American Repertory Ballet
In the classical ballet world, women choreographers are a rarity. The successors to Bronislava Nijinska and Agnes de Mille are few, particularly when one looks at dancemakers whose careers are rooted in ballet.
New Jersey’s American Repertory Ballet has made a point of addressing this situation through “Dancing Through the Ceiling,” a program its artistic director, Graham Lustig, inaugurated six years ago to commission ballets from female choreographers.
ARB’s groundbreaking initiative returned to the McCarter Theatre in Princeton in March, encompassing not only a woman-centric piece and a commission, exorcising Man, by former Cleveland San Jose Ballet and Hubbard Street dancer-turned-choreographer Lauri Stallings, but also Baker’s Dozen, a contemporary classic by Twyla Tharp, who has worked extensively within the ballet idiom.
Good intentions aside, the work itself is what matters. Mixed results made for a program that was intriguing, yet sometimes frustrating in its limitations.
Stallings’ première had its share of intriguing moments. Seven women (clad in unflattering, tangerine micro-minis and bike shorts) tested boundaries of space and balance as well as relationships with two men. With sudden, darting leaps into and out of the wings and almost introspective moments of abrupt stillness, these women seemed to be trying to work something—or someone—out of their systems.
In an electric duet, Dominic Guerra and Peng-Yu Chen battled for power and control. Here especially, one felt Stallings’ attempt to comment on the empty intimacy and combative co-dependence of contemporary relationships. An abrupt ending which left these issues unresolved, however, gave exorcising Man a decidedly unfinished quality.
Baker’s Dozen had no such ambiguity. The highlight of the evening, it is all wit and charm, its flurries of movement mixed with seeming effortlessness. ARB’s dancers seemed to embrace the joyful spirit of the work, riding Willie “the Lion” Smith’s music, played live by pianist Max Midroit, as if they were surfing the waves of a lively ocean.
The program closed with Lustig’s jazzy, ensemble number VISTA, but to keep the focus on women, Lustig also offered the première of his emotionally gripping Dialogues, to music by Pat Rasile.
In Dialogues, a dancer (Jennifer Cavanaugh) relives four love affairs as a mothering spirit (the legendary Carmen de Lavallade) watches and agonizes from the sidelines. The ballet features two mother figures: Soprano Lorraine Earnest, onstage throughout, frequently joined de Lavallade in watching the expressive Cavanaugh with the men in her life. De Lavallade’s considerable skills as a dramatist made a role that could have been a trifle shimmer with pathos. The theme of sisterly bonds comes full circle as a little girl (Rebecca Gellman) suddenly appears at the ballet’s end, linking the generations of women surrounding her.
Karyn D. Collins is dance writer for The Asbury Park Press and Gannett New Jersey.
