Festival shows its American mastery
Motif Magazine, April 17, 2007 Issue
By Mark Morin
Festival Ballet Providence's season concludes April 20-22 with the aptly titled American Masters.
It features work from two of America's most innovative and influential choreographers, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, and Viktor Plotnikov, a rising star amongst the younger generation of American choreographers.
This production is especially exciting because in the world of dance, performing Balanchine and Robbins is a privilege, not a right; Festival had to petition The Balanchine Trust and The Robbins Trust for permission. Both gave their approval and sent Trust Repetiteur Elyse Borne to Providence to set Balanchine's Rubies and Robbins' 2 and 3 Part Inventions, both RI premieres.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, with less than a week before the curtain rises, Artistic Director Mihailo Djuric and the dancers are busy putting the finishing touches on the season finale in their Hope Street. studio. They begin with Balanchine's Rubies, a piece that embodies his distinctive style with its speed, athleticism and beauty. Balanchine's brand of dance, emphasizing athleticism and strength, seems a natural fit for Festival. Over the years, the company has tended more towards youth and athleticism with the dancers seeming to thrive when presented with challenging choreography.
Rubies is very fast and busy where even the smallest, most intricate movements fill nearly every beat of music. Fifteen dancers, sometimes all at once, other times in pairs or individually, gallop, prance, run, spin or jump across the stage. At its conclusion, the dancers lay flat-out on the studio floor, chests heaving from exhaustion.
Though Robbins and Balanchine's styles are similar, Robbins joined Balanchine - as a dancer and choreographer - shortly after the latter formed New York City Ballet (he was later named Associate Artistic Director), Robbins' 2 and 3 Part Inventions serves as the polar opposite of Rubies.
Set to Johann Sebastian Bach's "Inventions and Sinfonias," and accompanied by pianist Maya Isyanova (she will be playing during the weekend performances), Inventions is much more melancholy, movements are slower, more controlled, emphasizing elegance and long, clean lines.
The piece has a little bit of everything; it is fun, serious, playful, flirtatious and seductive. It also requires quite a bit of athleticism and stamina with male solos highlighted by big leaps and turns, along with several pas de deux and a beautifully executed pas de trios.
Inventions consists of four couples who introduce themselves in pairs to the audience. In an innovative and creative twist, it ends as it began but in reverse; you have to see it to fully appreciate it.
The program concludes with Plotnikov's world premiere Coma. Formerly a principal dancer with Boston Ballet, he also staged Festival's world premieres of Carmen, The Widow's Broom, and Loof and Let Dime. He has been showered with praise locally and nationally for his eclectic yet always thought provoking and innovative choreography.
Coma, with less than a week before its premiere, has not yet been fully staged. Yet, Plotnikov and a select few dancers are working feverishly to complete what looks to be another brilliant production where Plotnikov explores the feelings and experiences confronting friends and family "when a loved one is in a comatose state … and the vision [he has] of those actually in the coma … a beautiful place to be, as is the transition to the next place."
American Masters, Festival Ballet Providence, VMA Arts & Cultural Center, 1 Avenue of the Arts, Prov, RI. (401) 272-4VMA. Runs Fri & Sat @ 7:30pm & Sun at 2:30pm
April 20-22.
