NEWS + REVIEWS
Below you will find the most recent critical reviews of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet performances as well as online versions of Ballet News, the quarterly newsletter of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. If you are looking for specific information about an upcoming ASFB performance, please check the Performances or Press Releases sections of our site.
REVIEWS
ASFB AT NYC's JOYCE THEATER
ASFB returned to NewYork City's Joyce Theater in February, below is Claudia La Rocco's review from The New York Times.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Evening of Adventuresome Premieres
By Claudia La Rocco
February 19, 2009
Given all the hand wringing about the dire state of contemporary ballet, it is good to be reminded that new work is being made all the time and that much of it is of at least some interest. Genius choreographers might not come around very often; choreographers with potential do.
Helen Pickett is one, judging by “Petal,” which had its New York premiere on Wednesday at the Joyce Theater courtesy of the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. The small company (just 12 dancers) has adventuresome tastes, sampling from a range of choreographic languages. Though sometimes ragged, in both style and endurance, the performers gamely threw themselves into the disparate works with admirable verve.
“Petal” combines a sophisticated sense of spacing with a resonant exploration of emotional discovery. Eddies of social groupings swirl within a stage bounded by large white screens and suffused by Todd Elmer’s gorgeously lush lighting design of Easter-egg yellows, pinks and oranges. A sense of restless female desire pervades the choreography, which sets intimate duets and solos within more formal group patterns, much as pockets of tenderness bloom within the relentless music by Philip Glass and Thomas Montgomery Newman.
There are many styles in play here, including Twyla Tharp’s tough, sexy female athleticism and, most strongly, the aggressively buckling, rippling movement language of William Forsythe, in whose company Ms. Pickett danced for many years. But Ms. Pickett looks to be finding a voice of her own.
This is a good thing, as Mr. Forsythe has far too many pale imitators, and none who manage the pacing and intelligence of such works as his pas de deux from “Slingerland,” performed handsomely on Wednesday by Sam Chittenden and Katherine Eberle. Here the push-and-pull drama of two dancers, isolated in a darkly illuminated world, serves as both a rich metaphor for relationships and a deconstruction of ballet’s reliance on that metaphor. Combining the theatrical and the theoretical, it’s a neat Forsythian trick.
Tricks too abound in Jorma Elo’s dances. But they too often seem cheap. “1st Flash,” another New York premiere, had many of his hallmarks: the manic, slapdash phrasing; the busy, gesture-laden choreography, full of set pieces designed to momentarily wow; the haphazard connection to music. (Here Sibelius’s romantic, windswept vision is spliced, to little effect, with passages danced in silence.) There is lots going on, but little to hold onto (though Jordan Tuinman’s varied lighting design deserves a nod). While the eye scrambles to keep up, the imagination yawns.
A more intriguing world is suggested in Itzik Galili’s “Chameleon,” a third New York premiere. In between preening and posing, five women present a smorgasbord of tics and twitches, accompanied by the meditative, moody John Cage work “In a Landscape.” They do so seated in a row of bright green chairs at the front of a mostly darkened stage, as if waiting for an audition or for someone to notice them.
There is something terribly sad about these creatures, dressed in slinky black outfits and offering their brittle, pin-up smiles. (On Wednesday, Lauren Alzamora was particularly poignant in navigating a public-private tension.) The longer they remain on display, the more you see the cracks in the facade.
ASFB'S 2008 SUMMER PERFORMANCES
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet made its debut at the American Dance Festival in July and its fourth appearance at Jacob’s Pillow in August. Below are reviews from these performances.
THE NEWS AND OBSERVER
Young ballet company impresses at ADF
July 4, 2008
DURHAM - At this weekend's American Dance Festival, audiences may come for the ever-popular Paul Taylor Dance Company but will leave more impressed with the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet.
This young company, just into its second decade, brings exciting vibrancy and striking precision to its ADF debut. True, its two selections are from choreographer Twyla Tharp's top drawer, but the dancers go beyond mere replication, their joy and verve making the pieces their own. "Sinatra Suite," is Tharp's 1984 showpiece about a ballroom dance couple's brief attraction, interaction and disconnection over the course of five songs from "Ol' Blue Eyes." Katie Dehler in an elegant Oscar de la Renta dress and Seth DelGrasso in standard tux, move seamlessly together, first in sharp tango steps, then in sensuous lifts and close-contact turns.
Dehler rivets with spectacular control, balancing in near-impossible positions. DelGrasso gets his due in a poignant solo of regret soothed over with alcohol.
Before that jewel-like performance, the full company energizes the stage with "Sweet Fields," Tharp's 1996 piece to Shaker hymns. The dancers are seductive in their lingerie-like white costumes, countered by their uplifting, reverent responses to the mesmerizing singing.
Their movements are sometimes ritualistically solemn, sometimes exuberantly blissful. The piece has a wonderful dichotomy of old/new, light/dark, simple/complex. The dancers' geometric exactness and palpable warmth give the performance thrilling impact.
This is in stark contrast to Taylor's "Changes," made for the San Francisco Ballet earlier this year. The piece uses 1960's music from John Phillips, John Hartford and Lennon/McCartney, with dancers in bell-bottoms, headbands, and tie-dye. The choreographer's notes equate that earlier period to today's, with the same need to question political decisions.
Given Taylor's darkly intriguing pieces about the U.S. (think "Big Bertha" or "Company B"), "Changes" disappoints. Expectation of something provocative or enigmatic is unfulfilled in what seems a mere recreation of period dance moves layered with references to drug use and free love.
Only the incongruous "Dancing Bear," in which Francisco Graciano in footed pajamas is comforted in a dream by bearskin-clad James Sampson, gives off some emotion and character. Otherwise, the dancers seem imprecise and underspirited. Taylor's 1956 "3 Epitaphs" still amuses with its hooded, mirrored creatures struggling towards some higher purpose but failing in their bumbling listlessness. And his 2002 "Promethean Fire" is Taylor at near best, the swirling patterns and architectural groupings beautifully matched to orchestrated Bach, with a gratifying underpinning of triumph against adversity.
This program is definitely a crowd-pleaser, if not the most satisfying to dance mavens looking for meatier fare. Kudos to Taylor for longevity and to Aspen Santa Fe for joining the ADF elite.
THE BOSTON GLOBE
In varied program, troupe gets its kicks
August 15, 2008
By Janine Parker, Globe Correspondent
BECKET - The annual summer-long festival of dance that Jacob's Pillow delivers is bound to invite comparison to the Olympic Games. All of those international companies, all of those fabulous dancer/athletes. So be it: This week it's the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, a terrific troupe of 11 dancers who are doing us proud in an excellent program of four dances that show off the company's versatility.
Artistic director Tom Mossbrucker and executive director Jean-Philippe Malaty are committed to presenting contemporary classical dance with an emphasis on commissioning new works. Helen Pickett's "Petal," which premiered in February, solidly affirms the importance of such sponsorship.
The title is apt for such a sunny piece, though fortunately there are hints of mystery and tension among the four couples. For instance, in the partnering, the women are never prettily presented like fragile dolls in need of assistance. When offered, they manage to convey both wariness and a shrugging acceptance, willing to investigate how an extra hand can exploit and heighten their movements. The women frequently kick at their partners (gently, but even so), mostly at their shins as if to trip them, but once, memorably, at head level.
The movement is drawn largely from ballet vocabulary, and Pickett chooses well. Indeed, "Petal" and the pas de deux from William Forsythe's 2000 "Slingerland" are the most overtly balletic - the women wear pointe shoes in both pieces. Ironically, given the "Ballet" in the company's name, it's in these pieces that the company's few technical issues emerge.
The men exhibit a weakness in their extremities: pirouettes executed with arms extended suffer because there's no reach through the forearms to the fingertips; more complex jumps like cabrioles lack sharpness both in the spring from the ground and the shape of the feet. Although the women have plenty of dynamic attack, their pointe work is gummy, possibly from the soft, beaten shoes that the company apparently prefers.
The five women in Israeli choreographer Itzik Galili's "Chameleon" are barefoot and, at times, bare-souled. This funny, strange "dance" - the dancers remain mostly rooted to their green folding chairs - is a keen commentary on the exhausting expectations that can be placed on women. Affecting various poses and exaggerated facial expressions, they conjure lascivious vamps, innocent little girls, or back-slapping best buds. At one point the women raise their legs up, splay them, turned in and feet flexed; then, with perfect comic timing, cover their crotches demurely with their hands.
Jorma Elo's 2003 "1st Flash" is a reminder that the young Finnish choreographer has already developed an unmistakable style. The stage is eerily lit, partially by the large rectangle that hangs upstage right (stark industrial lighting is another trademark). Elo's quirky movement - awkwardly yet appealingly vulnerable, like an adolescent who hasn't grown into his limbs yet - is often agitated. At times the dancers rush onto the stage as if late to work, and then hurl themselves into a phrase as if to overtake the clock. But suddenly a dancer will sweep languorously through a turn and it seems, comparatively, that time has slowed . . . for just a moment, and then the twitching resumes.
It's fairly manic, and it could be too much, but as for me, I wish it would never end.