Stanton Welch was back in the studios in late March 2004 setting
his new ballet Evolution for BalletMet's performance at
the end of April. It was a tall order since the piece occupies
a full evening with three distinct movements each depicting a
different time in movement evolution. It covers the primal, the
classical and the contemporary in movement style, costume and
musical accompaniment.
The layout of the evening is a actually a "devolution"
of sorts, starting with dancers moving to the music of contemporary
music artist Moby, who's Grammy award winning Play made
a mark on the popular music charts a few years ago. It is followed
by a stately, although whimsical, ballet to the music of Mozart.
The postures are more upright, bodies are more overtly decorative
and characters are more socially aware. The finale offers the
audience a taste of the primitive with dancers crouching low
to the ground accompanied by the percussive sounds of composer
John Antill.
According to Welch, each section presented its own challenge
for him and the dancers. Mostly Mozart is definitely the
most intricate with its complex rhythms and quick gestures, while
Wildlife is the most physically demanding for the dancers.
Play, on the other hand, has been a challenge for Welch
because of its use of pedestrian movement. Creating movement
that looks instinctual on every body is difficult because what
might feel natural to one dancer might feel awkward to another.
Play, Mostly Mozart, and Wildlife rely heavily
on costumes that accentuate the dancers' movements and mold their
bodies into the characters they play. The clothing, although
of different styles and reflecting different points in human
history, serves to tie the entire ballet together--this is how
we move in our skins.
The three sections also have the common thread that they all
build on classical and contemporary ballet dancing. The women
are in pointe shoes through out the evening and audiences will
recognize the extended legs, fast turns and spectacular leaps
from ballet's movement vocabulary. What Welch does in each section
is turn ballet on its head by embellishing ballet's vertical
carriage and precise placement with shrugging, tossing, melting,
twisting and swinging.
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Play
Welch pulls music for his look at contemporary movement Moby's
1999 Grammy nominated album Play. For its content, the
artist used blues and hip-hop as inspiration making it "much
more down tempo" than his previous work (Moby). What the
music lends to Welch's choreography is the backdrop of busy streets
and complicated relationships. Its addictive pulse will have
audience members tapping their feet with the dancers on the stage.
The choreography is a blend of jazz, modern dance, classical
ballet and pedestrian movements. Dancers swing their hips, shrug
their shoulders and flex their feet to Moby's driving rhythms.
The choreography also requires them to segment their bodies to
achieve a specific aesthetic. Their hips might jut out one way
while the arms reach another out of shoulders that are falling
somewhere else. They also sink to the floor and recover from
it in pieces, crumbling and rising in fits and starts instead
of one flowing mass.
The costumes were a gift from Express, placing the ballet
immediately in the here and now. Dancers wear current styles
making them seem even closer to the audience that watches them.
For a moment it is easy to think of them as people on the street
instead of people on the stage.
The costumes also play an integral part in building the movement.
Aside from their footwear, which directly impacts their movement,
the dancers learn how to cope with moving fabric and loose hair.
The men practice manipulating neckties, pulling them with their
hands and letting them hit the floor as they bend low to the
ground. In rehearsal, Welch suggests having the ties hang just
below the navel to achieve the desired affect. The women dance
with their hair unbound so that it swishes around their necks
and shoulders every time their heads move, They practice flipping
it out of the way so that it falls away from their eyes.
The evening opens with dancers sitting on the floor, backs
to the audience playing video games with invisible controls.
They flick their thumbs and occasionally shrug in disgust as
if they have just killed their last man. One by one, they pop
to their feet and don a jacket that is on the floor in front
of them. Their movements are jerky but calm as they blankly stare
at (or through) the audience. As the first piece of music ends,
they exit like mannequins that are half-asleep, their jackets
flapping with each jolting step.
The piece continues with the dancers simply walking deliberately
across the stage. They make a strange street scene, stepping
in time in ones, twos and threes each intent on following his
or her path. Only occasionally does a dancer break his or her
straight-ahead stare by glancing at another passing by. By the
next section, the characters start to come together in slow motion
fighting and long embraces. The community of individuals has
come together in a series of uneasy relationships.
The men, clothed in suits and ties, stare blankly at the audience
while they bounce to the music like businessmen going steadily
down the street to their next meeting. Throwing their legs high
and grasping their ties, they move in perfect unison to the music
that drives them from moments of control to ones of near frenzy
and back again. The women, in contrast, enter the stage tipped
forward from the hips. Wrists flick. Arms are thrown. They alternate
between smooth, swinging arms and stilted robotic gestures that
call to mind women getting ready to walk out the door in the
morning. They adjust their clothing and their make-up, pick their
teeth and end staring with one hand poised at their mouths, as
if they are putting on a last touch of lipstick.
The small ballet within the larger ballet ends with the entire
group moving across the floor with robotic movements as couples
emerge to be lifted and spun separate from the larger community.
In the end, all the dancers walk off the stage as if nothing
has been resolved, but greater challenges have arisen as a result
of their gathering together.
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Mostly Mozart
The next section of Welch's ballet is set to Mozart's popular
Serenade #13, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, or A Little Night
Music. He would never hear this 16-minute piece performed
in his lifetime, but it has since become one of his most recognizable
works. It is the second time Welch has used Mozart's music and
both times he has chosen to highlight the humor in the music
rather than the drama. The music lifts the mood of the evening
as the audience leaves Moby behind for the whimsy of Mozart.
The overall look of Evolution has changed. The dancers
have traded in their contemporary outfits for 18th century finery-corsets,
codpieces, skirts and knee britches. The dancing has also changed.
Instead of the weighted movement of the previous section, the
dancers bodies seem lighter, utilizing more of the classical
ballet vocabulary. They still wiggle their hips and shrug their
shoulders, but it is with a casual ease not present in the first
section.
The opening pas de deux was originally choreographed for dancers
participating in a ballet competition honoring dancer Erik Bruhn.
It has the characteristic quick small jumps of the Royal Danish
Ballet, where Bruhn received his training and gained the reputation
as one of the world's greatest dancers. A couple opens the ballet,
greeting each other as they begin their dance in silence. The
music comes in as they really begin to take off, bowing and spinning
around each other center stage. There are stretched feet, extended
legs and arms and the man supports his female partner in a series
of turns. This more traditional vocabulary is accompanied by
wiggling heads and spiraling hands as they bow to each other
with the attempted grace of European nobility. At the end of
their dance together, the two fall exhausted to the floor, as
the other dancers peer at them from the sides of the stage. The
onlookers ultimately drag them off the stage by their wrists.
The women often move across the stage holding their skirts
in front of them, but they also take turns wearing the huge freestanding
skirt that stands upstage. Several men lift a woman though the
hole in the middle of the skirt allowing her to view the rest
of the dancing from atop her six-foot-tall costume. What is even
more comical than the sight of the ballerina's tiny body poking
through her absurdly large skirt is watching her disappear inside
of it while the men who hoisted her up exit through its parted
fabric.
The rest of the women's costumes presented a challenge for
the costumers, since replicating a genuine corset from the 18th
century would not allow the dancers' bodies to move in the way
the choreography dictated. Instead, corsets were fashioned that
would have quite a bit of give in them while maintaining the
look of the original.
The men dance stomping their feet and women walk high on the
tips of their toes. They meet and the men kiss the women's hands
with excessive politeness. It is light and fun to watch, but
not overtly silly. In fact, Welch coaches the dancers that the
humor lies in their seriousness. He talks to the men about being
"animated" in their encounters with their partners,
but not "comical." As a result, the humor Welch built
into the choreography is not upstaged by the dancers' delivery.
In one section both male and female dancers execute a series
of quick gestures in perfect time to the music. Shoulders shrug,
wrists flick and hands slide up and down their torsos with each
accent in Mozart's music. Welch makes sure that each position
is performed precisely in shape and tempo. The unison must be
perfect. The combination of the simple gestures with the quickness
of Mozart's music results in a charming sequence that will surely
make the audience smile.
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Wildlife
Evolution's third movement is set to Australian
composer John Antill's Corroboree. His most famous work,
Corroboree was the result of Antill's extensive research
into Aboriginal music. The piece, which was originally conceived
as a ballet, takes its title from a ritual Aboriginal dance that
first inspired Antill in 1913. Rex Reid choreographed the first
production in 1950 for the National Theatre Ballet and Beth Dean
choreographed it again in 1954 for the Arts Council Ballet in
Sidney.
In 1995 Welch used a suite from Corroboree to set a
ballet for dancers of the Australian Ballet. What makes Welch's
ballet different from the two that came before was that his celebrates
dance that is not culturally specific to the people Antill researched.
Instead, it explores themes that are relevant to all people.
Welch's program notes for the performance read: "With the
blazing Australian sun and a pride of ten painted dancers, a
series of movements becomes a dance of life, of energy for all
mankind."
The men wear black briefs and the women are in black skirts
and bras. Their bare skin is painted. There is an energy in the
way the dancers move that suggests a totally different atmosphere
than the ones we have already seen in the first two movements
of the ballet. As they dance, the women throw their skirts between
their legs or allow it to billow around their bodies. The men
enter the stage crouching low to the floor and arching their
backs in a kind of prowl across the stage. Antill's music clicks
and screeches in accompaniment. While rehearsing the third section
of Evolution, Welch uses animal imagery to illustrate ideas to
his dancers. Coaching the men in a movement in which they throw
their arms wide, he uses the image of apes beating their chests.
As they approach a female dancer, Welch suggests to them that
she is a spider. She might bite, she might not. They are on their
guard.
Welch continuously brings up animal comparisons during rehearsals.
The dancers look around the stage as if they are on the hunt,
twisting and turning their heads to smell their prey on the air.
At another point he asks them to be more like crustaceans as
they crawl across the floor gingerly stepping high on stretched
feet and fingers. The dancers bend low to the ground, slide and
chase, stalking and catching each other at different points in
the dance. He talks about the aggression in their movements,
but also builds in moments of hiding and being cautious in the
midst of other creatures.
The piece comes to an end with the dancers entering the stage
during a pas de deux. It is a sensuous dance with the dancers
reaching and twining arms around each other's bodies. She leaves
him, backing up through the group of advancing dancers swaying
her hips back and forth. They all join in a frenzied circle dance,
jumping and running around each other. One woman emerges from
the group and throws her body into the middle of the circle.
She flails her arms and tosses body to the percussive sounds
of Antill's work coming to a close. In one final moment, the
other dancers come crawling towards her. They cover her with
their hands and toss her into the air.