by Leigh Witchel
The Ashley Bouder Project has female empowerment written into the mission statement. Does that make for good choreography? Sometimes, but the best virtue of the company’s Joyce season was the opportunities it gave to a stellar group of overlooked dancers from New York City Ballet.
The company, which was started 2014, gives opportunities to female choreographers and composers. Still, the dances made for the company’s director and headliner, Bouder, weren’t standouts. That could be a byproduct of the conundrum of Bouder trying to wear those two hats, which can rarely be worn together gracefully.
“Symbiotic Twin,” a short duet by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa for Bouder and Taylor Stanley should have been the headline draw. Ochoa was the best-known choreographer on the program and she used the best-known dancers, yet it didn’t add up to much.
To a solo on amplified cello, “Broken Rosary” by Kate Moore, the two dancers walked forward laboriously, cantilevered against one another, to begin. They ended walking tilted back the way they came, and in between, the slow torsion and insectile scuttling looked like “The Cage” in unitards.
Bouder’s opening solo, “Red Spotted Purple,” by fellow NYCB principal Lauren Lovette, was all Bouder: independent, energetic and brassy. To commissioned music by Stephanie Ann Boyd, the solo was tailored the same way as Bouder’s wrap dress – to flatter her. The opening was made of choreographic grace notes and trills: a suspended balance in attitude while Bouder’s foot shook with excess energy.
At the end of the movement, she came forward, rose onto pointe and began a quiet adagio. In a transition more graceful than a similar one in “Serenade,” Bouder unfastened her ponytail as the adagio ended to go into a quick finale to piano and wind arpeggios. She raced side to side and, giving the audience its money’s worth, worked in fouettés as a whirlwind for the close.
The solo did what a ballet solo conventionally does – showed off the star. The switch in mood felt like one of ballet’s frail conventions: when music changes your feelings do as well. That falls apart for a viewer not clued in to ballet’s lingo: unless the dancer has worked out her emotional journey she looks a bit nuts. Still, if it was contrived, you might not care any more than if an aria was contrived when it was sung by your favorite diva.
Liz Gerring’s “Duet” for Sara Mearns and Bouder from last year was danced instead by Stanley and Damien Johnson, and billed as gender neutral. Gender neutrality is the new unisex, evidently.
The work was still taut and athletic, cool but sweaty. Gerring deployed a non-stop array of choppy phrases that moved from pose to pose or balance to balance. The two men crossed the stage in perturbed runs, then leaped wildly as the musicians played only on the mouthpieces of their instruments. The score, “Odd Numbers” by Anna Webber, kept ticking as the lights dimmed; quick Cunningham-like combinations of replacing footwork took the men offstage as the horns slowed down to nothing.
The contrast of Stanley’s focused, sharp movement and Johnson’s languid and serene quality gave “Duet” its interest: the piece is a neutral ground for any two fine dancers. The dance itself is a good one, but the verbiage surrounding it has always been just verbiage. “Duet” was never a duet: it’s a double solo as the dancers don’t dance together. There was no particular gender in the all-female version and there’s no particular gender in the all-male version. It’s gender-neutral like raspberries are gluten-free. Bouder’s own “In Pursuit of” also got an encore season with Claire Kretzschmar and Devin Alberda dancing the jazzy central duet.
The most substantial work on the program was “Alas~” by Abdul Latif, who has a varied background in theater and concert dance. If the program credits told the story accurately, “Alas~” was a team effort, with several rehearsal and choreographic assistants listed. Along with Vivaldi (as inevitably arranged by Max Richter) and Purcell, Ron Wasserman (who leads the New York Jazzharmonic, which collaborated on the season) was listed as a composer, as well as Latif himself, who accompanied his own work with a remixed scat-singing vocalise.
There were several cast shuffles listed in the program, but the more people were on stage, the better the dance was. In the opening solo Kretzschmar stalked and posed in a complex chain of steps seemingly without any motivation beyond moving metrically to the beat. It looked as if it were made by Peter Martins, or that may be how Kretzschmar moves.
Olivia MacKinnon and Roman Mejia looked great in a duet filled with complex switching of hands and positions. This transitioned to a trio for Alberda, India Bradley and Johnson, featuring arms that fluttered in front of the chest like insect wings.
The later movements mixed Vivaldi with contemporary jazz but Latif pulled off a pungent fusion that felt inclusive rather than just diverse. Everyone’s influence seemed to be acknowledged.
Giving everyone a solo in the finale was not the strongest structure, but with a sextet of dancers of this caliber it was also understandable. It led to unnecessary recapitulation; if MacKinnon and Mejia’s duet was excellent, we still didn’t need to see it again.
The best thing about “Alas~” and the entire evening, was the wild amount of talent onstage. All the dancers were excellent and at their best; several of them people you rarely see. Bradley, still an apprentice at NYCB, had a mature stillness. Mejia is shorter and punchier; MacKinnon looked like one of Francois Boucher’s ripe-cheeked maidens. Johnson’s movement quality, liquid yet spidery, was a bittersweet reminder of Albert Evans. Alberda, who finally is getting notice again at NYCB, looked unleashed – able to go from motion rippling through his torso to snapping his spine ramrod straight for pristine turns. It was a reminder that NYCB’s roster is an iceberg with 90% under water.
Does the project’s commitment to diversity mean better dance? It’s a good thing that’s most likely unrelated. Anyone with the most glancing knowledge of 20th century dance can rattle off a litany of masterpieces made by jerks. Talent doesn’t discriminate – in any direction.
Diversity widens opportunity – and why shouldn’t everyone have a chance to make mediocre dances? More importantly and less obvious, better dance needs a diversity of experience and thought. One of the most stultifying aspects of new choreography at NYCB for decades was that you could tell just by looking that everyone came from the same school and tradition. Those of us old enough can remember Diamond Project after Diamond Project where the constraints of the program (no sets, limited production) meant that even a choreographer who could have made something very different, made yet another NYCB music visualization.
Still, if diversity won’t necessarily make better ballets, it would improve ballet’s ecology – which at this moment could really use it.
copyright © 2018 by Leigh Witchel
“Red Spotted Purple,” “Duet,” “Alas~,” “Symbiotic Twin,” “In Pursuit Of” – Ashley Bouder Project
Ballet Festival
The Joyce Theater, New York, NY
July 5, 2018
Cover: Ashley Bouder and Taylor Stanley during residency at Martha’s Vineyard. Photo © Paula Lobo.
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