BalletX "Hot Summer Series' (2nd review)

In a relatively short time, BalletX has segued from an intriguing experiment into a mature local institution with a viewpoint and edge all its own. This was evident last weekend when the small troupe celebrated its second summer program as Wilma Theater's resident dance company.

Co-artistic directors Matthew Neenan and Christine Cox put together a program that demonstrated their eye for good dancers as well as their openness to experimenting within ballet's established movement vocabulary while picking up innovative moves from a number of unusual sources.

BalletX became an ongoing entity in 2005, a new more independent version of Neenan and Cox's earlier experimental troupe, Phrenic New Ballet. So in one version or another, they go back together to year 2000. This spunky little outfit celebrates the new and experimental, but it's now an integral part of Philly's continuing dance season with a style and history all its own.

For this program, BalletX confidently looked back into its own rapidly expanding repertoire, performing two works first presented at the 2006 Fringe Live Arts Festival. Faithful to their call to celebrate and perform new experimental ballet, Neenan and Cox filled out the program with a piece contributed by an important innovative choreographer. The new work came from an old friend, Jodie Gates, a former Pennsylvania Ballet principal dancer who currently directs an experimental dance festival, CaDance, an annual event in Laguna, Calif.

A storyteller's roots

The evening opened with Scenes View 2, by Jorma Elo, a native of Finland who trained with some of the world's greatest companies, including St. Petersburg's Kirov, the Netherland Dance Theater and New York City Ballet. Elo possesses the instincts of a storyteller and the theatricality of his European roots, and View is a talking dance.

Seven dancers take the stage and start reciting the story of Carmen. Although we have no idea why we're being taken down the path of this old story about the saucy lady and the cigarette factory, it works.

The dancers play with words and with movements. At one point the ladies plucked at the arched backs of their partners as though they were playing cellos. Dressed in jeans, they careened to Bach's Partita No. 2 in D Minor for Solo Violin, slipping occasionally into hip-hop moves. Although we don't know just what's at stake here, we know the investment is high.

All seven dancers exceeded expectations. The choreography especially suited Amy Aldridge's crisp attack as well as the muscular virtuosity of Jermel Johnson and Francis Veyette.

Challenging boundaries

It was a treat to see BalletX co-artistic director Neenan's Broke Apart, which looks as good today as it did back in the 2006 Fringe Live Arts Festival. This is a dance in which eight dancers constantly challenge boundaries created by four ballet barres. Initially the four barres are placed on stage in a square shape like a holding pen or corral; then the four barres are quickly pulled into other conformations. Dancers swing the barres around, balance on them, push them aside, climb on them and tip them up, a playful metaphor for what BalletX is doing with ballet technique.

A montage of popular music from a diverse group of singers— including Martha Wainwright, Cyndi Lauper and Joanna Newsom— sets the musical background for this romp. Everyone looked good. James Ihde contributed strength, height and poise; Amy Aldridge and Kevin Yee-Chan flowed between each other; but Tara Keating and Jermel Johnson got and savored the La Vie en Rose section, a knockout with throbbing music and emotional moves.

Avoiding Bolero's steamy nonsense

The program's grand finale was Jodie Gates's new choreography, Le Baiser Inevitable. Gates chose to use Maurice Ravel's familiar but still steamy and propulsive Bolero. This music is constructed with such a profound sense of movement and high energy (not to forget emotion) that any choreographer using it must be careful not to put together steamy nonsense. While Le Baiser Inevitable retains some of the steaminess, it's never nonsensically contrived.

Ravel himself saw the Bolero as a comment on fascism. Gates used eight dancers dancing in a circle of light on a stage with smoky lighting. Beginning with the dancers swaying inside the circle to the initial slow pulse of sound, the dance became ever more ecstatic and wild as the sound built and surged. This progression led to the inevitable highly charged conclusion. Francis Veyette, Kevin Yee-Chan, Laura Feig and Anitra Nurnberger stood out in a cast where everyone looked good.

As Gates's title suggests, the inevitable kiss occurred. The music and movement hit a crescendo and the audience spontaneously rose to its feet in applause, giving the dancers a huge physically inspired metaphorical embrace.â—†


To read another review by Jim Rutter, click here.