by Leigh Witchel
Sometimes your main objective is just to let folks know you’re out there. Adriana Pierce and I have been friends for several years, and it would be wrong to downplay her ambition to choreograph. But #QueertheBallet was about visibility, something queer women, among others, haven’t felt.
Pierce has creds in both ballet and musical theater, having worked with New York City and Miami City Ballets as well as dancing on Broadway and in film. The company, and attendant hashtag, grew partially out of pandemic Zoom sessions and support groups of queer women and non-binary dancers. The cast had a range of sexual and gender identities, but the performances focused on queer community and empowerment.
The show happened at the Chelsea Factory, a theater in the far West 20’s that was once Annie Liebovitz’ studio, then the home of Cedar Lake Contemporary Dance. It’s a small but comfortable black box house with good sight lines. Discrete small works were stitched together with short transitions to give continuity. The evening began with a duet, “Overlook.”
In spare costumes, Sierra Armstrong and Remy Young posed onstage as if to announce themselves, then danced to lush low strings. The emotion was cool, as if the very act of two queer women dancing together was emotional in itself. But if Pierce avoided anything in the evening, it was the trope of the doomed victim.
The short piece didn’t address the conundrum of partnering in pointe shoes until about midpoint, where it approached the issue in a straightforward way. Pierce isn’t the first one to realize that a pointe shoe is inherently unstable, particularly when not on toe, and makes bearing weight difficult. But every choreographer has to reinvent a portion of that wheel so they can see for themselves.
Armstrong and Young leaned into one another. At one point there was a partnered penché – the woman supporting did what a man might – instead of pointing her back foot fully and keeping all her weight off of it, she bent it sightly and allowed weight on it. It was a small, mechanical choice that prioritized stability over line. It’s neither radical, nor novel, just practical. Balanchine approached a similar issue with a slightly different solutions in “Divertimento No. 15.”
“Overlook” was to a short song, but it laid out the parameters of the evening: female partnering may explore mechanical issues, but the reason to have these people dancing together wasn’t mechanics.
“Overlook” transitioned into “The Beech Tree,” a short piece for an older dancer, Fleming Lomax. She was coming off knee replacement surgery, so her solo mostly involved the upper body. Behind her was a compilation film of some of the dancers from the online sessions that were the genesis of this project.
“Brick by Brick,” was a trio with Armstrong, Young and Felix Bryan, a trans man, but all three costumed in filmy Duncan-ish draperies. During the transition from this to the next work Pierce built a phrase that added three more women including herself. A stage filled with dancers was an energy not explored enough in this evening. How would these ideas work on a larger scale? What could the structure (both choreographic and hierarchical) for a larger work be?
The next solo, “Q.U.E.E.R.,” was choreographed by its dancer, Lenai Alexis Wilkerson, and it was the most low-key provocative of the evening: Taut and powerful, moving from a pose to tight pirouettes, it was somewhere between adagio and allegro, neither feminine or not-feminine. Its provocation wasn’t in confrontation, but more in the refusal to slot into an archetype, and was the kind of bracing challenge that made the evening interesting.
“I am Enough” had a star cast, Miriam Miller of New York City Ballet and Devon Teuscher of American Ballet Theatre. The sexuality was coy, it concluded with an almost-kiss, and in an evening that was largely short-form, the structures and arc of the works were becoming predictable. The pleasure was in the Teuscher and Miller’s dancing, their linear qualities (both have limbs that go on forever) and beautiful movement.
Cortney Taylor Key and Wilkerson did a duet – again to a pop song – “Animals & Angels.” Again, often a double solo, interestingly Key and Wilkerson together felt more opaque than Wilkerson did alone. It upended expectations when Wilkerson picked up Key or supported her in jumps. Perhaps out of temperament, perhaps out of necessity or mission statement, Pierce was always upbeat and optimistic about love. That emotional certainty made being more daring about movement uncertainty important.
“Pulse” was the naughty-ish number, a duet for Teuscher and Corti in S&M-bondage-flavored leotards, but Pierce didn’t go there. In the talk afterwards it was clear how important equity was to Pierce – the part of sexuality that’s about inequality and power exchange didn’t fit into the evening.
Pierce came out herself to do “Party of One,” the final short solo and you got to see the instrument that gave her a movement palette – long, supple legs that moved easily into extension and produced an eloquent line.
The final curtain call after her solo was more of a group hug, and it was important to the understanding of the evening, which was as much about the works produced as it was about visibility – something Pierce stayed firmly on message about, and to add to that, affirmation.
At the talk after Corti came near tears several times talking about finally being able to feel like herself in the art she loves. The evening brought home how invisible queer women in ballet feel, even and perhaps especially when they can blend in.
#QueertheBallet concentrated on the letters of GLBTQIA+ other than the G. This doesn’t feel like exclusion, more like triage, going where the need actually lies. Speaking as one of the Gs in ballet, the other letters have had a lot less to work with.
Pierce is a happy warrior. She’s got a cause, and her work is relentlessly optimistic, in a way that should help it to do what she wants – increase visibility. That was the challenge here and she achieved it – but social concerns are an effect, not an artistic product. The next step is creating repertory that achieves these goals and is also durable enough to persist.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
#QueertheBallet
Chelsea Factory, New York, NY
April 6, 2022
Cover: Lenai Alexis Wilkerson and Cortney Taylor Key in “Animals & Angels.” Photo credit © Courtesy of The Joyce Theater.
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