DANZ QUARTERLY No 3 April 2006
Review: New Zealand School of Dance Graduation Season
By Francesca Horsley
NZ School of Dance Graduation Season
Te Whaea Theatre
Wellington
16 – 26 November 3005
It is always a treat to see works of contemporary ballet masters in NZ and the main source for these rarely-seen performances is the Graduation Season of the New Zealand School of Dance. The 2005 season was no exception, with works by Frederick Ashton, Jiří Kylián, George Balanchine, and Jerome Robbins, together with specially commissioned works by New Zealand and Australian contemporary choreographers.
A hallmark of this programme was youthful energy. The young graduates and students of the School were clearly inspired by the annual challenge of performing iconic works, and once again achieved commendable results.
George by Ann Dewey and Punch by Daniel Belton were both lively pieces for contemporary dance students. Punch, a quirky piece for three dancers, Lauren Carr, Alicia Mitchell and Chimene Steele-Prior, clad in soft brown, wonderfully captured the essence of Dewey’s dog, George. The trio danced as one, albeit in a rambling way, as they lurched, wagged and guffawed around the stage.
Belton’s Punch, was a clever fast-paced play on a vintage, jazz dance style, framed by inventive ensemble work. The dancers - three women, with skirts swishing, and two men - performed with immaculate timing and vivaciousness, with clever lifts and turns.
The Pas de Quatre from Swan Lake by Frederick Ashton was a delight, with his distinctive, lyrical choreography emphasising simplicity and style. The four dancers sparkled; full of vitality and accomplished leaps and pirouettes.
Valse-Fantasie by George Balanchine to the romantic music of Glinka, was a lyrical yet technically demanding piece. Balanchine’s great contribution to choreography is his ability to capture the rhythm, melody and structure of the music in his movement. The soloists, Michelle Knappstein and Mikhail Ovcharov, accomplished this with flair and enthusiasm. Knappstein, with her charming doll-like features, was swift and light on her feet. Ovcharov was a sensitive and supportive partner. The four sylphs were delicate while capturing something of the bleakness of their predicament.
The 2 & 3 Part Inventions by Jerome Robbins was hallmark all-American dance, exuding the easy confidence made popular by film star Gene Kelly. The eight dancers, four women and four men, performed to the live performance of Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonia’s wonderfully played by Phillip O’Malley. Originally choreographed for students at the School of American Ballet, the intensity and complexity of the music provided a perfect counter-point to the dancers’ youthful energy.
But it was the Kylian pieces that were the highlight of the evening. Entitled Kylian Study 11, there were in three distinct sections; excerpts from Dream Dances set to folksongs by Luciano Berio, the complete work of Evening Songs by Dvorak. Kylian’s work had an intensity, stillness and evocative movement vocabulary that carried a deep European resonance. In one memorable section, white clad women faced the men, in a tender, supplicant exchange. In complete contrast, Indigo Rose was a funky, funny piece with the dancers maneuvering elastically inside their very flexible jerseys.
The finale, Travelling at the Speed of Light by Jane Pirani, captured all the urgency of Vivaldi’s concerti. The dancers criss-crossed the stage in a whirl-wind of energy.
Book review: Writing in the Dark, Dancing in the New Yorker
by Jennifer Shennan
Writing in the Dark, Dancing in the New Yorker
by Arlene Croce University Press of Florida, 2000
(price approx. - NZ$50)
The New York Times Book Review once stated that Arlene Croce “is the Jane Austen of dance criticism, in breadth as well as in intensity, the best dance critic around”.
Croce was appointed dance writer at The New Yorker in 1973. In a lively opener to this collection of pieces selected from 25 years there, Croce tracks her career and the challenges of writing about dance. A certain sense of Manhattan irony is apparent as she quotes Merce Cunningham who said “speaking about dance is like nailing Jell-o to the wall”.
Writing of the early 70s dance scene in New York, Croce recalls “There was more than I could keep up with. I was in the theatre nightly and sometimes, between Friday night and Sunday evening, I saw five performances. Companies often played side by side, and it was nothing to dart from one theatre to another and back in the course of a single performance.”
For a new paper on 20th century Dance Studies for the Theatre Department at Victoria University, Wellington this trimester, I have selected from this collection six of Croce’s writings for the course, but can recommend them to all readers interested in dance. They are on Pilobolus, The Trockaderos, Anna Pavlova, Pina Bausch, Multicultural Theatre, and famously, Discussing the Undiscussable her lengthy article about victim art in which she refused to review Bill T Jones’ Still Here, claiming that its theme of Aids suffering made the cause more the focus of attention than the choreography. A tsunami of response followed the article, all of which she countered in following articles, and the resulting debate is probably still alive.
Her writing is packed with information as well as opinions about dancing, but also carries the sense of deep thinking about the nature and art of performance, with an interest in music to match that of the dance. The Dreamer of the Dream (about Swan Lake - both choreography and music) is certainly a classic.
Her piece on Pina Bausch, entitled Bad Smells, is a classic for entirely different reasons! Here the very nature of negative reviewing comes across as a positive force, and in my personal case, I felt motivated by it to write (to myself) what it is I have found so powerful in the works by Pina Bausch that I have seen over the years.
Croce is not my absolutely favourite dance-writer but she is certainly a stimulating one. Her Jell-O sticks to the wall.
Beauty: A short video dance by Bronwyn Hayward
Reviewed by Linda Ashley
I had just finished watching the first episode of a competitive dance programme on mainstream NZ Television and, greatly in need of some alternative realities, I turned to Beauty. Bronwyn Hayward has set semi-autobiographical material in her “ordinary story told through the medium of dance.” As her first film, in the roles of producer, planner, distributor, as well as being the subject of the piece, in collaboration with director, Damian Tossman, this is an insight into the world of those who may not be perceived to have the acceptable dancer’s body. Whatever that maybe!
At 14 minutes, this simple narrative would make a useful teaching resource for schools and for those studying dance phenomenologically. Young students would find it most accessible, and for the more experienced there is much to critique in terms of issues, aesthetics and videographic texts and techniques.
Videodance, as a genre, offers opportunity to layer dance spatially and temporally in a myriad of ways different to those of dance in the mortal world. Experimenting with these also, potentially, delivers enrichment of the structuring of non-linear collage and narrative. This is something that Bronwyn may play with more in future dance works for screen.
The Royal New Zealand Ballet is featured as a parallel universe to Bronwyn’s perceptions of her dance world. Juxtaposed with the iconic classical are other dance worlds, including dance as a ‘street’ event and improvisational postmodern pastiche. The worlds of dance spin around and, as their ellipses overlap, a challenge is laid to those who present the dance as a world of perfection, youth and ‘beauty’.
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