Not so many years ago, August around here seemed like it’s own three-month long season of hard-weathering misery due to the paucity of pointe shoes on local stages. The Joyce Theater has in recent times changed the month's climate for the better. Its summertime Ballet Festival – which, truthfully, should be renamed Not Your Mother’s Ballet Festival – has this year brought some Royal Ballet folks to town to show us their ideas about contemporary post-modern eclectic invention and whatever. Invention and whatever have always been the main components of the Joyce’s breathable atmosphere ever since Eliot Feld and Cora Cahan launched the venue in 1982 with Anatomic Balm and other dances that at the time Feld said were about “invention, composition and people.”
The Royal Ballet certainly brought us some stunning people to watch. However, invention was in short supply, and much of the new composition on display was the equivalent of the free verse poetry heard on Open Mic Night at Felix’s Hardware Store on 9th Ave in Hell’s Kitchen. The four programs were distinct, but distinction rarely brought much difference. Only one dance was repeated during the festival: Wayne McGregor’s Qualia Pas de Deux was performed by Sarah Lamb and Edward Watson on the first and final programs. This was McGregor’s typical fare of limb and joint dislocations during which the two dancers, of course dressed in underpants and camisoles, acted angry and then not angry with each other. Throughout, Haglund kept thinking how much more interesting the piece would be if the two dancers were coated with dark Karo syrup. Anyone who saw Watson in that condition in the brilliantly inventive Metamorphosis by Arthur Pita at the Joyce six years ago was probably wishing for the same thing.
Pita was represented in the fourth program with Cristaux, a three-part dance for Sarah Lamb & Robert Fairchild, Maria Kowroski & Edward Watson, and a final solo by Watson. Cristaux, translated as “crystals,” was originally made for Ballet Black and premiered at the Barbican in London in 2016. The dance’s concept centers around the reflection of light, specifically the light given off by three of the dancers. Lamb wore a tutu laden with crystals as she bourreed around Fairchild who perhaps had her in his dream; Kowroski wore a highly reflective dress while being manipulated by Watson in a PdD; and in the third part Watson wore an ultra shiny fabric head mask which ended up being more interesting than the choreography being danced beneath it. At the end, Watson climbed off the stage and backed his way up the aisle while the other three dancers made a final pass horizontally across the stage as he watched them as though they were within his imagination.
The depth and winding of Pita’s imagination was irresistible. The viewer really wanted to go wherever the choreographer was leading, but in this case, the light-filled trail went nowhere.
Robert Binet, the young choreographer from the National Ballet of Canada who recently set a brief dance on New York City Ballet, created Dialogue Dances for the Joyce Festival. He selected music composed by Jeremy Dutcher, a Canadian classical singer with Wolastoc First Nation roots, and then created movement that alluded to Wolastoqiyik origin stories in which the good spirits, the evil spirits, and the earthly beings interacted. Not many Americans seem keenly interested in their own country’s indigenous people's heritages, stories, and sacrifices. But Canada, through its Truth and Reconciliation Commission of 2015, has developed an acknowledgment of history along with a new pride and caring for its First Nations People. This new dance will likely play better to the Canadian audience, but what was clear on its first viewing was Binet's ability to create a highly unique concept and develop it choreographically and musically.
Gemma Bond’s Then and Again, made to soulful cello solos composed by Alfredo Piatti, explored a girl's journey to adulthood. Craft and organization were present, but the dance suffered due to the choice of music which didn’t support any kind of a dramatic arc or resolution. While it’s true that music can lift ailing choreography, choreography doesn’t usually survive unsupportive music.
The centerpiece of the third program was Bejart’s Song of a Wayfarer, another dance about a journey — this time the artist as the tortured soul was trying to go in a direction that his menacing, controlling spirit would not allow. David Hallberg and Joseph Gordon as the spirit and suffering one, respectively, were intensely dramatic if not particularly convincing. The problem here is that the concept of the suffering artist has been so over-played that people are sick and tired of being asked to have empathy for the very privileged artists who want their audiences to see them as suffering. Hallberg portrayed the menacing spirit like he was one of his high school bullies who he claims scarred his adolescence. As everyone knows, kids bullying one another didn’t start until the 1980s-90s. All that stuff that happened in the century before — the pushing of kids off their bikes, the pulling of pigtails, the insults about a kid's mother wearing army boots, the fat jokes, the teasing about a kid’s clothes or his pimples or his free school lunches – all that cruel Dennis the Menace stuff was just rough play. Bullying belongs solely to the celebrity victims who today can turn it into cash. As our victim of the evening, Gordon had a natural innocence and active facial expressions to go with his superb dancing, although he should be careful about lining up his workman-like arabesque next to Hallberg’s scrupulous line which even at age 37 is still a wonder to behold.
Speaking of scrupulous lines, the Festival also included the PdD from MacMillan’s Concerto which was danced with pristine perfection by Lauren Cuthbertson and Nicol Edmonds. Divertissements from MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations were also presented during the second week. Ashton was represented by Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan and Dance of the Blessed Spirits which might be a treat for audiences accustomed to seeing a lot of Ashton. But when you’re starved for his work, as we have been in New York, the two pieces don’t amount to a meal for the hungry.
The Festival also presented short works by Wheeldon, Scarlett, and a collection of lesser known, lesser accomplished dancemakers — more than a dozen choreographers were represented over the two weeks. It all turned out to be a nice respite from the weather, the politics, and the news. While watching the efforts of these young choreographers to make dances relevant to their times, Haglund kept wondering what Antony Tudor would create today. Perhaps he would look around at the world’s problems and envision the peace and harmony that could be achieved with an old-fashioned but still cutting-edge solution: a Tudor ballet called The Gelding Society is what we need today. He would make us think harder about our collective selves.
The H.H. Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Robert Binet whose Dialogue Dances was the best of the new choreography presented during the Joyce Festival.