Posts Tagged ‘Joffrey Ballet’

From May 15 to May 30, the Los Angeles Ballet finishes its fourth season with the unveiling of four contemporary world premieres by acclaimed guest choreographers Mandy Moore, Travis Wall, and Sonya Tayeh of the FOX hit, So You Think You Can Dance, and LA’s Josie Walsh. Titled “New Wave LA,” the program presents cutting edge, innovative movement from some of the brightest beacons on the choreographic horizon.

LAB Artistic Directors Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary have commissioned new works each season – but presenting four world premiere dances on a single program is all but unheard-of for a classical ballet company. That three of the four young choreographers featured in LAB’s production come from the hit TV show, So You Think You Can Dance is no accident. In 2008, dancers from Los Angeles Ballet made an impressive appearance on the series, and last July, Thordal Christensen choreographed the first-ever classical ballet piece for the show. That some of the show’s resident choreographers return the favor seemed natural.

Mandy Moore’s caffeine-infused, witty “Wink” opens the show. Moore was inspired by “the world of Internet dating – profiles, coffee dates, second dates,” she writes in her program notes,”and all the awkwardly beautiful moments along the path to finding true love.”

In an early rehearsal at the company’s vast West Side studios,  two dancers catch each other’s eyes in passing and chuckle, and Moore hollers, “Keep it!”  Her rehearsal is focused and disciplined, yet full of humor. “Dance is so silly to me when people don’t react to each other,” she tells her dancers. “Don’t just ignore them – especially if they’re cute!” One of the choreographers for Celine Dion’s “Taking Chances” World Tour, Moore’s eclectic style has delighted viewers regularly on So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol.

Down the hall in another studio, Los Angeles native Josie Walsh is working with another group of dancers. Walsh danced with the Joffrey Ballet, Zurich Ballet, and Oregon Ballet Theatre, before returning to LA to found MYOKYO Renegade Rock Ballets in 2000. Her ballet, “Transmutation,” was developed from a piece originally commissioned for LAB’s first choreographic workshop last summer. It evokes the visceral interplay between “the male and female archetypal energies,” she explains, “the friction of opposition creating balance. If we didn’t have opposition, we’d be looking for it, for the wisdom of the middle road.”

Walsh creates movement organically, empathically on the dancers, making changes as she works to achieve integration of body, mind, and spirit. “I don’t like to dictate,” she says. “I use what IS, in the moment. My intention is to cultivate the Presence of each individual dancer.” The music – specially created for this ballet by Walsh’s husband Paul Rivera, Jr – inexorably throbs and pounds, ultimately leading to transcendent stillness. Award-winning contemporary choreographer Travis Wall left home at 12 to appear in The Music Man on Broadway. Runner-up on season 2 of So You Think You Can Dance, Wall later returned to the show as a featured choreographer. This year he was assistant choreographer and dancer for the Academy Awards show, and created a piece featuring New York Ballet principal ballerina Tiler Peck for ABC’s Dancing with the Stars.

Wall’s “Reflect. Affect. Carry On…” for LAB is a bittersweet love story inspired by Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” U2’s “With or Without You,” and Sigur Ros’s “Samskeyti.” His unique style is a seamless hybrid, melding elements of classical ballet and contemporary dance. As he shares his very individual dance vocabulary with the dancers, I am struck with the sense that this remarkable 22-year-old may be the Bob Fosse of his generation.

Her stylized movement relying substantially on aggressive one-on-one physical contact, Sonya Tayeh directs “combat jazz” and contemporary dance as a choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance. Her dances incorporate a personal, quirky style with the essence of contemporary technique, producing startlingly original combinations.

In “The Back and Forth,” Tayeh has created a flamboyant, show stopping finale for “New Wave LA.” With huge appreciation for their virtuosity, Tayeh’s shrieks of “Yes!! Yes!!” goad her six dancers into reckless, dangerous flight to Piazzolla’s “Libertango.” She is completely collaborative with the three couples, igniting fire and passion in their dancing. “When the matador meets the bull, the back and forth begins,” she says.

- By Penny Orloff

Performances of “New Wave LA” are on Saturday, May 15 at 7:30 pm at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center; Saturday, May 22 at 7:30 pm at Glendale’s Alex Theatre; and Saturday, May 29 at 7:30 and Sunday, May 30 at 2 pm at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. For more information, please visit www.losangelesballet.org or call 310.998.7782.

I headed downtown, sniffling and sneezing the whole way, determined to revel in the magic of the Joffrey Ballet’s production of Cinderella at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.  With a pounding sinus headache and hot soup calling my name, I knew that if there was one reason to leave the house on Thursday evening, this performance was it.  A ballet dancer through most of my life, I had never seen Cinderella performed and more importantly, this was the Joffrey!

To say that the Joffrey’s performance is a delight would be a gross understatement.  The inexplicable energy that comes from an impenetrable technique and preparation was abound on opening night; you focused not on the choreography itself, instead you were invited to focus on the story the choreography was telling.

As Cinderella, Victoria Jaiani was convincingly transformed from poor maiden to princess – her first scene having been dressed by her fairy godmother was performed with a shopoholic level of excitement.  The new, white, sparkling tutu redefined her as a veritable, although expiring, princess in every sense of the word.  It seemed her posture even improved.  In a refreshingly aggressive move during the famous “glass slipper” scene when the prince approaches Cinderella’s stepsisters first, Victoria practically throws her partnering shoe at the Prince to prove herself – quite unlike the demure, embarrassed display of politesse in the book.

One of the more joyous characters of the ballet, and simultaneously one of the most scarily talented on the stage, was undoubtedly the Jester, played by an enormously flexible Derrick Agnoletti.  Prior to the roar of applause given to him by the audience, he moved us through each scene at the Prince’s ball with huge leaps and great comic timing.  Likewise, the two gentlemen (yes, men) playing Cinderella’s stepsisters are so entertaining and flailing, it convinces you that while their roles are significant, these dancers aren’t being used to their full potential as stepsisters.

To put it plainly, the style of ballet performed in Cinderella is a kind of anomaly, at least when it comes to ballet performed in Los Angeles of, say, the last 5 to 10 years.  It does not fall into either of the most widely performed styles of ballet: Russian and Balanchine.  (Yes, balletomanes, I am generalizing.)  Choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton, who was born in Ecuador and whose Cinderella premiered with Sadler’s Wells Ballet at the Royal Opera House in London in 1948, the style and movement has much more fluidity than Russian choreography, but isn’t nearly as esoteric as a George Balanchine choreographed work.  It’s accessible, comedic, and yet no less impressive.

On for two more performances (well, three if you hurry), Cinderella is a gorgeous display of how well technique, set and costume design, and wit come together on stage for such a grabbing, beautiful, and entertaining performance.  Even the little girls sitting with their parents were on the edge of their seats at the end to see the prince and his princess walk off into the gold and glittering future.  As was I, actually, which was impressive considering my sickly condition pre-performance.  My evening had ended happily, after all.

Cinderella is on for three remaining performances: Today (Saturday) at 2pm and 7:30pm and tomorrow (Sunday) at 2pm at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.  For more information, please call (213) 972-0711 or click here.

Click here to watch a Joffrey Ballet produced video introducing their Cinderella.