The Joffrey Ballet
Chicago
(Joffrey Ballet Website)

Winter Program
February 18, 2009 – March 1, 2009

At
The Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University
(Auditorium Theatre Website)
50 E. Congress Parkway
Chicago, Illinois 60605
(312) 922-2110

Founders, Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino
Artistic Director, Ashley C. Wheater
Executive Director, Christopher Clinton Conway
Ballet Masters, Charthel Arthur, Graca Sales, Willy Shives
Music Director & Principal Conductor, Leslie B. Dunner
Public Relations Services, The Silverman Group/ Farrah Malik

Artists of the Company
Heather Aagard, Matthew Adamczyk, Derrick Agnoletti, Fabrice Calmels, Raul Casasola, April Daly, Jonathan Dummar, Erica Lynette Edwards, Brian Gephart, John Mark Giragosian, John Gluckman, David Gombert, Jennifer Goodman, Elizabeth Hansen, William Hillard, Anastacia Holden, Victoria Jaiani, Stacy Joy Keller, Calvin Kitten, Suzanne Lopez, Graham Maverick, Erin McAfee, Brian McSween, Caitlin Meighan, Thomas Nicholas, Emily Patterson Alexis Polito, Megan Quiroz, Valerie Robin, Christine Rocas, Aaron Rogers, Tian Shuai, Abigail Simon, Patrick Simoniello, Michael Smith, Lauren Stewart, Temur Suluashvili, Kathleen Thielhelm, Mauro Villanueva, Allison Walsh, Jennifer Warnick, Joanna Wozniak

Susan Weinrebe
February 18, 2009

Kettentanz (1971)
Performed by: Artists of the Company
Choreography, Gerald Arpino
Music, Johann Strauss, Sr. & Johann Mayer
Lighting, Nicole Pearce after Thomas Skelton
Costumes, Joe Eula

Written by Gerald Arpino as an exuberant expression of the connection he felt with Vienna, when the Joffrey visited in 1969, Kettentanz (Chain Dance) radiates the atmosphere of courtliness and courtesy in that city before war brought it all crashing down. Performing on a bare stage, warm lighting, pastel chemises, and filmy tunics soften the space, as twelve dancers appear en masse and in solos, duos, or trios. Music and movements gallantly evoke the spirit of a time gone by with waltzes, polkas, and gallops, creating a sense of joy and harmony.

Valerie Robin, the soloist in “Schnofler Tanz,” one of the nine movements of Kettentanz, danced an especially difficult and unique section of choreography. Ms. Robin, who is tall, sinewy and intense of gaze, was riveting. During part of her solo, which began with a halting entrance onto the stage, her movements blended hip and arm actions, not unlike the offspring of hula and belly dance, and that is meant in the best possible way. Her coyly flirtatious long-limbed extensions overcame the difficulty of performing nearly prone on the floor as she commanded every bit of her space on stage.


Mobile (1969)
Dancers:
Elizabeth Hansen, Erin McAfee, Michael Smith
Choreography, Tomm Ruud
Music, Aram Khachaturian
Costume Design, Tomm Ruud
Lighting Design, Nicole Pearce after Sara Linnie Slocum
Staging, Christopher Ruud

Program notes inform that “Mobile takes its title from the initial letters of the concept which inspired it: Moving Objects Behaving In Linear Equipoise.”

The curtain rises and, in center spotlight, three dancers, clad in silvery unitards, are posed in seeming stillness. The male, acting as the center pole to the two counterbalanced females, revolves with exquisite slowness. As he turns to the dreamy violin music in this brief 5 minute piece, the trio changes its positions, always with languorous economy of motion. Anyone familiar with Pilobolus Dance Theatre or Cirque du Soleil may recognize similarities of acrobatic elements. Yet, Mobile preceded them both by years. Thinking of the soothing hypnotic qualities inherent in the gentle, swimming motion of mobiles, these same qualities translate easily to any form of body movement. The dancers’ minimal movements evolve into complex poses that belie the strength and partnering upon which such a performance depends.


Hand of Fate (World Premiere: Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, 1932)
“Pas De Deux” from Cotillon
Dancers:
Victoria Jaiani, Thomas Nicholas
Abigail Simon, Lauren Stewart, Jennifer Warnick, Joanna Wozniak
David Gombert, William Hillard
Choreography, George Balanchine
The George Balanchine Trust
Reconstructed and Staged, Millicent Hodson
Music, Emmanuel Chabrier
Scenario, Boris Kochno
Designs, Christian Bérard
Reconstructed and Supervised, Kenneth Archer
Lighting Design, Nicole Pierce after Thomas Skelton

In another memory piece of the night, Hand of Fate portrays young women at an elegant ball, just before the grand promenade of the night; however, what is seen on stage is really the ghost of a long-gone moment. As Ashley Wheater said to the audience before the dance commenced, it represents to him “all that is dangerous” and mystical in a remembrance of things past.

The curtain rises on four beautifully gowned, long-gloved women, who practice their seductive arts of flirting and fainting prior to the gathering. Then, in a magical slight of hand, so to speak, two servants enter with a screen that they hold up before the women. Pouf! Suddenly, there is a mysterious 4th woman, clad in black tulle skirts scattered with golden stars. Her headdress is a crescent moon. All sorts of imagery from Diana the huntress to Reese Witherspoon’s down-but-not-out Becky Sharpe, wearing her gambling spa uniform of black lace and stars in the film version of Vanity Fair and, of course, fate itself hearken from the costuming.

“Hand of Fate” followed two pauses between the previous dances, a video presentation, and comments by Ashley Wheater. Though the pas de deux was haunting, by this time I was more than ready to experience the notorious piece de resistance that was to cap the program.


The Golden Age Of Art
Video Presentation

In both an educational vein and flourish to whet the audience’s appetite for the main event, a brief video prepared the audience for Le Sacre du Printemps. Much of the film can be seen on a clip on the Joffrey Ballet’s home page and is well worth viewing. Causing a riot in the theater and then in the streets of Paris, when impresario, Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes premiered the ballet in 1913, Millicent Hodson, Kenneth Archer, Wheater, the principal dancer, Erica Lynette Edwards, and others spoke about the rigors surrounding all aspects of the dance. Why it generated such fury is part of its mystique and legend.


Le Sacre du Printemps
(The Rite of Spring, 1913)
Pictures of Pagan Russian in Two Acts
(Read History of This Ballet)

Production Sponsor
Walter E. Heller Foundation
Performed by Artists of the Company
Choreography after Vaslav Nijinsky
Reconstructed and staged, Millicent Hodson
Music, Igor Stravinsky
Scenario, Igor Stravinsky and Nicholas Roerich
Costumes and décors after Nicholas Roerich
Reconstructed and supervised, Kenneth Archer
Artistic Supervision of Reconstruction, Robert Joffrey
Staging, Cameron Basden
Lighting Design, Nicole Pearce after Thomas Skelton
Scenery and Costumes Executed, Robert Perdziola, Sally Ann Parsons

In this year of 2009, one might think there’s nothing left to startle a modern audience. However, Le Sacre du Printemps still retains its ability to disturb and hit a primal note that would, even today, make Diaghilev rejoice once more. It’s not difficult to believe that the patrons who attended the first performance went wild when the sensory dissonance of music, scenery, costuming, and movement assaulted them. It must have seemed like a bait and switch scam; they expected Russian elegance and bravura, a template for classical ballet. What they got was primordial-looking ruffians wearing bearskins, flat-footed, stiffly stylized, repetitive, clumpy movements, music that jarred and jigged time, and puppet-like make up on what should have been graceful ballerinas.

Keeping in mind that everything about Le Sacre is stylized, makes it much more understandable, though enjoyable might be going too far. That’s not its point. The notion is to recreate the pagan rituals of a Russian village 300 years ago. Thus, the groups of dancers are prototypes: young people, old people, ancestors, maidens. This ballet is an anthropological imagining of the rituals that primitives might have believed would ensure their future well being. Of course, the collaboration of choreography, musical composition, costume, and exposition genius was a once-in-a-life time confluence, which can be savored today as an artifact of priceless value.

As for the dancers, they must have had a devil of a time tracking their movements and reversing what they learned over years of refined training. Hands were stiffly held and jabbed. There was enough jumping and pounding of stamping feet and hands against the floor and body to summon lurking spirits, though at one point I think I saw a mistakenly pointed toe. The maidens, with arms held at right angles like friezes of Egyptian dancing girls come to life, blank expressions, and clown white make up resembling the puppets in Petrushka were not the girls at a courtly dance. In their headbands, braids, and brilliantly colored sack dresses, these girls knew they were dancing to bring sun and life to the village, even as one of them would sacrifice herself to do so.

Erica Lynette Edwards danced the part of The Chosen One, the maiden who proffers herself for the public good. As she circles with the other maidens, Edwards repeatedly stumbled and fell only to retake her place in the group. Eventually, she stood alone in the center of the circle, frozen in the tilt-headed attitude of a marionette that is suspended from its strings after a performance. Then, reanimating, Edwards jumped and gyrated using the stylized vocabulary already established until, as required by custom, she died and was borne aloft from the stage. A maiden dancing herself to death is a great ballet tradition; perhaps these primitive rites were where the nugget of an idea for Le Sacre du Printemps derived. In any event, the Joffrey Ballet’s Winter Program is an evening of recollection and appreciation of an era passed, but, thanks to the Joffrey, not forgotten.

Allison Walsh in "Kettentanz"
Courtesy of Herbert Migdoll

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April Daly and John Mark Giragosian
in "Kettentanz"
Courtesy of Herbert Migdoll

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John Mark Giragosian and Megan Quiroz
in "Kettentanz"
Courtesy of Herbert Migdoll

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The Joffrey Ballet in "Mobile"
Courtesy of Herbert Migdoll

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Thomas Nicholas and Victoria Jaiani
in "Hand of Fate" Pas de Deux
Courtesy of Herbert Migdoll

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Erica Lynette Edwards and The Joffrey Ballet
in "Le Sacre du Printemps"
Courtesy of Herbert Migdoll

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The Joffrey Ballet
in "Le Sacre du Printemps"
Courtesy of Herbert Migdoll

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The Joffrey Ballet
in "Le Sacre du Printemps"
Courtesy of Herbert Migdoll

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The Joffrey Ballet
in "Le Sacre du Printemps"
Courtesy of Herbert Migdoll

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The Joffrey Ballet
in "Le Sacre du Printemps"
Courtesy of Herbert Migdoll

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For more information, contact Dr. Roberta E. Zlokower at zlokower@bestweb.net