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Flash Review 1, 5-25: Will the Real
ABT Please Stand Up?
A Flawless Rodeo, a Flawed 'Shades,' and a Tale of Two Pipers
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2001 The Dance Insider
One of the first modern ballets I
ever saw was Agnes De Mille's 1942 "Rodeo," on San Francisco Ballet in 1994. The
tomboy cowgirl was enacted by Joanna Berman, one of our greatest comic ballerinas.
I thought I'd never see an apter one -- until I caught American Ballet Theatre's
Erica Cornejo in the ballet Saturday, in a picture perfect performance supported
by a pretty perfect posse of soloists and corps dancers. The first ballet I ever
reviewed, in 1996, was Petipa/Makarova's "La Bayadere," also on ABT, in which
the corps so dazzled me with their picture-perfect synchronicity on entering the
"Kingdom of the Shades" that I began my review by simply naming every corps member.
Especially when seen as a stand-alone, as is the case this season, this act is
all about the corps, its magic resting critically on that first moment, as they
descend into their kingdom, their white legs moving as one. When they don't move
as one -- as they didn't last night at the Metropolitan Opera House, in the evening's
first moment -- the magic and the audience are lost, and it becomes just another
mindless parade of tutus. The good news is that on last night's second viewing
-- we'll also talk about a first viewing last Saturday afternoon -- David Parsons's
"Pied Piper" seems a little less silly, and a bit more theatrically sublime, even
if the choreography still seems paltry.
For me, the money moment in "Rodeo"
is when the tomboy cowgirl, initially spurned by the Head Wrangler and now, jeans
replaced with yellow dress, being wooed by the wrangler and the Champion Roper,
kneels to focus on the latter's tapping dancing feet. When he stops with a final
boom, she claps her hands together, as if to say, He's the one; at that moment,
she makes her choice. But there's more to it than that, as Berman once explained
to me: As taught to her by Christine Sarry, who in turn learned the role from
the first Cowgirl, De Mille, in that cupped-hand clap the Cowgirl is trying to
capture the sound the Roper's making with his feet.
Cornejo, in the culmination of a
performance as perfect as it was nuanced, didn't just capture the sound with her
hands. She leaned her whole kneeling body to the side, as a baseball catcher might
to snare a wild pitch, before clapping her hands together to catch the beat, going
Berman one step further in that moment. In fact, in the whole ballet she surpassed
the performance that had previously been my standard. What roped me in is that
in this role that could easily be played just for laughs, Cornejo went for the
pathos too; she approached it not as comic but as character work, both in her
acting and in how she maximized the character implications of the tools the choreographer
gave her.
It started from the moment Cornejo
first mounted her (mimed) horse, no pretend wooden stallion but a wild bronco
which she made us feel could throw her at any second. Then there was the restrained,
unexaggerated way she played the manly gestures (e.g., hitching up her belt and
pants) -- not for maximum laughs, but naturally. And the way she pined for Ethan
Brown's Head Wrangler -- not with her emotions over-played on her sleeve, but
subdued and just hinted at. One so rarely sees such naturalistic acting in ballet
-- where, after all, a certain degree of telegraphing might be justified.
The rest of the cast followed suit.
John Gardner's Champion Roper was a nice regular guy to Brown's strutting Head
Wrangler. Sure, he's the champion, but he isn't going around bragging about it.
This couple, Cornejo and Gardner, had lots to say in their naturalistic styles
for modern relationships, actually: They started as friends, he treating her like
a pal; then from this he seemed to see the potential beauty in her, suggesting
she try a skirt and then, when he fell in love with her, you got a sense it wasn't
just because of the skirt.
Brown hammed it up, but I'm not going
to complain -- his pawing of the ground with his feet as he prepares to "fight"
the Wrangler for the newly gussied up cowgal, like a male dog who smells a female
in heat, was delicious. Looking up "Rodeo" in "Walter Terry's Ballet Guide," I
see I shouldn't be surprised: one of the signature Wranglers is Kelly Brown, Ethan
Brown's father and his first teacher. From the square dancers to Rosalie O'Connor's
multi-dimensional Ranch Owner's Daughter, to Johanna Snyder, as great a rock in
the ABT corps as she was a rock at the Joffrey before, there wasn't a weak link
in this cast. Boo-hoo that we won't see them and this ballet again this season.
Speaking of families, this season's
only "Rodeo" performance took place Saturday afternoon as part of ABT's annual
"Family Day Gala." The kiddies seemed pleased with "Rodeo," judging by the many
bobbing cowboy and cowgirl hats in the audience. They apparently were not, however,
so charmed by "The Pied Piper"; if the kids onstage were following his tune, mesmerized,
the kids in the audience found the ballet hard to follow, judging by the chattering
which increased as the ballet wore on.
My colleague Susan Yung, reviewing
the premiere performance last Friday, nicely nailed the over-all problems
with this ballet. In the matinee performance I saw Saturday, Hector Cornejo succeeded
Angel Corella as the Piper, making his debut in the role created by Angel Corella.
Yes, he is Erica's sister, and all I can say is that these Cornejos must have
taken time out from ballet school for courses in Method acting, because they've
got that ability to match their dancing skill. Cornejo's Piper was boggled by
the powers of the flute from the moment dying senior piper Victor Barbee bestowed
it upon him. He went through the entire ballet, really, with a humble sense of
marvel.
Speaking of marvel, one of the problems
in this production, as my dancer companion Saturday pointed out, was the over-use
of the high-tech film backdrops. I'd add that they didn't gibe with Michael Curry's
low-tech rats -- small ones on very obvious sticks manipulated by humans, and
large ones on very obviously costumed dancers. Then there's the supposedly independent-willed
flute, whose tether we can clearly see as the piper dangles it as if it's flying
of its own accord. I'm fine with suspending disbelief -- we do this, for instance,
at puppet shows where the puppets are manipulated by black-garbed humans in clear
sight behind them. The problem here is that what's been promised is high-tech
marvel, and the "how did they do that?" reaction to these elements clashes with
the "I see how they did that" reaction to the more stone-age technology.
Then there's the plot -- even knowing
it ahead of time, this 40-year-old kid was confused. I think it's the choreography,
or lack thereof. Prior to the performance, ABT artistic director Kevin McKenzie
somewhat ballsily placed the premiere of "Pied Piper" on the same plane as the
premiere 60 years ago of "Rodeo," saying that the day after both, people realized
that the art form had been changed forever. But I think he's missing one fundamental
element: De Mille revolutionized the form, I'm guessing, by creating a whole vocabulary
which vividly brought the West to life -- partly by acting, yes, but principally
by (it's the) choreography (stupid). There are no horse puppets on that stage,
no humans wearing horse-heads, and no films of rolling clouds in the background.
But watch that ballet, and you see those horses, you are under that vista, and
you smell the tumbleweed. (Does tumbleweed have a smell?) In Parsons's "Piper,"
as Susan noted in her review, choreography-wise you see a lot of spinning.
The dancers amplify and clarify what
little choreography they're given with some damned fine dancing and acting. Even
Corella, not known for his acting, surprised me last night, when he substituted
for the scheduled Joaquin de Luz. I particularly liked the way his anger slowly
built -- and was manifested in the increasing tension in his dancing -- as he
realized the town leaders were going to stiff him and not pay him for banishing
the rats. Then, after he leads the children off, turns them into stars, and watches
their parents disintegrate, I actually believed the promised tone of this ending
-- i.e., that the Piper is liberating the children from parents who ill-treat
them. Here again the credit goes largely to Corella, who clearly, but subtly,
projected an alternating tenderness for the children, and disgust with the adults.
Chase Finlay, a more loose, lively, and less wooden Child Piper than Saturday's
Javier Ubell, helped too. And Brown, again, chiseled some fine acting moments
out of the generic mime he was given as the town mayor, particularly when mouthing
an empty speech and crumpling at the ballet's end.
On second viewing, some of the darkness
I was expecting from Parsons's 'Piper' was there, palpable. On second viewing
-- maybe it was this cast? -- this ballet did evoke a mood, and even cast a spell.
Perhaps it's a combination of John Corigliano's sophisticated, high-narrative
score; the way flautist Carol Wincenc highlighted its key instrument, emerging
first, as she did, onstage, with Corella and Finlay, out of senior piper Guillaume
Graffin's cape; and Corella's pinpoint musicality. Come to think of it, Parsons's
musicality is pretty pinpoint to. In this case, though, it's just a little too
one-note for me.
So this ballet is not a lost cause,
it has a chance; but I guess what still disturbs me is its lack of any kind of
varied choreography. Kevin McKenzie has told me before that it is supposed to
me "American...Ballet...*Theater*"... and that the 'Theater' is important. But
so should be the Ballet. Agnes De Mille gave the ballet world, including ABT (in
the current production, realized by stagers Susan Jones and Victor Barbee), a
work that was truly theatrical *and* still truly ballet, her ballet vocabulary
birthing the drama. David Parsons has given ABT a spectacle that doesn't really
live up to his own potential to create stunning dark works, nor ABT's potential
to *dance.*
....At least, that is, ABT's potential
as manifest in "Rodeo," and earlier at this year's gala. But not, however, at
least by the corps, in "La Bayadere," Act II, as seen last night.
The opening of this act, with descending
dancer after descending dancer, is one of those moments in ballet that can take
your breath away and remind you what it's all about -- remind you in the audience
of the elevation of spirit ballet can deliver, and remind you in the corps what
you've trained for all these years. But to do this -- well, this is one of those
critical moments where the corps has to remember what that word means, corps,
and behave and move like one unit. Ghostly white legs up and down at the same
time. Humans maybe wouldn't be able to do this, after all we're only human, but
these are shades -- ghosts. They can move as one, at the same moment. And the
dancers playing these shades have to, for us to believe in them. This was not
happening last night. Legs went up at different times; at one point I noted a
women 12th or so back in line lift her leg before the leader. In this act that
is really more about the corps than the principals, this corps lost me from the
get and it was hard for them to get me back. Ladies, look at each other!
The performance was not a total loss;
there were at least three performers up there who came pretty near perfection.
Amanda McKerrow is not your glamorous Ananiashvili-Ferri-Kent-Herrera star --
just that ballerina who goes out there every time and invests her heart and body
into every moment. McKerrow *was* a shade, ethereal, floating, pale, and perfect.
A favorite moment was when, leaning on Jose Manuel Carreno's shoulder, one leg
back, she cupped a hand before her mouth as if to whisper, It's all right, I'm
here.
Carreno was noble as ever, giving
only as much panache as was necessary for the role, and not overdoing it -- which
is not to say he didn't stun, particularly when finishing sequences sideways on
the ground, and then calmly and triumphantly lifting an arm.
Michelle Wiles stood out among the
three Shade soloists -- perhaps in part because she was the only one able to keep
up with conductor Jonathan Sheffer (why he??)'s too-frenetic playing of the Minkus
music.
In the ballet universe, what Kevin
McKenzie and his dancers and producers are attempting this season should be considered
ambitious: three new one-act dances by essentially modern choreographers (Parsons,
Paul Taylor, and Mark Morris) at the Met, where the conventional wisdom is that
only evening-length story ballets fill the house. Even the Parsons ballet was
a good bet -- I would have taken it. In light of the choreographically light "Piper"
that was delivered, though, and in light of the similarly high-tech, low-choreography
"Othello" debacle of a few years back, I hope Mr. McKenzie remembers that it's
about the choreography. Those hokey sets ain't the reason "Rodeo"'s still around
after 60 years, and this "Pied Piper"'s high-tech tricks won't (well, shouldn't!)
ensure it a place in the story ballet canon. Mr. McKenzie is doing a good thing
in trying to add to that canon; I just hope he remembers that the classics there
now are classics because they've got ballet and theater.
And looking back at the lax and under-rehearsed
corps of a couple of years ago, I hope this "Bayadere" corps will remember that
the magic of the ballet doesn't rest on high-tech props and scenery, and not even
always on superstars -- but just as often, on their own shoulders, heads, hearts,
and legs, and on their ability to really dance like a corps.
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