The most embarrassing part of the program, however, was Pam Tanowitz’s film DAVID. Hallberg finally tipped the balance from having a stage-made career to a media-made career. For years, he has offered little in the way of stirring stage performances. Yet, he has not been able to tear himself away from the public’s presumed admiration. He came to everyone’s attention early in his career by way of pristine, beautiful work in classical ballets and valid interpretations of time-tested, time-honored choreographies such as Jooss’ masterpiece of German Expressionism, The Green Table. But injuries and the advance of time made it all too much of a challenge to continue. His bet that the public would love him as much if he would simply point his lovely feet in their faces and wave his long arms seems to have paid off, if not with a win or place, but with a show. Thankfully, Haglund has strong memories of Hallberg’s performances in Theme and Variations opposite Michelle Wiles and Gillian Murphy when the dancing was tough but glorious.
Indestructible Light by Darrell Grand Moultrie offered Dancing With The Stars choreography that would never make it past the final cut. Fabulous Duke Ellington music makes for fun social dancing in the club, but here it came off as a football game's “Half Time Show” where everyone was trying too hard to show that they were having a good time.
The most watchable dance/film of the evening was Gemma Bond’s CONVIVIUM performed by Thomas Forster, Katherine Williams, Carlos Gonzales, and Breanne Granlund. The music by John Harbison employed violin, clarinet, and piano. Unlike the other choreographers, Bond has a wide ballet vocabulary which she can use for sourcing her ideas. Interesting chains of movement, creative organization, and good use of the dancers’ individual talents all helped this chamber piece succeed. However, the ballet came across as being an excerpt of a much larger work. At the outset, we were shown deep dramatic expressions by the dancers without knowing what their deep concerns were. Whenever Katherine Williams throws a scowl on stage, it generally means something. Here, we weren’t given any clues as to why she was emoting. Ditto with Tom Forster at the beginning. Obviously something had occurred prior to our arrival at the ballet which caused him to be distressed, but we didn’t know what. Truthfully, we didn’t care; we were just happy to see him dancing.
We’ve been following around Carlos Gonzales for three years while waiting for McKenzie to notice his talent. He’s another one of those immediately-likeable Spaniards with blazing confidence and skill to back it up. In Bond’s piece, he was only one-quarter of the ensemble but he managed to catch our eye half of the time.
While we admired aspects of CONVIVIUM, we think it’s time for Bond to abandon her small chamber ideas and get to work on something big with much bolder music, a corps de ballet, quartets, trios, solos, and PdD. And why not?
