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.

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.

The next piece was a real surprise: guest artists Petr Zuska and Zuzana Susová brought Zuzksa's Lyrická (Lyric), in incredibly moving duet set to a traditional Rusin and Slovak folk song). Susová emotional dancing sent shivers through the audience. Zuska's mature appearance and practiced movement provided an interesting contrast to the relative striplings of Balet Bratislava. In the end, it is much more attractive to watch grown men live relationships of depth and passion than to see teenagers go through the motions. Experience has its merits. For this ballad alone, the evening was worth the trip out for me.

Petru Zuska is director of the National Ballet of Czech Republic in his day job: amazing the form he retains. Zuzana Susová is a great Czech star who due to injury doesn't dance on point anymore. Kudos to Mario Radacovsky for casually bringing such distinguished guests to Bratislava (we've seen Jiri Kylian, Nacho Duato, James Kudelka and now Peter Zuska just off the top of my head).

Falling Angels, a great Kylian classic from 1990, followed. The stage opens to dramatic African style drumming (Steve Reich) eight women all dressed in dark woolen jumpsuits. Over the next twenty minutes, they shake as a group and then each takes a short and distinct solo. It is bravura performance for each performer and the group. Credit to the women of Ballet Bratislava all. Nominally Ballet Bratislava is a company of ten with five women. Barbora Bláhova and Veronika Hollá were the newcomers, the beautiful Hollá taking time out from her work at SND.

Particularly fine work from Klaudia Bitterová. Rival Kosiková and Natália Nemethová were both in fine form. Particularly sinuous was Hollá.

I'm not sure what the hair suits and the African music means. It is more a call back into our primitive selves, an ornate tearing away of the veil of civilization within the temple of ballet. In any case, Falling Angels sent the audience wild.

Again the stage is a bit small for the work and despite the presence of Kylian's main lighting collaborator Kees Tjebbe, there was none of the distinct squares of light on each performer. Simply not enough lighting gear available. Kylian's movement and Reich's music are strong enough that just the atmospheric dimming and raisig of the lights sufficed, but a certain polish remains missing. One cooks with the ingredients one has.

The penultimate act of the evening was Jiri Kylian's Six Dances. If you haven't seen it before (what rock are you hiding under: it's in the Vienna State Opera, Opera de Paris, Boston Ballet among another twenty companies), Six Dances is an absurdist diversion on Mozart's Six German Dances. The stage opens to Baroque gentlemen and ladies in their undergarments with mussed hair. As the piece goes on, they couple and they triple, often the women leaving the men with one another.

The men cross dress in elaborate black rolling gowns. All the men wear white wigs and bright red lipstick. Six Dances in short is a meditation on gender and sexuality but it is mainly a lot of fun. Behind the hijinks, Kylian suggested he had a more serious message:

I have set six seemingly non-sensical acts, which obviously ignore their surroundings. They are dwarfed in face of the ever present troubled world, which most of us for some unspecified reason carry in our souls.

Both Nemethova and Kosikova were delightful, with Nemethova's dramatic gifts taking the lead over Kosikova. Nemethova's hair was crazier and her wildness more convincing than any of the other dancers. Dan Datcu and Arthur Abram both stood out among the men as convincingly Baroque gentlemen. The normally excellent Szabo for some reason didn't really hit his stride this evening.

Along with Kees Tjebes, Radacovsky did manage to bring in Roslyn Anderson for a total of four weeks as repeition master. Anderson for thirty years has been Kylian's choreographic assistant and has worked with most of the world's great companies and dancers. Bringing in professionals of such a high caliber does wonders for the development of the company. All year they've been working under great tutors and one can see enormous progress in the young dancers over the course of the year.

With the exception of the rather messy Slovanske Dvojspevy, the staging of the evening was excellent and Balet Bratislava did an admirable job with some challenging work. Still, taking on masterworks which can be seen in direct comparison with the world's best dance companies is a risky strategy in my opinion. It's difficult to win with a local company however great their heart. You will always be less good than Opera de Paris or Netherlands Dance Company I.

Of the three premieres this year, the original and incomparable modern work of Three Pieces seems the best path forward. You can only see these works here on Ballet Bratislava and its damn good work. But we have no reason to complain after such a rich first season. Mario Radacovsky with his dedicated young dancers are doing a splendid job of offering us very good dance in Bratislava.

If Mario Radacovsky is again offered the helm of the ballet of SND, I hope that this second company can continue to exist to provide an alternative stage with very good dancers for modern and new choreography. The Slovak and Bratislava dance world is vastly enriched by Ballet Bratislava's existence.

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.

Cleverly Lukács opens with a closed curtain which is slowly pulled up by a very beautiful Gala Jovanovic, clad in a long black skirt and a set of black beads. Underneath the beads there is a body suit alas. Without the bodysuits, Jovanovic and Lukács could challenge the music. But they'd need another six or seven women up to the occasion.

Bolero: Gleb Shilov & Josefine Tyler

Excellent work on the costumes by Mónika Herwerth.

Gradually the stage fills with other dancers, the men stripped to the waist and in the same long skirts, all the other women in black beads. They cross in impressive, elaborate patterns, their footwork as sensual as Afternoon was cool.

Bolero: Ensemble

The half naked men in skirts cut a more imposing figure than the women, Lukács mixes the dances up between monosex and mixed. As Bolero flames up, the lifts become more challenging, the movement more compelling. An effective slow build which culminates in the whole group quickly disappearing. Again Jovanovic is left alone on the stage, this time at the back in a space between the curtains. The final horn sounds and she slams shut the curtain.

The manoever shows just how much mileage a clever choreographer can get from a minimalist staging.

The audience erupted in felt applause this time, partly for the music and impressive performance of the orchestra under conductor Guido

Florian Hurler stood out among the men for both his physical size and his interesting presence, daring the audience to love him. We saw again Felipe Vieira from choreolab but for some reason he seemed more timid today.

Nothing prepared us for the insanity after the pause. Volksoper Ballet Director Vesna Orlic took her own run at one of the greatest pieces of music ever, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.

The curtain opened to a full choir of seventy filling the entire backstage singing at full voice. Front stage stood a figure in a long dress with forty centimetre bee's bun hairdo. Under the makeup, stood again the enormous Florian Hurler. He threw his hands up in the air summoning the gods. At this point, around his feet half-dressed figures as if from Spartacus rolled and thrust their legs in the air around Hurler.

As the choir belted out Valkyrie levels of sound, Hurler strutted and posed as if descended from the heavens. The closest pop culture equivalent I can think of is the aria from Fifth Element but that scene is largely insufficient for this enormous stage of music and movement.

The pace did not let up from there. We moved from choral scenes to arias and back again.

The tableaux gradually leaned towards Daliesque: at one point a four metre cross is carried on stage by ten tall collared monks. They put it up and it turns out to glow neon red. The monks sing as a choir around a dinner table on which there is a huge silver roast cover. They slash knives and forks together. The lead priest pulls the silver cover off the food to reveal the very fat head of another opera singer, who sings as if decapitated from the middle of the table. When he is done, the monks cut his head to pieces and eat him alive. Immediately afterwards ten black haired prostitutes run in in garters to fornicate with the monks, who turn out to be wearing can-can dresses under the habits.

The Catholics in the audience sat in silent bewilderment but atheists were happy to see organized religion get its nose tweaked again before the naked bride showed up, as a man dressed in only a black tutu danced the black swan part from Swan Lake, brilliantly danced by Samuel Colombet, reprising a role from a short piece in choreolab three years ago.

The stage turned to reveal an audience of twenty men on benches who had arrived for the black swan's live sex show with the lady in red, danced by a very seductive Gala Jovanovic.

Immediately thereafter strolled out sixty white clad children hopping and skipping. Then they too broke into high song.

There was smoke, there was fog.

Carmina: Florian Hurler (Fortuna) & Ensemble

If all this sounds unbelievable it was. You'd have to watch Orlic's Carmina Burana half a dozen times to unravel all the Dali moments. There was an old man and a woman leaving to death, admirably portrayed by Gabriele Haslinger and Percy Kofranek. There was a young couple who took their place.

Carmina: Ekaterina Fitzka, Samuel Colombet, Gala Jovanovic

The end was as powerful as the beginning as Hurler returned in his floor length gown, his powerful arms thrust into the air to summon again the gods and bring an end to this tormented and spectacular evening. Once again limbo's ghosts rolled around his feet.

It has been many years since I've seen such an ambitious production in Vienna, let alone in Volksoper. The closest equivalent was Jan Fabre's Blood on tour at Tanzquartier.

Karl Regensberger intendant of ImPulsTanz summarised the grandeur: "a spectacle on a scale to greet the departure of Greece from the Eurozone".

Musically I must mention the soprano work of Beate Ritter. Her voice is heavenly. The male soloists offered solid performances, but Ritter's voice was the musical highlight of evening, together with the whole choir.

My only concern is that I don't know what Vesna Orlic can ever do to top this her first full evening piece.

Photos copyright Wiener Staatsballett/Elisabeth Bolius

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.

In don't know, Martin Winter takes greater risks as a choreographer. With the music of Arvo Pärt he is nearly as safe as Columbet but afterwards the language of movement is far more challenging. Greig Matthews carries Reina Sawai in ways which are completely unnatural. The lifts are dramatic and almost dangerous. When dancing apart, Matthews is even more compelling with almost faun like poses and tremendous speed. One wishes that he and Sawai had more time to rehearse the piece. This one is good enough to travel with so he may get the chance.

From high love we dip into deep kitsch in the next piece Elegia. A cravatted pianist enters with a heavy letter in his hand. He struggles to open the velum. Oh no, the words of parting. His dear john letter. In the meantime, stage left literally clouds of smoke are billowing in. Igor Zapravdin starts to play the grand piano. Florian Hurler wanders in in a high collared white shirt, looking fetching in a Hollywood thirties kind of way. Out of the smoke Ekaterina Fitzka comes running. The Rachmaninoff trumbles along as the lady slowly spurns Hurler as the pianist's alter ego. Better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all. Fitzka aspires to the place of the absent but not forgotten Karina Sarkissova. Russian dancers passed via the St Polten choreographic school haven incredible affinity with kitsch. Hurler is handsome in a high German sort of way with Grecian profile and blonde hair: you look for his dueling scars.

But not all Russian choreographers incline to melodrama. The young Andrey Kaydanovskiy takes us in an entirely different direction. Out stroll three women in rags arguing with one another in Portugese, Slovak and Rumanian. A child appears and is scolded by his very convincing mother Ketevan Papava. Alexis Forabasco and Alice Firenze then live a passionate but very violent love affair in front of our eyes. The music moves from Flamenco to Sicilian music, latin and indeterminate. Kaydanovskiy is working hard to show us the complexitiy of life. The little boy appears again and then disappears. Of the three women Brazilian Rafaella Sant'anna is the most remarkable with much more swing in her hip than her European companions.

But frankly they are all good, including Ketevan Papava and Andras Lukacs in a comic turn. Dolce Vita is a sophisticated and long piece, funny and rewarding. A bit derivative of Kylian but indicating real talent for ensemble staging.

At this point, let me compliment the stage team on the eight different stages they dressed without incident.

A piece of glass in the middle of the stage. Bowls of paint behind to the left and right. Italian Davide Dato enters in mere briefs. He takes great gobs of the blue, red and yellow paint, flings it around, rubs it on himself. It's quite dangerous for the audience as we are all well dressed and the paint is flying five metres in the air. Ennio Morricone's music is appropriately dramatic. It all seems a bit nineteen seventies though. Identity is young Italian Fabrizio Coppo's first piece of the evening. Whlee does better in round two.

Part two of the evening beings with louding beeping noises and flashing lights and then turns to Johann Sebastian Bach. Yes, Eno Peci is back. He does his own mixing: soundscape is clearly important to him. He feels the world technically. There's some very nice dancing from the great group he assembled. Dagmar Kronberger shows us why she is still one of the best Austrians dancing, even if overshadowed by Harangozo's Russian stars since returning from motherhood. Masayu Kimoto dances his heart out with Greigh Matthews, Davide Dato and Alice Firenze and Koyoka Hashimoto all in support. Despite the passion of the performances, Exitium remains decorative and not quite as strong as Peci's last pice.

Donne (women) is the name of Fabrizio Coppo's next piece and it's exactly that. Three women: Ketevan Papava in red, Marie-Claire d'Lyse in purple brown and Oksana Kiryenko in a rich emerald colour. Kiriyenko represents sadness and melancholy. Her moves are purposeful and moving. Papava flames through her piece in red. Each time she appears on stage her personality changes. Her dancing is purposeful and coherent despite the agenda of passion. Vaganova trained Papava may be the best dancer working in the Staatsoper now. Why she is not an étoile is beyond me: there are far less capable dancers already carrying that stripe.

Marie Claire d'Lyse dances like a wraith. She's beautiful and dangerous, a lovely role for her and a pleasure for our eyes.

Again with Fabrizio Coppo you feel a bit in the seventies. Had he come to ImPulsTanz with this in the first five years, he would have been the talk of the town. There is a purity to his work: if Coppo applies himself over the course of five years, it could become less dervivative and able to stand on its own.

Attila Bakó's Attingo is a solo on Richard Szabó in an all Hungarian piece. The music is from Zbigniew Preisner. While Szabó is a talented enough dancer, solos are dull at the best of times. There is nothing in the piece which is particularly bad and nothing particularly to remember. But that is what Choreolab is about: experimenting. Not all experiments in the kitchen turn out marvellously either.

The final piece to the evening between two worlds is in an incredible soundscape built on music from Johan Johansson and Jon Hopkins. For twenty short minutes we are truly taken to another world.

Ionna Avraam enters a long a narrow line of light. Later she dances a duo with Davide Dato where for once we forget his short legs as he melds and parts with Avraam.

The lifts are high and other worldly. Avraam truly dances, she moves beyond her body into another world. There is good supporting work again from Papava and others.

Maxime Quiroga is the star of the evening. 

The other works which I would very much to have seen again include Martin Winter's "don't know", Andrey Kaydonovskiy's Dolce Vita and perhaps Fabrizio Coppo's Donne. But there are no guarantees with Choreolab veterans: Dan Datcu had perhaps the best piece here and subsequently left the Staatsoper and gave up choreography altogether. On the other hand, Nicki Adler a multi year veteran of Choreolab got his start here and is one of the best of young Austrian choreographers now. Patricia decided to give up dance altogether and become a lawyer. The uncertainty is part of the excitement of Choreolab.

Alas, you won't be able to see this program as it is a three day run and gone forever. Happily enough, the Ballet Club of Vienna filmed the performances several times and are menacing us with a video version. While dance on film is rarely the equivalent of dance on stage, hopefully Balazs and the others have captured some of the essence of these pieces.

Photos from Max Moser to come.

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.

Nina Poláková, normally one of the most expressive ballerinas in the Staatsoper, prances in at speed. An empty pastiche of Eduouard Lalo’s Namouna and Lifar’s absent libretto don’t leave Poláková much else to do than show off a silly smile. Strange to see such a deep dancer come off as vacuous.

Prima Olga Esina copes better with the absence of story. Esina is regal, each move effortless, beautiful, poised. She unleashes twenty fast pirouettes on us at the end of her solo to thundering applause.

In this endless talent show, Denys Cherevychko is up next. Cherevychko shows off with some amazing turning jetés. Clearly Chervychko continues to train hard: his rounded butt cheeks resemble the haunches of a racing thoroughbed. While Cherevychko’s confidence remains unlimited as ever, his bravura performance left me indifferent. A bit of texture and refinement would do more for his performance than additional acrobatics.

Next Irina Tsymbal and Roman Lazik dance a lyrical pas de deux. Tsymbal outshines all of the bigger names who preceded, with feeling, consant musicality and expression. Even Lazik shows off a surprisingly good ballon. I haven’t really ever seen him dance on his own. Even at this mature stage of his career, Lazik begun again to develop under Legris.

Maria Yakovleva put in a perfunctory but satisfactory performance to close out the battle of the ballerinas. Yakovleva was ever comfortable in the mask of the prima. Chalk one up for long shot Irina Tysmbal with favorite Olga Esina following closely.

While the costumes gleam, Suite in Blanc’s steps throughout are fairly anondyne. High leg extensions. Leaps here and there. Pirouettes and enjambés, like a ballet class. Curiously, Suite en Blanc was put together for the 1943 season in Paris to show off the capabilities of the Opera de Paris dancers to the occupying Nazis.

Lifar was the one personality the French got to keep from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Balanchine and Fokine left to America. While Lifar is an important part of French ballet history (the Opera de Paris credit Lifar with founding the tradition of technical excellence at Palais Garnier), I’m not at all certain that his work holds more than historic interest. Lifar himself described Suite en Blance as “true parade of technique, a demonstration of developments in contemporary dance.”

Happily, Nils Christie’s Before Nightfall is as deep as Suite en Blanc is shallow.

Built on the music of Bohuslav Martinu’s Double Concert for Strings, Piano and Pauken, Before Nightfall is a trip into profound feeling. Dark colours, dim lights left us in the solitariness of the woods. Elegant costumes, with bare arms. The men bare to the midriff.

Ketevan Papava, the only principal ballerina not to perform in Suite en Blance (exception Dagmer Kronenberger) from round one, quickly made an impression with her long expressive arms. In principle, she was in a dream couple with Eno Peci. Alas, Peci while both beautiful and dancing well enough, didn’t seem to have his head in the game, so Papava had to carry all the drama of the opening set herself.

Nina Polakova returned but this time with an purpose. With an emotional line to follow, Poláková floated like an enraged leaf in winter winds. Her arms bent back, her back opened. This is the Poláková we know and admire: not a show horse but an artist. Her partner Roman Lazik fully entered into the moment, a perfect antidote to Poláková’s angst. One wonders if Legris is coaching him personally. He has become a different dancer.

Liudmila Konovalova and Mihail Sosnovschi put in a perfectly satisfactory performance as the third couple but with less flare than Papava-Peci or Poláková-Lazik. In contrast, the supporting couples were astonishingly good, particularly Ionna Avraam whose talent continues to menace the stars ahead of her and the three men Richard Szabó, Masayu Kimoto and Davide Dato. The trio of men danced with incredible passion and intensity. At that pace, any of them could easily have taken the place of Peci, Lazik or Sovnoschi.

The final work of the evening was Roland Petit’s L’Arlésienne. Petit is most famous for Death and the Young Man (1946). Also a tragic love story, L’Arlésienne came much later in 1974. With a casting of real life couple Maria Yakovleva and Kirill Kourlaev, hopes were high for an incredibly moving and powerful experience.

The curtains open on half a dozen women in peasant dress costume dancing a jig with a half a dozen men looking like Italian sailors. The backdrop is a huge Van Gogh painting.

The Baltic damsel beside me leant over and asked if this wasn’t a famous Soviet work. I can understand her confusion. George Bizet’s loud and relentlessly cheerful Suite Number 1 and 2 hits you over the head like a marching band.

It turns out Kourlaev’s Frédéri is experiencing premarriage jitters. So we share a few rounds of the jitters with him. By the time Kourlaev is naked to the waist and running around the stage losing his mind, the intensity picks up a bit but Kourlaev seemed to be holding back a bit, not dancing with his usual abandon. Perhaps he has not fully recovered from a recent leg injury. Ironically, despite their real life love, Yakovleva and Kourlaev are not a particularly expressive couple on stage.

The evening is called “Masterworks of the Twentieth Century”. A more fitting name would be “Productions danced by Opera de Paris during Manuel Legris’ time as a dancer”. The only one worth rescuing is Before Nightfall.

I could see why the Opera de Paris might want to perform this evening to reflect their history. But I don’t see why we should face tired French works, when there is a world of fresh choreography out there and many true Masterworks of the Twentieth Century to perform first.

I would have to put the evening down as Manuel Legris’s second small misstep as artistic director of the Vienna State Opera Ballet, after Marie Antoinette. Everyone is human. What worries me more is that Legris seems to be working with an eye more on Paris than on Vienna. A program like Masterworks of the Twentieth Century would be welcome in Paris like Marie Antoinette, just the right calling card for someone who aspires to the post of Artistic Director of the Ballet of Opera de Paris.

General Director Dominique Meyer of the Vienna Staatsoper has just signed a five year contract extension. Hopefully he can keep Manuel Legris’ mind on the work at hand in Vienna. The best calling card for Legris would be to turn the Vienna State Opera Ballet into a world class company performing original work, not a second string clone of the Opera de Paris.

Fortunately Before Nightfall is a strong enough piece to justify an evening out.

Once more former artistic director Gyula Harangozo deserves a mention for the legacy of beautiful talented dancers he left  Manuel Legris to work with. Almost all of today's and tomorrow's stars who look so good now were recruited by Harangozo. Nice work.

Upcoming Events

For those inclined to more contemporary work, there will be eight original works shown February 26 to 28 in the beautiful Odeon Theater in Choreolab 2012: Young Choreographers of the Vienna State Opera. For many of the dancers on the program, this is their first chance at a substantial piece of choreography. Choreolab is always an exciting evening as all the work is new creation and there are almost always at least two main stage quality productions.

Volksoper will borrow some dancers from Staatsoper for another original production, Carmen Burana by new Volksoper ballet director Vesna Orlic with her colleagues dancers András Lukács and Boris Nebyla on March 2. The score includes Ravel's Bolero, Debussy's Afternoon with a Faun and Carl Orff's eponymous Carmina Burana. Volksoper dancers like Florian Hurler, Samuel Colombet, Ekaterina Fitzka and Gala Jovanovic who are normally confined to operetta and musicals will have a chance to show their stuff in original choreography.

Perhaps I was just inured to the slightly disappointing loudspeakers of Nova Scena and the strange jumps in the lights didn't bother me so much.

It probably also has to do with a greater chemistry between Romeo (Arthur Abrams) and Juliet (Natalya Némethová). It's not to say that Némethová outdanced the always stunning Katarina Kosikova. But she did dance Juliet with as much passion.

See for yourself:

dance of the Patriarchs

Paris Juliet mother

mercutio dance

mercutio surrounded by capulets

Mercutio vs Tybalt

mercutio dies by romeo

dead mercutio

paris attacks romeo

duo romeo juliet

lift romeo juliet

Juliet Lady Capulet

juliet ordered to marry paris

romeo juliet second duet 2

romeo juliet second duet

arthur abrams natalya

Romeo finds Juliet in coma

Lady Capulet grieves Juliet

Mario Radacovsky curtain call

Balet Bratislava dance of patricians 1

Balet Bratislava dance of patricians 2 2

murder of Mercutio 3

death of Mercutio 4

Juliet mourns her brother 5

Juliet mourns her brother 2 6

Capulet household mourns 7

Capulet household mourns 2 8

Rome and Juliet in bed 9

Romeo with Juliet 10

Romeo dies 11

Juliet discovers dead Romeo 12

Balet bratislava corps de ballet 13

• 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.

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.

Ulrich's underlying conceit is to divide Michelangelo's role in three dancers. This time the three incarnations are not sequential but simultaneous. Michelangelo's id dances with ego and his superego. A real artist does hold several personalities inside him or herself, from charming to vicious, from naif to lascivious, so the division quickly seems quite natural and sensible instead of contrived.

Much of the first act is a moving sculpture of naked men as Michelangelo learns his craft from Ancient Greek models and later creates his David. Michelangelo then copes with success and patrons who frequent his atelier and seduce both him and his lovers.

White gowned women appear and fill the studio with another tragic energy: all of Michelangelo's women are madonnas and harlots.

Ulrich bravely attempts to relay Vittoria Colonnna's discussion of art and religion with Michelangelo. Long time Ulrich muse, Irene Bauer offers a deep and reflective performance as Colonna but even she struggles with this bit of the libretto. Verbal nuance and philosophy are complicated to communicate through dance.

Ultich's rendition of the creation of the individual masterpieces like David, Study on Piety and Leda with the Swan are the strongest moments.

At the end of the first act there is a troubled scene with a man in ecclesiastical robes who represents Michelangelo's patrons. His arrogant patron convincingly portrayed by Ziga Jereb steals Michelanglo's lovers. The bedroom scenes on both sides of the projected stage lack the clarity of the other scenes and border on the sordid.

Sakher Almonem Martin Dvorak Irene Bauer in Michelangelo

Sakher Almonem Michelangelo beloved Wallace Jones Martin Dvorak Fabrice Jucquois

Irene Bauer Anna Sterbova Michelangelo

Ulrich Michangelo ballet tableau

In the second half Ulrich is victim of his own success. He has shown us the process of creation. He has revealed the complicated relationship with lovers, collaborators and patrons. Michelangelo can only repeat itself, in rounds of new works but the same torments.

Dvorak and Wallace and PG the orchestra do much to animate their roles. Dvorak in his long robe and long beard and long hair seems to carry Michelangelo's spirit in him. I imagine it's a dream role for him: to finally incarnate one of the greatest and most tormented artists in history. As if at last he can play his true self. Dvorak portrays Michelangelo's spiritual and artistic essence.

Wallace represents Michelangelo's physical side. With wide eyes and succulent lips and lithesome frame, we believe in Wallace's incarnation of Renaissance sensuality. Jucquois' portrayal of Michelangelo's love is more strained. While his movement is adequate he lacks the reflective depth and resonance of his colleagues.

The pas de trois and cinq with the three Michelangelo are occasionally magnificent. Bauer as the muse works around the great white monument. The eternal blank canvas or blank paper which torments and obsesses every artist. How to fill it adequately. Stefan Weinert's art direction is precise and deserves praise for its transparence. With a bare minimum of costume and decorations, Weinert builds imaginary palaces, sculpting studios, the Sistine Chapel. The great white block which fills a third of the stage is the only substantial props. Ulrich's dancers with their attitude and poses create all the rest.

Weinart and Ulrich have not collaborated for four years. Once hopes they will not leave their next work together so long. The right art director helps a choreographer achieve greatness as Georgian art director Simon Virsaladze did much to help Juri Grigorovich's work.

Wallace Jones is in top form and particularly gorgeous in Michelangelo. He handles the most challenging lifts of the other male dancers including the not insubstantial Dvorak and Jucquois with aplomb. The dance between the men is some of the strongest male on male choreography I've seen.

Ulrich's Michelangelo is a masterwork and and well worth the 1.5 hour train ride to Linz from Vienna. While at Landestheater Linz don't miss dining in Promenadenhof the which stays open after the performance with a direct entrance from the theater to avoid the November rain.

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.