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<\/a>Anthony Bryant and Rachelle Rafailedes of the L.A. Dance Project in Justin Peck’s Murder Ballads<\/em>. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/p><\/div>\n What is it about Los Angeles that attracts artists? Even before the 1940s, many European musicians and writers fleeing the Nazis zipped right through culturally confident New York and joined the \u00e9migr\u00e9 filmmakers who settled on the west coast. Maybe it was the plethora of sunny days, the scent of eucalyptus and gardenia, the boisterous Pacific Ocean, the possibility of a backyard with an orange tree and a swimming pool. Despite the noisome traffic, those alluring qualities still exist and still draw artists westward.<\/p>\n Climate, of course, may be only one of the factors that drew Benjamin Millepied to found a small dance company in Los Angeles. Nevertheless the kind<\/em> of company he created fits well into the sprawling city, and he has attracted local funding and support to fuel his desire to collaborate with visual artists and composers in building his group\u2019s rather surprising profile. When Millepied retired from the New York City Ballet in 2011, he had performed major roles in the Balanchine repertory and been a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Jerome Robbins. He had already been choreographing for ten years. But his Los Angeles venture, L.A. Dance Project, is not a ballet company, Although its dancers have all had extensive training in ballet, they are more well-rounded in terms of their backgrounds. Seven of the nine company members are Juilliard graduates, one has a degree from SUNY-Purchase, and all have considerable prior experience onstage. They\u2019re up for choreographic collaboration and creative input.<\/p>\n The two new works that the L.A. Dance Project brought to the Brooklyn Academy of Music\u2019s Howard Gilman Opera House show off their versatility, their dancing prowess, their ease on stage, and their closeness as a group\u2014a closeness that seems to have influenced the choreography of Millepied\u2019s Reflections<\/em> and Justin Peck\u2019s Murder Ballads. L.A. Dance Project members (L to R): Rachelle Rafailedes, Stephanie Amauro, Randy Castillo, Morgan Lugo, and (hidden) Aaron Carr and Anthony Bryant in Murder Ballads<\/em>. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/p><\/div>\n Peck\u2019s piece is surprising, and these dancers, along with the nature of Millepied\u2019s vision (and, maybe, all those sunny days) may have had something to do with his venturing in a new direction. Hitherto, Peck\u2019s choreography (at least, those dances of his that I\u2019ve seen) has fitted comfortably into the realm of contemporary ballet; he\u2019s still a soloist in the New York City Ballet, as well as a Resident Choreographer there. Murder Ballads<\/em> is not in the least balletic, unless you count a well-placed arabesque or two, but these are tossed off. It\u2019s a dance with a great deal of loose, springy, athletic movement and impulsive behavior\u2014all cleverly organized and put together.<\/p>\n Contrary to its title, Murder Ballads <\/em>does not recycle Frankie-and-Johnny scenarios, although you can hear traces of folk songs or a fiddle tune coloring Bryce Dessner\u2019s vivid, sometimes tumultuous score (played live at BAM by the members of eighth blackbird: Tim Munro, flutes; Michael J. Maccaferri, clarinets; Yvonne Lam, violin and viola; Nicholas Photinos, cello; Matthew Duvall, percussion; and Lisa Kaplan, piano). The dance\u2019s visual component by Sterling Ruby is ambiguous, but gorgeous: a variously patterned patchwork of broad horizontal stripes bordered by vertical ones that is reminiscent of certain works by Rauschenberg. Brandon Stirling Baker\u2019s lighting occasionally heats up one or another of the bands<\/p>\n In this setting, two dancers, Rachelle Rafailledes and Anthony Bryant, race onto the stage, dressed for sport (by Peck) and sliding on sockleted feet. One of the first things they do is sit down and put on the sneakers waiting for them onstage. Sneakers for all will be donned and taken off as the dance progresses\u2014perhaps in some highly abstracted reference to leaving no tracks. Here\u2019s another flash-by referral to ballad narratives: Aaron Carr, Morgan Lugo, Randy Castillo, and Stephanie Amauro) bend down and encircle Rafailledes in a kind of human stockade, and, when two strokes on a wood block sound, Bryant knocks sharply twice on the air and then pulls Rafailledes out of the clump. Later, he knocks again near a clump of dancers, but no sound reinforces the act this time, and it has no obvious result.<\/p>\n Anthony Bryant and Rachelle Rafailledes on Justin Peck’s Murder Ballads<\/em>. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/p><\/div>\n The six form lines, chase one another into them, peel out from them, pass movements down them. They form arches for others to pass under, and some briefly lie down to be used as structures for stepping on in passing. They form pairs to dance energetically\u2014two male-female ones and a male-male one (no heterosexual ballet conventions here).<\/p>\n They keep their eyes open to what\u2019s going on. Castillo has a terrific solo, in which his legs cross and uncross in some lickety-split ways; Bryant enters and yanks him offstage. Rafailledes catapults Lugo into the wings and shortly thereafter performs a crazy, collapsing, slumping-around passage (shot in the OK corral, maybe). The sometimes argumentative interplay between Peck\u2019s formal structure and interloping flashes of disorder and drama are intriguing. I like the fact that when Bryant and Rafailledes finish a duet, they just pick up the shoes they\u2019ve removed and walk cozily away together, as if they\u2019ve come to an understanding, and it\u2019s time to go home.<\/p>\n Julia Eichten and Morgan Lugo in Benjamin Millepied’s Reflections<\/em>. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/p><\/div>\n Millepied plans to make his Reflections<\/em> the first part of a tryptich entitled Gems <\/em>(it was commissioned by Van Cleef andf Arpels). A latter-day echo of George Balanchine\u2019s Jewels<\/em>? Hmm. The dance as is fills around forty minutes, and its first section is as long as the others put together. Is there such a thing as a West Coast sense of time? You can also feel a kind of leisureliness in the music: selections from Davis Lang\u2019s This was written by hand\/memory pieces<\/em> that Lang and Millepied chose together. For a long time, pianist Andrew Zolinsky plays single notes, spaced out so that they could be drops of water plinking into a pond. Then he settles into a repetitive pattern for a while and builds in complexity from there. The music coincides with the dance, rather than working intimately with it, as does Barbara Kruger\u2019s striking set. Her projected design fills both the backdrop and the floor. Huge red letters loom above the stage, saying either STAY or GO. The message that continues along the floor in smaller letters: THINK OF ME THINKING OF YOU.<\/p>\n The process of mounting a revival of Merce Cunningham\u2019s astonishing 1959 Winterbranch<\/em> for the L.A. Dance Project a couple of years ago may have expanded Millepied\u2019s ideas about collaboration. Perhaps the music, dance, and visual components of Reflections<\/em> are to be understood as separate strands, resonating sympathetically with one another. Too, Millepied choreographed the piece in collaboration with its original cast: Lugo, Julia Eichten, Charlie Hodges, Nathan Makolandra, and Amanda Wells.<\/p>\n L.A. Dance Project members in Benjamin Millepied’s Reflections<\/em>. (L to R, foreground): Morgan Lugo, Rachelle Rafailedes, and Nathan Makolandra. (At back): Julia Eichten and Aaron Carr. Photo: Julieta Cervantes<\/p><\/div>\n Millepied\u2019s early ballets were fastidiously constructed but stuffed with steps; he was bursting with ideas and youthful vigor. Reflections<\/em> is hardly minimal, but it does allow the spectator time to ponder what\u2019s happening onstage, even dares to tax his\/her attention span. Another development in his work, I think, is the tenderness that crops up in this piece. The long duet between Eichten and Lugo seems to be one of discovery. They pull on each other, draw close together, watch each other try things out. He scrabbles for a while on the floor while she stares. She runs and jumps onto him. Things like this occur and recur in various ways. But what\u2019s striking is the flow of tenderness and physical closeness that permeates this relationship. The two are fond equals, with more than a bit of sexual heat.<\/p>\n What you notice as the dance progresses is that the men are not presented as macho or even as stalwart partners. They are as silky in their dancing as the women\u2014even, at times, more so. The section with the swiftest pace and sharpest edges is a solo tailored to the inimitable muscular crispness that characterizes Charlie Hodges\u2019 personal style (Hodges is recuperating from an operation and did not appear at BAM); even danced by the more wiry, loose-limbed Carr, the solo is a virtuosic display of spins, jumps, and fast footwork. But after this, Carr and Lugo (who has an easy fluidity, an unselfconscious lyricism) dance companionably, even affectionately together. And in the last section of comings and goings\u2014after a fairly sharp, fast-moving, conversational duet for Rafailledes and Makolandra in shifting areas of light\u2014Lugo and Makolandra enter, bending forward slightly and making flowery gestures with their spread fingers, then back out, continuing the flourish.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a quite a bit of jumping in this last group section, but also embracing and collaborating on joint structures or games. In the end, only the two women are left onstage, sitting on the floor and nestling together.<\/p>\n
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