"...well-executed and engaging..."

8/25/04 performance at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, reviewed by Connell McGrath

This week the Boston Ballet returns to Jacob’s Pillow to present a long, uneven program reflecting their range from classical ballet to contemporary work. They close the season showing some of the most classical and tedious ballet seen at the Pillow in a long time along with well executed and engaging newer work. Despite my opinions, it must be what people want, because there wasn’t a seat left in the Ted Shawn Theatre, and the audience appreciated the work enthusiastically.

Ballet is an artform from another age that sometimes has trouble translating to contemporary times. It is at its best when telling melodramatic love stories such as Swan Lake or fantasies such at the Nutcracker. Unfortunately, the first piece presented by BB fit neither of these categories. It is an insipid Balanchine work from 1970 called…Who Cares? He named this piece well. These are eight pieces set to Gershwin standards, pas de deux alternating with solos. The Gershwin songs are great old crowd-pleasers such as The Man I Love and Embraceable You, but the choice of recording verged on muzak. Ballet doesn’t shine in this context. The choreography was standard but uninteresting, and the ballet had little story or drama to center itself around. These pieces are showy and “fun”, each telling their own little Gershwin story, but they’re trivial and wholly lacking substance. The evening would have been better off without this lengthy, tedious gem from the Balanchine archives.

Next we saw an excerpt (pas de deux, Act 1) from a 1994 ballet called Lady of the Camellias with classic choreography by Val Caniparoli set to wonderful, dreamy music by Chopin. This is the kind of setting and music best suited to ballet, but again we get only an excerpt of a larger story. It’s like watching 10 minutes of a movie that’s half over. The dancing is excellent, and ballet is at its best when expressing true love, as it does here.

After a much-needed (first) intermission, the program gets much better. Duo Concertant but George Balanchine (1972) to Stravinsky’s piece by the same name. This was well staged, with pianist Freda Locker and violinist Michael Rosenbloom on stage with the dancers. Wonderfully danced by Romi Beppu and Jared Redick on the opening night. The work is staged in a casual way, with the dancers leaning on the piano, appreciating the music during their rests, then taking center stage to do their excellent work.

Next came a new work called Plan To B by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo. This is a fun, energetic piece set to baroque music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. Great costumes by Elo done in dark blue velvet that showed off the dancers’ bodies. This was a very physical, fast-paced work with a particularly engaging performance by Kelly Potter. Elo chooses an lively though delicate baroque score and contrasts it with strong, fast, very modern dancing. Some of the movement is reminiscent of martial arts. Despite this contrast, the movement fits the music well. This is the highpoint of the evening.

Last, BB presents Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes by Mark Morris (1988), again to Freda Locker’s live piano accompaniment. This is a pleasing Morris standard full of graceful movement that draws on the ballet tradition. Virgil Thomson’s Etudes for Piano are beautiful though contemporary, and the costumes—white, flowing linen—are lovely to watch and unassuming. It is one of Morris’s gifts to create appealing, easy-to-watch work that is also thought-provoking. As always, his choreography expresses the music in an unmatched lyricism. Boston Ballet imbues the work with slightly more grace than Morris might have in his own interpretation of it, but the piece is excellently done. In this piece, ballet meets today in an easy and thoughtful union.