Miners and Principals Impress a Cynical Soul

A scene from "Why I am not where you are," above, one of three ballets in New York City Ballet's new "See the Music" series. It is on a program with "Estancia" and "Luce Nascosta," below. Photos by Paul Kolnik.

Head’s Up: Please welcome another contributor to the fold. The multi-talented Tamara Beck will occasionally offer comments on ballet, theater and concerts.

BY TAMARA BECK

NEW YORKERS lead a tough life: In one weekend, I saw a Doo wop show and Sheryl Crow in concert. I also made time to take in a Broadway play and a ballet.

I arrived at the Manhattan Theatre Club for a Saturday matinee performance of “The Pitmen Painters” with low expectations. I thought it would be rather lame.

Direct from a sold-out and well-received run at London’s National Theatre, this production from Tony award winner Lee Hall (“Billy Elliot”) concerns the real-life pitmen of the title. They are coal miners who take an art appreciation course and become renowned folk artists – The Ashington Group after the mining area from whence they hailed.

Christopher Connel, Michael Hodgson, Ian Kelly, Brian Lonsdale, Deka Walmsley and David Whitaker portray the men and their instructor. Lisa McGrillis appears as an artist's model and shocks the men by taking off her clothes to pose for them. Phillippa Wilson plays a rich art lover who offers one of the artists, Oliver Kilbourn, a stipend to spend his days painting. "No" is his answer. He is a pitmen.

The staging is simple and chairs are moved around to depict the hall where they meet, the galleries where they exhibit. Slides projected on a screen mid-stage show first the works of Titian and Michelangelo, then the works of each of the men.

The play also addresses what it means to be creative and anchored in your real life. The painters know who they are and develop a vocabulary of art and creativity that matches that of their more educated teachers and mentors. “The Pitmen Painters” has lots of meat and potatoes to it and, plenty of heart.

Meanwhile, New York City Ballet makes its debut at Lincoln Center this season. Also new is the seemingly annoying series, "See the Music," which offers glimpses of the ballet’s musical repertory and 62-piece orchestra. Initially, it felt a little like going to school – but not in a good way. The series continues in repertory through June 2011. The next one is 20 Jan. In the end, though, it proved very educational. (See we are always jumping to conclusions.) Fayçal Karoui, NYCB’s charming music director, explained the movements in great detail, contributing to my understanding of the three ballets on the program I saw.

“Why am I not where you are" was Benjamin Millepied's premiere last season. I was indifferent to it then. BM, an NYCB principal dancer and choreographer, has created a number of dances over the years. Although I still find it a little creepy – there is a mild stalkerish quality to the dance although it is more about visibility versus invisibility – I must report that it is brilliant. Dancers are in the same space but are unseen unless they are wearing brightly colored outfits. Once I "saw the music" as explained by FK before the curtain rose, it enhanced the experience of this distinguished piece. Suddenly, it had elements of familiar ballroom dances and each encounter was part of those dances. The set design by architect Santiago Calatrava added to the poignancy of this work, too. The structure for “Why am I not …” served as a platform for the dancers to "hide" from each other, to disappear and to be in another space, but behind each other.

The second of the three dances is Christopher Wheeldon's exciting “Estancia.” The story is based on a poem about a city slicker who falls in love with a country girl, loses her when he is unable to hold onto the wild horse she has captured and wins her back when he tames the wild horse. It is both realistic and fantastic. What could possibly be uninteresting about a dance with wild horses? Loved it in it premiere last season; adore it still.

I dismissed the final piece of the afternoon, too, as unimpressive. How wrong I was! Mauro Bigonzetti's “Luce Nascosta” (“Unseen Light”) has a fierce verve and terrific, complicated energy. Bodies move in a tangle; there is noise and silence; the stage is dark and light. Star turns for all the ballerinas whose pointe work made me gasp. Bruno Moretti's score is dazzling and enchanting! It is romantic and energetic – modern and classic – at the same time, with grand sweeps of sound to match the grand sweeps of movement and mood on the stage.

Visit http://www.manhattantheatreclub.com/sub-1011_season.asp for tickeets and more information about “The Pitman Painters”; visit http://www.nycballet.com/w08/ep-tickets.html for tickets and information about the New York City Ballet season, including “See the Music.”

Tamara Beck is President, Clean Lists Associates, Inc, an association management firm. And an avid theater-goer.

A Nation's Past Reaches Into Its Present

Sussing out what is an American, left, in "American Document 2010." Below, Jennifer DePalo saber-rattling in "Sketches from 'Chronicle'" and Carrie Ellmore-Tallitsch as a tired, poor worker in "Tenant of the Street." Top photo and middle photos by Costas Cacaroukas. Bottom photo by Kerville Cosmos Jack.

IN the 21st century we are a much more informal nation. So it is not surprising that the reconceived “American Document” opens without preamble when Kelly Maurer walks on stage carrying a suitcase while the lights are still up and the audience is still chatting. Some on Tuesday night are not aware that the actor's unassuming entrance marks the start of the Martha Graham Dance Company’s 84th season with the “Political Dance Project.” The season closes on 13 June.

At one hour, “AD 2010” is a sprawling piece that uses dancers from the Graham company, as well as actors from SITI Company and poetry from Walt Whitman, and diary entries from Iraqi War soldiers. This 21st century update of the 1938 classic directed by SITI's Anne Bogart and written by Charles L. Mee is more theater than dance. Still, though, it wonders, “What is an American?”

This is not a piece that the minds accepts quickly. For now, however, I can say it is interesting. And interesting is not code for dreadful, though a couple of sections aren’t my cup of drink. Because it is not often that one sees such a melding of dance and theater from a dance company – unless it’s the Graham company, of course – it takes a little time for the brain to make the paradigm shift.

In the opening section of “AD 2010,” the atmosphere is jaunty with a narrator in the spirit of P.T. Barnum. It’s morning in America. The players are moving around the stage, with carefree leaps and exaggerated movements of the hands. In a couple of clipped taps of the narrator’s drum, however, morning turns to evening. The dancers’ arms are heavier, their feet plodding where they were once barely touching the floor. The narration is more foreboding, rather than insouciant.

Yet, that question remains. In a funny bit the narrator asks several people who all respond in a foreign language. A couple ponders the essence of an American as they cartwheel about the subject. It’s distracting and Pollyannaish. Elsewhere, a “feminazi” is reading a screed about Muslim men and Muslim women, along the lines of shape up or ship out. While the sentiment is real, its manifestation here is contrived. Perhaps, these issues are too current, feelings too raw to be dramatized in this way.

The variation on the question invoking the diaries of U.S. soldiers in Iraq is the most engaging section of “AD 2010.” During the narration, the dancers twist and contort their bodies and crumble to the floor in starkly real death poses. An actor recounts a soldier’s tale of killing an Iraqi woman. Those were his orders. His anguish is palpable. It also raises the specter of soldiers who kill civilians. Should they be exonerated if they are following orders, as many claimed during World War II? Equally disturbing is a soldier’s account of killing everything that had life in one family’s house – not only women and children, but the dog, cat and goldfish.

After the soldier narratives, which ends with a chilling, tongue-in-cheek take on torture, the dancers embark on a series of abbreviated grand jetés, a strong and welcome counterpoint. "AD 2010" closes with the dancers and actors reconvening to assert, “What is an American.” Final answer.

“Sketches from ‘Chronicle’” opens with Jennifer DePalo sitting, her substantial black and red skirt covering her seat. She sits regally. Hers is a superior bearing. The score here and throughout the other two sections is foreboding like that of horror films and action scenes in Westerns, TV crime dramas and biblical-themed films. Danger is here, near and imminent.

Before the performance Graham company artistic director Janet Eilber reads the letter that Miss Graham wrote to Hitler’s administration, declining an invitation to perform in Germany around the time of the 1936 Olympics. That episode spawned “Chronicle.” The dancers – all women and clad in black, except for JDeP – convey the run-up to war, war itself and its aftermath, and the response to war. The contortions, sharp movements, arm and leg extensions and abbreviated grand jetés are breathtaking. The dancers are of one mind like The Borg. Their rigid synchronicity, chignons included, brings to mind the goose-stepping German soldiers. It’s a command performance.

With an oeuvre comprising nearly 200 dances, Martha Graham is likely to have created a number of classics. “American Document” and “Chronicle” are among them. So, too, is 1942's “Appalachian Spring,” which seeks to capture the imagination and optimism of America near the end of WWII. It debuted Wednesday night. The dancing is so persuasive and articulate that one imagines that it is speaking with tongues instead of a series of turns and arm extensions that can end in a deathly still posture of prayer. The weak link in this exquisite entertainment is Samuel Pott. His dancing is too restrained throughout and pedestrian in a few sections, particularly a few sautes, which lack conviction. To his credit, though, he lifts Blakeley White-McGuire (or she leaps) as if she is as light as a feather. In one section during a series of lifts, she is so high in the air that it looks as if she might sprout wings and fly about the stage like a butterfly.

Wednesday night opens with “Dance is a Weapon,” a series of solos about the power of the people to make change. Each piece was preceded by helpful and welcome images on a huge projector screen, as well as voiceover about an event(s) that inspired it. “Dance/Weapon” is wholly engaging. In “Tenant of the Street” choreographed by Eve Gentry, Carrie Ellmore-Tallitsch’s zombie-like movements to the sounds of traffic evoke the image of a locomotive, toiling to move the big train as the workers toiled to line the pockets of the bigwigs.

The most haunting of the nine solos is Jane Dudley's “Time Is Money.” Maurizio Nardi robotic pendulous leg and arm movements are in perfect sync with the ticking of the clock and the Sol Funaroff poem read by Margaret Klenck. He’s gaunt and dishevelled. His working stiff is little more than a serf or sharecropper – approximately one rung removed from slavery. His is a dreary existence in which all life deigns to offer is overly long work hours in less than ideal conditions for a pittance. No time for sleeping. No time for sleeping. Gots to make money for the robber baron ... Listen: Are those the faint calls for unionization?

For tickets, schedule of performances and more information about the Martha Graham Dance Company’s “Political Dance Project,” visit www.marthagraham.org and http://www.joyce.org/performancestickets/tickets.php/

Revisiting a Troubled Political Past

Martha Graham Dance Company principal Tadej Brdnik performing Isadora Duncan's "The Revolutionary." New York City high school students, below, in "Panorama." Photos by Costas Cacaroukas.

TADEJ Brdnik is wearing a black tank top and grey jeans. He moves around the floor in a controlled fury. The jumps, leaps and thrusting out of his arms are very urgent and adamant. They are determined. Indeed, they are righteously angry.

He ends Isadora Duncan’s “The Revolutionary,” with arms held aloft, his hands balled in tight fists, evoking another protest image: The Black Power Salute by gold medalist Tommie Smith and silver medalist John Carlos on the podium at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. TB’s entire body language in this piece, originally danced by ID, bellows power to the people.

Empowerment of the masses is the leitmotif in the Martha Graham Dance Company’s new season, the “Political Dance Project.” “The Revolutionary” was one of the solos performed during the season preview at a company fundraiser last month at Cedar Lake, home to the contemporary ballet company of the same name. The Graham company season opens Tuesday night (8 June) at the Joyce Theater and ends with an evening performance on 13 June.

In this four-program treatise, the Graham company revisits early 20th century America and many of the issues of the day i.e., workers rights, aftermath of the stock market crash. This look back also looks forward to today, which may cause some to muse, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

To impart this panoramic story the company is not relying on dance alone. This is a multimedia, collaborative effort that comprises film montages, spoken word, actors, and like “The Revolutionary,” works from other choreographers. Graham company artistic director Janet Eilber explains that she is staging the political dances now because of what she terms a current “fascination” with the 20th century. Another impetus is the ascendancy of contemporary dance. Further, this project is in keeping with the company’s continuing mission to tinker with ideas.

“We (the Graham organization) have been for about the last five years experimenting with new ways to present the ‘new’ classics of American Modern Dance,” says JE, who cites as one of her inspirations for this season “Stepping Left,” the book by former Graham dancer Ellen Graff examining the influence of social and political activism on dance. “We have been addressing what studies show us about today’s audiences – that they want more context, more information about what they see in the theater. So we have experimented with spoken introductions, thematic programs (like an evening about Martha and American Music, or her Greek themed works, or evenings that use media and narration).”

One dance that uses narration - mainly slave narratives in the preview excerpt - is “Panorama,” which like “The Revolutionary” is one of the solos in the “Dance is a Weapon” (debuting Wednesday) montage. When “Panorama” was first performed in 1935, it explored an expansive view of American history, dating to the Puritans through to the rise of the nation’s collective social consciousness in the mid-1930s. It took 33 dancers to tell the tale. In its current iteration, the 33 dancers are New York City high school students who auditioned for their roles.

While on Wednesday the students will be dressed in red, during the preview performance they wore heavily symbolic white T-shirts and blue jeans. Both the T-shirt and blue jeans are enduring modes of dress in America in a piece about American history. The different pocket designs on the jeans suggests the diversity that is the United States. Further, in one sequence the dancers disclose their birth country, making them hyphenated Americans. Yet what is striking is that none are Native American. Once again, the natives are virtually invisible in our diverse society – a shameful bit of American history.

The Graham company has a well-documented history of celebrating/challenging the zeitgeist of the day, never skittish about addressing controversial subjects - even snubbing the likes of Adolf Hitler during a moment in history when he was not a hated figure, albeit a feared one. The company is much like its founder who came of age in an era when upperclass women such as herself did not pursue careers in the arts, yet she did the shocking. The political dances, too, speak to issues that have the power to send shock waves, the passage of time and human rights laws notwithstanding. JE calls “American Document” (premiering Tuesday) the most provocative. It is an updated version of Graham’s 1938 work that was informed by the ascent of Fascism in Europe. It asks the fundamental question, “What is an American,” still fighting and dying words, even in the 21st century.

“This is not a dance but a theater piece created with SITI Company with Anne Bogart directing,” says JE of the ensemble troupe and its founder. “… It is performed by six SITI Company actors and 10 Martha Graham dancers and includes spoken text from a wide variety of sources – from Walt Whitman to blogs from American soldiers in Iraq. It’s very different from traditional dance programming and parts of it are quite edgy and contemporary.”

Hmmm … cryptic and intriguing.

Expressing a difficulty in choosing from among the dances, JE nevertheless settles on “American Document” and “Dance is a Weapon” as the ones she hopes will make the greatest impression on audiences. “And of course, I hope EVERY dance will be particularly impactful – that’s the goal that drives all of our work and experimentation with giving audiences context and new points of access.”

For tickets, schedule of performances and more information about the Martha Graham Dance Company’s “Political Dance Project,” visit www.marthagraham.org and http://www.joyce.org/performancestickets/tickets.php /.