by Leigh Witchel
Funny how once that would have been Balanchine and Sub-Balanchine: the dull procession of Balanchine knockoffs like cut-price handbags, using the trappings of his work with none of the resonance.
Well, now it’s Forsythe. Even Forsythe has arguably knocked himself off: compared to “Artifact” or “Impressing the Czar,” “Playlist” or “Blake Works” feel like Forsythe imitating himself. So it’s hard to blame Boston Ballet for wanting another hit and Stephen Galloway for delivering one by mixing Forsythe’s steps with a jukebox playing some of the Rolling Stones’ biggest songs.
“DEVIL’S/eye” premiered last March and is what Balanchine would have called an applause machine. Galloway also did the jumpsuit-inspired costumes, as well as the decor. A bank of enormous lights resembling speakers made the work look like outtakes from a concert.
Galloway danced for Forsythe as well, and “DEVIL’S/eye” is soundly and slickly fashioned. Like “Playlist,” there were sections for the men, sections for the women, duets and big unison sections when everyone joined in. It used several goodies from Forsythe’s bag of tricks and aimed right for your comfort zones without any attempt to give you better than what you deserved.
The piece made more sense on second viewing than the first, you got to see the building blocks of making a work in Forsythe’s style: the slow drifting attitudes, open positions, sus-sous before soubresaut. In the finale Galloway borrowed the full-cast line at the back of the stage from “Artifact.” But “DEVIL’S/eye” was largely empty calories.
And there was so much attitude. And so much attitude dragging out the attitude.
It led off with “Paint It Black.” Two men burst into motion that became a quartet with very classical vocabulary. In the Sunday cast, Gearóid Solan, wearing sequined shorts, sold and sold his solo, exaggerating every move as if he were in Vegas, which brought the section to its climax: all the men did à la seconde turns together. That would have been fine if at least there had been some point besides applause to hang on to. It felt as cynical as it was showy.
Galloway put a nickel in and the jukebox played “Wild Horses.” On Saturday, Lia Cirio did step after step, and after a duet for Chyrstyn Fentroy and Tyson Clark, Paul Craig and Cirio danced a duet that was from the pages of Forsythe’s Big Book of Classical Vocabulary. On second viewing the congruence felt more clear. Without feeling as obvious as it sounded, a man dragged a woman on pointe on the word “drag” in “Wild Horses.”
A tall woman (Haley Schwan on Sunday), her torso rolling and her legs flying, danced a trio with Laurence Rines Munro and Daniel Durrett to “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?” The lights changed and Solan began another solo that brought everyone on again for another long unison section. It looked for all the world like a line dance with ballet steps.
The backing lights twinkled and Clark began a solo to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash ,” with barrel turns. Like the turns in second, they were there to stroke us. The cast raced in and out; solos to quintets to solos to duets. It wasn’t that “DEVIL’S/eye” was cheap, it was that it had so little ambition. How many turns could the dancers do? How fierce could they act?
Three leggy women strutted through a trio that moved into the long finale, “Midnight Rambler.” Dancers bounced in from the sides, crossing to disgorge a female solo. In another solo, Solan danced his heart out, leading with his neck on every step. But why did he have to sell it all so hard? Galloway was letting the music (and the dancers) do the work.
The cast meandered around kicking and posing before a big finale that broke into a free-for-all as the curtain fell. There’s so much possibility of context or a point of view with the Stones, but “DEVIL’S/eye” didn’t get beyond the discotheque.
Helen Pickett is associated with William Forsythe and Frankfurt Ballet but “月夜 Tsukiyo” (Moonlit Night) wasn’t House of Forsythe. The short duet from 2009 took its inspiration from the ancient Japanese tale of “The Woodcutter’s Daughter,” about a mystical and radiantly beautiful young woman/creature from the moon, but riffed on it freely to become something more like “Ondine” in a Japanese setting. Viktorina Kapitonova or Fentroy encountered a man (Daniel Rubin or Craig) for a wistful duet. The music was Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel.” Yes, that one, but “月夜 Tsukiyo” was made when the music was only overused, not criminally overused.
The woman stood downcast in front of a circular window that looked like a stylized Japanese lotus and clouds. Amidst dry ice, she stretched and turned in her flexed feet awkwardly as if she didn’t fully understand how to control them. She walked into the fog unsteadily, a man watched her from the side. He approached her, she pushed him away. She touched him as if she’d never felt hair or a human heart.
Fentroy seemed more like a woman and less like a creature or spirit than Kapitonova. It made the situation more vivid and singular. She knocked Craig down, then tapped him with her foot in surprise. She put her head in his hand and walked. The feeling was child-like but also like the feeling of a first love ever. Craig was less in awe, more gentle than Rubin. When he put his hand near her but not on her, it was both close to a caress but also a boundary line that he was making to soothe her.
As with other encounters of supernatural women and human males, a sense of futility hung over the meeting. He begged her to come away with him; she asked him to stay and took his hand. “Come with me?” she seemed to ask. He brought her into penché, and embraced her, then flipped her into a 180º penché. But it was not to be. They pulled apart and she backed off into the darkness. The pas de deux involved as much acting as tricks; it felt like a flattering vehicle for the more emotive dancers in the company.
Boston did two Balanchine standards on the program, and did both well: no knockoffs here. The company’s production of “Allegro Brillante” was staged by Russell Kaiser, and it was a reliable staging of what he danced as a member of New York City Ballet in the late 1980s. The ensemble was consistent throughout. In the Saturday night cast, Lia Cirio was partnered by Craig. She is long, linear and strong; her precision looked right here. Chisako Oga and Derek Dunn led the Sunday matinee cast. Oga was bang on her leg; in her climactic unsupported pirouettes she did double to triple to smile. Both times. Small and capable, every turn to an open position was on balance.
Dunn cracked out arrowy beats into multiple turns. He wasn’t just a virtuoso, but a stylish performer: a good balance between clean lines and force. He was also a breather, if you were close you could hear him make a sharp open-mouthed breath when he hit a pose, akin to a conductor who hums along with the score.
Oga was a good height for him. The partnering was comfortable in a way you could see he wasn’t when the four corps women came at him one at a time to turn into arabesque. He could pop Oga into the air when she ran to him, or promenade her single handed. At the close, he pressed her right overhead.
Sandra Jennings staged “Apollo.” Two small details that were different than the current version at NYCB: when Apollo and the muses shuffled on their heels, it moved sideways rather than on a diagonal. That may have happened to read better onstage at Lincoln Center. Also, Apollo sat facing us while Terpsichore danced instead of facing her with his back leg extended.
With many of the company’s female leads during the weekend, you didn’t worry about them technically, but often there wasn’t enough there, there. On Saturday, as Calliope, Abigail Merlis did a decorative contraction, similarly, her characterization was a performance rather than an emotion. Oga’s Polyhymnia was technically strong, but less demonstrative. And as Terpsichore Ji Young Chae also gave a clean but relatively inexpressive performance. In her duet with Jeffrey Cirio, Chae had a lovely stretched line. Very little went on above the neck.
On Sunday, Lia Cirio’s Terpsichore, like her “Allegro,” was very cleanly danced but again, there wasn’t much emotion. Her solo in the coda was precise and cool. Kapitonova’s Calliope put her mouth into an O when lamenting, as if questioning what she could possibly say. She scrawled her note straight to us, and perhaps for us as well? Fentroy was a loose-limbed Polyhymnia: All penchés were at 180º, all sissonnes were splits. After she spun out of her turn, she popped up to exclaim with her mouth a huge WAAAH!
Both casts had strong male leads. Jeffrey Cirio (Lia’s younger brother, recently returned to the company from English National Ballet) acted like everything was brand new; listening closely to the lute as he rotated his arm to strum it, fascinated by the sounds he was bringing out of it. He concentrated more on force than line, but this staging saw Apollo as a wild boy rather than the later Blond God conception.
Cirio was living out his own Apollo fantasy. He took his sweet time to get to place before his solo and he did the moves and poses at top volume, with great beats. In the coda, Cirio continued full-out. When he swung around the muses as they held on to his arms, he flexed his biceps like a muscleman, and wrangled the women like horses in the “chariot” pose. Before heading to Parnassus, he looked out and we could see the mountain as well, before a very short march (compared to Lincoln Center) before the closing pose.
Jennings’ staging was consistent in detail across casts; Cirio and Patrick Yocum did the same inspection and moves with the lute to open, though Cirio looked down the bridge of the lute at first as if he were looking down a gun sight.
Yocum reeled his muses onstage when he revolved his arm to play the lute. When he jumped from side to side in his solo, with each pass he became happier until by the end he was smiling brightly. In his duet with Lia Cirio, Yocum slid her into the splits, jogging past her to get to the next one. And in the muscleman pose, he seemed to be showing off to the muses.
Both Cirio and Yocum’s characters were vivid. Cirio’s scenery-chewing could be forgiven; he did a great job. Besides, there’s almost no scenery in “Apollo,” so there were minimal teeth marks.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Allegro Brillante,” “月夜 Tsukiyo,” “Apollo,” “DEVIL’S/eye” – Boston Ballet
Citizens Bank Opera House, Boston, Massachusetts
October 8, 2022
Cover: Boston Ballet in “DEVIL’S/eye.” Photo credit © Rosalie O’Connor.
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