Sacramento Ballet, Community Center Theater, Sacramento, California, February 12-15, 1998

Dance Magazine, June, 1998 by William Glackin

FEBRUARY 12-15, 1998 REVIEWED BY WILLIAM GLACKIN

Uproar, anguish, romantic love, and the unpredictable charm of a normal wedding crossed with the volatile Russian temperament--it's all there in the new version of Stravinsky's Les Noces ("The Wedding") choreographed by Ron Cunningham and produced with his coartistic director (and wife) Carinne Binda, for the tenth anniversary of their move from Boston Ballet to Sacramento Ballet.

The setting, by Mabel Astarloa-Haley, was a model of simplicity--a split wall at the back divided by a tree which itself split at the end to become the entrance to the bridal chamber. Her costumes paid homage to folk style in their texture and decoration while beguiling the eye with gorgeous multiple colors revealed in layers of swirling skirts.

The ballet is divided into four consecutive sections lasting, a total of twenty-five minutes. Cunningham starts it in silence with his dancers clustered around the Bride (Tricia Sundbeck). When the Groom (Jared Nelson) steals a kiss from her cheek, the cluster explodes into nonstop action simultaneously with the music. From there the action flows this way and that, as the family and friends bombard the Bride and the Groom with blessings and advice.

The whole first half is a brilliantly controlled hubbub, in which the Bride's Mother (Carrie West) and the Groom's Father (Dmitri Suslov) play major roles. The Bride needs help--she hates the matchmaker, she fears marriage. Mother and ten Bridesmaids encircle her closely as she weeps. The Groom is eager, but Father and five friends have to prop him up. They all touch hands in a gesture to heaven.

As the second half begins, the Bride and Groom find themselves alone together for a quiet moment. Cunningham designed a lovely, tentative duet in which their hands, palms flattened outward, move toward each other slowly in a tenderness of touching. Sundbeck and Nelson danced it with growing ardor, then were joined by Mother and Father as they all raised their linked hands.

This solemnity gives way to celebration and ritual. Bride and Groom walk at last toward the bright light streaming through the splitting tree. Cunningham, whose small touches are often as memorable as the larger gestures of his designs, can't resist giving the Bride one last sideways glance of misgiving.

The program included a revival of Cunningham's merry Jeu de Cartes ("Game of Cards") led with whimsical humor by Nelson and Amy Seiwert as the wild cards; the Grand Pas de Deux from Don Quixote, with West winning cheers for her fouettes and Suslov in strong support; and Cunningham's Bolero (Ravel), the hit of last season, again greeted ecstatically.