New Faces/New Works

"Knightlife", "Third Wheels", "Libera!", "Danse Baroque", "Murmuration"
American Ballet Theatre Studio Company 
Joyce Theater
New York, NY
April 15, 2016

The 16-member Studio Company, augmented with students from ABT's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, opened its brief New York season with several New York and one world premiere; the works varied in quality but the dancing was uniformly strong, gracious, and engaging. Two of the works, "Knightlife" and "Danse Baroque", used dancers from Level 7 of the JKO School, though there was no whiff of the schoolroom in the polished, generous, and thoroughly professional dancing. Clearly ABT has a wealth of talent on its hands.

"Knightlife", a world premiere by Ethan Stiefel, was set to a very early work of Beethoven's, "Music for a Ballet of Knights". The music was full of rollicking rhythms which Stiefel mined. There were five knights in slivery breast plates who flourished their swords and rode their horses as if the Crusaders from "Raymonda" had decided to dance "Rodeo". They were joined by five maidens in Juliet-style dresses who danced a lyrical folk-motif with delicate, elegant footwork--in this world men fight and women preen.

The program listed members of the von Drachen family; "Drachen" is German for dragon and Stiefel meant this literally, as a giant green dragon with cartoon eyes (Carson Thomas) pranced on and danced a merry measure. Mrs. Dragon (Maria Clara Coelho), a dark-eyed beauty with a natural warmth and grace was smitten and soon produced two baby dragons, much to the knights' delight. Charm and whimsy are difficult qualities to create (the specter of Disney's saccharine characters haunts the field) but Stiefel's light-hearted but solid work (those knights got a good workout) is a joy.

There is charm, but no whimsy, in Gemma Bond's "Third Wheels" which had its New York premiere.  The three dancers, Xuelan Lu, Elias Baseman, and Ilya Kolotov, were dressed is schoolish uniforms, the men's pants too short, as if they had had a recent growth spurt (costumes by ABT principal James Whiteside).  

Lu opened the work with a solo full of sharp, clear footwork and was soon joined by the two men who bounded around her.  Kolotov stood out for his fluid, effortless extensions and Baseman for his elegance.  The dancers were playful without any undertones of angst or competition, and everyone seemed perfectly happy, even Lu, who ended up as she began, alone of stage, before spinning off.  The choreography showed of the dancers' skills without revealing much about their personalities, and was bright and pleasant, but a bit placid.  Bond choreographed elegant sentences but didn't arrange them into a paragraph.

Marco Pelle's 2014 "Libera!", was certainly a paragraph, complete with exclamation point. It used Anton Bruckner's "Ave Maria" and two dancers (Breanne Granlund and Satchel Tanner) in flesh colored leotards with lots of skin exposed to evoke the Crucifixion. There were several Pietà poses and at one point Tanner held Granlund upside down while her arms extended to form a cross as the recorded singer intoned variously "Jesu" and "Maria". The execrable taste was redeemed only by the dignity and gravitas of the dancers.

Raymond Lukens' "Danse Baroque", to Tchaikovsky, was an unabashed showpiece danced with radiant enthusiasm by JKO students Maria Clara Coelho, Abigail Granlund, Thomas Harrison, and Shaakir Muhammad. The work, which connected occasionally with the music, was full of daring throws and tricky catches, plus a set of fouettes for Coelho. Despite the bravura, none of the dancers had that shiny, enamel sheen of competition dancers and seemed to be a group of extraordinarily talented friends entertaining each other. Coelho tore into her fouettes as if she had just invented the step and was thrilled about it and eager to share her discovery; rarely have they looked like so much fun.

"Murmurations" by George Williamson (a dancer with the English National Ballet) was another New York premiere. It featured eight of the Studio Company dancers, elegant coppery costumes by Reid Bartleme and Harriet Jung, golden lighting, and a mass of choreographic cliches. It was set to an insistent and repetitious minimalist score by Dobrinka Tabakova and opened in a smokey haze with energetic, anonymous dancers scurrying around, pausing now and then to wiggle their spines or glare at the audience. Zimmi Coker and Courtney Shealy dancing with their elegant partners  (Carlos Gonzalez and Samuel Rodriguez) helped break up the frenzy, but the movements were just posturing, devoid of content. And yes, there was a scene of the group standing in a pool of light, reaching upwards with earnest determination.  One can only hope they eventually reach some choreography to match their talents.

Copyright © 2016 by Mary Cargill