THE 109th BEAD

Night no. 2 of The Dance Salad was Friday, April 18th. One great treat was being able to meet up with Nichelle from Dance Advantage! I am still amazed that real friendships can be born of talking about dance on the internet but it really can! The relationships we forge online in places like Twitter and Facebook can truly produce friendships in real life and I’m really amazed and grateful to find like minds and souls, like Nichelle, all over the world.

Act 1 opened with Royal Danish Ballet and Bournonville. An interesting way to open the evening and I still loved it. Then we immediately moved on to Manuel Legris and my happiness. Neumeier’s Sylvia pdd with Laetitia Pujol.

Paris Opera in Sylvia. Photo by Helmut Fohringer.

Let me take a minute to divert to a little side thought right here: my Manu hopped a pirouette. I’ve never seen him not turn perfectly and beautifully before. I’m not sure how many people would notice but I’ve seen this pdd a lot and I know this choreography by heart. It didn’t seem to bother him at all and the rest of the pdd was flawless as usual. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t relish seeing people that I love or care about make mistakes, I always hope for the best for everyone. BUT it’s a little comforting to know that even professionals, even dancers who are flawless, make mistakes and when they do, they keep going. When a beautiful dancer hops a pirouette, he doesn’t threaten to quit taking ballet class, she doesn’t tear herself down and question every and all dancing skills, he doesn’t whine about sucking, she doesn’t believe that she won’t ever be able to pirouette again and he doesn’t think the entire performance (or class) was awful because of one mistake. They keep dancing. So there we are, lesson for the day.

Next up was Sorrowful Song performed by Beijing Dance/LDTX. I feel this choreography all the way through my soul and it’s so gorgeous and so painful, it’s hard to breath. I’m not even recovered when Cygne performed by Samantha Lynch of the Norwegian National Ballet begins. The choreography is by Daniel Proietto and it is an ode to Dying Swan. The piece begins with a curious image of a boy on a screen and then images of the ballerina. From the moment Sam Lynch starts dancing, I am entranced by her. She is tall with long, long limbs that move between unearthly grace and a frightful ability to flail radically and wildly as if no longer attached. The juxtaposition of perfect swan ballerina loveliness against the angular jutting of neo-classical/contemporary positions is as striking as the ballerina’s black hair against her whitened skin. It is pain, it is perfection. Entranced, I realize that a boy is singing Tennyson’s Dying Swan. Is that live? It can’t be. It is. A boy’s soprano is devastatingly beautiful as a swan is dying. It is a perfect performance, the kind that takes you completely out of the audience and there is nothing but the stage, almost an out-of-body experience where the art pulls you out of reality and into another world completely. The entire audience has forgotten how to breath as the swan finally collapses her wings, there is a moment of amazed silent, and then the entire place erupts in applause.

Cygne. Samantha Lynch. Photo by Erik Berg.

We are besides ourselves as an audience but we regain composure enough to be offered the Royal Danish Ballet in a piece called Traditional. It was anything but. A contemporary piece, it is choreographed by Alessandro Sousa Pereira. Ida Praetorius and Andreas Kass in black pants and tops slink, slide, and move each other about the floor. It’s a great work that showcases this very young talent. It would have been neat to watch the two Royal Danish offerings back to back to contrast the purely classical with the contemporary.

Royal Danish Ballet. Photo by Bruce Zinger.

We end Act 1 with the Contemporary Dragon KungFu Dance Company performing Gateway and the audience adores them.

Contemporary Dragon KungFu Company. Photo by Li Huimin.

Act II gives us Elephant in a Black Box dancing Cel Black Days. This is a Jean-Philippe Dury work. The program offers an uncited poem which I share with you:

Youth is not a period of life.

It is a state of mind, an effect of will

A quality of imagination, in emotive intensity

A victory of courage over shyness

From taste of adventure over love of comfort

We don’t get old

For having lived a certain amount of years

We get old

Because we have deserted our ideal.

Years wrinkle skin; renouncing our ideal wrinkles our soul.

Concerns, doubts, fears and despairs

Are the enemies who slowly tilt us towards earth

And become dust before the death.

At first, I didn’t really like this piece, with its use of film and the girl who wears a top, doesn’t wear a top, then wears a top again. Why? Lots of angularity, lots of lost-ness, dancers moving lights about on stage. I’m not sure… it’s a work to watch carefully and then think about. In the end, I usually really like dance that makes me work for it, that dares me to dislike it, that makes me think and that sends me on a trek of emotions and mind. Good for you Elephant and Monsieur Dury.

Elephant in a Black Box. Photo by Ignacio Urrutia.

Next is Manuel, Laetitia, and Le Parc. I get the opportunity to enlighten my neighbors on the fact that Monsieur Legris is retired and how much of a treat that it is to be able to see him dance, especially in the U.S., since he really doesn’t perform that much anymore. I also get to tell them about the link between Manuel and Rudolph Nureyev and other tidbits of information about Paris Opera. My neighbors happen to be a very sweet grandfather who has brought his ballet dancing preteen granddaughter to the performance. I have enlightened a young one – points for me 😉

http://www.impulstanz.com/en/videogallery/article/173/

We close with tango. I’m still not a big fan but it has its moments.

Milonga. Photo by Tristram Kenton.

Afterward, Nichelle and I go out for nibbles to talk dance and close out the restaurant. I love being able to talk about a performance afterward with wonderful company. What a perfect evening! I wish we had thought to take a photo. Well, maybe next visit. It’s not like I won’t be back to Houston! 😀

**All images are property of The Dance Salad and the Photographer.

Thursday, April 17th was the first night of performances. It was a wonderful night full of energy and expectations.

The curtains opened to Elephant in a Black Box from Spain danced Nacho Duato’s Remanso. The dancers included Isaac Monllor, Lucio Vidal, and Jean-Phillipe Dury. Jean-Phillipe founded the company in 2013. I have to say that I really love the name Elephant in a Black Box; I don’t know if there is anything behind the name but it’s great! I’ve seen Remanso before and I thought it was cute but not much more. The EBB dancers added an element of energy and edge that made the choreography stand out in a completely new way. They actually managed to take the choreography from cute and move it to whimsical and interesting. Much love to EBB.

The lights come up just enough to give the audience a chance to look at their programs. This is really helpful because with such an expansive line up, it’s just impossible to keep a mental scorecard of what’s next. So we can see that dancers Ida Praetorius (loving her name!) and Andreas Kaas of the Royal Danish Ballet are dancing next. I’m really excited to see that it’s an August Bournonville piece because I just have not seen enough Bournonville in person and I’m always thrilled to get to see the real classical Danish Bournonville school in action. The work is a pdd of Kermessen i Brugge and it is just the most adorable bit of classical ballet you have ever seen. The jumps are gorgeous, the feet crisp – Andreas has arches that make you drool and then die – and the pdd is actually a whole little romantic vignette captured in one little pas de deux. This is the only piece of classical ballet in the whole program and I’m a grateful for it. Not that I don’t love the variety but ballet is my deep and abiding love in dance and I always want to see it represented true and well. Indeed, Royal Danish did just that.

Kermessen i Brugge, Royal Danish Ballet. Photo by Costin Radu.

It’s interesting that when Manuel Legris dances, he is still listed as being from Paris Opera Ballet even though he retired in 2009. He has danced with the company that he now leads, Vienna State Ballet, but I guess being an Etoile of POB, even retired, is how he is identified or how he identifies himself? Manuel and Laetitia Pujol danced the final pdd from John Neumeier’s Sylvia. I know there are mixed feelings about this contemporary version of Sylvia but I really like it. I think it is quite clever and there are bits of choreographic genius in all Neumeier’s work. I do wonder about the pdd as a stand alone piece though because if you haven’t seen the whole thing or don’t know the story, I’m not sure that it makes perfect sense but it is a pdd that Manuel dances often at galas, including his own. And each time I’ve seen it, I am mesmerized by the beauty and heartbreak of a chance at love forever lost. If Manuel Legris threw himself to the floor at my feet, you can be sure, I would not be walking away!

Manuel Legris & Laetitia Pujol, Paris Opera Ballet Photo by Ursula Kaufmann

BeijingDance/LDTX may have the coolest name of any dance company anywhere! LDTX stands for Lei Dong Tian Xia which literally translates to Thunder Rumbles Under Heaven. This is a small but formative company of 12 dancers under the artistic direction of Willy Tsao who is China’s biggest wheel in modern dance. The piece is called Treading on Grass and it is luscious in big movement; the entire stage is alight with dancers, there seem to be more than 12! There is so much going on that it borders almost too much; it sits at that delicious place where your brain is almost overwhelmed with amazement, like a double rainbow or a purple sunset, a whole lot for your eyes and brain to take in but you are happy for it.

A big, big act takes us in to intermission – Contemporary KungFu Dance Company. Kungfu and dancing is so much YES! I just can’t even… the company was created in 2006 by non other than Jackie Chan. It would be a mistake to think that KungFu Dance is all flash and show; it is beautiful martial arts technique danced full-out to cinematically, expansive music. It is a show piece but it’s also culture, wonder, and passion.

Contemporary Dragon KungFu Dance Company. Gateway. Photo by Li Huimin.

The Wortham Center has a large lobby area upstairs from the orchestra section. There is a small bar that has a limited selection of alcohol, soda, water, and nibbles. It’s a really nice space to talk about the performance with friends, even new ones. The Dance Salad is the kind of event where your neighbors are very friendly and even for a person with limited socializing skills like myself, I met lots of wonderful people who parted the evening with “see you at next year’s salad!”

Act II opens up with Beijing Dance/LDTX again, they are dancing a piece choreographed by Li Hanzhong and Ma Bo. It’s almost impossible to describe this dance such is the depth of sorrow and incredible beauty. The dance is an ode to the agony that is part of human existence. The dancers fight against the pain and suffering of death but of course, the fragility of humanity wins. It’s a gorgeous and heartbreaking performance. I am love with this company and with this choreography.

Beijing Dance/LDTX, Sorrowful Song. Photo by Wu Yi-Chun.

When the lights come up, the curtain open to a gathering of doctors coats on hangers that rise up above the dancers of Staatstheater Wiesbaden Ballet. A piece called Loops and Lines choreographed by Stephan Thoss is offered. Sometimes I make notes when I watch performances, mostly a few words or phrases to be reminders when I want to write about it later. My notes for this dance are as follows: crotch, crotch, a lot of crotch. Not my favorite bit and I have to say that sometimes I get tired of too much crotch being thrust at my face. Maybe it’s just me.

Or maybe it’s because Lines and Loops is standing in between me and the second performance of the night by Manuel Legris. This time it is the kissing pdd from Angelin Preljocaj’s Le Parc. I enjoy Le Parc a great deal and I think this pdd is one of the most romantic and sexy pdds I have ever had the pleasure of seeing in person. If you’ve never seen this ballet there is a DVD by POB that I recommend. It isn’t Manuel Legris but you can imagine it’s him, that’s what I do. This is the first time I’ve seen Laetitia Pujol dance this role. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Aurelie Dupont a few times and always loved it. Amazingly I think I liked Laetitia even more. This pdd is the development of romantic and sexual love – from encounter, resistance, conquest, to consummation. Laetitia gave more, her submission to love was complete, and her rapture consuming. I loved her. It was breathtaking.

Paris Opera Ballet, Le Parc. Photo by Gregory Batardon

The finale for the night and every night to follow was a tango piece choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui who doesn’t normally choreograph tango and doesn’t speak Spanish so that must have been an interesting process! This was the only piece that had live music – four incredibly talented musicians. The accumulation of tango dancers were made up of world champion dancers with crazy accomplishments in tango. They were very, very good. Tango isn’t my thing at all. The reality is that it just doesn’t do anything for me emotionally nor intellectually. And 30 plus minutes of tango is a lot if you aren’t crazy about it. But I will say that I was fairly well entertained the first night and I would still recommend this performance to anyone because I think it’s good for dancers and dance fans to see things outside of our regular range of taste.

What a wonderful and fantastic way to start a dance festival! I’ve had a great evening, I love it when a dance performance leaves you both exhausted and filled with happy energy! And there are two more performances to go 🙂

**All photographs belong to The Dance Salad http://www.dancesalad.org/gallery.html

THE 109th BEAD

Day Two of Fabulous Dance Salad

Festival Fun – The Dance Salad Part II