Vanity Fair
"Nocturne/Etude/Prelude", "Welcome a Stranger", "Simkin and the City", "Simkin and the Stage", "Islands of Memories"
Daniil Simkin's Intensio
Joyce Theater
New York, NY
January 5, 2016
Daniil Simkin, a principal dancer with ABT, has created a small company of several dancers from ABT and a guest from Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal, Céline Cassone. The company hopes, according to its website, to "combine the new ways of technology with the substance of world-class dance." Technology did star in the evening, as the film "Simkin in the City" (made in 2013 by Alexander Ekman and T.M. Rives) followed the dancer around New York as he performed excerpts from "Don Quixote" in full costume. The video captures the variously puzzled, amused and impassive looks of New Yorkers; it was unusual, witty and charming, adjectives that unfortunately could not be used for the rest of the program.
"Simkin and the Stage" had its moments as the Star (the word deserves capitalization) commented on films of his younger self. The narrative was punctuated by pretentious recorded comments by the writer Jennifer Homans lauding her idea of ballet's origins as a system of morality; apparently she thinks Louis XIV is a shining moral beacon and the five positions are a subset of the Ten Commandments.
Louis would probably be non-plussed could he see the actual choreography presented, which showed little evidence of the five positions, much less any morality. Jorma Elo's "Nocturne/Etude/Prelude" opened the evening. The three dancers (Simkin, Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside) danced the limited Elo vocabulary (snaky spines, slides on point and hiccuping, unmusical phrases) with a strenuous but impassive commitment, as the piece meandered casually through the music. Bach and Chopin, which were played live by the valiant pianist David Friend, deserved much more, and so did the dancers.
Gregory Dolbashian's "Welcome a Stranger", to recorded techno-noise, was more musically attuned, with its air of urban alienation and hints of violence. The five dancers (Céline Cassone, Blaine Hoven, Alexandre Hammoudi, Calvin Royal III and Cassandra Trenary) wore dreary, unflattering costumes and moved with a desperate but empty integrity. Royal, though, had a moment of quiet yearning in a brief solo dancing with his shadow and Trenary managed to give a hint of wispy dreaminess to the general sullen gloom.
This same dreary anonymity pervaded Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's "Islands of Memories", set to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons", recomposed, to quote the program, by Max Richter. It opened with Simkin lying in a pool of light, as his solitude was invaded by Boylston, Cassone, Hammoudi, Royal, Trenary and Whiteside, who danced at great length in various combinations, showing a great deal of energy but little individuality. Finally Simkin returned to his original position, completely unmoved by all the preceding activity. It reminded me of Sir Winston's Churchill's comment about an over-stuffed dessert: "This pudding has no theme".
This lighting though (by Dmitrij Simkin, Danill's father) was stunning, as the dancers were reflected in a segmented mirror wading in shifting, colorful pools of light (courtesy of infrared sensors) suggesting variously sand, water or rain. It was a shame that none of the choreography matched the gorgeous, hypnotic effect of the light show.
copyright © 2016 by Mary Cargill
