posted November 26, 2000 19:16            

This is a preview of sorts of a Diablo Ballet show that happened during Thanksgiving weekend. It talks of father-daughter music team Roy and Sharon Bogas who played during the performances:

Music a Family Affair
Peggy Spear, SF Chronicle

Reviews to follow. Meanwhile, feel free to comment. DavidH? No impressions from me as I've recused myself.

posted November 26, 2000 23:16            

recused = To disqualify or seek to disqualify from participation in a decision on grounds such as prejudice or personal involvement

posted November 27, 2000 09:51         

KT Nelson's new piece was the highlight for me. I have to admit I like here work in general, both for Diablo and ODC. I really was quite moved by the new work, though it could have used more rehearsing and fine-tuning. The duet for Erika Johnson and Viktor K.--in which she holds out her arms for him to step through and then uses this portal to cling to him--stands out. And now to seize on the insignificant: weren't the rhinestoned spats the women wore over their shoes just perfect?

"La Captiva" to me seemed curiously emotion-less. I thought it tried a bit too hard to look avant-garde. The choreography all merges into one big blob in my head now; normally interesting choreographic phrases from a new work will stick in my mind. There didn't seem to be much shifting in dynamics between the couple, even with the puppet-show metaphor introduced towards the end. The program note discussing "the imaginative and unrestrained qualities of transformation and transcendence" and "eternally feminine beauty evolving gracefully through time's passages" were particularly unhelpful here.

And, finally, Tina Kay Bohnstedt rocks!! A bang-up job in the Harlequinade pas de deux (anyone out there catch that freeze frame arabesque balance?). I love watching this dancer in all of Diablo's works.

posted November 27, 2000 12:11            

grace said

'yes, i know what it means...'

posted November 27, 2000 12:52            

I am reading my New Oxford Dictionary of English - and it says that this word is mostly used in South AFrica and North America (so maybe that is why it seems rare to those of you in Britain and Australia) and that it has attained it's present day meaning since the 19th century.

posted November 27, 2000 13:36            

quote:

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anyone out there catch that freeze frame arabesque balance?

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posted November 27, 2000 17:11            

Octavio in the SF Chronicle called the program "generous" while Blair in the Contra Costa Times thought it too "sexual" and "adult" for a Thanksgiving family show. Among our posters here, Belinda seemed not to let the programming bother her while DavidH didn't think KT's work belonged in the "family" program. In the audience, a former Oakland Ballet dancer and a current SFB principal thought it the best programming they had seen but yet a ballet teacher opined that it was a bit too risque for a family audience in that region of the Bay Area.

posted November 27, 2000 22:06            

I missed that beautiful arabesque, but I had a seat in one of the side boxes with obstructed view. Which meant that the dancers tended to dance on the 1/4 of the stage that I couldn't see. . .

It's great that everybody seems to have seen something different in the performance. The following is my made-for-internet review:

Diablo Ballet performed to a full house on Friday November 24, back on home turf after their triumphant San Francisco debut earlier this year. The program featured all that we love about Diablo ballet - fresh work by local choreographers, live music, and a classic Balanchine.

Nikolai Kabaniaev's "Instead of a Tango" takes a fresh approach to the ballet/tango fusion, remaining entirely within ballet and modern dance technique while capturing the spirit and passion of Tango. Tango is not just a music, or a style of dancing, but an attitude. A whole philosophy and outlook on life that is dark, melancholy and intense. Music by Alberto Ginastera, Astor Piazzolla, Julian Plaza and E. Saborido provided dancers with a range of Tango styles, from the classic Piazzolla to the crashing dissonance of Saborido.

Stage lighting was mainly dark, with interludes and flashes of light. A final scene, where dancers perform one by one as the spotlight illuminates their virtual stage-within-a-stage, dramatizes the sense of aloneness in Tango. Tango represents passion frustrated or unrequited as often as passion shared.

The title "Instead of a Tango" works on different levels. Literally, we have a ballet dance "instead of a Tango". On a more philosophical note, the choreographer equates Tango with passion. "Passion is disturbing and inconvenient, so we learn to control it. "Instead of a Tango" is instead of a passion. But what is still burning deep inside?"

"La Captive" begins with the starkness of two performers walking slowly downstage. Soprano Carole Klein leads the small procession sending her voice in front of her. She turns aside to reveal Erika Johnson standing alone and vulnerable in a red traveling dress. Erika begins dancing with a simplicity and innocence that makes the audience catch their breath at the heartbreaking beauty of it.

Set to three songs by composer Hector Berlioz, "La Belle Voyageuse"," La Captive", and "La Belle Isabeau", the ballet unfolds in three acts which represent a traveler, a captive, and a woman abducted. Choreographed by Christopher Stowell for Diablo Ballet, this world premiere performance included live musical accompaniment by pianist Roy Bogas, cellist Sharon Bogas, soprano Carole Klein, and members of a girls' chorus from the San Francisco Conservatory. The singers perform an integral part of the choreography, moving about the stage as a counterpoint to the dancers.

The piece seems designed to showcase the talents of Erika Johnson, whose remarkable performance certainly made us sit up and take notice. We congratulate Artistic Director Lauren Jonas again on her ability to balance and blend the uniquely individual talents of the Diablo Ballet dancers.

The Balanchine "Harlequinade Pas de Deux" was danced with enthusiasm and technical virtuosity by Tina Kay Bohnstedt and Viktor Kabanaiev, but suffered just a bit for its placement among the more interesting modern choreography. Viktor was convincing in his role as the boyishly comic Harlequin, determined to win the love of Columbine. Tina Kay dispatched her role as the flirtatious, sharp-witted Columbine with an ease that belied the obvious physical challenge of the choreography.

K.T. Nelson's new pop ballet "Its Not What You Think" is set to song recordings by Iceland's Bjork Gudmundsdottir, with five couples weaving through the push/pull dynamics of their relationships. Nelson relies less on the vocabulary of ballet than either Stowell or Kabanaiev, with her trademark athleticism and abandon. Men dribble their partners like basketballs, cradle them like babies, and carry them triumphantly on their shoulders.

As with many new pieces, it was pleasing to watch but had a sense of not quite reaching it's maturity. I sense that it will be even better in subsequent performances.

Diablo always manages to stage pieces that captivate the eye and tickle the imagination. It makes one wonder how they will ever choose "The Best of Diablo Ballet" for their January 13 performance at Zellerbach Hall.

posted November 29, 2000 12:39            

Of course the Oxford volumes are English English reference works, as opposed to American English. If i write on ballet.co I would always refer to 'contemporary dance' as opposed to the 'modern dance' I use here. Your use of the word 'dialect' sounds appropriate to me, Azlan. English students in Continental Europe have to write at the top of their exam papers whether they are using American English or English English.

It's interesting that 'emploi' doesn't appear in Koegler. I checked the Mary Clarke/David Vaughan Encyclopaedia, Kirstein's 'Movement and Metaphor' and a couple of others, without success. I first saw it in the same place that you did, where it was used as a bat to beat current day Artistic Directors about the head.

posted November 29, 2000 12:57         

--Why question whether Nelson's piece belongs on a family program but not whether Kabaniaev's "Tango" does? Nelson's piece has a serious emotional air about it but less sexually suggestive material than "Tango." Do we question it because Tango, though more sexual, is easier to, as many people put it, "get"? Or because Tango's sexual suggestiveness is not tied to difficult, "adult" feelings but is presented more for amuseument?

Does this parallel popular culture in some ways? I mean, that sexually suggestive content devoid of serious emotion or intellectual question is accepted on TV and in other media by a wide audiene, but funding Mapplethorpe's photographs causes a scandal?

posted November 29, 2000 14:33            

As I understand it, Mapplethorpe had received some monies from the National Endowment of the Arts - and therein was much of the argument. Also some of his photographs involved the use of children in very suggestive ways, which rubbed up against the law. Children are not legally in a position to give or withhold their permission.

Also, when work is exhibited in a gallery that is publically funded, tax payer issues arise. I am not saying here, wherein lies my personal approval or not - but I think those were some of the differences.

Whereas programming on television - except for PBS - is private enterprise.

posted November 29, 2000 16:42            

This is a familiar question that relates to perception I believe. How many times have we seen in social history an idea in the arts misunderstood and considered a scandal in its time?

Take for example the artists in the 19th century who started painting nudes sans the mythical context. What a scandal that caused, especially when the nude's gaze wasn't directed at the floor but straight out at the audience. But put the nude in a mythical context and everything's fine, never mind the fact that the nude is portrayed in an overtly sexual manner.

Similarly, I believe the two works mentioned, Nikolai's Tango piece and KT's Relationships piece, are different in terms of perception and context. The Tango piece presented familiar material; the passion even though intense at times did not shock, nor did it evoke any deep emotions. As you say, the sexual innuendo in Tango is now interpreted as merely a show.

The Relationships piece on the other hand presented the physical manifestations of deep psychological, emotional and sexual issues, none more so strongly than in the "central couple" in which the woman makes a defiant statement in the very last act by firmly pushing away her partner and bolting away. It is very clear that this is a work about a woman who is suffocated by her relationship and is desperate to leave. How do you explain that to a child?

posted November 29, 2000 23:36            

Belinda, DavidH, Daedalus and others, did you find this to be true as well?

posted December 01, 2000 12:56            

quote:

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Making totally weird work
By Rachel Howard, SF Examiner

The music is Bjork. And the movement is edgy. Dancers blow kisses naively into the air, then catch them with the force of a slap on the face. "Elongate this concept," KT Nelson says, wrapping Kyongho Kim's arms ever tighter around Corinne Jonas. "She's a ball of tension."

The same can be said of Nelson herself, engaged in the stomach-churning process of creating a fifth commissioned work for Walnut Creek's Diablo Ballet which closed yesterday after its two-day run. But a lot of her tension has nothing to do with dance making.

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posted December 09, 2000 13:30            

Personally, I felt she succeeded on many levels. The work indeed began on a playful note, with the female dancers running on stage from the front to surprise a dumbstruck Viktor Kabaniaev. The playful note was sustained throughout the work, with serious themes interlaced in between.

Nelson feels the serious themes are not only appropriate but also educational for the children in the audience. "[The themes] let children know that love is not easy...," she suggested, "Relationships are work even if they fall delightfully into our lap unexpectedly one day... In the long run something quite else is demanded of us."

Nelson also agreed with some of our members as to the skewed perceptions of sexuality in the comparison of her work to Nikolai Kabaniaev's tango work on the same family program. She asked, "Was the sexuality in the Tango, something more familiar and acceptable so that it felt more neutral?"

She defined the differences between the works quite clearly: "So the question is what are the real messages of sexuality in each piece? I personally thought my piece was about love and the work of relationships and sexuality happened to be part of the package. I thought Nikolai's piece was about sexuality... just one that has been taken into the fold of our culture and so it slips into our skin with ease."

All this controversy doesn't seem to faze this choreographer, as her work has made us think. Like most of us at criticaldance.com, she believes that talking about dance is an important part of the dance experience. According to her, "thinking about dance is very important. The only way we can stretch our seeing and be able to embrace a greater understanding of what we see is by talking. But how are we suppose to understand and grasp something outside of our cultural exposure without effort?"