Haglund needed a good night's sleep before trying to tackle his thoughts on what he saw last night at The Innovation Initiative, ABT's inaugural performance at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall to show off the work of fledgling choreographers within the company. The work presented was the result of a three week workshop which was originally promoted as being mentored by Ratmansky, Stephen Pier, and McKenzie - although their mentorships were not credited in the program, in the introductory film, or on stage.
Of course, the idea of The Innovation Initiative is a good one. A choreography workshop sponsored by a company dominated by a single choreographer may not succeed, because the choreographic offspring will be mostly indoctrinated in a single vocabulary and sytax or aspire to be viewed as being indoctrinated as such. But in a company with a rich choreographic vault that spans many styles and generations, an organic initiative may be the agar petri dish that provides enough nutrients to eventually sprout something of value. So an ongoing choreographic laboratory is needed. But it may not be such a great idea to present the choreography students' work – and they are students – in a high profile, expensive venue where the spotlight mercilessly illuminates not how far they have come but how far they need to go. More frequent performances in a lower profile venue would be better. Broadway productions often start out in a workshop format in some Downtown space before they get their producers' legs. While that might not draw the tony donors, it could draw a new Downtown audience and persuade it to come Uptown.
As is now passé, the evening began with a film by Gravure that utilized someone's idea of innovative music that was just obnoxious in its effort to imitate the master composer Philip Glass. Haglund would have appreciated the film focusing on what the mentors had to say about their work with the fledgling choreographers. Haglund has heard Stephen Pier speak about choreography at Juilliard student performances and has always found him to be articulate and illuminating. Once we got over the film, it was on to the four offerings of Gemma Bond, Craig Salstein, Daniel Mantei, and Nicola Curry. Each choreographer had a different voice and expressed different values. Each piece illustrated a few well thought out ideas and each included sections where the choreographer had struggled to force creativity and innovation and had finally given in to arbitrary virtuosity.
Gemma Bond used the piano music of Franz Liszt and four dancers – Gray Davis, Roddy Doble, Christine Shevchenko, and Katherine Williams – to illustrate what was perhaps the most successful effort of the evening entitled Manner. She created some lovely lyrical phrases with reliance on port de bras that was beautifully executed by the women. Haglund liked when the men held the women from behind who executed what looked like low, little temps de fleche. He liked less the over-repeated combination of the women jumping at the men and crossing their legs around the men's torsos. Gemma Bond's roots are in Ashton and MacMillan and both influences were evident in her piece - though they didn't necessarily combine comfortably. Haglund loves Gemma and was reminded how badly ABT needs a full length ballet that utilizes Franz Liszt music, MacMillan's choreography, and Gemma reprising a principal role. But Haglund doesn't want to get started again on the stupid, cowardly reasons that ABT refuses to present Mayerling to New York audiences who would fight to the death for tickets. Cowardly.
Craig Salstein's When It's Over, It's Over employed three pieces of music from Puccini's La rondine, Mozart's Don Giovanni, and Korngold's Die Tote Stadt to make a statement about the operatic-sized drama of young love. Stella Abrera, Jared Matthews, Lauren Post, Luis Ribagorda, Mary Mills Thomas, and Roman Zhurbin danced. Each of the dancers spoke a few lines to frame the piece and convey how intensely over-important little things can be at that age. The fashion unconscious Luis Ribagorda was rightly concerned about whether or not his purple shirt was an asset in scoring with his date, and he informed Roman Zhurbin that his black shirt was preventing him from getting a girl's attention. Jared Matthews, still wonderfully carrying that Egyptian fever, impatiently huffed and puffed while he waited for his date, Stella Abrera, to show up. She was two minutes late. He was intolerant. She eventually got fed up and pointed him out of her life.
Salstein's choreography was a bit like Ohad Najarin's in its humor. Audiences tolerate a lot from Najarin. Haglund remembers watching the Batsheva director stand at the foot of the New York State Theater stage strumming his bass guitar while his dancers zoomed around the stage. Does he want to see it a second time? Probably not. But Salstein's choreography was easy on the eyes. He recognized his dancers' individual skills and exploited them. The PdDs, interactions, and solo work for Matthews and Abrera were the strong points of the piece.
Tchaikovsky was Daniel Mantei's musical choice in his Armaments danced by Grant DeLong, Joseph Gorak, Nicole Graniero, Elizabeth Mertz, Kelley Potter, and Jose Sebastian. Haglund was unsure most of the time exactly what was going on in this piece. However, the last three or four minutes were compelling for the manner in which the movement illustrated the music. No one should ever miss the opportunity to watch the developing Joseph Gorak in anything.
The final offering by Nicola Curry was set to Maurice Ravel. Entitled La Relation, it was danced by Isabella Boylston, Sarah Lane, Devon Teuscher, Alexandre Hammoudi, and Joseph Phillips. Here we have a dance maker who enjoys stringing together steps like a novice poet who begins writing because he loves the musicality of rhyming language. But rhyme for the sake of rhyme, like en dedan pirouettes for the sake of spinning en dedan pirouettes, tends to have a shallow effect. So let's flush all of this out of Ms. Curry by casting her in de Mille, Tudor, Neumeier, and MacMillan so that she thinks about something in addition to stringing steps and so she can absorb the influences of brilliant, weighty choreographers instead of today's trite, lightweight, hit or miss, media-savy but marginal contributors to the revolution – who shall go nameless in today's post.
Just want to mention how Haglund thought it was in such bad taste to eliminate Beloserkovsky, Dvorovenko, Corella, and Carreno from the company principal listing in the program - especially Carreno given his high profile on the Cuban tour. If you're going to X-out Carreno, why not X-out Stiefel, too? This was not the fall season where only those who participate get listed in the program. It was a one-night affair where no principals participated and so it was really a slap in the faces of those long time, highly-valued performers who were omitted from being identified with the company.
No Pump Bump Award for last night's program.
This was so interesting--thanks for reporting back. My current lifestyle means I can't go and see everything I used to, or want to and I was curious about this set of pieces. Who knows where good choreographers come from and I always want to try to give someone a chance . . .
Odd about the omission of principal dancers. Might there be a reason--something to do with money or licensing? I saw the news release for the 2011 spring season and the names you mention appear as principal dancers for the spring.
Posted by: Marie | October 14, 2010 at 05:20 PM
Hi Marie. Forgot to mention that the Rose Hall space seems good for dance as far as sight lines are concerned. Don't know whether there is a way to create an orchestra "pit". The whole back of the theater which allows for a nearly 360 degree stage performance went unused, of course.
The theater was far from sold out. The performance "only" tickets were reasonable for an ABT performance but maybe a bit pricey for a student choreography showcase.
Posted by: Haglund | October 14, 2010 at 06:50 PM