AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE
The signature of this work is restraint of a most tricky and un-American kind. The glowing chartreuse backdrop is etched with widely separated swirling black lines that are both sensuous and geometric; the simple draped costumes recall Roman togas without duplicating them, as the silvery headdresses recall laurel crowns. Nothing about this ballet intrudes, no feats force themselves on our attention–it’s about as far from busy as dance can get. As it opens we see six dancers standing motionless, three women in the foreground facing us and three men in the rear widely spaced to cover the entire width of the stage. The women begin dancing in unison, but only when the piano in Cesar Franck’s Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra is playing alone; during the orchestral portions they remain motionless.
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Symphonic Variations is purposely and almost literally low-key. Arms are often held down in undramatic first position, arabesques are performed flat-footed, leaps are low to the ground. But that low profile means that the occasional odd, abrupt movement gains tremendously in dramatic and musical impact. In the first section, as the women are dancing alone and in unison, they stand on pointe in third position, legs scissored, and abruptly pivot to switch facings–only twice, but in such perfect accord with the piano’s notes that the effect is spectacular. Much later the women again punctuate the dance memorably–twirled out by their partners into a wide, stable second position, they suddenly look energetic and gleeful, almost like square dancers. In a slightly different way, when the music turns mysterious the mere detail of the women’s drooping torsos gives the dance a sudden moody look completely at odds with its previous straightforwardness.
The work that preceded Symphonic Variations on this program offers an excellent example of the contrasts between English and American ballet–at least as practiced by Ashton and Clark Tippet (a former ABT dancer who died of AIDS in January). Tippet’s 1987 Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 is big and bold, with a large corps and four different pairs of principal dancers. The familiar music is enlivened by many entrances and exits and by bursts of movement upward, as the women are hoisted at arm’s length in all kinds of positions: sideways, upside down, kneeling and held by both thighs, toes curled, like some catlike icon. Male solos and ensemble dances show off the men’s ballon. This is an intelligent and well-made dance, with choreography for the blue couple in the first movement (Claudia Alfieri and Keith Roberts) that follows the sinuous, sustained line of the violin in the score, while the red couple (Christine Dunham and Roger Van Fleteren) is given more defined phrases. And it builds cleverly to an effective climax.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Marty Sohl.
