Pennsylvania Ballet

Inquirer, December 12, 2012
 
When Pennsylvania Ballet opened its 25th season of performing George Balanchine's full-lengthNutcracker Saturday at the Academy of Music, there undoubtedly were people in the audience who were seeing it for the 25th year in a row.
 
So what's to return for after all this time? Like a favorite holiday movie, repeat viewings only add to the comfort and joy. Even when you know what's coming, you're likely to get chills when it begins to snow onstage. And unlike, say, White Christmas orLove Actually, you'll see different things each time as the casting changes.
 
Saturday night's performance featured Julie Diana as Sugarplum and Ian Hussey - a replacement for Zachary Hench - as her Cavalier. Diana is a lovely, delicate dancer (though her arms shook uncertainly in the pas de deux), and Hussey, who rose quickly through the ranks and was promoted to principal dancer this fall, was a handsome, confident partner.
 
Caralin Curcio was a slithery, sultry Coffee, while Jermel Johnson awed with his signature explosive jumps in Tea. Amy Aldridge often performs Dewdrop, and she was perfect for the role, flitting in, out, and among the Flowers.
 
In the children's roles, Mary Lee Deddens danced and acted nicely as the multilayered Marie, with Juan Rafael Castellanos as her exasperating brother, Fritz. Christian Lavallie had the combined role of Drosselmeier's nephew and the Nutcracker Prince. He was valiant battling the Mouse King and recapping it later in pantomime to Sugarplum.
 
If you attend year after year, you'll spot rising stars in the program, as young dancers grow into bigger roles. Stephanie Bandura, who is Marie on the Comcast wall, dances the role of a mouse, and Lucas Tischler, an especially impish Fritz a few years ago, now is the Prince in some performances. Many of the Flowers and Snowflakes are company apprentices, Pennsylvania Ballet II dancers, or advanced students at the newly reopened School of Pennsylvania Ballet.
 
A repeat viewing is also a fine time to take in the low-tech effects, which astonish nonetheless. A few were wonky on opening night, breaking the spell a little: The Nutcracker transferred into the Prince costume a little too slowly. Mother Ginger's immense skirt revealed all the Polichinelles still inside each time one stepped out. And the Angels' costumes are a bit too short, allowing the audience to see their tiny steps rather than letting them appear to float across the stage.
 
But the magic is still there when the tree - and Marie's whole world - grows before our eyes, when the toy soldiers come to life, when the Philadelphia Boys Choir sings as snow wafts onto the stage when Sugarplum glides across the floor on one pointe, and when Marie and the Prince sail off in a flying walnut boat - even if we can see the wires holding them up. Also charming is the single bunny among the soldiers, perhaps replacing a long-lost piece.
 
All these small enchantments, supported by Tchaikovsky's gorgeous score, help make Nutcracker one of the rare ballets to appear on many must-see lists year after year. It's easy to see why.
 
Read at Philly.com. >>

Pennsylvania Ballet opened its 49th season with Giselle Thursday night at the Academy of Music and made it clear why the work has such staying power.

One of the world's most frequently performed ballets (with Nutcracker and Swan Lake), Gisellewas choreographed in 1841 by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, and reworked several times by Marius Petipa. It is breathtakingly beautiful, from the courtyard scene to the romantic pas de deux to the lush corps de ballet in long puffs of white tulle to the memorable Adolphe Adam score.

This run of Giselle is notable as the last dance for beloved principal Arantxa Ochoa before she retires from the stage. (She has already begun the next phase of her career, as principal instructor at the newly reopened School of Pennsylvania Ballet.) Ochoa was to perform Friday night, as well as in a final performance at the Oct. 28 matinee.

But Julie Diana, who danced the title role Thursday, was wonderful as well. Her strong dancing and acting and delicate features made her believable as a young girl, and later a ghost defending her feckless lover, Count Albrecht, from the vengeful female spirits called Wilis. Albrecht was played by her real-life husband, the reliable Zachary Hench, the flirt who breaks Giselle's heart.

Gabriella Yudenich, who was promoted to soloist shortly after her breakout debut as Myrta, queen of the Wilis, in 2007, reprised the role and was just as mesmerizing, her fluid arms and quick bourees as light and ghostly as the part demands.

That entire second-act scene at the graveyard was stunning. The corps dancers do not get much difficult dancing as the Wilis, ghosts of jilted brides, but their precision and lines are what make some fall in love with ballet. They were led by Barette Vance Widell and Abigail Mentzer; the two made a lovely trio with Yudenich.

There were a few missteps, and one was amusing: Jong Suk Park as Albrecht's friend Wilfred regally promenaded across the stage with two fluffy hunting dogs, one of which got to center stage, lost interest, and had to be coaxed the rest of the way.

The other lapse involved what should have been a light-hearted peasant pas de deux. Evelyn Kocak - whose charming performance as Wendy in last spring's Peter Pan led up to her recent promotion to soloist - danced proficiently but appeared stiff, nervous, and uninvested in the part. Her partner, newly minted principal dancer Jermel Johnson, usually an explosive jumper, nearly fell several times.

Giselle makes for a crowd-pleasing season opener at a transitional time for many of the company's dancers. Along with Ochoa's departure and Kocak's and Johnson's new roles, Lauren Fadeley, Brooke Moore, and Ian Hussey will be performing for the first time as principal dancers. So the entire run is sure to feature interesting performances.

October 21, 2012
by Ellen Dunkel
Philadelphia Inquirer

Read at Philly.com.

May 8, 2012
Roll over, Nutcracker, and make way for that feral boy with the aerial chops. Peter Pan has found his Neverland at the Academy of Music, where Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker has for so long reigned as the prime ballet offering for both adults and children.
 
Thanks to the spirited Pennsylvania Ballet premiere of this 2002 work by Trey McIntyre, Philadelphians now have the makings of a new children’s classic that can become a recurring treat in the repertory.
 
In his first full ballet, McIntyre eschews the Disneyfied approaches to Peter Pan by returning to the haunting and darker story of the original J.M. Barrie story. More recent theater productions of Peter Pan, such as the 2010 version by the National Theater of Scotland, also re-discover the disturbing story of an eternally youthful boy relating to fantastical and real worlds.
 
You won’t see much innovative choreographic invention in this work, but you will see totally committed dancers embodying a compelling story. McIntyre has mined the original tale to illustrate how the Lost Boys gather in Neverland. Early in the first act we see three outsized nannies walking three similarly outsized perambulators; when one overactive “child” rolls out of one, he’s swept with a broom offstage and, as the story goes, when unclaimed is sent away to Neverland.
 
Sniffing the bedclothes
Peter was well portrayed by Amir Yogev at a Sunday matinee performance, exhibiting his feral side as he first sniffed all the bed clothing in Wendy’s bedroom after his arrival flight. Yogev’s physical dynamism and control of the space manifests the Pan character’s youthful energy, but the choreographer may have missed some of the poignancies in the boy’s outsider status and in his relations with those who, like Wendy, expect him to grow up.
 
Wendy, danced by Lauren Fadeley, perfectly realized the child and woman aspects of this role. Her concluding solo as Peter flew away was memorably wistful.
 
Zachary Hench made a lasting impression on my four-year-old date, Amelia, who, like her grandfather, admired his ability to combine comical menace within the character. Of the ensemble dances, the animated dance of the Red Skins (a name well worth changing for these times) stood out for its visceral earthiness, appropriate to a dance for a Rite of Spring.
 
Flying debut
Peter Pan also appeared to be a flying debut for the Pennsylvania Ballet, which employed aerial dance as an integral element to this story. Yogev seemed as comfortable in the air as on the ground, and when he crossed his arms across his chest with his legs in a diamond shape, his revolving upward ascent had the effect of a lunar rocket blastoff.
 
The first aerial ascent of Wendy and her siblings was magically commenced as Peter gave a light lift to Wendy’s extended foot. I wished for more extended and choreographed aerial dance, but there was enough here to elicit Amelia’s response: “I wish I could fly.” (Someday I’ll tell her about the Amelia who did fly.)
 
Slithering crocodile
Thomas Boyd’s scenic design ably created the illusionist spaces of Neverland’s flowered and forested landscape, the intimidating pirate ship interior, and the Darling bedroom full of watchful nannies and visiting fairies. Jeanne Button met the challenge of widely divergent, yet singular, costume designs for an extraordinary cast of characters. The Elgar music, collaged from various works by arranger Niel DePonte, sufficed to provide the range of sound to accompany this work.
 
A 15-foot-long crocodile made two slithering solos, albeit without a cowering Captain Hook or the sound of a ticking clock. Perhaps a future production can offer up some ominous ticks from the beast. But even without them, this Peter Pan has the makings of a classic that will enthrall and delight those of all ages.
 
Perhaps this success might provide a catalyst for the gleaning of other mythic children’s stories from the rich literature out there, giving theNutcracker some competition while also giving the public new access into all those children’s stories whose appeal transcends age boundaries.
 
By Jonathan M. Stein
Read at broadstreetreview.com.

by Susan Lewis
WRTI
May 7, 2012

A fantasy born over a hundred years ago continues to resonate today. As Pennsylvania Ballet stages Peter Pan, set to the music of Sir Edward Elgar, WRTI's Susan Lewis considers the boy who wouldn't grow up and his relevance to our lives today.

Listen at WRTI.org.

by Ellen Dunkel
The Inquirer
March 10, 2012
Art and religion are frequent companions, and Pennsylvania Ballet's Messiah, which opened Thursday night at the Academy of Music, is, not surprisingly, steeped in Christianity.
 
During this Lenten season, many audience members may appreciate a balletic look at Jesus' life, death, and impact. But while Handel's Messiah is magnificent no matter what one's leanings, the 21/4-hour-long ballet (including an intermission and a significant pause), set to the complete Handel oratorio, may seem a bit of a haul for others.
 
Choreographed in 1998 by Robert Weiss, who was Pennsylvania Ballet's artistic director from 1982 to 1990, Messiah is a grand undertaking, featuring the side-stage Philadelphia Singers with four soloists, two dozen dancers, and the ballet orchestra.
 
Thursday's dancers, occasionally overshadowed by the intensity of the chorus, might have made their movements larger, but they performed very well. Especially notable were the men, including Ian Hussey and Francis Veyette, and Zachary Hench as Jesus.
 
In one beautiful section, Veyette partnered two women, Barette Vance Widell and Arantxa Ochoa, dressed in white. At times, he had both promenading or turning, requiring great strength from all three. In another section, pairs of dancers stretched out yards of fabric that rippled over the floor like water, as Hench walked atop it.
 
At a particularly quick and breathtaking point, several men threw Hench nearly onto the backs of three dancers; three men caught him at the last minute. The "Hallelujah Chorus," with the full cast of dancers, closed out the first part of the ballet with a bang.
 
At another point, the cast, all in white, lined up at the lip of the stage, leaning and supporting one another. Hench was weighted down by a great cross, which looked even more poignant in shadow against the backdrop. Finally, attached to a cable, he spun and rose toward heaven.
 
But one section ("Why do the nations so furiously rage together") baffled, and almost made the entire ballet jump the shark. In it, the dancers waved flags of various countries and causes, including that of the Confederacy. Some performed hand-to-hand combat with sticks, others goose-stepped like Nazis, a group vibrated as though firing machine guns. And then Hench, as Jesus, leaped back on stage and restored calm.
 
No question, Messiah looks good on Pennsylvania Ballet, and clearly some will love it. But it may not be for everyone.
 
Read at philly.com.
 

By Ellen Dunkel
The Inquirer
February 11, 2012
Pennsylvania Ballet principal dancer Riolama Lorenzo's final performance before retiring is Sunday, but it was already a lovefest Thursday night, when the company opened its Pushing Boundaries series at the Merriam Theater.
 
The theater was buzzing with talk of Lorenzo, both before the show and during the two intermissions. And she didn't disappoint, dancing two Matthew Neenan ballets: 11:11, set to six songs by Rufus Wainwright, andKeep, in a gorgeous, mature pas de deux with Zachary Hench.
 
Created in 2009, Keep is a beautiful ballet, featuring a suite of, mostly, duets about relationships, set to string quartets by Alexander Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. But it also could be interpreted as Lorenzo's bittersweet bourrée into the next phase of her life, as fresh-faced dancers in pink eagerly fill the gap. Lorenzo, in a yellow gown, stands in the shadows during a long section, then kneels to lean over a fallen colleague and, with bits of chiffon floating around her, melts into her partner in pirouettes and dramatic ports de bras.
 
The piece ends with Lorenzo alone on stage, spinning on a stool as the curtain comes down.
 
Neenan's 11:11 from 2005 is one of his classic works, a well-paced suite of dances featuring a large cast pulsating as the seconds tick off in the music, and rotating in a Bolero-like circle to Wainwright's "Oh What a World," which includes a nod to the Ravel composition. A man picks up a woman and rotates her clockwise, her legs like hands of the clock.
 
The evening opened with The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, by William Forsythe, a 1996 ballet of great speed and - ideally - precision, set to the last movement of Schubert's Symphony No. 9 in C major.
 
It felt like an audition for future Pennsylvania Ballet principal dancers, and perhaps it was. All the company's principals danced Thursday night, but Vertiginous Thrill featured three female soloists (Lauren Fadeley, Brooke Moore, and Barette Vance Widell) and two men from the corps de ballet (Andrew Daly and Tyler Savoie).
 
All were up to the task, but few got the exactitude. My audition callback goes to Fadeley, who had the most precise footwork while projecting an air of fun and ease.
 
Read at philly.com.
 

By Ellen Dunkel
The Inquirer
December 12, 2011
Fresh off a seven-performance tour of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker to Ottawa, Pennsylvania Ballet opened at home Saturday night with a polished performance at the Academy of Music.
 
The principal children - Mary Lee Deddens as Marie, Juan Rafael Castellanos as her brother Fritz, and Christian Lavallie as the Prince - are adorable and all danced well, but they also drew the audience in with a believable sense of wonder.
 
Pennsylvania Ballet is a small company, so most dancers perform more than one role, which only adds to the transformative feel of the story. Lauren Carfolite and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan are Maids serving drinks in Act 1 and turn into Tea in Act 2. Most of the Snowflakes blossom into Flowers. Holly Lynn Fusco was the Harlequin doll in Act 1, a Snowflake at the beginning of Act 2, and then the lead Marzipan Shepherdess later in the show, performing all flawlessly.
 
Amy Aldridge is an ideal Sugar Plum, smiling and beautiful. She upped the role on Saturday, with great reactions as the Prince mimed his battle with the Mouse King. She also added extra turns to her pirouettes, twice doing four rotations. Only her partnering with Zachary Hench as her Cavalier now and then seemed forced.
 
Barette Vance Widell danced Dewdrop, a gorgeous fairy who jetés and flits on and off stage among the flowers. Her solo featured a set of fouettés that she finished with a fast double turn.
 
Other notables include Brooke Moore as the female lead in Hot Chocolate, who performs in a group of 10 dancers but is magnetic in the role. Alexander Peters, an apprentice, was a sharp, precise Soldier doll, something the part demands but doesn't always get.
 
Riolama Lorenzo has been off the stage for several months, and it was wonderful to see her back as the sultry Coffee, performing with a bare midriff and sixpack abs that made it hard to believe she had a baby girl in July. There won't be many more opportunities to see her, though; she is retiring from the company in February.
 
Jermel Johnson excels in roles that require high jumps and extreme flexibility, and he brought both to Tea, with Carfolite and Ryan. This is the one divertissement that, while entertaining, also seems extremely dated, with non-Asian dancers representing Chinese people and performing stereotypical movements. Yet somehow, with an African-American man and two white women in the roles, the politically incorrect aspect was played down.
 
One section that needs work is the Angel dance. The children in beautiful costumes are a joy to watch, but they do not float as they do in New York City Ballet, which dances the same Balanchine choreography. Either the children's steps need to be smaller and faster or the dresses longer, to hide their feet.
 
With low-tech magic and a top-notch cast, Nutcracker is a holiday favorite for good reason. Catch it if you can. If you can't, stop by the Comcast Center, where Pennsylvania Ballet is part of the new holiday show on the wall.
 
Through Dec. 31 at the Academy of Music. $20-$140. 215-893-1999 or www.paballet.org.

by Alastair Macaulay
The New York Times
October 21, 2011
Does a month go by without some kind of premiere by the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky? In April the Bolshoi danced the world premiere of his three-act “Lost Illusions;” in May American Ballet Theater presented the world premiere of “Dumbarton,” and in June, its first New York performances of his full-length “Bright Stream”; in July the Mariinsky Ballet gave New York its first view of his “Anna Karenina” and “Little Humpbacked Horse”; and in September the Paris Opera Ballet gave the world premiere of “Psyché,” based on the Greek myth. On Thursday the Pennsylvania Ballet presented the North American premiere of Mr. Ratmansky’s “Jeu de Cartes.” It would be nice to think the guy took August off as a well-earned vacation, but I wouldn’t bank on it.
 
The “Jeu de Cartes” that the Pennsylvania Ballet is dancing this week at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, as the centerpiece of a triple bill, was first danced by the Bolshoi in 2005. Its score is the one Stravinsky composed for a world premiere in 1937, choreographed by George Balanchine, in which poker became comic drama, and cards were dancers.
 
The Pennsylvania production includes a note from Mr. Ratmansky: “We are not card players; there will be no cards in this ballet. The meaning of the original title, which we have kept, may be interpreted as follows: to dance to music by Stravinsky is always a bit of a gamble — how not to lose count. We will go for broke!” And when the Bolshoi danced the ballet in London in 2006, “Go for Broke” was its title.
 
As that suggests, this “Jeu de Cartes” is a high-energy rush. It’s also full of many kinds of game playing. The 15 dancers enter not only from the wings but also through a central, gatelike space, down a small ramp and along a flat ledge — and they all use these areas to wait and observe what’s happening center stage.
 
The imagery includes playing dice on the floor; trotting while clasping invisible reins; displays of male virtuosity delivered with athletic or acrobatic display; and rolling on the floor too. The work’s most recurrent motif, for individual women, is a straight-legged, side-to-side teeter on point, with the dancer transferring her whole weight from toe to toe and back again — tentative but twinkling.
 
Principally it’s pure dance. The idea of games is pervasive. And though we don’t see cards, we feel as if we were in the thick of card playing. Group succeeds group like one hand of cards after another, forever being rearranged, and sometimes in rivalry. Some groupings recur — two male-female-male trios, batches of three or more men — but the main point seems to be near-constant change and renewal.
 
As it proceeds, it’s increasingly fast, furious and funny. One ballerina whips off a taxing circuit of turning jumps, then briefly collapses, caught as she falls by another woman. At the end everyone suddenly, excitingly coalesces in a freeze-frame tableau.
 
The designs are by Igor Chapurin. The dancers start largely in purple costumes, change into purple-cum-yellow for the second section and wear mainly yellow for the third and final part. These strong colors are offset effectively in each case by black.
 
It’s enterprising of Pennsylvania Ballet to present this Continental premiere. Two Balanchine ballets sandwich it: the brilliantly but fragrantly ultraclassical “Raymonda Variations” (1961) and the comic show-within-a-show-within-a-show “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” (1936).
 
The company, which has had a strong Balanchine association since its start in 1963, has just 32 dancers, most of whom danced two of Thursday’s ballets each. Its orchestra played the three scores handsomely, skillfully conducted by Beatrice Jona Affron. The elegant, bright Arantxa Ochoa and the hunky, precise Ian Hussey led “Raymonda Variations” to Glazunov’s music. It’s wonderful to see again this astonishingly intricate and step-packed piece, with its staggering demands of footwork, turns and jumps for five supporting women, as well as the lead couple.
 
The Pennsylvania dancers don’t have full Balanchinean turnout — amid the highest-speed passages there were a few blurs and slips — but their style is bright and lucid, with especially spacious arms. The steps shone: Audience members left the performance talking about them (and their awesome demands) above all. Ms. Ochoa’s deportment is one source of delight; Mr. Hussey’s command of rapidly beaten jumps another.
 
In “Slaughter” Amy Aldridge is not quite the bombshell needed for the Strip Tease Girl; still, she makes the bump-and-grind movement lively, and her merriment carries the story. Jonathan Stiles is an appealing Hoofer. The Richard Rodgers score is a comic marvel, steering us to find death as a joke and love as serious.
 
It’s a particular pleasure to revisit the Philadelphia Academy of Music, with its red, gold and gray interior, its beautifully painted ceiling and its spectacular central chandelier. In the intermissions I eagerly explored the theater’s upper tiers. Built in 1857, it’s the oldest opera house in America still used for the purpose for which it was built. And nowhere in the United States have I yet encountered an opera house more beautiful. The company dances Balanchine’s “Nutcracker,” with its 19th-century setting, each year there: a perfect house for it.
 
Read at nytimes.com.