Boston Opera House, Boston, MA.
October 9, 2022.
I had Sonny and Cher “The Beat Goes On” in my head after having fun with Boston Ballet’s My Obsession – the corporate’s 2022-2023 season opener. The program was framed as presenting tales “that explore our obsessions, devotions and idols” – themes definitely on supply right here. Yet, most intriguing to me was a practice of music and motion coming collectively by means of previous and current.
From classical music and Balanchine, to extra trendy music and up to date ballet, to Rolling Stones hits and social dance-inflected ballet, this system demonstrated simply what number of methods we will deliver collectively music and motion (and to not point out supportive design components) to create one thing finally transcendent. We have, we do, and we’ll; that beat goes on. Defying expectations alongside the way in which – as this program additionally did in spades – can solely propel artistic innovation and make it all of the extra impactful.
The program opened with George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante (1956), a vibrant and joyful piece on the classical finish of the Balanchine canon. The curtain rose on heat lights and dancers sporting child blue, shifting by means of easeful classical vocabulary. That vocabulary was fast and dynamic, but extra commonplace classical and fewer signature Balanchine in gesture and pathways (relative to a lot of his ballets).
Yet, the work did display Balanchine’s typical affinity for musicality, which the ensemble definitely delivered right here. They spanned the stage and executed myriad little jumps and zippy turns – assembly the sturdy Tchaivoksky rating with effervescence and delight. Lunges and circles throughout the house created the clear traces and shapes that deepened the sensation of concord at hand. Formations have been fantastically clear, dancers hitting simply the proper marks – bringing to life Balanchine’s imaginative and prescient of a exact, intentional stage image.
Chisako Oga, sporting pink to tell apart her as a soloist, provided quiet grace even with a lot power and technical command. Also totally pleasant was an all-ballerino part. On the one hand, I really like how 21st century ballet is – little by little – breaking down the partitions of strict gender conventions throughout the kind. On the opposite, it’s a real deal with to expertise a bunch of virtuosic males execute feats of athletic power. In a post-postmodern context, something goes; we will make house for all of it.
Right according to that ethos of openness and multiplicity, the next piece – Helen Pickett’s 月夜 Tsukiyo introduced fairly a special ambiance. Pensive, mysterious and at occasions even foreboding, the work thoughtfully investigated the tensions and magnetism between two individuals – all by means of physicality and musicality. Design additionally translated a lot; shining behind a dimly-lit stage was a big round gentle, like an summary moon rising proper above the horizon (surroundings design by Mikko Nissinen and Benjamin J. Phillips).
Throughout the piece, that massive moon’s gentle allowed for the motion to create entrancing shadows throughout the stage (unique lighting design by John Cuff). Smoke blanketing the stage deepened the thriller that the shadows created. Before that moon was a big chair, the place soloist Chyrstyn Fentroy sat because the lights and curtain rose. She stepped down, slowly and cautiously – with a pinch of Bambi legs, step by step discovering her footing.
Her associate, Paul Craig, quickly joined her, and – because the piece progressed – helped her to seek out extra stability and power. As they joined and have become more and more attuned to one another, the rating (“Spiegel im Spiegel” by Arvo Pärt) shifted from mysterious and (arguably) ominous to 1 full of extra hope and luster.
What Fentroy’s persona might need lacked in power and stability, she had in spades when it got here to fluidity and mobility; her backbone rippled and limbs reached out to span vast house, the motion and notes fluidly shifting by means of her. Fentroy adeptly used her size and clean articulation by means of joints to satisfy the vast palette of musical dynamics inside these notes.
With her associate’s help, she then had each: the soundness of grounding and the spaciousness of mobility. Her potentialities had expanded in consequence. She melted into him by means of partnering, exhaling to totally soften, but at different factors lifted and supported herself for intriguing – and plain pretty – shapes. Sometimes individuals in our lives assist us to develop with out shedding what’s already finest about us – and people are the individuals who we do effectively to maintain round, as finest we will.
It wasn’t all roses and rainbows, nonetheless; there have been tense moments of seemingly diverging wills between the pair. Yet, collectively, they discovered the pathways by means of the physique that led them to concord. The ending spoke to one thing lasting about what that they had discovered. Craig had, at occasions all through the piece, damaged Fentroy’s fall and helped her to face tall (to not point out fly excessive with lifts). As he walked slowly away from her, nonetheless, she danced with eachstability and fluid openness.
Lights went down on her having discovered that – definitely a special place than she had been initially of the piece. Whatever the piece might need provided – maybe completely different to the senses, hearts, and minds of assorted viewers members – it resonated; they received proper to their toes for a standing ovation. In some form of means, the precise had spoken to the common.
Balanchine’s Apollo (1928) got here subsequent, one other well-known work of his nonetheless outdoors of Balanchine’s arguably most well-known neoclassical ballets (the “black and white ballets”). I loved this work by means of a digital Boston Ballet program within the fall of 2021, and was to note variations between that and the stay expertise. In 2022, Patrick Yocum as Apollo was maybe a bit much less memorably expressive than Paulo Arrais (who danced the title function within the filmed model) – but what he did deliver was a dignified and noble bearing, supported by full technical prowess, that spoke to Apollo’s divinity.
Additionally, different viewers members laughing helped me to note comedian moments – and people of even candy humanness – that I hadn’t picked up on after I watched it alone at house. On the opposite hand, for me the close-ups potential by means of movie additionally allowed the personas of the characters to translate higher.
Film additionally allowed the vitality of a small solid to higher fill the visible image at hand (however the total funding and vibrancy that the 2022 ensemble delivered to their characters). Yet, I might think about the vast open areas on the stage house just like the countless vistas on the peak of Greek mythology’s Mt. Olympus.
All in all, the work is filled with splendidly crafted moments – cleanly geometric formations and shapes making it candy sweet for dance photographers. Despite compelling layers on a physique stage, there’s a minimalism to the aesthetic that retains all of it visually definitive. It was additionally yet one more ballet on this program that demonstrated how the union of music and motion can resonate by means of the many years, the centuries, and past. It being one other Balanchine work, such musicality is just par for the course.
Stephen Galloway’s DEVIL’s/eye (March 2022) closed out this system. Offering a real aesthetic expertise – of vivid gentle, vibrant motion, and pulsing rock music – it was a pure celebration in up to date ballet (and definitely not what everybody thinks of once they assume “ballet”!). Galloway set the work totally to Rolling Stones hits, laying the groundwork for a 1970’s rock and roll vibe. Every facet of the work helped to construct that ambiance, like puzzle items match collectively simply so to make a cohesive, memorable complete.
A big upstage set piece lit the dancers (lighting design by Brandon Stirling Baker) – altering with every part to not solely completely different colours, but in addition shapes (resembling circles, reminiscing data). Silhouettes, aside from being visually fascinating, mirrored the picture of particular person caught earlier than blindingly vivid stadium lights at a rock live performance. Costumes (by Galloway) provided the edgy cuts and colours that one may discover at such a live performance, within the Seventies particularly, whereas nonetheless stylized and polished sufficient to enrich the dancers’ shapes and contours.
The motion definitely had such classical traces and shapes, in spades – expansive and dynamic at that. Galloway skillfully sewed collectively that vocabulary with social dance inflections: shaking hips, shoulder rolls, gestures of compelling characterization. Lifts have been a bit extra on the classical ballet finish of the spectrum, however did supply possibilities for additional characterization by means of how dancers in pas de deux interacted – like pals, or pals who simply met, do have interaction in such settings.
Non-unison sections mirrored individuality, and group sections neighborhood – each essential components of being joined collectively in a celebration of fine music, good individuals, and a very good life. Tracks from Rolling Stones concert events – full with components like Mick Jagger proclaiming to a raucous viewers and improvisational guitar riffing – solely deepened this rock live performance really feel.
The ensemble attacked all of it with (seemingly) all potential pleasure and kinesthetic dedication, to not point out on-point musicality – making this rock live performance in dance come totally to life. One part did really feel extra contemplative and fewer of a celebration ambiance, being set to a ballad (“Wild Horses”). Part of me wished extra sections like that within the work, but that may have introduced its general vitality to a spot that was not aligned with Galloway’s imaginative and prescient.
The curtain got here down on the dancers grooving out, dancing by means of their very own vocabulary (each the classical and the non-public). The beat would go on. Through each trying ahead into the longer term and listening to from the previous, it definitely can. The coronary heart of music and motion – the sheer pleasure of making and sharing artwork – it is going to proceed. Thank you to Boston Ballet for reminding us of that with My Obsession, a memorable smorgasbord of music and motion from throughout many years and throughout far-ranging communities. The beat can attain all of them.
By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.
