To Meld

“Wood Work”, “Shadow Lands”, “Teeming Waltzes”
The Washington Ballet
Harman Hall
Washington, DC
April 6, 2019

In the barrage of new ballets that Washington has had lately, only one eluded a fundamental sameness. It was Trey McIntyre’s “Teeming Waltzes”. I’m thinking not just of The Washington Ballet’s bill of three premiers but also of the Jones/Zane group’s trilogy, of the New York City Ballet’s two programs and of additional fare. Melding hipster configurations of anatomy with classical steps and stances is what most of the new choreography has in common. The fusion can be haunting on occasion, such as the balances for the New York company’s Taylor Stanley in Kyle Abraham’s “The Runaway”. For the Washington company, Ethan Stiefel combined the off-beat and the standard with whimsy at times and then with a bit of melancholy or in an atmosphere of eager anticipation. Stiefel’s “Wood Work” seemed a civilized, polite catalog of sentiments. What I didn’t get any sense of was the carpentry referred to in the title. Five dancer couples were featured. The music, a collection selected by the Danish String Quartet, was played live. 

Moods that were more nightmarish lit “Shadow Lands” like moonbeams penetrating gaps in the clouds. The Russian-born Dana Genshaft, like most of the other choreographers, used dance motions and contemporary body language. Unlike the others, she kneaded the movements into a single story that seems coherent – yet it is a tale at which one can only guess. Pulsing music (recorded) by Mason Bates abets Genshafty’s narrative that involves four female-male couples and features an Observer (male) and an Outlier (female). Katherine Barkman as the Outlier was the ballet’s most charged figure. The more sessile Observer was, I think, Javier Morera in place of the injured Andile Ndlovu. 

For “Teeming Waltzes”, which closed The Washington Ballet’s program of premiers, chamber music was adapted from the compositions of waltz king Johann Straus II by J.P. Wogaman. Also, I suspect, choreographer McIntyre was outing two couples. He does it without rancor, in a light and matter-of-fact manner. One pair is Max and Moritz, the incorrigible boys whose pranks fill Wilhelm Busch’s stories for children - tales that have been popular in Middle Europe since the middle 1800s. By adding a dash of Freud, an embrace here plus a hand touch there, the two lads are shown to be gay. Max and Moritz remain incorrigible. The other couple is from the operetta “Die Fledermaus” (“The Flittermouse”, text by Karl Haffner and Richard Genee and music, of course, by Strauss II). This is an adult pair: Rosalinda and, likely, her Alfred. They are outed as sadomasochists. McIntyre’sballet is fun. Alex Kramer and Corey Landolt mimedanced the two lads with vigor. The diminutive Maki Onuki as Rosalinda was a magnum of sensual glee and Tobias Praetorius, stripped on top to below his belly button, was stalwart. The puzzling thing is why McIntyre would make such a ballet for a Washington audience unlikely to recognize the character references. This ballet ought to be in Vienna’s or Berlin’ s repertory. A female corps of six does traipsing and marching  and waltzing.    

copyright 2019 by George Jackson