The Suzanne Farrell Ballet - Dance Review

Dance Magazine, Feb, 2003 by George Jackson

Eisenhower Theater, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Washington, D.C. October 23-27, 2002

Suzanne Farrell's ballet seasons, built mostly on her stagings of George Balanchine works, have drawn discerning viewers. On this year's opening night, much of the intermission talk concerned the eight-minute Variations for Orchestra. Farrell has changed Balanchine's 1982 Choreography--not steps so much as staging and concept. THIS SOLO USED TO BE LIKE SURGERY: BODY (FEMALE) AND TECHNIQUE (CLASSICAL) WERE VIVISECTED AND REBUILT. The result enhanced ballet's possibilities. Now, Farrell has added a shadow dancer to the flesh-and-blood dancer onstage. At first it seemed the real dancer, Bonnie Picard, was casting a big shadow as she moved, but then the shadow did a few things differently. Finally, to the music's last notes, the shadow took a bow, which the real dancer did only in the curtain calls.

Although Farrell had given Balanchine much of the movement material for Variations, it's apparent that their sensibilities differed. The new version's shadow distracts from the actual choreography. And that bow is just too prom-queen cute. There was conjecture, too, that Farrell danced the shadow, but it turned out to be an image of Picard projected onto the backdrop.

Another extreme work Balanchine made for Farrell, Tzigane, was on the company's other program. Tzigane always seemed like a solo because the woman enters first and dances by herself long before her man and the ensemble appear. It's as if she were conjuring them from thin air. This time, though, Momchil Mladenov was so alive as the gypsy lover that this role, like the shadow in Variations, also seemed added.

The one non-Balanchine ballet was to have been by Maurice Bejart. Instead, on both bills, there was Canada/Florida choreographer Anthony Morgan's A Farewell to Music. Morgan used gorgeous music, the adagio from Mozart's Concerto in A Major for Clarinet and Orchestra, played lusciously by David Jones and the Kennedy Center Orchestra under conductor Ron J. Matson. Onstage, five dancers seemed to be saying goodbye to life. They walked in place, looked back over their shoulders, and raised their arms heavenward. Wearing short, white tunic-dresses and no shoes, they might have been students of Isadora Duncan: four women, one man. Like spirits not quite immaterial, they went on to skip, dance around, roll on the floor, and, on occasion, group themselves symphonically. Morgan's work seemed naive yet touching.

The rest of the repertoire, four bigger ballets by Balanchine--Divertimento No. 15, Chaconne, Who Cares?, and Raymonda Variations--showed facets of his more mellow neoclassicism. Farrell cast them according to kinetic body type. Especially in Who Cares?, the women resembled the original dancers: Jennifer Fournier, in Patricia McBride's part, had a sculpted strength akin to Karin von Aroldingen's; Shannon Parsley showed aspects of McBride's bounce and curling line; and Natalia Magnicaballi evoked Marnee Morris's elongated grace doing Morris's steps. There were moments when these able soloists and their gentleman, Runqiao Du (who didn't try for Jacques d'Amboise's swagger), almost looked like stars. Chan Hon Goh was stellar in Chaconne but too un-Balanchine-like in Raymonda Variations. Farrell's only full-fledged star was New York City Ballet's Peter Boal, whose reserved ease wasn't a bad match for the feline glints in Goh's dancing.

Lacking in the company is a male teacher who might give the men's ensemble cohesive strength. The women's ensemble, polished by Farrell and Victoria Simon, could use more physicality at times but is bright with young talent.