Dance Cleveland
  • Subscriptions
  • Performances+Tickets
  • Companies
  • Support Us
    • Donate
    • Merchandise
    • Our Sponsors
  • About Us
    • Mission & History
    • Staff & Board
    • Presenting History
  • News
  • Contact
Purchase Season Subscriptions
Upcoming Performances
National Endowment for the Arts Cuyahoga Arts and Culture
Twitter Facebook
designed by FORM

News      View All   Press Releases   Media Coverage   Downloads

Sunday, March 11th, 2012 10:00 AM

Ballet Memphis revels in refinement in Cleveland debut

Some dance companies make an impression by trying to leap past the footlights and into the audience's lap. Others are content to share their art with more poise and subtlety.

Ballet Memphis is among the latter. In its Cleveland debut Saturday at the Ohio Theatre under the auspices of DanceCleveland, the company revealed that refinement, detail and unity are paramount. The dancers are beautifully trained and expressive, equal to all of more › the tasks set before them.

The repertoire Saturday gave the company ample opportunity to convey both extroverted and introspective ideas within compact frameworks. Each piece made its points directly, providing a clear sense of structure and intention, minus material that might extend the narrative beyond its natural boundaries.

Steven McMahon, the company's choreographic associate, explores joy in "Being Here With Other People," which is set to the third movement from Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Although this transcendent music needs no visual component to work its magic, McMahon's response to Beethoven is a genial frolic, with buoyant unison patterns, head and hip twists and playful waving that keep the action light and lively.

Matters are much darker in Julia Adam's poetic "Curtain of Green," a setting of a Eudora Whelty short story about a woman dealing with loss. Danced to piano etudes by Philip Glass, the piece focuses on memory and anguish, with the woman (Crystal Brothers) recalling her lost love (McMahon) in agonized gestures.

As the woman tries to resuscitate him, an African-American boy (Kendall G. Britt Jr.) appears to add mystery and drama to the tale. Adam finds a fine line between violence and compassion as the woman substitutes a caress for a slap. The dancers gave the piece a sweeping and touching performance.

Brothers was back as another troubled woman in Jane Comfort's "S'epanouir," whose title (French for "to blossom") refers to the protagonist's journey from calamity to emotional health. Kirk Whalum's score thrusts the scenario forward from blues to gospel, allowing the deeply communicative Brothers to interact with her vibrant colleagues with increasing hope and elation.

The company comes into full contact with its Southern heritage in Trey McIntyre's "In Dreams," set to six songs performed by Roy Orbison (who also speaks in one clip). Five dancers convey the songs' passionate sentiments in configurations of romantic and athletic design.

McIntyre's choreography is an ideal fit for the Ballet Memphis dancers, who abounded in personality, yet were always mindful of their place as team players.

The night's only work that eschewed elegance for virtuosity was an addition to the program, Robert Battle's "Takademe," a solo based on an Indian dance and performed to Sheila Chandra's dazzling bit of vocal chattering, "Speaking in Tongues."

Battle, new artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (which performs at PlayhouseSquare in May), mirrors the rhythmic eruptions in Chandra's creation with whiplashing arms, taffy-like bends and convulsive leaps. Britt gave the piece a performance of coiled and elastic brilliance.

cleveland.com-review.pdf

Donald Rosenberg
http://www.cleveland.com/musicdance/index.ssf/2012/03/ballet_memphis_review.html

RELATED COMPANY: Ballet Memphis

Friday, March 9th, 2012 6:00 AM

Ballet Memphis' Southern roots nurture a distinct style of creative storytelling

A whole lot of Memphians are converging on PlayhouseSquare this weekend. While the Palace Theatre continues to play host to the Broadway musical "Memphis," the Ohio Theatre a few doors to the west is about to welcome Ballet Memphis.

Huh? A ballet company from the city that gave the world Elvis, Jerry Lee, Roy, Otis, Isaac and B.B.? (Do you really need last names?) It turns out -- forgive the ballet more › pun -- that Memphis has been home to Dorothy Gunther Pugh's admired troupe for 25 years.

"We do things our own way, thank you very much," says Pugh, the company's founding artistic director.

"It's interesting that such a small city, and what in some ways is a depressed region financially and in other ways, would actually have so much creative spirit. It's kind of friendly to start-ups with an interesting idea."

Along with soul, rock, blues and other styles that long have flourished in Memphis, the city has opened its arms to Ballet Memphis' refined and vibrant artistry. Part of the reason is the feisty, vivacious Pugh, who recognized from the start that her company would have to reach out to a diverse community.

"I just knew with a European-based art form we could quickly dance ourselves into meaninglessness and irrelevance if we didn't find ways to appeal to as many people as possible," she says.

With Pugh at the helm, Ballet Memphis has never lived in a classical-ballet vacuum. Along with iconic dance works, including story ballets, its repertoire bulges with contemporary pieces inspired by the musical and literary culture of its hometown and region.

Many of these creations are part of the company's Memphis Project, which reflects Southern sensibilities in works set to music by local legends (such as Trey McIntyre's "In Dreams," danced to songs by Roy Orbison) or based on celebrated stories (Julia Adam's "Curtain of Green," a treatment of Eudora Welty's "A Curtain of Green").

The company will perform both pieces this weekend during its Cleveland debut, which also includes Jane Comfort's "S'epaniour," Robert Battle's "Takademe" and Steven McMahon's "Being Here with Other People."

Pugh says audiences around the country are eager to discern the Southern touch in Ballet Memphis' offerings.

"They want our viewpoint from where they are and what they see as our historicity," she says.

Identity entwined with its region

McMahon, a Scottish dancer and choreographer who joined the company in 2004 after studies at the Ailey School in New York, is still trying to figure out how Ballet Memphis' identity is so entwined with its region.

"I'm not from the South," he says. "I'm not even American. I discussed with my mother what it means to be Scottish. I haven't really arrived at an answer because I'm not sure there is one.

"But there's something about the South that's very nesting. People want to make a home here. Talking about the company, we're a family. A lot of us have been here eight years plus."

For Memphis Ballet, choreographic associate McMahon has created everything from "Cinderella" to a full-length version of "The Wizard of Oz" danced to music by some of his favorite British composers (Britten, Holst, Vaughan Williams).

He chose the last movement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto for "Being Here With Other People" (the title is drawn from "On Beauty" by British writer Zadie Smith), which he created in 2009 to accommodate the season's theme, "Joyful Noise."

"It was quite a lofty decision to do that," says McMahon of the Beethoven. "It's big music, and you're having to compete with something that's kind of already perfect. That piece has eight dancers. It's very athletic, and they're jumping around and it's cute and quirky and different from other things I make."

Building stories from feelings

Pugh, a fourth-generation Memphian who majored in English in college, says she seeks out choreographers who -- big breath -- "are not afraid of the written word and will really parse it and live with it and find actual nuggets and what the solid-gold themes are and can build a story."

The company has presented "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," for example, but not in massive productions. The Memphis versions are tailored for the troupe's 18 dancers.

One choreographer who shows up often in Memphis is Julia Adam, the company's artistic associate. She was a member of National Ballet of Canada and San Francisco Ballet before she devoted herself to the creative realm.

Several years ago, Pugh handed the Canadian choreographer Welty's short story about loss and told her to make a dance. The result, "Curtain of Green," is set to piano music by Philip Glass.

"This one is deeply emotional, but there's not a lot of story," says Adam. "It's mostly feeling. How do you talk about a grieving woman who lost a husband and went catatonic, in a sense. How do you relay that in a physical way?

"I haven't really grieved hugely in my life. I still have my parents. But I know that obsessive thing where you can't let go or move on."

Adam is among the choreographers Pugh has engaged for an upcoming River Project focusing on the Mississippi. McMahon's section (about Memphis) and Adam's piece (New Orleans) will be previewed next month during an anniversary gala.

"I'm trying to find some authenticity, being a Canadian girl," Adam says. "Ottawa is 40 percent French, so I might go back to colonial New Orleans and tie in old French-Canadian music. It has to resonate with me. I can't just make it up."

Pugh had no idea she would make a ballet company when she returned to Memphis after dancing in Nashville to start a performing arts group for children. It grew into a civic company and, at the urging of donors, soon became the professional Ballet Memphis.

"I said, 'Oh, well, I'll give it a try,' " says Pugh. "I can't say it hasn't been fun. I meet the greatest people. I've gotten permission to do some works by people who are big shots, but when it doesn't work out with the budget I say, 'Sorry, I can't afford you at that price.' "

Ballet Memphis, which has a budget of $3.3 million, is holding its own "by being cautious but maintaining quality," Pugh says.

As part of this effort, she'll head to the West Coast this week to hold auditions (with Adam giving master classes), even though the company has no openings at the moment. Pugh regrets not being able to travel to Cleveland with her dancers.

"I won't see the rock and roll museum," she says. "To think we could have had that museum. Of course, we think we deserved it."

cleveland.com-preview.pdf

Donald Rosenberg
http://www.cleveland.com/musicdance/index.ssf/2012/03/ballet_memphis_southern_roots.html

RELATED COMPANY: Ballet Memphis

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 10:00 PM

Preview: Ballet Memphis (via Dance Cleveland) March 10-11

On my recent trip to Minnesota, you might recall, I stopped in for a Saint Paul City Ballet performance and lamented Cleveland's lack of ballet. I was overlooking, it seems, Dance Cleveland's presentations bringing the acclaimed Ballet Memphis to Cleveland for two performances on Saturday, March 10th (8p) and Sunday, March 11th (3p) in PlayhouseSquare's Ohio Theater

While Cleveland hasn't had a company in residence since San Jose Cleveland Ballet more › dropped Cleveland in a dozen years ago -- preceding my arrival in Cleveland -- Dance Cleveland is promising that "If Northeast Ohio still had a classical ballet company in residence, it might look and feel like Ballet Memphis"

The company, now in its 25th year, is headed by Memphis native Dorthy Gunther Pugh has been said to serve as a cultural ambassador for that city's unique cultural heritage.

During their brief stay in Cleveland, the troupe will be presenting a bit of that heritage with a nod to another famous Tennessean: Roy Orbison's voice and six of his most popular songs provides the musical backdrop for Trey McIntyre's "sometimes dark, always passionate" In Dreams, described by the New York Times simply as "Exceptional".

Choreographed by Jane Comfort with music by Memphis saxophonist Kirk Whalum, S'epanouir comes to an end "with a hand-clapping gospel celebration". Though the piece "tells the story of a woman in the depths of an emotional crisis" aided in a transformation by community it is said that the piece has a more joyful quality than is typical for that choreographer's works.

Featuring the rondo finale from the rondo finale Beethoven's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Op. 61 dancer-choreographer Steven McMahnon's Being Here With Other People is said to be an expression of gratitude for the "'home-away from home' atmosphere that Steven McMahnon finds in Memphis"

Rounding out the announced program, Curtain of Green by Juila Adam is inspired by Eudora Welty's story of the same time and is an "abstract retelling of lost love, fear, and madness" revolving around a widow who obsessively tends to a tangled garden and whose rage nearly boils over.

I'm certainly looking forward to the unique expression of ideas that only dance offers.
Ticket prices range from $30-$45 and can be purchased at playhousesquare.org, via phone at 866-546-1353, or to avoid fees in person at the PlayhouseSquare Box Office on Euclid Avenue.

lincolninclevelandpreview.pdf

Lincoln King-Cliby
http://lincolnincleveland.blogspot.com/2012/02/preview-ballet-memphis-via-dance.html

RELATED COMPANY: Ballet Memphis

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 1:00 AM

Israeli dance troupe captivates audience

When Pam Young, the Executive Director of Dance Cleveland, went to Tel Aviv, Israel, to attend the International Exposure in Dance, she had an ulterior motive. Young was looking for companies for future programs. There were 40 dance troupes from 30 countries present. Young was drawn to Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company, an Israeli group. She set her sights on bringing them to Cleveland. Young not only succeeded more › in getting them to come, but to open their 2012 United States tour at PlayhouseSquare's Ohio Theatre.

Besides Dance Cleveland's usual corporate sponsors, the logistics of bringing in the troupe was provided by the newly formed Cleveland Israel Arts Connection, Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Mandel Jewish Community Center of Cleveland, and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.

An Israeli dance troupe. That translates to Klemzer and cantorial music and Sephardic and Ashkenazi folk dances. Right? Wrong!

The Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company blew away the capacity audience with the one-act, hour-long production of OYSTER, an ingenious creation which gives the illusion of a circus-world of wandering street people whose intimate artistic vision speaks of truths.

The full-length work is filled with dreamlike qualities which reminds the viewer of the works of Fellini and Tim Burton. It is set to the music of Piazzola, Leoncavallo, Harry James, Yma Sumac and the Tuvan throat singers. The latter is a variant of overtone singing practiced by the Tuva people of southern Siberia. The effect is mesmerizing and lends itself to an almost mystic-like involvement.

The troupe has 13 dancers who range in age from very young to 75 years of age, and are of diverse nationalities and backgrounds.

OYSTER is a series of scenes which are done with amazing fluidity. The movements require great physical control. It is both dramatic and comedic. According to the choreographers, the presentation is constantly being updated through rehearsal, performance, polishing and cast changes.

It's almost impossible to give a blow-by-blow description of OYSTER as it contains ballet, modern dance, gymnastics, mime, acrobatics, flying figures, illusion, dramatic lighting effects, shadow movements and the unexpected - all blending into a fascinating whole.

The printed program contained a column entitled "Dance Matters" by former Plain Dealer dance critic Wilma Salisbury. It was an interesting discussion, not only of Pinto/Pollack, but of why dance is important.

Capsule judgment: It's too bad that the Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company was only at the Allen for two performances. The positive word of mouth would have sold out many, many concerts. Let's hope that Dance Cleveland brings the company back… sooner, rather than later.

coolclevelandreview-berko.pdf

Roy Berko
http://www.coolcleveland.com/blog/2012/02/review-israeli-dance-troupe-captivates-audience/

RELATED COMPANY: Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company (Israel)

Sunday, January 29th, 2012 10:00 AM

Israeli dance company makes impressive Cleveland debut at Ohio Theatre

A world of dizzying images fills "Oyster," the work with which Israel's Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company made a winning Cleveland debut Saturday at the Ohio Theatre in PlayhouseSquare.

We appear to be at some sort of circus (or asylum), with the cast in whiteface and crazy wigs, as if they're clowns on the loose. What unfolds is a smorgasbord of funny, endearing and grotesque vignettes, a mixture of more › commedia dell'arte, Fellini and Barnum & Bailey.

In "Oyster," the most frequently performed work in their company's repertoire, Pinto and Pollak use dance and theatricaI elements with inventive expertise. Many relationships are suggested in the interactions of the 12 tireless performers who keep the narrative on its topsy-turvy, and occasionally poignant, course.

A two-headed man in an enormous coat dominates much of the activity as the inhabitants grimace with Chaplin-esque whimsy or engage in child-like playfulness with a dour clown and a ballerina whose bottom is bedecked with a little chair.

Many of the characters in "Oyster" spend more than little time tethered or otherwise. The most captivating moment finds Noga Harmelin, a dancer of remarkable grace and dexterity, floating in the air thanks to a harness and a colleague who sends her aloft as if ringing a church bell. At one point, she inches her way on pointe along the arm of another dancer.

The dour clown, played with a marvelous poker face by Rina Rosenbaum, walks two ballerinas around with red ribbons, as if they're promenading poodles. The clown soon cuts their ribbons, leaving them free to go their way.
Details both fanciful and dark pervade "Oyster." The two ballerinas bend down and perform a pas de deux bearing only their bottoms. In one scene behind a false proscenium, the two-headed man, dour clown and chair-bedecked ballerina enact a tale of violence and love to the Intermezzo from Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci."

The impeccable use of music extends to the work's other sections. A trio that becomes a quintet of bobbing clowns dances to a bit of Harry James. Another quintet of wigged-out circus denizens shimmy and shake to the strange, stratospheric vocals of Yma Sumac. One hot number, set to "Jalousie" played by Werner Muller and his Orchestra, features a couple dancing what amounts to a tango interruptus.

"Oyster" is such an intoxicating blend of movement, costumes (by Pinto and Pollak) and lighting (by Yoann Tivoli) that it's almost a let-down when the two untethered ballerinas amble tenderly upstage as the curtain falls only an hour after the work has begun.

But what could serve as an apt appetizer or dessert on a program with "Oyster"? As catapulted with exceptional energy, sophistication and personality by the Israeli company, the piece is a hearty theatrical dish that stands – and often performs pratfalls – on its own.

pd-inbalpintoreview.pdf

Donald Rosenberg
http://www.cleveland.com/musicdance/index.ssf/2012/01/pinto_review.html

RELATED COMPANY: Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company (Israel)

back123456789101112next