{"id":6621,"date":"2019-10-31T16:51:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T20:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/?p=6621"},"modified":"2019-10-31T16:51:28","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T20:51:28","slug":"once-upon-a-time-there-was-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/2019\/10\/once-upon-a-time-there-was-romance\/","title":{"rendered":"Once Upon a Time There Was Romance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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American Ballet Theatre dancers in James Whiteside\u2019s New American Romance<\/em>. Photo: Erin Baiano, courtesy Vail Dance Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Do\nyou ever wonder how choreographers choose their titles?  After seeing James Whiteside\u2019s New American Romance<\/em> on the last day of\nAmerican Ballet Theatre\u2019s fall season at the former New York State Theater, I\nspent some time pondering that. The five women in its cast of eight wear dark\nblue, swirling, ankle-length tutus (provided by Primadonna). The music to which\nWhiteside set his ballet, Claude Debussy\u2019s Suite\nBergamesque<\/em>, was composed around 1890, and its third section, \u201cClaire de\nLune,\u201d is so famous that if you mention it to someone, that person may start\nhumming its opening notes. Debussy was inspired by a poem of that name by Paul\nVerlaine, who died in 1896. It begins:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your\nsoul is a chosen landscape
\nWhere charming masquerades and dancers are promenading,
\nPlaying the lute and dancing, and almost
\nSad beneath their fantastic disguises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nyou rule out the lute and the fantastic disguises and don\u2019t take \u201cmasquerades\u2019\ntoo literally, you have almost sad dancers and the soul as a landscape and. . .\n.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwill now stop playing around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pianist\nJacek Mysinski plays the four movements of Debussy\u2019s music, and Whiteside, a\nprincipal dancer in the company and a versatile choreographer, shifts aspects\nof classical ballet slightly and imaginatively to fit the accompaniment\u2019s\nmoods. Catherine Hurlin and Aran Bell, leading the rest of the cast in the\nfirst movement, gesture longingly toward each other. He shows off for her.\nVarious of the other women (Isadora Loyola, Devon Teuscher, Katherine Williams,\nand Stephanie Williams) fly by. Hurlin, I scribbled in my notes, was \u201ca woman\nyou could mess with.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All eight dancers figure in the last movement.  Three of the women shake their shoulders to suit the staccato arpeggios of the music.  All five of them scamper away. The three men have a moment to stand out. Whiteside manages all this with aplomb, although I have a few cavils. The choreography hints at emotions and social manners, but why must a man hoist a woman high when her bouffant skirt turns him into Mr. Tutu Head\u2014 especially if he\u2019s going to put her down shortly? And I wonder, in a new and inventive ballet like this (it premiered at the Vail Festival last July), why dancers leaving the stage can\u2019t convey that they have a reason for doing so, as well as a reason for reappearing.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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L to R: Stephanie Williams, Katherine Williams and Isadora Loyola in James Whiteside\u2019s New American Romance<\/em>. Photo: Erin Baiano, courtesy Vail Dance Festival.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Whiteside\u2019s second movement is a trio for K. Williams, backed by Loyola and S. Williams. They hold hands and strut on pointe, quite flirty, but also jump several times in a row. Nor are they afraid to sit on the floor. Brandon Stirling Baker\u2019s lighting softens and darkens for the third movement, a duet for Teuscher and Joo Won Ahn that becomes a triangle when Calvin Royal III appears.  That is, Ahn leaves the stage briefly, but reappears and kneels to clutch Teuscher\u2019s legs. Once Royal gets going, the other two sit and watch him. Then Teuscher joins him and, finally, Ahn merges with the two of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Hee Seo and the adventurers in Jessica Lang\u2019s Garden Blue<\/em>. Photo: Rosalie O\u2019Connor.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jessica\nLang\u2019s Garden Blue<\/em>, which premiered\nin New York last October is also set to nineteenth-century music: the first\nthree movements of Antonin Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s Piano Trio No. 4 in E Minor, coincidentally\ncreated a year after Debussy\u2019s suite. It is labeled a Dumky (plural of Dumka,\nderived from Duma, which refers to the songs of captive people\u2014a parenthetical\nattribute that may not have figured in Lang\u2019s thinking. The music is played by\nRobin Zeh (violin), Scott Ballantyne (cello), and Emily Wong  (piano).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s another star in the ballet beside Hee Seo and three couples. It\u2019s the set by visual artist Sarah Crowner, one of whose works, Sculpture Garden Blue, infuenced the title of Lang\u2019s work and possibly some of its patterns. Crowner\u2019s three wooden structures were inspired by the winged pod that encases the single seed of, say, a maple tree, enabling it to fly away before alighting. You could think of Seo as behaving like that seed. Wearing a green and white unitard that links her to some of Crowner\u2019s paintings and to the related backdrop, she leaps along with the others\u2014at times leading them, at times following. She attaches herself to one of the three pairs; at another time, the three men fly her to a new spot onstage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Skylar Brandt and Blaine Hoven in Jessica Lang\u2019s Garden Blue<\/em>. Photo: Rosalie O\u2019Connor.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The couples in pungently colored unitards are Skylar Brandt and Blaine Hoven (magenta), Catherine Hurlin and Aran Bell (red), and Brittany DeGrofft and Thomas Forster (yellow). They tip, rotate, and rearrange two of the set pieces; the third, hanging overhead, slowly rotates at first, perhaps simulating a gentle wind. These wooden structures become islands for pairs to inhabit, or V\u2019s over which a dancer arches his partner and rocks her gently, or a cradle in which Seo, barely visible, rests for a while. Nicole Pearce\u2019s lighting warms or cools the atmosphere, while Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s music kindles the action with its allegro and vivace passages and soothes it with andante ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I recall, no one leaves the stage (except maybe Seo). Often the others pose as a group, wait, and stare into the distance. But these are people<\/em>,not just symbols of planting and growth. Partners help each other into various maneuvers; they rest, sleep, fit themselves together. Lang gives them all a chance to show their agency, their desires, their polish as dancers. And show these they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Devon Teuscher and Thomas Forster in Gemma Bond\u2019s A Time There Was<\/em>. Photo: Rosalie O\u2019Connor.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Gemma\nBond\u2019s A Time There Was<\/em> premiered\nduring this Fall season, and\u2014as the final and most heavily populated work on\nthe program\u2014it was accompanied by a full orchestra, conducted by David\nLaMarche. The ballet is set to Benjamin Britten\u2019s 1974 Suite on English Folk Tunes (A Time There Was)<\/em> as well as the Fugue\nand Finale from his Variations on a Theme\nof Frank Bridge <\/em>(1937). <\/em>As the\nprogram explains,Britten was\ninspired by a 1928 poem by Thomas Hardy and used its opening words as his\nsubtitle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A time there was\u2014as one may guess\/And as, indeed, earth\u2019s testimonies tell\u2014\/Before the birth of consciousness,\/When all went well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nSuite <\/em>was Britten\u2019s last work; he was\nunwell when he wrote it and died two years later. You can tell from the titles\nof its sections that some of the music will frisk and dart and other stroll\nsweetly and sadly: \u201cThe Bitter Withy,\u201d for instance, or \u201cHunt the Squirrel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bond,\nwho danced in Britain\u2019s Royal Ballet before joining ABT, has been a\nchoreographer since 2010. A Time There\nWas<\/em> is a very big ballet. Three principal couples, three slightly secondary\nones, and three third-string women dance in and out of four short sections\nframed by a full cast opening (\u201cCakes and Ale\u201d) and the Fugue and Finale brings\nin everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps because the work is set to so many diverse musical sections, you can find yourself gasping to follow it. You occasionally want to call out, \u201cstop a minute!\u201d Or \u201cput her down!\u201d Or \u201cjust walk around for a few seconds!\u201d  Dancers come and go or pass by, but there\u2019s no over-riding theme that suggests, say, games being played or, on the other hand, formal offerings being presented and disappearing. Nevertheless, there are many pleasures to be had in watching the ballet, including a great deal of excellent dancing by a cast garbed by Sylvie Rood in costumes that, to my mind, suggest fanciful armor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can relish Cassandra Trenary and Cory Stearns assisted by three busy women in wine-colored outfits (Lauren Bonfiglio, Hannah Marshall, and Sierra Armstrong). Or Zimmy Coker and Gabe Stone Shayer leaving their colleagues Courtney Shealy and Carlos Gonzalez, together with whom they backed up Katherine Williams and Tyler Maloney in \u201cHankin Booby\u201d (don\u2019t ask), to join Trenary in \u201cHunt the Squirrel.\u201d  You can sympathize with Stearns alone in Serena Wong\u2019s dimming light, stretching mournfully and silkily into his moves (\u201cLord Melbourne\u201d).  That\u2019s before Thomas Forster, drooping, joins Carlos Gonzalez, Maloney, and Shayer. All four of them have fallen to the floor when Devon Teuscher arrives and Forster can unite with her.  Stearns reappears, as I recall, to lead them all off the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside in Gemma Bond\u2019s A Time There Was<\/em>. Photo: Rosalie O\u2019Connor.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Things\ncalm down a little for the \u201cFugue and Finale,\u201d in which Isabella Boylston and\nJames Whiteside are watched and succeeded by seven of the women. In their pale\noutfits, they can make you imagine a wedding of like-minded souls. Maybe it\u2019s\nthe dancers\u2019 awareness of one another that makes this section seem the\nstrongest and clearest.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwas too late in making my request for a ticket to the evening that celebrated\nHerman Cornejo\u2019s twenty years in ABT. So I didn\u2019t see this magnificent and\nprofoundly focused performer dance with his sister Erica or perform\nBalanchine\u2019s Apollo<\/em> or see him\nhonored by Twyla Tharp as the Host in her \npremiere, A Gathering of Ghosts. <\/em>I\ncould only watch him in a rehearsal film clip or a slow-motion film of him\ndancing in the extraordinary costume that Norma Kamali designed for Tharp\u2019s\nwork, or catching Tharp as she leapt into his arms during the curtain call. In\nmy heart, I congratulate Cornejo and wish him many more dancing years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you ever wonder how choreographers choose their titles?  After seeing James Whiteside\u2019s New American Romance on the last day of American Ballet Theatre\u2019s fall season at the former New York State Theater, I spent some time pondering that. The five women in its cast of eight wear dark blue, swirling, ankle-length tutus (provided by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6624,"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":[4,1],"tags":[3207,65,3209,3212,2359,3215,2325,3208,530,1594,990,695,3214,531,339,992,3210,1202,384,2833,2831,3213,1847,3211,1622,3216,2832,2105],"class_list":{"0":"post-6621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ballet","8":"category-uncategorized","9":"tag-a","10":"tag-american-ballet-theatre","11":"tag-aran-bell","12":"tag-brittany-degrofft","13":"tag-calvin-royal-iii","14":"tag-carlos-gonzalez","15":"tag-cassandra-trenary","16":"tag-catherine-hurlin","17":"tag-cory-stearns","18":"tag-devon-teuscher","19":"tag-gabe-stone-shayer","20":"tag-gemma-bond","21":"tag-hannah-marshall","22":"tag-hee-seo","23":"tag-herman-cornejo","24":"tag-isabella-boylston","25":"tag-isadora-loyola","26":"tag-james-whiteside","27":"tag-jessica-lang","28":"tag-joo-wan-ahn","29":"tag-katherine-williams","30":"tag-laura-bonfiglio","31":"tag-nicole-pearce","32":"tag-sarah-crowner","33":"tag-serena-wong","34":"tag-sierra-armstrong","35":"tag-stephanie-williams","36":"tag-tyler-maloney","37":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6621","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=6621"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6631,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6621\/revisions\/6631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/dancebeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}