{"id":4371,"date":"2016-07-08T19:34:29","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T23:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=4371"},"modified":"2016-07-09T12:34:04","modified_gmt":"2016-07-09T16:34:04","slug":"the-road-to-dancer-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2016\/07\/the-road-to-dancer-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"The Road to Dancer Hell"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American Dance Institute presents Jack Ferver’s I Want You To Want Me.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Jack

Jack Ferver’s I Want You To Want Me<\/em>. ( L to R): Jack Ferver, Barton Cowperthwaite, Carling Talcott-Steenstra, Reid Bartelme,\u00a0 and their reflections. Photo: Paula Court<\/p><\/div>\n

What is this? The Kitchen looks different. Mirrors line the back wall and angle to either side. Barres are stretched along them, ready for a ballet class. We can look at ourselves, the reflected spectators\u2014the innocent and the not-so-innocent\u2014obedient and ready to contemplate, well. . .Hell (aka Jack Ferver\u2019s I Want You To Want Me<\/em>). Bring on the red lights and the smoke.<\/p>\n

A figure completely shrouded in a stretchy black garment, except for its clawed hands, crawls onto the stage coughing. (People allergic to smoke should probable lead virtuous lives.) Ferverians in the audience are already laughing as the coughing escalates, and Ferver Fever catches on (look what it\u2019s already done to my prose).<\/p>\n

After Reid Bartelme in all-over black dance attire has helped the creature push back its hood and be revealed as Ferver, the latter, limping a bit, assists his assistant into some balletic bits. \u201cI love you,\u201d he says, and Bartelme looks self-satisfied. He has much to be satisfied about. Cue the recorded Tchaikovsky (his Symphony No. 6, the \u201cPath\u00e9tique), and Bartelme (also, with Harriet Jung, the costume designer) embarks on a somber princely solo, interestingly choreographed but eventually satisfying everyone\u2019s appetite for noble poses, leaps, and flying bris\u00e9es<\/em>, before the dancer collapses into a blackout (think Albrecht in Giselle<\/em>, being forced to dance himself to death by the ghostly Wilis).<\/p>\n

But, wait, there\u2019s a plot, and Ferver has other roles to play. Facing the audience, he delivers a rueful speech as the wimpy boyfriend of Anne (Carling Talcott-Steenstra). He\u2019s sorry she feels she has to go to France to further her career in ballet. He really wishes she wouldn\u2019t leave home. Call this prophetic. She finishes her barre, says \u201cI\u2019m over America,\u201d and exits the Kitchen\u2019s performing space one one side, walks behind the audience, and re-enters on the other side, talking all the way about her nice train ride to Paris (I love this part). Somewhat confusingly, her teacher, (Ferver with his garment becomingly re-draped and his vampirish makeup more alarming), who has told her she\u2019s a has-been, reappears as the doyenne of what appears <\/em>to be a Paris studio.<\/p>\n

\"Jack

Jack Ferver (back left) observes Reid Bartelmen (in black) and Barton Cowperthwaite (in white). Photo: Paula Court<\/p><\/div>\n

Ferver, as writer, choreographer, and director of I Want You To Want Me<\/em>\u2014this world of dancers real and reflected\u2014is handling several elements: a tragic plot, a send-up of ballets with tragic plots, and dancing that is skillfully made and interesting to watch, but on-and-off parodies ballet steps and conventions. It\u2019s also performed extremely well. So you laugh and admire and are puzzled all at the same time. For instance, Bartelme and a second American visitor to the studio (Barton Cowperthwaite) perform a male duet that maintains mirror-image symmetry long past its sell-by date. If Cowperthwaite, all in white, lifts his left leg high, Bartelme will be lifting his right one; linked together, they negotiate difficult balances and execute so many well-placed ronds de jambe en l\u2019air<\/em> that you want to call out \u201cenough!\u201d They ask \u201cAnne\u201d if she thinks the duet is too abstract. \u201cOh no,\u201d she says, \u201cI loved it.\u201d So they do a trio, and she says \u201cwow, that was crazy<\/em>!!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferver, with his scarlet lips and heavily shadowed eyes, is not-so-subtly campy as the ballet mistress of the lower depths\u2014uttering enigmatically lofty, Martha Graham-ish statements about dance and\u2014just to show she\u2019s French\u2014occasionally translating a simple English word (for instance saying \u201cdanse\u201d instead of \u201cdance\u201d), while reeling her\/his important words out in impeccable English. Beginning work on a new pas de deux, \u201cMadame M\u201d channels a number of choreographers whose habit is to sketch out a few moves with a flourish of gestures, names, and half-assed footwork; then she runs off with a coughing fit (oh-oh).<\/p>\n

\"I

I Want You To Want Me<\/em>. (L to R): Jack Ferver and his reflections, Reid Bartelme, Carling Talcott Steenstra, and Barton Cowperthwaite. Photo: Paula Court<\/p><\/div>\n

Naturally, \u201cBart\u201d and \u201cAnne\u201d nod their heads, understanding her shorthand, and end up performing a surprisingly elaborate duet. Now comes the love story with a very bad ending. He, it turns out is an innocent from small-town America\u2014strong and handsome (Brian Seibert of the Times<\/em> aptly compared him to a Ken doll) and a splendid partner. They talk during the duet, and he proposes: \u201cI love you!\u201d She\u2019s amazed, \u201cWhat?\u201d Their meeting is like a fairytale, he says, but better. They show off a bit; he accidentally drops her. She says in a quite natural, little-girl voice, \u201cWe\u2019ve just met, I don\u2019t fucking know<\/em> you!\u201d And within seconds, he\u2019s down, and she\u2019s covering him with black fabric, and he\u2019s crawling off.<\/p>\n

\"Carling

Carling Talcott-Steenstra and Barton Cowperthwaite in triplicate. Photo: Paula Court<\/p><\/div>\n

Now she\u2019s alone with the supposed \u201cMadame M,\u201d who outs herself as a 300-year-old. It\u2019s this ballet-crazed demon\u2019s birthday, and she announces sweetly that she craves someone\u2019s soul as a gift. Anne says doubtfully that she doesn\u2019t really believe in Hell. Really? Within minutes, she\u2019s taken out her hairpins and is in full mad Giselle gear, whipping off killer entrechats. <\/em>What\u2019s left? More music (pieces by Arca vie with Tchaikovsky). Our choreographer as mistress of evil scuttles in with a tiny pot of red paint and\u00a0 stylishly bloodies Anne\u2019s face; Bartelme as accomplice rolls the would-be ballerina in a sheet and drags her away. Bart rushes in to apologize to his beloved, and Ferver blows stuff into his eyes so he\u2019ll mistake his nemesis for Anne. \u201cYou just seem different,\u201d he opines during a not-so-good pas de deux, and rebels. Unsuccessfully. Agonizing on the floor to heavy chords, he gets the red paint treatment and. . . did the queen of pain just slurp some off the body??<\/p>\n

\u201cChange the fucking music,\u201d she\/he demands. Red lights blaze, smoke arises. But, quick, a reality check: the two corpses sit up to watch the other two rejoice. I can hardly make out what Bartelme says quietly to Ferver just before the lights go out. I think it\u2019s \u201cWasn\u2019t that fun?\u201d And, yes, despite some structural peculiarities, I Want You To Want Me<\/em> most definitely was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Dance Institute presents Jack Ferver’s I Want You To Want Me. What is this? The Kitchen looks different. Mirrors line the back wall and angle to either side. Barres are stretched along them, ready for a ballet class. We can look at ourselves, the reflected spectators\u2014the innocent and the not-so-innocent\u2014obedient and ready to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2175],"tags":[2176,2177,554,1074,165],"class_list":{"0":"post-4371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ballet-satire","8":"tag-barton-cowperthwaite","9":"tag-carling-talcott-steenstra","10":"tag-jack-ferver","11":"tag-reid-bartelme","12":"tag-the-kitchen","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4377,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4371\/revisions\/4377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}