Dance Review Angela Allyn, September 19, 2014
4 stars out of 4
The Joffrey Ballet opened its Twentieth Season in Chicago with a magnificent evening of three important story ballets. Not part of the regular subscription season, this immersion into stories told through ballet was at once a shimmering evening of the best dancing you will see in the world today, and a primer on the history of the art form and why it is so vital.
The evening begins with George Balanchine’s masterpiece Prodigal Son, choreographed in 1929 and premiered in Paris at the end of the Diaghilev era. The score is by Prokofiev, who was apparently not happy with this ultra modern ballet. The Fauvist sets and costumes, originally designed by Georges Rouault, are stunningly contemporary even today when we see Palestine and Israel on the nightly news. I have watched this ballet for decades, and every rendition and every company reveals something new. The dancer playing the Prodigal Son on opening night, Alberto Valezquez, has the gorgeous leaps and the acting chops to carry the dramatic arc of the story of the son who leaves home full of hope, athleticism and resources and returns broken and penniless. Christine Rocas as the Siren is acrobatic and beautiful, but she has not found the why in her role as the temptress—technically a dynamo, she needs to become the character. The ensemble of rabble is technically perfect, moving in unison like a wild oompa loompa troop. I am struck by how much like modern dance the vocabulary is in this piece, at a time before the genre was invented. The achingly moving standout on opening night was company artistic director Ashley Wheater as the Father. All patriarchally bearded with stilt clogs on, he conveyed paternal gravitas and love with a single hand gesture. Seeing him in the role was seeing the metaphor for his gentle nurturing of the Joffrey since 2007. He has been extraordinarily successful in an industry that continues to struggle. Joffrey continues to create new ballets, acquire and stage important historical works and educate another generation in this human intensive art form. His commitment to staging works with live music is impressive in a field that is rapidly moving away from using real human beings to bring work to life.
The second work of the evening is Anthony Tudor’s elegiac Lilac Garden with music by Ernest Chausson, and on opening night the heartbreaking violin solo was played by David Perry. It is the story of a beautiful Edwardian girl who must marry a graying-at- the-temples prickly soldier, while she loves the young princely fellow in blue. But the soldier has a woman in his past too, and they pass each other in an out of the social set, all aware of not being seen doing something untoward. It is a tale of unrequited love, of honor, of duty. Victoria Jaiani, one of the strongest actors at the Joffrey, plays Caroline, the ill-fated girl in white. Jaiani is exquisite: lovely lines, a sylph, and she can make you feel the tragedy of this bad match. Miguel Angel Blanco dances the Man She Must Marry, virile, not so young, and you can see he has a temper. He also has a past, and April Daly aptly dances the passion and regret of his love em and lost em girl. Dylan Gutierrez is the strikingly handsome man that Caroline loves and he manages to create a character that is passionate and proper at the same time. We don’t see enough Tudor choreography any more: this work was premiered in 1936, and it has been in the Joffrey rep for years—I hope we see a lot more of it as a showcase for this up and coming group of dancers who can tell a story and dance like the dickens.
The final work of the evening is quite new: Yuri Possokhov’s 2011 work RakU, with a commissioned score by Shinu Eshima. The story is supposedly based on the burning of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto in 1950 but he sets the tale in ancient Japan, where a Samurai soldier leaves his young Princess bride to go to battle. A jealous priest falls in love with her and takes her. The soldier is killed and his companions bring her the ashes, and the priest burns the temple in a rage. The set, by Alexander Nichols, uses projections to create mood and interior and exteriors, as well as to set the stage alight. The dance vocabulary is a fascinating mix of 21st century ballet with athletic extensions and a use of torso, and butoh inspired inversions and dislocations. Fabrice Calmels, always one of my favorites because of his towering energy and intense acting, plays the Samurai. He is gentle and attentive to his beautiful, delicate bride: Victoria Jaiani. When he heads to war with his comrades we miss him as well. The intense monk, danced by Temur Suluashvili, might not be as disturbing if we didn’t have the video from Ray Rice stuck in our heads. The orchestra, with drums beating a morse code accompanied by live chanting by Ancient Dragon Zen Gate brings us to a climax of the temple burning. And in the aftermath, the Princess mourns by covering herself in the ashes of her beloved. The dancers deserved the ten minute standing ovation they received at the end of this piece.
I like to watch ballet for the same reason some people watch sport: because it is uplifting and beautiful to see what the human body can do. But I also love to experience stories because they define us as humans. Joffrey delves the history of the art form, drives innovation in the genre and gives us the very best.
Stories in Motion is a very short run, only September 18 to 21, 2014 at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University 50 East Congress Parkway Chicago—I am hoping all of these dances make it onto the regular subscription season where you get at least two weekends to try to see them, and you MUST try to see them. For tickets and information contact http://joffrey.org/stories or call Joffrey Ticketing - 312.386.8905.
