BalletMet Columbus
Americans are sports-obsessed, to be sure. But in Ohio, the Land of the Buckeyes, time stops every Saturday from late August through November as fans work themselves into what is known locally as Buckeye Fever. BalletMet Columbus took an “if you can’t beat ‘em …” approach in its fall program, October 11–14 at the Capitol Theatre. Titled “Sports Spectacular,” it lived up to its hyperbolic name with dancing as athletic and exciting as anything seen in a stadium.
Five works manifested a wide range of styles. In Badinage, the angular, tightly coiled energy of John McFall’s choreography aptly matches composer Igor Stravinsky’s dry-as-a-desert Concerto in D. A battle of the sexes developed once the first woman—Emily Ramirez on opening night—joined the men, setting the tone for a fight. Because the women ultimately reduced the men to rubble, McFall suggests they’re endowed with powers greater than the purely physical.
Harrison McEldowney created Dance Sport for Hubbard Street 2 in 1999 and then added new sections for BalletMet three years later. This super-charged, entertaining work satirizes both ballet and sports in equal measure. Most hilarious was the spoof on synchronized swimming, with Jimmy Orrante and Justin Gibbs in bathing caps and women’s swimsuits paddling through a routine that needed a lot more coaching. Another highlight was created by team-member Emily Gottschall, who had to replay her dance in slow motion and “a tempo” for the amusement of a pair of chatty commentators.
Maria Glimcher’s captivating Big League Dream, a première, looked at sports through the eyes of a young fan. The duet brought together a company member and a young student from BalletMet’s outreach program. Cute-as-a-button Robert Sanders had big dreams of growing up to become a ball player like his hero, as danced by Lynorris Evans. Evans never lost his big-league swagger as he executed a sensational series of difficult phrases one suspects not even a New York Yankee could handle.
Company dancer Adam Hundt created Kid A-O.K. to the music of Radiohead. Hundt’s piece contrasted relationships between men and women and then among men, beginning with Jimmy Orrante and Hitomi Yamada as a couple distracted by an annoying friend, Jeff Wolfe, who literally bounces off their walls. Initially absorbing, the work became fragmented and lost its focus with vague references to commercialism, television addiction and other mammoth social issues.
The closer was Susan Hadley’s Across the Field (Second Down), a reworked version of a splashy piece that BalletMet commissioned in 2003. The ballet takes its name from a Buckeye fight song and it’s something only Hadley—a former Mark Morris dancer now teaching at The Ohio State University—could have created. Delightful episodes for the full corps manifested her gift for working with large ensembles. Incorporating resonant songs like the OSU anthem and “America, the Beautiful,” Across the Field creates a grand landscape of music and dance that has both feet planted firmly in Americana.
Barbara Zuck writes about dance for The Columbus Dispatch and other publications.
