| 19 June 2010
Rogelio Corrales and Lily Ojea in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, at Florida Classical Ballet Theatre. (Photo by Janine Harris)
Over the years I’ve seen a number of ballet companies that feature a large contingent of children, and usually that means there’s a good deal of wiggle room for the kids in the presentation, which allows things to be not-so-precise but irresistibly crowd-pleasing.
But Colleen Smith’s company, the Florida Classical Ballet Theatre, doesn’t do things that way. In a Wednesday afternoon performance at the Eissey Campus Theatre in Palm Beach Gardens, the troupe – including all its younger and older members – demonstrated a thorough, deep discipline that let viewers take in the broader visual aspects of its work: precisely designed, colorful costumes, plenty of movement without mania, and smart bits of stage business with simple props such as old-fashioned beach parasols.
The FCBT also showed that it’s possible to create a thoroughly entertaining afternoon of traditional dance with relatively modest means if your dancers are talented enough and your choreographic planning is carefully thought out. Which they are, and which it was.
The major work on the program was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which Smith patterned after Sir Frederick Ashton’s The Dream, but the afternoon opened with two original ballets, the first of which was From Head to Toe, a six-person interpretation of Eric Carle’s 1997 book by that name for toddlers. Set to three movements from Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No. 2, Smith’s ballet played two principals – Lily Ojea and Marshall Levin – against four supporting women, all of the dancers dressed in late 19th-century on-the-town style.
Carle’s book is about motion, and getting its readers to imitate the actions of the animals within, such as a gorilla thumping its chest. Smith translated the actions in the book into the ballet, but it wasn’t noticeable in a didactic way: at one point, the four women did a kind of shoulder and body shimmy, and at the end, they lay down on the floor and wiggled their feet, as Carle calls for in his final pages. But it was the total effect of this slight but well-crafted piece of dance that was most memorable, with its green-and-pink color scheme, its carefully calibrated movements, and its sense of smart fun.
The second original ballet, Tidbits and Doodles, is unfortunately named for such an expertly designed piece, one that could profitably be exported to other youthful classical companies (maybe it needs a punny name, something like Taking It Littorally). It’s a 1920s-era beach scenario choreographed by Smith and the dancers to ballet sketches by Mozart (K. 299c), and it was nothing short of delightful. Three tiers of dancers in different age groups from teens down to elementary school moved in and out like cheerful platoons, with the older girls making good use of white parasols, opening and shutting them quickly at one point as they exited the stage.
There were all the clichés of the boardwalk of a distant day, such as striped cabanas, bodybuilders (a funny Eric Emerson), multiple beachballs, and seaside hucksters, such as in the main event of the dance, which had to do with a showman (Levin) offering $1 views of a live mermaid (Ojea), to the gullible astonishment of the crowd. Like From Head to Toe, this ballet also had lots of fourth-wall shattering as dancers routinely engaged the audience with direct looks, especially here, when the whole company offered a collective mouths-agape as they discovered that the mermaid and her handler had slithered away.
And as in the first ballet, Tidbits featured a constant variety of dance steps as groups of performers moved in and out of the scene; you noticed the pliés and en pointes, but they came across as natural, not fussy, and in the service of a general style of movement across the stage that was busy without being hyperkinetic or aggressive. It all flowed like the water near the imaginary shore, testament to how the formal language of ballet can bring a sense of grace and control to what in several cases here had to be ideas generated by youthful dancers who didn’t want to stand still.
After intermission came A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which like Ashton’s version focused on the forest magic of Shakespeare’s play. Ensemble work here from fairies to rustics was uniformly good, and there was fine dancing from the lovers’ couples – Jared Jacoby and Jessica Haley as Lysander and Hermia, Ben Slayen and Cassie Robinson as Demetrius and Helena – and from Levin as Bottom, who offered charming business while wearing his donkey head, scratching his back on a tree and munching food from an outstretched hand.
Katherine Davis made an excellent Puck, nimble and light-footed as she could be, perfectly underlining the quicksilver nature of this character with athletic but delicate steps. Rogelio Corrales made a strong Oberon, and Ojea a splendid Titania, especially in the climactic pas de deux to the celebrated Nocturne from Mendelssohn’s popular score. Ojea ended the duet with three perfect, elegant splits, a coda of sheer loveliness to the one major moment of old-fashioned balletic high style on the program.
| 25 April 2010
Christine Winkler and John Welker of Explore Dance Theater.
Ballet Florida, a West Palm Beach institution for almost a quarter-century, closed its doors in June 2009, leaving a vacuum that a new not-for-profit professional dance company hopes to help fill.
Explore Dance Theater, founded in 2009 by two former principal dancers of Ballet Florida, Tracy Mozingo and Douglas Gawriljuk, is hosting its premiere company showing at the Paramount Ballroom in Palm Beach on May 1, followed by a fund-raiser at the town’s Amici Ristorante and Bar on May 5.
According to Mozingo, Explore Dance Theater’s mission is to “encourage artistic, cultural support and diversity in dance … and provide high-quality dance performances with a professional ensemble composed of top dancers from around the world.’
Mozingo grew up dancing. His mother, a professional dancer, made sure that all her children, including her three sons, all took dance lessons. “In my home, dance was a family value,” said Mozingo, who tried everything from hip-hop to jazz and got serious about ballet in his early teens.
He graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts and trained at Pacific Northwest Ballet before joining Houston Ballet. From Houston, he went to Ballet Florida, where he danced for 17 years. He is currently on the faculty of Palm Beach Ballet Center, Southern Dance Theatre and the Dance Academy of Stuart.
Gawriljuk graduated from the School of American Ballet in New York, started his professional career with Ballet Du Nord in France and danced for Basel Ballet in Switzerland. He also was a principal dancer for Miami City Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Maximum Dance Company and Ballet Florida.
Mozingo and Gawriljuk met through a mutual friend around the time Mozingo joined Ballet Florida. After learning that Gawriljuk shared his interest in surfing, Mozingo went down to Miami to see Gawriljuk perform in the Miami City Ballet and afterward, the two made plans to go surfing. Since then, they have been best friends and colleagues, and now are partners in this new venture.
“There is life after Ballet Florida,” Mozingo said. “I didn’t want to work for anyone else and after 17 years with Ballet Florida, I know many of the donors and they have gotten to know me throughout my career.
“My goal is to start small with 12 to 16 professional dancers and a number of advanced students and put together a 4-to-6-week show, which over time I hope to grow into a full 38-week contract,” he said.
“I will have new dancers and a resident choreographer to produce new full-length ballets. I want to incorporate other arts such as drama with live actors, live musicians, and fuse visual arts into the dance. I know the community can support a viable dance company.”
For the May 1 program, Explore Dance will perform five short ballets: Solo Ellos Saben, a neoclassical piece; Those Little Things, a story of the changing nature of relationships; Entre Dos, an abstract pas de deux that examines the relationship between two people and that between neoclassical and contemporary styles of movements; Thick as Thieves, an homage to the friendship between Mozingo and Gawriljuk and their wives; and Trouble, a solo created by Mozingo.
Resident dancers include Chiara Casiraghi and Lisa Cousineau -- both of whom came through Kathleen Klein’s dance program at Palm Beach Atlantic University -- Lorena Jimenez, Fernando Moraga, Mauricio Canete, Mifa Ko and Rachel Pino.
“Palm Beach needs a new dance presence and I am very excited to see the creation of Explore Dance Theater, and look forward to seeing their creative vision unfold,” said Klein, professor of dance at PBAU and former head of the Demetrius Klein Dance Company in Lake Worth.
Klein said other former Ballet Florida dancers have founded their own companies, including Heather Lescaille and Tina Martin of Florida Dance Conservatory, and Jean-Hughes Feray of Paris Ballet and Dance in Jupiter. And earlier this season, another Ballet Florida veteran, Jerry Opdenaker, founded O Dance and mounted its first performance at the Duncan Theatre.
“I think it’s wonderful that Tracy and Douglas have founded Explore Dance Theater in the wake of Ballet Florida,” Klein said. “I am confident that with them at the helm, it will be a great dance company. Even though this is a tough time for the arts, dancers are very resourceful and have good problem-solving skills.”
Rena Blades, chief executive officer of the Palm Beach County Cultural Council, said she welcomed news about Explore Dance because the variety of dance available in the county has diminished in recent years.
“Many dancers who lost their livelihood are finding creative ways to continue their artistic pursuits and Explore Dance Theater is one result,” Blades said. “There is an audience waiting to be wowed.”
Jan Engoren is a freelance writer based in South Florida.
Explore Dance Theater’s inaugural production will take place at 4 p.m. Saturday, May 1, in the Paramount Ballroom in Palm Beach, 211 Royal Poinciana Way. The celebrity fund-raiser is set for 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 5, at Amici Ristorante and Bar, 375 S. County Road. Both events are free and open to the public. For more information, please call (561) 309-9890 or (305) 801-3079, or visit www.exploredancetheater.com.
| 06 February 2010
Dancer Jerry Opdenaker.
It was so hard to see him go.
Dancer Jerry Opdenaker retired from Ballet Florida in 2006 after 14 years with West Palm Beach’s resident contemporary dance and ballet company. He showed so much personality, imagination, even mischief in his dancing -- especially, he confided, when he was unrecognizable; say, costumed as a Cinderella stepsister or Nutcracker Mouse King.
But it’s so good to see him back.
Opdenaker is returning to the stage with the dance company he founded this past summer, O Dance. An organizer and can-do guy from way back, Opdenaker also founded and directed Ballet Florida’s choreographic workshop, Step Ahead. This educational and creative spinoff of his former company invited aspiring and emerging choreographers and lighting designers from the community and elsewhere to see their work onstage performed by professional dancers and appreciated by enthusiastic audiences
The 10-year-old Step Ahead program ended several years ago. Then Ballet Florida went dark last summer after 23 years. But Opdenaker, it seems, already had plans that pick up where both enterprises left off.
At 8 p.m. tonight, O Dance presents its inaugural performance in the Duncan Theatre at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth. The program includes eight new ballets – among them, four world premieres -- by five choreographers from South Florida, Texas and California. Fifteen professional dancers and eight apprentices will perform, and a talk-back with the artists will follow the program.
O Dance is so new that Opdenaker was surprised when addressed as “Mr. Artistic Director."
“That’s nice to hear!” responds the 44-year-old Pennsylvania native, savoring the moment. “But you know where I am right now? I’m at Home Depot, looking for stuff for sets! So I’m also head carpenter – oh, and nonprofit application writer. I’m wearing very many hats. I’m going crazy right now, but I am so happy!”
The hat-shifting began in summer 2009 when Opdenaker thought of reviving Step Ahead, the annual workshop and performance for emerging choreographers. (He founded it at Ballet Florida in the 1990s and directed it until it ended in 2005.)
“It started as a project, much like Step Ahead,” recalls Opdenaker, who danced for 22 years with Pennsylvania Ballet, Kansas City Ballet and Ballet Florida. “I wanted to continue the traditional program for the emerging artist for choreography and lighting design. But it morphed into something larger.”
O Dance is a step up from Step Ahead, though. It adds a multi-arts component which on Saturday will feature the work of four visual artists. As Opdenaker explains on the troupe’s Web site, www.odance.org, O Dance aims “to provide a forum for dance and visual artists … with the focus on the exploration of dance and theater."
For the inaugural performance, choreographers were encouraged to work with a visual artist or use an existing piece of art for inspiration. Among the artist-to-artist collaborations that Opdenaker encouraged were connecting with a composer for new music or with a video artist to create a new environment on stage.
California-based choreographer Andrea Dawn Shelley, a previous Step Ahead participant with many South Florida connections, is working with local visual artist Liz Atzberger, whose recent exhibit intrigued her.
“Liz took a common object -- zip ties -- strung them together in a web effect, so that they cascaded down and swirled around,” says Opdenaker, describing the Atzberger installation. Shelley, a Miami native, loved the concept, and wanted something similar in black-and-white, combined with an 8 foot-by-8 foot cube, like an open storage facility that you can see through.
Dancer and artistic environment would then merge on stage, says Opdenaker, “with the dancer coming in and out of it, as if it’s a home to get away from or into. (The dancer is able to) play with the art objects that Liz is creating. It’s not like a backdrop; the art is interactive and tactile, and dictates some new dance movements, too.”
Along with the dancer’s costume, hand-painted by Atzberger, the dance-art is one unified concept bringing out the best of both artists, says Opdenaker. Also transforming the stage are works of accomplished visual artists Sinisa Kukec, Nigel Van Wieck and Ann Cadaret. Overseeing the inaugural program and four lighting designers is the familiar Ballet Florida artist and production manager Albert Mathers.
Of Opdenaker’s two works for tonight, one is a revival, the other a new ballet in teamwork with a New York City visual artist/videographer. Other choreographers are Marc Spielberger (Miami City Ballet principal) and Stacey Downs (Palm Beach Ballet Center).
Newcomers include Miami YoungArts modern-dance finalist Austin Goodwin (Plano, Texas) and Spencer Gavin Hering who, as well as Andrea Dawn Shelley, was a former Maximum Dance/Ballet Gamonet dancer. Hering and Shelley are now co-founders of the new company Infinite Movement Ever Expanding (IMEE) in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Among the cast’s 15 exceptional dancers are returning Ballet Florida artists -- retired ballerina Tina Martin, plus Shannon Smith – and Lily Ojea (Florida Classical Ballet), Will Hoppe (Boca Ballet Theatre), Ida Saki (Plano, Texas), Viky Smith (Dance Academy of North Lauderdale) and Maribel Modrono (retired principal, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre). Dancers Paul Thrussell (former principal, Boston Ballet) and Cristian Laverde König (former principal, Milwaukee Ballet) are Step Ahead alumni. The performers also include eight apprentices.
For ever-practical Opdenaker, creating ballets has never been far from his thoughts. Even when he joined Ballet Florida in 1992, he was asking himself what he wanted to do when he stopped performing. But there was a problem: How and where does a performer learn to create?
“There’s no school you can go to,” complained the then-choreographer-in-the-making. With Ballet Florida’s blessing – but no cash – Opdenaker developed the annual Step Ahead program which, around 1996, began reaching out to like-minded dancer-choreographers. It offered a laboratory where they could try out their best ideas and new moves on professional colleagues. Because it was scheduled after each Ballet Florida season ended, the workshop did not have to compete for rehearsal time and space.
It wasn't just the choreographers who benefited from hands-on experimentation. Step Ahead also offered local theater tech students in high school and college the chance to create lighting designs for new ballets.
Step Ahead was a stepping stone for a committed, gifted choreographer such as Opdenaker. One of his new ballets, Coeur de Basque, was presented in New York City in 2003, then by Ballet Florida during its 2003-04 season and Ballet Gamonet in Miami in 2005. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded two Access to Artistic Excellence grants to Step Ahead.
With his polished skills, Opdenaker made it onto some very impressive invitation lists: New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute (2005) and the National Choreographic Initiative (California, 2007). Still, Opdenaker knew he had to go farther.
“I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface,” he says. “And with the demise of Ballet Florida and Ballet Gamonet, I’ve lost my choreography lab. I needed -- under the guise of creating a company – to get the pieces that were inside of me out.”
Also, what about works like Coeur de Basque? How would they become better-known without local companies to champion them?
Opdenaker was envisioning the worst: no more performances of his work unless he moved out of state and found another dance company or artistic director to sponsor him. Even without the down economy, he adds, “It’s so hard to convince someone to take you on as a resident choreographer.”
Instead, he says, “(O Dance) just feel into my lap, sort of. So many people are supporting the idea and saying ‘You should really do this -- You are good at this kind of organizing.’”
O Dance has already cleared several hurdles. It is officially a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. It even has partners: the Duncan Theatre and the new Florida Dance Conservatory (co-owned and co-directed by dancer Tina Martin), one of the troupe’s rehearsal sites. O Dance has also formed an alliance with the Center for Creative Education and will become the resident dance company for its upcoming new facility.
So does that mean that O Dance is indeed a new company, not just a new project?
Opdenaker laughs and says: “Palm Beach County is starved for creative dance, and West Palm Beach is getting the progressive edge -- it could become a leader in the art form of dance.
“Right now, this is only one program I have in mind. I would love to see (O Dance) as an ongoing entity. But I’m going to hold back on an answer until I see it on Saturday! I have a feeling it’s going to take off.”
O Dance gives its inaugural performance at tonight at the Duncan Theatre, Palm Beach State College, 4200 Congress Ave., Lake Worth. Artistic Director Jerry Opdenaker and four new choreographers will present new eight works performed by 15 professional dancers and eight apprentices (visit www.odance.org). The performance begins at 8 p.m. For tickets -- $27, $10 for students – call (561) 868-3309.
| 19 January 2010
A scene from Dwight Rhoden's Mercy. (Photo by Lee Talner)
A chance TV viewing of One Last Dance (2003, Patrick Swazye) alerted me to Complexions Contemporary Ballet. Of the film’s extraordinary dance cast, Desmond Richardson’s exceptional segments burned Complexions into my brain.
It has taken a long wait to get the troupe to West Palm Beach for anything more than just tantalizing one work on a festival program. But the 15-year-old company, co-founded and co-directed by Richardson with choreographer Dwight Rhoden, opened the Duncan Theatre’s 2009-10 Modern Dance Series on Friday and Saturday in Lake Worth.
Because of a soloist’s injury, Saturday’s program changed. But it was all for the good. Several small-ensemble pieces were programmed to give the larger company time to rest. Instead, because of the cast change, Complexions performed an astonishing full evening of full-company works, separated by only brief intermissions.
Beyond doubt, this is the finest collection of dancers I’ve seen in recent memory. They are fearless, focused and formidable. I couldn’t pick out one or two favorites – all 15 dancers were top-flight: beautifully strong and strikingly expressive.
Complexions’ seven men, especially, are the most accomplished you could hope for in dance. And with unmatched stamina, the company carried three demanding, high-energy Rhoden ballets -- Mercy (Act I), Hissy Fits (music of Bach) and Rise (music of U2) – to the delight and extended, noisy ovation of the Duncan crowd.
Mercy, the most compelling and successful, seemed to tap into funerary traditions: Ancient Egyptian, Islamic, Buddhist, Christian. Dancers in gossamer white, as if in somber processionals, could have been priests or celebrants in the powerful, high-drama rites.
Subtitled CathedralConfessionsCredoPenance, Act I implores heaven, mourns loss and begs for peace. One man, dressed in red, represents the victim, the pawn of destructive events. Rhoden described this first part of the evening-long epic ballet as man’s search for relief in a world overrun by wars and violence.
The intensity and motion of Mercy never lets up for 35 minutes. Modern movements and costumes reminiscent of Alvin Ailey’s iconic Cry, of Martha Graham, even Ted Shawn, thread throughout. But Rhoden, a former Ailey soloist, speaks his own, highly original vocabulary of large -- oversize, even -- strong motions.
Muscle isolations could be as sensual as slow-motion belly dancing. A build-up of tensions seems to rise from the depths of each dancer’s core and the company’s combined passionate mental focus.
Rhoden’s soundtrack is an ever-shifting mash-up of classical (Steve Reich, a glorious composition by organ soloist Michael Murray, Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus), sampled together with Far Eastern chant, gospel vocals, preaching, and percussion sound effects. The result keeps listeners off-balance and on edge. The unpredictability of the sounds can be gripping and effectively jarring. But at its extreme, the sampling, as if mixed by an obsessed DJ, could turn tacky. Worse, the volume was terribly loud all evening.
Mercy contained few props. But the attractive, imaginative lighting designs by Complexions’ Michael Korsch accomplished as much as some entire sets. Downspots rose and descended. Together with side lighting, the spots could create a rock-concert effect or wrap a soloist in a luminous glow. With Korsch at the controls, the light seemed alive, a potent and complementary force in a spectacular performance.
Richard Alston Dance, Britain's largest contemporary ensemble, appears next at the Duncan Theatre on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth. Tickets: $37-$95, Call (561) 868-3309 or visit www.duncantheatre.org.
| 22 November 2009
Carlos Guerra and Jennifer Kronenberg in Symphony in Three Movements. (Photo by Joe Gato)
For a season opener, Program I seemed a bit tame.
Friday’s performance at the Kravis Center, heralding the start of Miami City Ballet’s 24th year, was remarkably low-key: No sets, for one thing. And of course, in these lean times, again no orchestra.
And no new repertoire. Two ballets, from the midpoint of George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet career, announced a short, highly romantic and soloist-oriented Part I: Allegro Brillante (1956), which featured Jeanette Delgado and Rolando Sarabia; and Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux (1960) with Mary Carmen Catoya and Renato Penteado.
Two longer, more modern ballets – Paul Taylor’s Company B (1991) and Balanchine’s Symphony in Three Movements (1972) – corralled larger forces for more company-focused Parts II and III.
In Allegro, it was easy to notice Jeanette Delgado’s substantial development as a soloist just since last season. Her spirited work in Tchaikovsky’s long piano cadenza (from the Piano Concerto No. 3) was not only graceful but precise. She more than held the stage in an impassioned role that is practically nonstop. But the four couples of the corps struggled against the music, unable to match its fiery speed or drama. Toward the finale, they finally settled in as an ensemble – even rose to the occasion.
In the Tschaikovsky Pas, Renato Penteado showed a grace and consciousness of line that beautifully mirrored Mary Carmen Catoya. It was a visual reminder that his role is one made famous by artistic director Edward Villella. Well-matched in strength and depth, Catoya and Penteado convinced you to take in every lovely detail, even when Catoya missed a rhythmic mark (though Penteado never did).
Company B can be great fun, a retro romp of bobby-soxer skirts, Andrews Sisters’ pop tunes and swinging ‘40s social dances. Tico Tico soloist Alex Wong, and Daniel Baker as the Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy, burned up the floor with fine, high-stakes athletics and a great feel for jazz. Daniel Sarabia (Oh Johnny Oh Johnny) and Jeanette Delgado (Rum and Coke) ratcheted up the humor and sex appeal.
Soloists notwithstanding, Miami City Ballet seemed too inwardly focused in Company B. Too little energy flowed outward into the hall or even beyond the stage. And the ensemble’s pulse slowed despite the ballet’s upbeat tempos. Moments of beauty and the occasional picture-perfect snapshot could be enticing, but vanished in a flash. Even the Daddy-o coolness of Company B could be, well, lukewarm.
The only thing white-hot was Symphony in Three Movements. From the sizzling start to the spit-and-polish finish, all 32 dancers made you sit up and take full notice. The company’s enormous output of energy rose to levels more associated with past milestones or gala celebrations. This crackle of electricity made Symphony the evening’s game-changer.
Of course, there’s some history here. The company performed this ballet in January accompanied for the first time by the renowned Cleveland Orchestra. Still, it was surprising how far Friday’s performance of Symphony surpassed everything else on the program.
In Symphony, the dancers had something they wanted to say and spoke out with brilliant clarity. They were more than equal to the driving, spiky outbursts of the Stravinsky masterpiece, the ballet’s namesake. Of the three leading couples, Jennifer Kronenberg with Carlos Guerra and Tricia Albertson with Alex Wong were the intriguing characters woven throughout this plot-less ballet. But everyone – from the 10 demi-soloists to the corps of 16 ballerinas, made this ensemble piece tick like clockwork.
The Kravis audience, although responsive in the previous ballets, gave Symphony an extended ovation. You have to wonder, though: Given the regrettable loss of Marie Hale’s Ballet Florida, it’s surprising that Miami City Ballet, now the only game in town, didn’t attract a larger crowd of dance fans Friday night.
The Miami City Ballet presents this program again today at 1 p.m. at the Kravis Center. Tickets range from $19 to $169. Call 832-7469 or 1-800-572-8471 or visit www.kravis.org.
