piece took me deep into my body. When a piece takes me there and I want to get up on stage and dance, I do not look at anything else. I cannot. I simply experience in the present moment.
The two people I talked to found the work derivative and Christopher Wheeldon’s work more inventive. One said, “When I go to the ballet, I want to be uplifted, I want to see pretty. This was ugly.” Both agreed that Steve Reich music drives them a little crazy with its repetitiveness. However, the interesting thing to me was that one liked Merce Cunningham and can tolerate some of the music and soundscapes he uses. What seemed to be in question here and in any of the Wheeldon pieces that folks had trouble with were the piece’s purpose in being, its depth, its core, the kind of music used, and what it was about (even in abstract, ballets have “story.”)
For my commentary on Six Fold, I must move onto the new Wheeldon piece, Commedia, a tribute to Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. Forgive me if instead of Commedia del Arte references, which were certainly there, I saw Nijinsky fauns and Bob Fosse gyration, and if I recostumed these dancers, who were decked out in evocative white leotards and tights with little black diamond shapes. I really couldn’t help it. My imagination took hold and I saw vines of ivy blossoming on some, weaving and wrapping around them. Sprites appeared, and elves, and a feeling sometimes of creatures called up from the deep mysteries of time and space like images on oracle cards.
There were moments of such frolic and joy, and the open, clean ballet body. I could see the Commedia troupe, ruffles and all, and their variety of characterizations. I remembered how Nijinsky’s work was found disgusting and inappropriate and profoundly ugly to the audiences of that time because the movements he used had a turned-in look unrecognized by ballet traditionalists. But now we’re used to it and keeping feet parallel to each other and the look of Egyptian-tinged flatness simply references history–or at least it did so in that ballet.
So back to Six-Fold Illuminate. It was so visceral that for me, it was exquisite. Emily Molnar is a shaman. She took Wheeldon, and perhaps his references to Balanchine and New York City Ballet, and made them felt, kinesthetic and newly alive. It was as though she were building a bridge between old and new, something a shaman does.
Six Fold Illuminate. You have to ask what is the title about? I believe it’s about the transformation of the Swan Queen, of the story ballet, of ballet itself. I saw the wings in the movement later in the piece and I saw illuminated the Swan Queen at the end of the piece, a swan queen born out of the old, glistening classical one, a vibrant metaphor for something that resonates within us all still.
Knowing what Mr. Wheeldon wishes to forge, I thank him profusely for commissioning this piece, and taking what must have been a giant risk. I learned and revelled more throughout the evening because I saw it. The differences were etched more clearly for me: between that which has a modern dance contracted, earthy, sometimes gnarled in-the-body expression, and that which is almost the out-of-the-body classical ballet orientation–the flat, open chest; the port de bras; and the structured placement.
Now, if we could add the language of story and show character arc even in abstract ballet so it is more easily understood by everyone, as well as music that pleases the heart and inspires the soul (perhaps through melody), plus contributing a new language of batterie to the Molnar, bringing more of it to the Wheeldon, we would have something that would ground and send soaring even those of us who find much contemporary ballet “ugly,” distancing, and unfathomable. But then what choreographer or artist ever speaks to everyone all the time?
–Melanie A. Stinson
If you enjoyed this piece, please comment below, and come back for more. The series continues after this post.
