April 27th, 2012 §
A trip to a Graz dance premiere is always a challenge. Graz Opera ballet director Darrel Toulon has been either dancing or creating dance for a quarter century, ever seeking the grail of the new.
Once again we are in the extraordinary studio theatre Wilder Mann. What makes Wilder Mann different from almost any other space is that there is no depth to the stage and it is enormously wide. Dance works horizontally instead of vertically. Alas neither of tonight’s choreographers took full advantage of the space this time: to take advantage of the space, one needs to program opposing important actions on either end of the stage. The effect in when used properly is almost like Mike Figgis’s Timecode film with four frames of action taking place at the same time.
In Deal.East.West, the something new involved bringing together two young choreographers from the two far extremes of the Eurasian continent: Shanghai native Jie Dong and James Wilton from England. Both are dedicated national artists, working respectively in their native lands, rather than from the European melting pot of choreography (French in Belgium, Spaniards in Paris, Russians in Germany).
I can think and dream about it
To be fair, Dong’s work is very much in the Western tradition of modern dance and has very little to do with Oriental movement: his masters studied in the tradition of Martha Graham, Isadora Duncan and Pina Bausch. Dong is as Chinese (or not) as Hong Kong action films.
Jura Wanga, Jana Drgonova, Daphne van Dooren,
Ruo Chen Wang, Dianne Gray
Dong collaborated with long time Toulon stage designer Vibeke who onced again offered us one her extraordinary minimalist environments in white. On the left there was an enormous three meter high white chair. Later a smaller white chair is passed among the dancers. Small elegant details which worked.
“I can think and dream about it” started with dancers rolling in white tires from the left.
Then the sound of soft breath.
The dancers formed groups and parted again, in varied episodes. At one point they sleep altogether on the ground to an an ambient soundscape. The women’s movement gently lyrical, the men somewhat colder. Particularly fine were Areti Poulaki, Laura Fischer and Jana Drgonova. Sarah Schoch exuded a stern presence and beauty but her expression varied too little to communicate much.
Biag Gaongen Areti Palouki
Among the men, Michael Munoz was in fine form as usual, risking life and limb to make a choreographer’s work appear more daring. Serge Desroches offered a very strong presence in Dong’s work.
There were a few aesthetic decisions which weakened the work for me. In terms of costumes, it looked like everyone just turned up in his or her pyjamas. Everyone wore some kind of loose fitting pants and musty t-shirt, with no apparent rhyme nor reason in their choices. To choose to do nothing with clothing is also an aesthetic choice. I think Dong’s intention was an insistence on natural. But pyjamas do not strike me as natural clothing. His sartorial insouciance could be more studied. A chance was missed here. If the intention is post apocalyptic, Jong could go much further than pyjamas. The one item of clothing which worked for me was Areti Poulaki’s Turkish pants which offered form throughout her jumps and lifts.
Equally strange was the big eyes everyone made all the time. Along with just a smattering of pasty whiteface, Dong asked everyone to keep his or her eyes wide, wide open most of the time.
Jana Drgonova in particular seemed like a vulnerable blonde rag doll, a creature out of Blade Runner.
Jana Drgonova
What did work were the thunder and rain sounds towards the end preceded by an episode of Chinese pop. The strange sounds both alienated us and sensitised us to the movement.
Some work with a rope binding a dancer to the others and then unbinding him made visual the ties between people, even in modern cities.
“I can think and dream about it” ends with rag doll Drgonova atop the three meter chair looking out at us as all the other dancers look up at her. The mood was reflective, the moment touching. More like the true beginning of the piece than its natural end.
The whole piece felt more like variations building towards events which never happened. Agreeable but not earth shaking. Dong does show a great ability to move the focus between groups and solos and a talent for pulling meaning from simple objects.
Growing Divide
The second act offered young independent British choreographer James Wilton a venue outside of England where his career has taken fire since winning the Salder’s Wells Global Dance Contest in January 2011.
Wilton has no fear of taking on big themes: “Growing Divide” is Wilton’s reflection on the London riots and the class struggle in England. Wilton does not try to give us a narrative of the riots but rather explores the emotional state of the rioters. I’m afraid Wilton might be vulnerable to new English laws about sympathising with and encouraging rioters.
Sarah Jane Taylor Norikazu Aoki
After watching “Growing Divide” one understands very well the rage of a lost English generation, victims of a class divide who have been disinherited by what appears to be bottomless financial and governmental corruption.
From the beginning, one woman stands out among the nine dancers, Sarah Jane Taylor. She enters the stage seething with visible rage. Her every movement evinces contempt, anger and frustration. Taylor’s blistering performance makes the piece.
Wilton’s choreographic vocabulary here draws largely from martial arts and street fighting. The exact lifts and pushes and overall violence reminded me of Wim Vandekeybus’s work. Perhaps there are only so many ways to kick and shove a person on stage without permanent injury. Wilton acknowledges Vandekeybus’s influence but draws this distinction: “Vandekeybus starts with emotion, I start with movement.” Perhaps. More visible is that Vandekeybus usually has some kind of prop as a starting point. Wilton outside of the minimalist costumes allowed nothing on his stage but bodies and attitude.
James Wilton Growing Divide
In Wilton’s case, appropriate attention was paid to costume. All the dancers were clad in grey hoodies and cargo pants, allowing them to become an anonymous group and then slip into individual personalities seamlessly.
Musically “Growing Divide” offered more variety than I’ve recently heard. Wilton offers us an Eastern melody to begin “Mugam Beyati Shiraz” but in the middle switches to a very hard rock almost metal music from Steven Wilson, “Salvaging” and “No Twilight Within the Courts of the Sun”, the latter a clever tribute to King Crimson’s “In the court of the Crimson King”. It is great to hear a choreographer using living music (Wilson’s Insurgentes was released in 2008).
For the middle point of “Growing Divide” Michál Zabavik fixes us with a fierce contemptuous stare. Zabavik dares society to take him on. Hatred in his eyes screams the anger/frustration of underemployed existence.
In some ways, “Growing Divide” is like music video choreography. Cat fights break out between the women. It is certainly not your grandmother’s modern dance.
Especially good were Dianne Gray, Nori Aoki, Biag Gaongen and Michael Munoz and Michál Zabavik. Strangely, as a dancer, James Wilton himself seemed to be a little bit at sea in his own production. His weaker physique and soft face seemed a bit out of place among the relatively hard bodies of the Graz dancers. Agnès Girard didn’t has not caught up to the fury or the precision of her colleagues. Jana Drgonova who had such touching presence in “I can think and dream about it” went through the motions in “Growing Divide”. Combat and violence are clearly not her muse.
James Wilton Michael Munoz Dianne Gray
At one point Taylor does a quieter solo in a cross projected from the ceiling, both a window frame and a cross. The change of pace was welcome.
Both pieces left us wishing for a little more in what seemed a short evening.
A point of artistic interest is the more or less permanent cross pollination between Oper Graz. Guest choreographer James Wilson and his dancer Sarah Jane Taylor participate in all the Graz shows and have taken some of Oper Graz’s dancers to England with them for their own touring.
Artistic director Darrel Toulon insists that cross pollination is the way forward: “It means dancers are knocked out of their normal hiearchy and have to treat the work as fresh. They are on their best and most competitive behaviour”. Toulon also likes having the guest choreographer help grow his piece past the premiere. Toulon still regrets not being able to bring in a few of Jie Dong’s dancers from China (part of the original conception of the evening): “It just didn’t fit within the budget”.
Neither piece as electric as the Guido Markowitz’s “ Sometimes it is not nice to be me” from last year. Part of the issue may be the absence due to injury of Bostjan Ivanjsic, the incredible soloist and leader of the Oper Graz dance company. While everyone else does their best, Ivanjsic’s physical presence and charisma is not easily replaced. Hopefully he will soon return to the lineup.
James Wilton may be the future of British choreography and is certainly an exciting creator but we are in the early days still. May he retain his willingness to tackle big issues along the way. It’s refreshing to see a choreographer leaving behind both deconstructionism and maudlin love to take on the world.
All photographs copyright Werner Kmetitsch/Oper Graz.
March 18th, 2012 §
A prolific season for Balet Bratislava: tonight saw the third full evening of new choreography from Mario Radacovsky's young company.
The opening piece Slovanské Dvojspevy (Slavonic Duets: Czech choreographer Libor Vaculik) tells a playful tale of Slovak courtship. The long white skirts and the white shirts of the men gave the stage the lightness of spring and early summer. The music is much heavier though Antonin Dvorak's Slovak Dances opus 46 and 72 and one of the Moravian dances too). Sadly the sound system in Novaj Tsena is simply not adequate for classical music: played too loud Dvorak descends into cacophony.
While on the subject of the theatre the stage seems too small as well for this piece. With ten dancers forming two groups at the same time, you did not have the feeling of observing Slovak courtship rituals in fields or the countryside but rather a kind of back urban alleys version. Basically, too much furniture in a room. Whether Slavonic Duets would be any better on a larger stage is an open question: I believe a catastrophic Ivan the Terrible I once saw in the SND was also the creation of Libor Vaculik.
The performances were evenly adequate with one exception: Klaudia Bitterová stood out for her radiance, her poise and the lyricality of her movements. There was no Katarina Kosiková to share the stage with and Bitterová took full advantage of her opportunity to shine. Andrej Szabo as the lead among the men presented himself an ideal partner to Bitterová.
Balet Bratislava: Czech In Continues »
March 2nd, 2012 §
Afternoon of a Faun, Bolero and Carmina Burana are Volksopera's dance corps chance to shine outside the shadow of the main ballet.
Afternoon with a Faun immediately brings memories of Nijinski, the famous photograph. It's a dangerous standard to lance against. Choreographer Boris Nebyla has never lacked courage and plunges straight in. The stage is spare with just four white ceiling to floor breaking the all black stage, light slips through from behind. At the front of the stage, Mihail Sosnovschi poses front foot under him back leg extended. His powerful physique impresses right away. Sosnovschi strikes a series of poses to Debussy's music, sometimes balletic, sometimes more from a bodybuilder's show.
Faun: Mihail Sosnovschi
At this point, one is optimistic about the duet to come. Lovely Brazilian Tainá Ferreira Luiz creeps across the back of the stage between the columns. Her hair is dyed a flaming red and she is clad in a flesh toned body suit.
The pair now pose together and interact in some sort of flirt. It's all strangely sexless though. From here Afternoon of a Faun just meanders. There's a hint of hope for some flames when Luiz with her legs extended backwards and on her stomach with Sosnovoschi above juts her hips into the floor three times, as if making love but it's just a tiny spark in a very tasteful but too benign Afternoon of a Faun.
Faun: Tainá Ferreira Luiz & Mihail Sosnovschi
Bolero is the creation of András Lukács, Hungarian wunderkind of the Harangozo's regime. Lukács is almost all grown up now and toils no more for choreolab but for the main stage. No excuses now.
In tackling Bolero, once again the choreographer is taking the measure of a musical work greater in the imagination than anything he or she could create.
Volksoper Ballet: Carmina Burana - Afternoon of a Faun - Bolero Continues »
March 2nd, 2012 §
So many people put so much into Choreolab to make it happen, to finance it, to create it. Vintner Hvram, every year brings up some of the finest cuvées from Burgenland. From the ambassador's wives to the professors in the audience, Ingeborg Tichy Luger is a lady very precise in her gratitude. I thought all our grateful hands might fall off when we were done clapping for everyone present and everyone who contributed. Tip: group the people and fire through the names in a group and let us clap louder for four or five names together.
This year under Choreolab under the aegis of Staatsoper and ballet artistic director Manuel Legris was even more ambitious than usual with a full nine pieces in two acts, including two from Fabrizio Coppo.
Choreolab veteran Samuel Colombet opened the evening with a Balanchinesque bit of neoclassicism. The costumes were unusually good, splendidly draped white over four beautiful dancers Ionna Avraam, Iliana Chivarova, Erika Kovacova and Rui Tamai. In particular, Ms. Avraam was in spectacular form. One could also see why Manuel Legris promoted Erika Kovacova to the main stage from Volksopera. In line, she is like the top Paris Opera dancers. Her dancing is very smooth, but a certain absence of snap and a weak jump break the illusion you might be watching a younger Elisabeth Platel.
As accomplished and lovely as Columbet's distaff contingent, his men were extraordinarily beautiful led by a dramatic Martin Winter. Young Felipe Vieira is like a confection, with almond roasted skin and cherub mouth. Gleb Sheilov did not stand out but supported his comrades well.
The difficulty with Columbet's Oktett is in the end was the easiniess of some of the choices: a concerto from Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is a certain crowd pleaser. The splendid lifts and accomplished steps and bare torsos of handsome men almost cannot fail to delight a ballet audience. In the end, after Oktett one has enormously enjoyed what one has seen but little remains.
Choreolab 12 review: Junge Choreographen Des Wiener Staatsballetts Continues »
February 17th, 2012 §
Rarely has the stage of the Staatsoper appeared so impressive. The curtain opens to reveal on three levels, a full complement of dozens of dancers, the women in gleaming white tutus, the men in black leggings and handsome white shirts. First impressions are often misleading. So it is with Serge Lifar’s Suite en Blanc.
The audience collectively takes a breath, expecting the full stage to explode in dance. No dice. All but two dancers slowly slink off to the wings. Over the course of the next half hour deserted stage is gradually built back up to full, but never does Suite en Blanc manage to equal the thunder of its opening salvo.
Quickly Suite en Blanc turns into a battle of the ballerinas, the ballerinas parade out one by one to show their dressage qualities.
Highly rated Ludmila Konovalova has finally found some costume designers who understand her figure and for once her kit doesn’t make her powerful body look like a female hockey player. She acquits herself well with Alexis Forabosco and Shane A. Wuerthner providing steady support.
Legris' Masterworks of the 20th Century at Vienna Staatsoper: Serge Lifar, Nils Christie, Roland Petit Continues »
November 28th, 2011 §
November 12th, 2011 §
Balet Bratislava's premiere of Romeo and Juliet yesterday in Bratislava started the company's performances off very well. A delighted public. Here are some photos to whet your appetite. Review to follow tomorrow.
Balet Bratislava dance of patricians 1
Balet Bratislava: Romeo and Juliet Continues »
October 26th, 2011 §
La Sylphide is one of the easiest ballets to perform and one of the most difficult ballets to get perfect. The dangers of La Sylphide are multiple:
- the Scottish setting can seem very campy
- adequate stagecraft to preserve a sense of wonder
- the music can come across as thin and grating
- sufficiently large, gifted and beautiful corps-de-ballet
- the male audience can fail to fall in love with La Sylphide
- the women in the public fail to identify with Effie
- the women in the public can wonder what Effie sees in James
Manuel Legris has gotten it all right with Wiener Staatsoper ballet.
Irina Tsymbal as La Sylphide
All photos courtesy & © Max Moser
The decors are very sober, even a little bit drab. You feel inside a Scottish manor somewhere in the Highlands. Yet all the space of the huge Vienna State Opera stage is all there for the variations. In the second act the woods were tremendous and airy.
The small touches of stagecraft were a delight. Sylphides flying across the stage at 15 metres above the stage, Sylphides perched in the branches of the trees, La Sylphide disappearing vertically up the chimney or disappearing instantly into the floor.
The Staatsoper orchestra was in fine form, particularly in the overture which was sufficiently lyrical and touching that one wishes a recording. Through the rest of the ballet the performance was usually very good but the limits of the score were sometimes felt and the music hinted of military marching band. Still I'm far from sure one can do better without reorchestration.
Staatsoper corps de ballet La Sylphide
Manuel Legris has continued to work wonders with the splendid corps-de-ballet that his predessor Harangoza so paintakingly built. There are no less than 23 additional sylphides on stage in the second act. The whole corps-de-ballet looked great. There are small moments of synchronicity to perfect, but it is the premiere after all. There are few over-rehearsed ballet companies left in the world and Vienna Staatsopera ballet is not one of them.
Irina Tsymbal tears of La Sylphide
Irina Tsymbal is a perfect Sylphide. Her pallid complexion and somewhat tragic demeanor finds its natural home. Tsymbal can portray imperious roles as well. She is a very versatile ballerina. But La Sylphide is the most natural fit of all for her.
After the performance, Manuel Legris elevated Irina Tsymbal to First Soloist. It is good to see Legris keep an open mind about dancers. Initially, he planned to release Tsymbal before his first season as what he saw in rehearsal hadn't impressed him. Fortunately a good fairy told him that Tsymbal's talents flame on stage and not at the bar. If Legris can remain open to talent like this, he has a long and bright career as a director ahead of him.
Effie is a more difficult role. Danced with sufficient flair, James enchantment with La Sylphide would make no sense. Nina Polakova is almost as lyric a ballerina as Irina Tsymbal, with less of Tysmbal's undercurrents of dangerous passion. As Effie she very deliberately curbs her charms to become a real girl, in love with her man but more cheerful than deep, trusting than passionate.
Roman Lazik Irina Tsymbal La Sylphide
As James, Roman Lazik is in his element. James is the ordinary guy caught in a remote fantasy. Lazik plays James as a good old boy more than a dreamer. Still, in the second act, he struggles as one feels the the emotion is not in his bones. While Lazik is a very handsome man and a very correct classical dancer and an attentive partner, he lacks a certain passion.
With a truly charismatic and masculine dancer in the role of James - Sergei Filin from the Bolshoi comes to mind - the men identify strongly with James and the women understand and feel both for Effie and La Sylphide. Lazik didn't fail to move us, but didn't move us as much as I'd like. This single weakness explains to me why the audience reception was enthusiastic and not ecstastic. I hope we will see Vladimir Shishov in the role of James.
Andrey Kaydanovskiy as Madge
We did see some great performances in secondary roles: Andrei Kaydonovsky was truly wicked as Madge. The pantomine was writ large but he pushed through it with sufficient abandon that we believed in her evil. His movement remained strong but feminine.
Kamil Pavelka was a resolute and sufficiently antagonistic Gurn. One felt his contempt for his friend who was half heartedly stealing the woman he loved. Pavelka is the kind of dancer who is perfect in the secondary role, although I'm not sure how well he'd carry a prince.
The Scottish kilt complemented Mihail Sosnovichi's shape and gave him more traditional proportions, which along with a good leap and his usual energy helped both Sosnovichi and his partner Maria Alati to an invigorating pas de deux as the young newlyweds.
Mihail Sosnovichi Maria Alatii
Solo Sylphides Alena Klochova Marie Claire d Lyse Andrea Nemethova
The solo Sylphides - Marie-Claire D'Lyse, Alena Klochova, Andrea Némethová - were very good but perhaps a little bit too heroic. Super Sylphides, I would call them. But why must Sylphides always be frail.
Manuel Legris brought in excellent pedagogues: himself and Elisabeth Platel. Gradually he is pulling Vienna up to the level of Opéra de Paris. The danger is too much success and perhaps Paris will be calling him back too soon for Vienna's good.
On the whole La Sylphide earns a 9 out of 10. If I hadn't seen Sergei Filin dance James, perhaps I'd give La Sylphide 2011 at Vienna Staatsoper a perfect 10.
Special thanks to Max Moser for his ever excellent dance and theater photos. You can book Max's services at PhotobyMM.com. His full gallery of La Sylphide.
October 23rd, 2011 §
Jochen Ulrich Michelangelo ensemble cast in Landestheater Linz
The stage juts out into the audience, as the curtains open we see a tableau vivant of a sculpting studio in motion. The orchestra fills the deep back of the theatre. It's almost like Shakespeare's in the round Globe. This is the first of several successful staging decisions of the evening. With the orchestra pit closed and the orchestra at the back of the hall, LandesTheatre Linz becomes a magnificent concert hall.
Once again Jochen Ulrich has led a new ballet with the music. Here he chose Arvo Pärt's Collage" über Bach", "Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten" and "Spiegel in Spiegel" and finally Pärt's "Lamentate for Piano and Orchestra". From Britten we have the Requiem. Despite the two nominally very different composers, sonically the evening holds together perfectly. It a complete and powerful ballet score.
Fortunately, both subject and dance are up to the music this time round. In Michelangelo, across the centuries Ulrich has found une âme soeur. Like Michelangelo, Ulrich has lived an often lonely and tempestuous life of creation. Ulrich does not sculpt with stone but with live bodies.
Michelangelo's problems are Ulrich's very own. The personal relationship to his subject stirs Ulrich's deepest powers.
Jochen Ulrich's Michelangelo: a masterwork of music and creation Continues »
September 19th, 2011 §
Upper Room is a strange name for a dance piece. Dance is about movement and not about static space.
On the other hand, perhaps the title is not so out of place as space is crucial to Oper Graz ballet director Darrel Toulon's latest work. The Wilder Mann studio theater where Oper Graz ballet will work for the next two years of Next Liberty renovations is very special.
The space is exceptionally wide and very shallow. What this wide space means is that everyone in the audience as first to third row seats. In the front row you are so close to the dances you could reach out and touch them. Or as in Upper Room, feel the wind of a pillow flying in the hands of a pirouetting dancer across your nose.
Upper Room: pillows, pillows, pillows everywhere
notice the breadth of the stage: this is only about half of it
The great advantage of this stage is the possibility to work with multiple independent dance units at the same time. It's easy and even desirable to have as many as three different sets of action informing one another at the same time. For choreographers who want to control the audience's eyes and minds, the opportunity to have multiple action at the same time is frustrating. For those who accept its potential, multiple centres of action is very liberating and very modern.
Upper Room Bostjan Ivanjsic
We live in a world of intense sensory input: billboards, cellphone, radio, television, telephone, street traffic, computer all compete for our attention at the same time. We are constantly making choices of what information to absorb and what information to discard. Wilder Mann is a contemporary stage for contemporary dance.
Toulon's Upper Room is an evening length work divided into two distinct parts. Part one and part two include entirely different costumes and entirely different stagings. The only unifying element is the music of singer Vesna Petkovic and violinist Boris Mihaljcic.
Including live music is a wonderful decision. Live music brings dance to another level and Petkovic and Mihaljcic offer powerful performances which visibly infuse the dancers with energy.
Michael Munoz acrobatic handstand in part one
One could argue that also unifying the two pieces is that in both parts a single metaphoric prop is central to the work. Part one focuses on metal frames, about the size of a large door or a single bed. Part two focuses on pillows, large white pillows on which to lay your head for sleeping.
Sarah Schoch in front of frames Upper Room
In part one, the dancers lie inside the metal frames, walk through these frames, observer one another across these frame and jump through these frames. At times there are up to five frames on stage at a time worked each by a pair of dancers.
Even more striking are the costumes in part one: each dancer is wearing a bob of shiny bronze hair. Each wears dark silver pants. The men are naked from the waist up, the women in small tube tops. The look is very androgynous. As is the dance.
Upper Room: part one fantastic wigs and alien look
With the strange wigs and clothing, I felt a certain alienation and otherness from the dancers. As they all look identical and different from us, it's like watching another species live out their lives and feelings. This alienation creates an interesting distance and encourages scientific observation. At one point, Michael Munoz's wig flew off in a powerful duet and we could see him for the next fifteen minutes as himself: the impression was enitrely different. If the dancers looked more human, the emotional text would be far more powerful as we could identify with them as individuals and not conceive them as a group.
Much of the dance is pairings. Sometimes two women will live an intimate relationship, sometimes a man and a woman, sometimes two men. There is a very disturbing near rape scene of a woman trapped in her frame. Upper Room Part One takes a very violent look at human emotions. Vesna Petkovic's dark Serbian songs echo and lead the action. That most of us are not able to understand the words is intentional: Upper Room Part One is about emotional text and not about literal metaphor.
Dianne Gray - Bostjan Ivanjsic
Towards the half hour mark, Swiss dancer Sarah Schoch makes a very dramatic entry in a long red dress and a baroque coiffure. Moving with abandon, Schoch reveled in her moment in the light, kicking her long legs high. Her intervention was a delight in itself but I didn't entirely understand its place in an otherwise very disciplined exploration of the frame metaphor.
Sarah Schoch - Lady in Red
Another highlight is the solo by and duets including Bostjan Ivanjsic whose physique is in magnificent form. When Ivanjsic is center stage he dominates the other dancers who struggle to keep up with his presence. On the other side, after the summer pause, Michál Zábavík has returned with a spare tire more suited to a sedentary man ten years his senior.
Bostjan Ivanjsic in good form with Laura Fischer
Among the premiere audience, some suggested that part one with the frames could make an entire evening of dance. I'd agree with that. One might be able to cut the score back to minimalist elements, leaving most of the explicit text behind.
When we reenter the theater the dancers have taken our place and Vesna Petkovic is enthroned on a mountain of pillows. We surround her as she sings. Five minutes later, the dancers being to guide us back to our places one by one. The confusion and role reversal here is very powerful. I wondered why Toulon chose not to develop the switch further by creating multiple circles of action from which spectators could move from one to the other before sending us back to our seats.
Once we are back in our places, the dancers each take a pillow to caress.
Part two is an exhiliarating voyage through violence and tenderness. But by the time it windes down after forty odd minutes, the work with pillows feels like it has run its course by the time. Pillows have been used as a giant bed, as sleeping companions, as hurled weapons, as instruments to suffocate friends, as dance partners. After watching part two you will never doubt the importance of pillows in our lives.
You don't perceive it as you watch the show, but dancing with pillows limits the range and precision of dance. A pillow is an object constantly changing form and weight balance. Unlike the frames which are stiff and certain contexts with which a dancer can work carefully.
Sarah Schoch and Laura Fischer face off with pillows
The pillow piece feels more like a great fun experiment than the normally deep work of Toulon. There is some very good work with focused light in the hands of the dancer. Dianne Gray is particularly adept in lighting the other dancers dramatically while managing to stay low to the ground and move smoothly with the action. Newcomer Challyce Brogdon danced near my place and danced with discipline and flair as did compatriot New York native Serge Desroches. There is a particularly charming catfight between Areti Palouki and Agnès Girard.
Near the end, Vesna Petkovic breaks out in Fran Landesman's 1959 Beat classic "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men". While the duet between Serge Desroches and Ruo Chen Wang is powerful, the change of musical language grates after a full evening of song in Serbian.
Upper Room opened exactly one month after rehearsals started. The normal period of development for an evening lenth work is anywhere between six weeks and three months. With Upper Room, you feel that you are watching a work in progress. All the elements have been found but not worked through to the end. It's like a half-finished sculpture where you can see the grand lines of the form, but the expression has not been finished.
My hope is that Toulon if he revisits to Upper Room will return to the frame metaphor and the very groundwork he has done for a one act evening length piece. He could retitle it very simply "Frames". While the pillows piece was more fun and valid as a technical experiment, it remains more a divertissement than a work of art.
Upper Room can be seen 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29 September and closes 2 October 2011 at Jakoministrasse 3/5 in Graz. On October 19, in the same space the single evening Tanz Nite 2 will take place.
Toulon and the Oper Graz ballet will be creating a ballet of on Henry Purcell's majestic baroque opera of Dido and Aeneas in May. Purcell's music will be performed live so this is not an occasion to miss.
Photos except Pillows, Pillows, Pillows by Werner Kmetitsch
Video & Pillows, Pillows, Pillows by Alec Kinnear
