Review: ‘Innovative Works’ features three choreographers with something to say
About 40 years ago, some wit (possibly comedian Martin Mull) said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”: You can’t capture the original experience in a meaningful way for an audience.
That phrase entered the lexicon so far, with many variations on the first part, that a movie about the indescribable nature of love was called “Dancing About Architecture.”
Yet you can dance about architecture, if it inspires you. Or birdsong or love or sunshine or gang warfare or the Bible or pregnancy or hunger or inner peace. What the mind can conceive, the body can express. Charlotte Ballet’s annual Innovative Works program proved that again, as three choreographers – all with something important to say – produced the strongest January lineup I have seen there in years.
Chelsea Dumas, Christopher Stuart and Duane Cyrus went separately to the Studio Drift exhibit “Immersed in Light” at the Mint Museum of Art. All came back with ideas sparked by the Dutch art collective and shot off in different directions: philosophic and earthy, romantic and mystical, marked by turmoil or serenity.
Artistic director Hope Muir opened Friday with Dumas’ “Journey Home.” She commissioned it from Dumas, who has danced here for seven seasons, after seeing a different piece in last year’s Choreographic Lab. This isn’t a reward tossed to a favored company member; Dumas has fresh ideas and the vocabulary to express them, and she’s already a choreographer to watch.
Dumas liked Studio Drift’s video of drones at nighttime, swooping in patterns like starlings. She sets a lone figure (Peter Mazurowski) against seven dancers who bob and swivel like birds. By himself, he has both freedom and anxiety; joining the flock means security but also conformity. As he adjusts his striking gestures to the uniformity of the group, he makes the same tradeoff so many of us do.
Christopher Stuart puts four pas de deux among brief group interludes in “Dispersal.” He picked that title after seeing the Studio Drift installation about indomitable, far-flung dandelion seeds. In this case, the name suggests a group of people who were blown away from a shared heritage but carried it with them wherever they landed.
So do the movements he designed, with each pas a bit more complicated and engaging than the previous one. It’s hard to make pairs of dancers spin and swoon without becoming banal, but Stuart holds our attention through the finale, an especially lovely duet for Josh Hall and Alessandra Ball James.
You might have wondered, as the ensemble snapped through the throbbing beginning of “Colony of Desire,” how Duane Cyrus would sustain that mood for 25 minutes. Answer: He doesn’t. He takes us through many psychological states, as dancers (often two men and one woman) are supportive, combative, exploratory, respectful and challenging toward each other.
His theme – we share essential parts of our natures, despite external differences – emerges most strongly to the ethereal sounds of David Lang’s “Just.” As Raven Barkley, Colby Foss and James Kopecky dance solos in front of softly colored squares of light, finally coming together in loving friendship, we absorb Cyrus’ tender message.
“Innovative Works”
WHEN: Through Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. Also 2 p.m. Feb. 1, 8 and 15.
WHERE: McBride-Bonnefoux Center for Dance, 701 N. Tryon St.
TICKETS: $27-$87.
DETAILS: 704-372-1000 or charlotteballet.org.
This story is part of an Observer underwriting project with the Thrive Campaign for the Arts, supporting arts journalism in Charlotte.
This story was originally published January 25, 2020 at 9:57 AM.