Going for Broke?
"Verses" "Otra Vez, Otra Vez, Otra Vez" "All I Ever Knew"
Sketches 9: Perspective
ODC Theater
San Francisco, CA
July 17, 2019
Choreographers need commissions. After all, without dancers they are like pianists without instruments. But all too often a commission entails two weeks in a studio and, probably, just a few rehearsals before the world premiere. After awhile, San Francisco choreographer Amy Seiwert figured, this way she wouldn’t be able to sustain her creative impulses; and she probably was not alone with this conundrum. A choreographer in residence with Smuin Ballet, Founder/Artistic Director of her own Imagery ensemble and choreographing for national companies such as St. Louis, Ballet Austin, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Sacramento Ballet (where this summer she just started her second year as Artistic Director) in 2011 she founded a summer-only project, Sketch.
The initiative, now in its ninth season, has become a rousing success. It is a welcome “boot camp” for mid-career choreographers and an audience favorite for those who appreciate contemporary ballet premiered by nationally recruited performers. The idea, Seiwert keeps saying, is not “to shoot for a perfect work” but “to try something you have never had a chance to do, take a chance, go for it, if it doesn’t work, it’s no big deal.”
This year’s choreographers were Seiwert for “Verses,” “Otra Vez, Otra Vez, Otra Vez” by Chicago’s Stephanie Martinez, and Smuin Ballet’s Ben Needham-Wood with “All I ever Knew.” Selected by Seiwert from a national pool, the octet of fine dancers with Isaac Bates-Vinueza, Alysia Chang, Joseph A. Hernandez, Peter Kurta, Austin Meiteen, Kelsey McFalls, Constanza Murphy and Shania Rasmussen, individually and together made this program a stimulating and enjoyable summer evening. I was surprised, however, how fairly traditional partnering still held its own in much of the work.
The choreographers one prescribed task was to incorporate video — another time-based, visual art. Olivia Ting worked with Seiwert, Ben Estabrook with Martinez and Chris Chorea with Needham-Wood. Not all of it made theatrical sense, but none of it interfered with the dance.
Seiwert opened the evening with her fine “Verses.” Ting’s ever shifting videos of doors and windows suggested a confined, translucent and perhaps fragile space. Meiteen’s opening solo of fractured, jerky limbs on a solid square of yellow, had a quasi robotic quality to it but also suggested a perspective, as seeing him through strobe lights. He is a spectacular, athletic dancer whose versatility was as impressive as his ability to take charge of the stage. At the same time, he looked vulnerable. No wonder all three choreographers couldn’t resist featuring him prominently.
In “Verses” Rasmussen’s gentle gestures calmed Meiteen until he flipped her into a duet. Right on cue the other dancers stopped in for a pulsating ensemble from which individuals or some limbs might emerge. The trajectory had a fascinatingly elastic tension and release to it. Smaller units -- parallel duets, a male trio partnering one woman, two people hugging on the sidelines — were well defined, yet the overall choreography felt as liquid as running water. So perhaps it was no surprise that “Verses” contracted back onto Meiteen as a soloist who had, perhaps, undergone a growth process as an artist. The score, excerpts from The Chopin Project by Olafor Amalds and Alice Sara, had suggested a meditative quality to Seiwert. It made sense.
In the printed program Martinez wrote that Picasso’s The Old Guitarist had proposed a question for “Otra Vez.” “What if he came out of the picture?”, she wondered. Sometimes verbal notes help, sometimes they do not. These confused me. It probably was a mistake on my part to put too much focus on the inspiring painting.
Estabrook’s video of running lines looked neutral. The choreography, performed in socks and in white, featured competently delivered unisons, mirror images, trios — one of them male. It also abounded in traditional duets with the requisite overhead lifts and extensions. While well performed, unfortunately, “Otra Vez” remained pale. A castanet duet, vividly performed by McFall and Hernandez, promised a shift towards Flamenco, but nothing much that I could see materialized. The Hispanic scores, both vocal and instrumental, supported something of a structure, but how a piano solo, influenced by Debussy at his most romantic, connected to the “Guitarist’s” group finale remained a mystery.
Needham-Wood built his fast-paced, intriguing “All I Ever Knew” around four individual couples in what might be thought of as a proto-narrative of a relationship. (Did I see an echo of “In the Night?) The work started with two “youngsters” – Rasmussen and Bates-Vanueza, furiously in love in exuberant chases, flips and swing-your-partner. They seemed to build something for themselves; in this case it was finishing Correa’s sheltering wall of blocks with blinking screens. Everything, however, happened — a brilliant stroke by Correa – under two watchful Big-Brother eyes projected against the back wall. The whole endeavor collapsed around them, leaving Rasmussen grief stricken on the floor. Bates-Vanueza remained as observer of other couples’ relationships, becoming particularly fascinated with Meiteen partnering a fierce, even aggressively dancing, Murphy. To make the piece come full circle, he picked Rasmussen up and they went off together. Why? Where? I would like to see “All I Ever Knew” again, to know more.
copyright © 2019 by Rita Felciano
