Friday, May 18, 2007

Diablo Ballet: The Mirror, It's Not What You Think & Taj Mahal

Diablo Ballet may be facing an uncertain future, but one thing is for sure – the show will go on. As the company took the stage for its last home performances of the season at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts last weekend, co-Artistic director Nikolai Kabaniaev offered firm reassurances that the company will continue on next season.

Diablo Ballet may be facing an uncertain future, but one thing is for sure – the show will go on.

As the company took the stage for its last home performances of the season at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts last weekend, co-Artistic director Nikolai Kabaniaev offered firm reassurances that the company will continue on next season.

With the retirement of Ashraf Habibullah from the company’s board, however, the rush to close the gap in funding is on. Thus far, Diablo Ballet has reached only a fifth of its goal and the company still faces a July 1 deadline for raising the $500,000 necessary to mount its 2007-2008 season as planned, with the announced world premieres from Val Caniparoli, as well as Viktor Kabaniaev’s “Taming of the Shrew,” and Nikolai Kabaniaev’s “Once Upon a Ballroom.”

In the mean time, Diablo has another promising choreographer on its hands in dancer Tina Kay Bohnstedt, whose debut work, “The Mirror” premiered on Friday night. In this quirky episodic piece for two dancers, Lauren Main de Lucia dances a solo to her own reflection in a mirror, only to be joined --not entirely unexpectedly—by Matthew Linzer, a sometime partner, sometime competitor. Dressed alike in Loran Watkins’ pert black mesh and green skirts, they are nevertheless, anything but cut from the same cloth.

The style in which Bohnstedt works-- low squats, pitched torso and turned-in, crooked lines that break apart in key joints – bears some resemblance to that of European choreographers such as Jiri Kylian and Nacho Duato. Often this style is meant to communicate the rawness of internal emotions, the “realer-than-real” that lies under the polite exterior.

It’s an impulse that Bohnstedt leans toward, but never fully embraces, and the choice of Erik Satie’s introspective Gymonopedies and Gnossiennes gives “The Mirror” the air of a movement study rather than a fully completed thought. Percussive strikes of a limb melt into ripples through the body, in a way that tantalizingly implies a larger significance.

But as “The Mirror” continues through solos and duets, it remains unclear just where Bohnstedt is going with the piece. Is Linzer her masculine side, her antagonist, her dream lover? Any of these options could make for interesting explorations, but, though Main and Linzer look quite adorable side-by-side, not enough is established through the choreography of who they are to each other to explore any particular avenue.

Still, Bohnstedt’s work has promise. If her mastery of structure is still under development – the timing of Main’s final solo in silence, for instance, is a jarring miscalculation that seemed to confuse the audience – nevertheless, Main and Linzer create a tone that is both suitably playful, and yet also darkly serious.

The entire company looked at the top of their game though, in the sorbet flirtations of KT Nelson’s “It’s Not What You Think,” danced to songs by Bjork. Nelson’s spirited, offbeat jaunts look appealing on Diablo’s dancers, who are joined this year by Peter Brandenhoff, a former soloist with San Francisco Ballet, where he was notable for clean dancing and an intelligent approach to even the most minor roles.

He -- along with Linzer, David Fonnegra Jekyns Pelaez and Edward Stegge – makes a fine dreamboat, dallying with the flock of women-- Bohnstedt, Main, Mayo Sugano Cynthia Sheppard and Lauren Jonas-- whose pert curlicued steps match the curlicues on Amanda Williams’ foxy little 60s retro shift-dresses.

Also on the program was a reprise of Nikolai Kabaniaev’s “The Legend of Taj Mahal.”

This review first appeared in the Contra Costa Times.

1 comment:

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