In Celebration of Galas - six dance galas

Dance Magazine, August, 2000 by Richard M. Philp

GALAS ARE OFTEN dance company occasions for self-promotion and raising much-needed dollars. Unfortunately, they sometimes turn into events that must be endured with patient silence. The performances may consist of bits and pieces of works lifted out of context, and the edible portions of the evening can raise the specter of wine-stimulated acidic nightmares accompanied by high-carb, high-fat finger foods. And, if you do make it through to the gala dinner afterward, you may find yourself trapped next to somebody who wants to tell you all about his root canal--and having to eat rubber chicken in a salt sauce, followed by a fantasy chocolate concoction.

Fortunately, that too-familiar scenario isn't true all the time, these days, with our raised consciousness about health and digestion. In fact, this past spring I attended six such celebrations and it wasn't true at all. The dance companies presented some great dancing that was deeply satisfying. There were new works that contradict those who tell us that there isn't any new choreography worth watching today. And the menus were sometimes tailored to the concerns of our healthier society--although still beware the wine, the chicken and the chocolate.

DUKE ELLINGTON, Billy Strayhorn, Lena Home, Ray Brown and Stanley Turrentine provided the jazz background--that musically simmering, smoky, hot neon feel--for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's Indigo in Motion in early May, an evening conceived and created by PBT's artistic director, Terry Orr, that fuses the ballet company with Pittsburgh's lively jazz heritage. The jazz/ballet combination is not a new idea, its European roots going back to the 1920s in such companies as Les Ballets Suedois and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. It is, however, a new direction for Pittsburgh, with works choreographed for the occasion (with help from the Wallace-Reader's Digest funds) by Kevin O'Day, Dwight Rhoden and Lynne Taylor-Corbett. During the past decade, some of the most imaginative and socially perceptive dance works I've seen on stage--including her current Broadway show, Swing!, which had my vote for the Tonys--have been by Taylor-Corbett, and for this gala event she created a dance about the life of singer/activist Lena Horne. Unfortunately, as with many regional dance companies, the size of the available local audience can limit the length of the runs, and so Taylor-Corbett's More Than a Song will not be performed for a while, as happened to her powerful dance tribute several years ago for PBT about the life of folk singer Pete Seeger.

American Ballet Theatre celebrated its sixtieth anniversary this May with an evening of pyrotechnics by some of the most dazzling dancers of our era (Angel Corella, Vladimir Malakhov, Julio Bocca, Nina Ananiashvili), a Twyla Tharp premiere, an onstage parade of alums from the original 1940 company (Don Saddler, Miriam Golden, Annabelle Lyon) and recollections by one of ABT's early legends, Alicia Alonso. A Cuban citizen who was banned by our State Department from performing in the United States or its territories for many years, Alonso spoke poignantly about the ability of dance to transcend political borders.

Across the Lincoln Center plaza from ABT was New York City Ballet, creating for some a conspicuous dilemma of choice between remarkable artists and works. Early on in these parallel seasons by two of the world's leading dance companies, Damian Woetzel, NYCB's most accomplished and elegant dancer these days, crossed over the Plaza to perform with ABT in Balanchine's Theme and Variations, as a result of a series of injuries sustained among ABT's leading dancers. Both companies held spring galas that had much to celebrate, but City Ballet attained a slight edge over ABT's sixty years with its announcement of the largest endowment campaign in dance history and the founding of a choreographic institute. NYCB's crowning gala entry was the premiere (Mercurial Manoeuvres, to Shostakovich) by Christopher Wheeldon, a very gifted and individual young artist who is assuming the mantle of the great Frederick Ashton--the first to do so.

DANCE THEATER Workshop's mid-April gala in New York was woven into a rich tapestry of brief appearances by major players in the downtown scene from the past four decades. This celebration of DTW's thirty-fifth anniversary and director David White's twenty-fifth was the most nostalgic of the spring season galas for me, watching a parade of performers (Remy Charlip was my favorite) from the Judson Church years of the 1960s up to the present. The gala reception afterward was the happiest imaginable reunion of very spirited segments of the dance world--hundreds attended. The food served may have been the most healthful.

Also at an April gala, Denver's Colorado Ballet presented the work of three company choreographers, each of whom set sections of Carl Orff's percussive cantata Carmina Burana. There is a long history of choreographic settings of this popular work. (Mary Wigman, John Butler, Fernand Nault, David Bintley and Woetzel come to mind, although there are many more.) Of this particular evening, the most moving and interesting section, with the deepest content, was created by Patricia Renzetti, a leading ballerina for many years with several regional troupes before she launched a notably successful transition to teaching and choreography. I'm not fond of the Orff score, but it is enormously popular, played here in a two-piano version, with the irresistibly dynamic percussive moods that Orff believed dwell at the core of good music and movement.