BalletX "œHot Summer Series": Neenan and Gates (1st review)

Jodie Gates's widely billed new work, The Inevitable Kiss, contrasted sharply with Matthew Neenan's 2006 work Broke Apart, and consequently the BalletX "Hot Summer Series" instead cooled with a soft touch.

Neenan's inventive, prop-driven Broke Apart employed four sections of ballet barres, sometimes as obstacles to hurdle or playful challenges to overcome, but always as the barriers that stand in the way of human connection, ones his dancers must emotionally and physically navigate even as they cling to them.

Imprisoned inside a cage fashioned from four of these barres, Amy Aldridge danced alone while, outside, Matthew Prescott reached across before throwing one of the barriers aside. They connected in fragile moments; he cradled her against his body and turned her across his hips before lowering her to the ground to lie with her. Before the lights faded, the pair embraced while standing, only to ultimately pull apart once more.

Athletic challenges

Throughout, Neenan dared his dancers to overcome the barres in bold athletic movements, which they mostly accomplished with ease (like a hurdler catching his foot, Francis Veyette toppled over one on Wednesday night). Jermel Johnson hoisted himself aloft on the bars like a gymnast straddling parallel beams, and Aldridge dove across the stage into the arms of three waiting men.

Drew Billiau's lighting bathed the erotic second movement in orange hues. In pairs, Tara Keating and Veyette and Laura Feig and Kevin Yee-Chan playfully seduce one another, darting in and out of the barres like obstacles that litter an urban playground. Feig pushes Yee-Chan away with both hands, and Veyette swings his arms over the side of a beam like a bar counter, staring at Keating with a sluggish grin. Love and longing resonate with both a light ardor and arduousness, and Neenan textures this piece emotionally so well that I couldn't help but smile myself.

Inspired song selections

Each segment segued seamlessly into the next, and without words, Neenan set a series of sonnets on the stage. The contemporary song selections— in a particularly inspired choice, Neenan uses Cyndi Lauper's aching rendition of "La Vie en Rose"— complemented the work's emotional coherence and sincerity. Despite its misleading title, Broke Apart filled the air with the fragrance of youth: as Aldridge infused her pointe work with everyday gestures (a glance over the shoulder, a half-turn as she walked), the piece glowed like a sunset, one that I never wanted to fade.

If Broke Apart indicates the wealth that BalletX keeps in repertory, the company might want to continue digging out old works instead of paying scarce money to commission new ones.

Waiting for the inevitable

In stark contrast to the sense of rapture I felt watching Neenan's piece, the first 15 minutes of Jodie Gates's largely uninteresting Le Baiser Inevitable ("The Inevitable Kiss") bored me entirely. And the degree to which the remaining five minutes commanded my attention relied on three elements— the intense build of Ravel's Bolero, the spectacle of Drew Billiau's lighting (which provided visual and spatial architecture), and Keating's stage presence— to save it from total mediocrity.

As Feig stood alone in a circle of light— an element that later became extended and intersecting— the other seven dancers entered one-by-one from the wings. The men, bare-chested and wearing red pants, bent deep at the knee before rising with their arms outstretched like wings; the women came in on turns, barely covered by a sheer black top over red bikinis and matching lipstick. After each entrance, they retreated slowly to the back of the stage, now shrouded in darkness and fog.

In order to extend her piece to a 20-minute length, Gates set her work to an electronic prelude composed by Jack Eddy. As Ravel's snare drums fired their incessant beat, the dancers lolled from side to side. I expected this slow start to mirror the cascade of Ravel's music. I wasn't prepared for the lack of visually engaging movement that followed.

A few shining moments

In brief moments, Gates's work did show potential. Prescott spun Keating vertically on his hip, and later, as Anitra Nurnberger danced in the center of another lighted circle, the four men— high stepping with their arms raised overhead— ticked about the circumference like points of a clock.

In another spectacular instant, Billiau's white lighting melts into a mauve as unseen hands throw Feig into the quick captured-embrace of two other dancers. They strip off her top, and she dances a pas de deux that's only marginally seductive.

Indeed, without Keating's single-handedly conveying an understanding of Bolero's erotic nature, The Inevitable Kiss would have lacked any sexuality at all. Every young dancer in the city should watch Keating's facial expressions when she dances; I've never seen a furrow that didn't match the mood of the music and the movement.

Only when Le Baiser Inevitable culminated in a forceful ensemble motion did it acquire the power needed to match the music's intensity. But by then, I had long drifted past the point of seduction.â—†


To read another review by Janet Anderson, click here.