BalletX Fall Series: Three premieres

For BalletX's fall program of three new works, Meredith Rainey drew his inspiration from Chris Armstrong's tidal landscape, Summerhead. His They Break evoked an appropriately Mediterranean feel right from the start of its 25 minutes, thanks to Drew Billiau's sunrise-to-sunset lighting and the draping flow of Martha Chamberlain's costumes—greens and brown skirts on the men, blue and brown dresses for the women.

Initially, Rainey's eight dancers undulated and writhed on the floor, then rose to split into groups that either walked forward and backward, all to the somber cellos of David Lang's World to Come. Three men broke off to the front to move in ritualistic unison as the other dancers ebbed and flowed from the wings, spinning out onto the stage before hastily retreating back.

A series of almost physically violent pas de deux showed a pushing and pulling of bodies that mirrored the tempest in Armstrong's ocean painting. And after Anitra Keegan rushed from Bradley Schlagheck's embrace, the emptiness in his arms hung like the echo of a crashing wave on the shore.

Like the ocean, monotonous

The dancers' repeated walkaways expressed yearning; each segment showed the men spinning while draping women across their hips; and Rainey's piece ultimately yielded an otherworldly feel of a people whose lives are rough, demanding, and harsh.

But unlike the ocean, which lolls gracefully in intervals between the storms, They Break rarely broke from the monotony of this tempestuous feel. I partially blame the musical selection. Rainey's exacting choreography, like the only occasionally modulating tempo of Lang's consistently sober tone, varies slightly without ever altering the mood or theme.

For one brilliant moment, Billiau's lighting allowed us to dive beneath the surface for a dazzling underwater movement, one that culminated as the ensemble enveloped Colby Damon in the bilious folds of their skirts and dresses. For that instant, They Break transcended the tedium to show me hints of complexity that I longed to see. Otherwise, I felt like a tourist in a museum, staring at, but not fully experiencing, the richness of life that inspired a painting.

Routines of everyday life

In stark contrast to the underdeveloped humanity of Rainey's piece, the 20 minutes of movement in Alex Ketley's mesmerizing Silt expressed more about the human condition than most playwrights achieve with two hours of text.

Here, five dancers sat in a semi-circle of chairs, surrounding two dancers standing rooted to the floor. A feeling of group therapy permeated; the pair in the center slowly revealed their torment in trying to lift a leg, or twist their hips, and succeeded only in small movements while occasionally opening their mouths to voice silent cries.

As a selection of Chris Clark's electronica music began, the five pulled their chairs to the rear of the stage, then returned to form couples dancing slightly staggered patterns of the same movements. Slowly, individual gestures disappeared, and the routines of everyday life eroded any romanticized sense of uniqueness through these similarly enacted sequences.

Explosions punctuated the music before it shifted into an aria by Giovanni Pergolesi. The dancers returned to their chairs. Some hid their eyes, others watched the painful personal exploration between Damon and Keegan, who collapsed to the ground after a harsh series of movements. Still seated, others raised their hands as the pair moved, as if to acknowledge that, yes, we've all lost and suffered, and no routine can conceal our anguish or obscure what's personal in our universal search for meaning.

The frailty of Godot

The short piece ran deep with human frailty, and as in a production of Waiting for Godot, I wondered what compelled any of these characters to go on. Damon and Tara Keating balled their fists at their sides while executing contorted, tortured gestures, and they stamped the percussion of their anguish as the counterpoint to the soft, irregular piano notes in a piece by Arvo Part. Like Beckett's hobos, they railed at life for robbing them even as it doled out their only possibility for joy and consolation.

Although Billiau's lighting painted circles of isolation on the floor, the dancers ultimately re-partnered in movement to find release. The message seemed to be: Torment and grief may be felt individually, but it's alleviated in the arms of another.

Popping a champagne cork

After Silt, Matthew Neenan needed to lighten the mood, and his Last of the Year— set to string selections by Borodin, Vivaldi and Schubert—popped and bounced from the start. Chamberlain decked the eight dancers in bright blues, greens and pinks, and from their initial arrangement in a semi-circle, they exploded off the stage in leaps and dancing that seemed to do nothing but smile.

When Neenan wants to have fun, he takes every serious aspect of classical ballet movement and unravels it before putting it back together. In this piece his choreography even played with the space, as his dancers leaned against the proscenium supports or appeared from behind the curtains of the stage exit door.

Neenan textured Last of the Year to elicit emotions at will, dabbling bits of sensuality (credit Keating's simple sideways turn of her head), and the smoldering seduction brought by Elizabeth Gaither. When Neenan's choreography told a joke, the audience responded with laughter, as if responding to a seasoned comedian.

Led by Damon—a superb character dancer for this company— the dancers threw themselves into the action with abandon, and took every opportunity to find fun. True to its title, the lighthearted sense of celebration in this piece could have popped like a champagne cork on New Years. Only a ball drop was missing.