JOFFREY BALLET
The opening night program showed the dancers’ virtuosity off in many contrasting ways. Nijinsky’s revolutionary ballet, L’apres-midi d’un faune, for example, created in 1912, remains a fascinating work still unlike any more traditional ballet. The nymphs and faun perform the entire work in profile, looking like figures on an Attic amphora, with movements that in their mythic, mysterious mood had an enormous influence on the development of modern dance. Charlene Gehm was the leading nymph, and Tyler Walters the faun. Robert Joffrey deserves thanks for reviving the seminal work.
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Arpino has said he’d like to give Clowns to every nuclear power. It should make the world stop and think. Clowns made the audience here stop and think. It left it numb and shaken. The score by the late Hershy Kay, composed of electronic bomb blasts and traditional orchestral music, is a worthy companion to Arpino’s own genius, and Edith Lutyens Bel Geddes’s costumes and Skelton’s lighting contributed to the bizarre atmosphere. Clowns was first performed in 1968. It is even more theatrically effective today. It’s certainly more timely.
