ASFB: Undiscovered country worth exploring

Years ago, while watching master director Paul Sills lead his titular theater group in a rehearsal of “Metamorphoses,” he asked one of the performers to do a few dance steps. The performer, classically trained, gave a nice pirouette. “No, not the ballet,” Sills grumpily said. “God damn the ballet.” While my feelings about ballet may not be as strong as Sills’, I certainly experienced some trepidation about reviewing Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s performance at the State Theatre in Minneapolis last week. Dance, especially in its classical form, is an undiscovered country to me. The program featured three dances drawn from the last decade or so, two of which were commissions by the company. All three of the works avoided story – no “Swan Lake” here – and focused on the shapes and moments that could be built on the stark, black stage. A nearly brand-new work (it premiered last year), “Uneven,” opened the show. Cayetano Soto’s moody piece uses live music (performed by cellist Kimberly Patterson) endlessly looped, built, deconstructed and built again. The music is twinned with the dancing, where five men and three women (perhaps the uneven of the title) play out movements that build and retreat in different combinations. The movements are nearly as stark as the setting, which opens on a black stage illuminated by a single white light, and only opens up slightly as the work expands. This darkness causes the dancers to appear as if from thin air as they take the place of others in the choreography. “In Hidden Seconds,” a 1999 piece choreographed by Nicola Fonte, provides an almost immediate contrast. The stark, black and white costumes of “Uneven” give way to more muted tones, while the passion of the performers played out far more on the surface. The passion could be felt all the way through the hall as the piece drew to its emotional finale. The evening ended on a lighter note, with “Red Sweet.” Choreographer Jorma Elo packs the work with lots of little visual jokes that, tied together, create various dance sequences. A lot of these were entertaining--performers pulled off stage via mimed fishing lines, for example--and helped to steady the mood following the intensity of “In Hidden Seconds.” The humor stretched into the main dance as well. One sequence was a few bowler hats short of going full Bob Fosse, right down to the jazz hands. Taken as three discreet creations, “In Hidden Seconds” certainly made the strongest impression on me. The mix of movement, music (by John Tavener) and the performers’ physical control reached right past the intellectual side and right into my heart and soul. The other two pieces were fine performances, but I felt more of a newcomer at a party (well I am, of course) who wasn’t quite yet in synch with the crowd. So, no “damning” of the ballet from me. Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s performance was an invigorating, sometimes puzzling, but eventually rewarding evening that gave me a glimpse into another theatrical world. We’ll see if I ever take a full plunge.