monster-society

 

This summer while Olivier Wevers was choreographing Monster/Society, I was out of town, then still gone for Men in Dance when this duet for two men was first performed in early October by Andrew Bartee and Lucien Postlewaite. 
It has been tantalizing and frustrating to get a grip on writing up a piece, having only seen still shots and heard general thematic descriptions.

Not until Vincent Michael Lopez came back to Seattle to learn one of the parts last week, was I able to see Society in the flesh.

The premise of the piece is quite simple. Society becomes a monster, when it disrupts love because it disapproves of the sexual disposition of two lovers. 

There are some arresting images in this piece—
repeated hands in front of faces,

 










bodies curled, in unison but separated,

 a slanted vignette of anguished rejection.

The real impact of Society, though, comes through the particulars of how it is danced.

Olivier is well-known (one might even say notorious) among his dancers for the precision he requires in carrying out the movements he has designed. But it’s not just steps, his exactitude in positioning. 
It’s the manner in which he describes and demonstrates what is to be conveyed, utilizing his own long experience as a dancer and his gift for telling metaphors, often whimsical despite the somber subject of the work. “It's just like you’re baking a cake and your hands are covered with flour and sugar,” he might say, “and your pants are falling, so you pull them up like this—?” He makes a gesture with the sides of his hands at the hips, and you know exactly what he means. Or, “Once you’ve learned it, the tendency is to get ahead of the music, I'd like it to be exactly after it, so it's really grounded. Even when I say accelerate, it's heavy, like under water.” 
Or "Try not to show Fall. Legs. It's falllegs, all in one movement."

The movements in Society are, as Lucien says “flowy.” There is nothing angular or abrupt in the relation of the two dancers. Any sharp changes of direction are brought on by forces outside themselves. 

Vincent notes that in most pas de deux of a man and a woman, even in modern dance, “The male is almost always taking care of the female.” Their respective roles are determined by gender and dance convention as much as or more than by individual personality or circumstances. In Monster/Society, the two men are, in the nature of the choreography, equally tender and protective of each other. 

In rehearsal, Olivier repeatedly emphasizes this point. “You are lifting each other up, he’s not helping you. Almost the less you partner him the better,” or "This looks as if you're surprised and a little afraid of him. It should be more of an embrace.." 
Several sequences are done twice with the roles reversed in the second round.

In the rather gloomy conclusion of Jennifer Homas's marvelous new book, Apollo's Angels, A History of Ballet, she writes: "Uncertainty and doubt have crept in. Many of today's dancers, for example, have a revealing habit: they attack steps with apparent conviction—but then at the height of the step they shift or adjust, almost imperceptibly, as if they were not quite at ease with its statement. This is so commonplace that we hardly notice. But we should: these adjustments are a kind of fudging, a way of taking distance and not quite committing (literally) to a firm stand."  I was much struck by these words because of how often I have observed Olivier say some variation on: "Try not to adjust the legs. Wherever they are, they're planted." And the dancers respond to the choreographer's subtlety and assurance. Their confidence grows. Movements become convincing and convinced...

And yet, despite the meticulousness of Olivier’s instructions, 
I have been struck over and over this last week—watching both a recently completed video of Andrew and Lucien and live rehearsals of Andrew and Vincent in the two parts—by the two very different accounts given. The choreography has a transparency which allows the individuality of the dancers and the different physical dynamics between them to shine through.

The change of cast came about because, although he performed the role in October’s Men in Dance program, Lucien will dance the Relationship segment of Monster with Melody Herrera of Houston Ballet in next month’s premiere, as well as a major sequence in Annabelle Ochoa Lopez’s Cylindrical Shadows. I asked Andrew, who is the constant in both pairings for this piece, what it was like to switch partners in this particular piece. He says that, while he and Lucien are more or less similar in build and in training (the two are members of Pacific Northwest Ballet), Vincent is smaller and more compact of stature. He also dances for Donald Byrd’s Spectrum in Seattle and with Wideman/David Dance in South Carolina, both modern companies with a very different sensibility and approach to dance. 

Eager to what he can learn from new works and styles, Andrew seems to find the process totally engrossing and works hard to get it right. 




 



“Dance,” Vincent says, “is always intense,” and he brings his own passion and questing spirit, despite little experience with partnering, to the Monster/Society enterprise.

As a gay man, says Lucien, dancing in Society is “like coming home,” and of course, he confesses, he'd love to perform it again sometime.

But he also says, philosophically, “You’ve got to give everyone a turn.” 
Just another example of the respect and consideration of the dancers for each other, and of Olivier for all of them, that continues to be a notable characteristic of this company. No prima donnas here.

Photos by La Vie Photography LaViePhoto.com
(Unfortunately there are no shots yet of Andrew and Vincent rehearsing, but the final round of full-cast rehearsals for the whole program is coming up in January.)

CONGRATULATIONS ON THE BIRTH, DECEMBER 22, 

OF MAYA TO FOUNDING WHIM W'HIM MEMBER 
KAORI NAKAMURA!!

monster-addiction

It isn’t Nutcracker, that’s for sure. 
And Kylie Lewallen (who is dancing in two 2010 productions of the holiday favorite) is no sugar plum fairy in this riveting, dark piece by Olivier Wevers. 

Nor is her partner, Ty Alexander Cheng (a Nutcracker prince himself on occasion), any gallant cavalier here. Far from it. 
In Addiction, the pair of them are haunted by a monster outside themselves. 

I think that Olivier’s passion for bringing out the dramatic or emotional content of roles—for which as a dancer he’s long been known—is, along with his classical European training, essential to his choreography. 

Nowhere is this clearer than in the three pas de deux (or duets as they tend to be called these days) in Monster, of which Addiction is the middle one. Olivier is a close scrutinizer of how ordinary people move, the way they telegraph their mental state with their physical bodies. And he has the tools, garnered from long training and stage experience, to embody his observations in his work. In setting a piece on his dancers, he pays extremely careful attention to the angle of a head, the expression of imploring fingers, the casual interactions of friends, or the tight formation of a group bound into a societal box.

 

 

Olivier seldom mentions anyone's facial expression in the course of rehearsal, though. It's as if that is the province of the individual dancers, who consistently say he encourages them to be themselves. He is very articulate in showing what he wants, as well as in explaining both its spirit and the precise gesture needed to convey it. 
And these dancers are skilled enough at moving and carrying out instructions so that the nuances of expression appropriate to this person in this situation, however foreign or dire, follow naturally. 

I keep being reminded of how I sometimes dream people into entirely apocryphal circumstances—yelling or being silly or sexy in a way I’ve never witnessed in waking life. How they act seems so real at the time, that I’m still angry or amused or half in love when I awake. Something similar seems to take place when Olivier choreographs. It’s as if his is the dreaming psyche, using a particular arrangement of positions and movements to invoke a situation or state of mind, and willing the dancers selves into it. They are then free to call on their own experience, or pure imagination, to behave as they really would if somehow transported there.

But what does one actually see in Monster/Addiction? How, via movement—as distinguished, if one can, from the expressions on the faces of the dancers, say, or the music, or what Olivier and Ty and Kylie have to say about it—does it communicate what it’s like to be lost to drugs?

Addiction unfolds on the ground and largely in a kind of zombie-like unison. The dancers never rise above their knees, except just before the end for him, and then it’s down again at once, in a tragic surrender to the force that’s killing them both. Classical ballet so often is, implicitly, in its very steps, designed to defy gravity. This piece is imbued with heaviness; weight is of its nature, and the couple cannot escape it.

A hand moves up across the face, over the nose (“not like wiping snot, it’s like snorting cocaine,” says Olivier, demonstrating). The jittery, repetitive moves of strung-out street people appear fleetingly here, not as realistic imitation but as suggestion, understated rather than flaunted, mere artifacts, by-products of what is happening to the bodies and souls of these two people. The weight of the dance conveys the strained, receding connection between them, alternately desperate and indifferent, until the chilling end of the piece.

There is almost no touching or emotional connection between this pair. In her role, Kylie says, only at a couple of small moments is she even aware of “this as an actual human being next to me.” The Ty character can’t reach out or even notice what is happening to his partner.

And yet, they must dance in complete sync, impelled in parallel by the same force that has them both in its grip. The tiny instances where their movements diverge are that much more raw and poignant.

Addiction is accompanied by relentless, drilling, buzzing, sawing sounds, like static in the brain that prevents the outside world from penetrating. 
It is a painful piece, to dance and to watch.

Next up: Some thoughts on the dynamics of partnering...

Photographs by La Vie Photography:
laViePhoto.com
For tickets to Shadows, Raincoats and Monsters, January 14-16 at Intiman Theatre:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/138038

dancing-Kelly Ann Barton

Kelly Ann Barton in person is small, pretty, sweet and a little shy- seeming. She surprises me with her off-stage presence, because onstage she is powerful, sometimes stern and even forbidding."

Dance Magazine, October 2009, says of Kelly Ann: "Her petite figure is at once zaftig and muscular. The earthy blend of power and sensitivity in her movement makes her utterly captivating—you can’t take your eyes off of her." 
A lovely description and very accurate.
When I mention her strength as a dancer, she says she was always athletic, playing basketball and soccer as a kid, then hints at another kind of potency by adding, 
"It's all very real to me. It comes from a very interior place." 
 














Starting dance lessons at 5 in Portland, Oregon, Kelly Ann soon became "a studio kid," taking part in dance competitions. She attended Jefferson High, the Portland school for the performing arts and became part of the Jefferson Dancers. For four consecutive summers she danced with Northwest Dance Project, also in Portland, where she worked with several noted choreographers, including Donald Byrd, Director of Seattle's Spectrum Dance Theater. NWPD's Director, Sarah Slipper, a principal dancer at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (where she danced with Olivier before he came to PNB), later turned to more contemporary work and in 2004 started NWPD, "as both a creative workshop for guest choreographers and an intensive training tool for promising young performers." Alumni have gone on "to work with well-established dance companies around the world." 
Among these is Kelly Ann.

2006 was a crowded summer for her. Accepted at SUNY Purchase, she meant to start classes there in the fall, but had a chance to audition for Donald Byrd. Offered a place in the company, she put off college and is still at Spectrum, teaching as well as dancing. She is now also enrolled in the BFA program at Cornish College of the Arts in the Professional Dance Division.

Working with Donald "is a challenge in ways you'd never expect," she says. "His pieces are intelligent and emotionally and physically intense." She continues, "He pushes you until you are in the vulnerable place where you grow." 

 

Kelly Ann finds Whim W’Him an interesting contrast to Spectrum. Olivier Wever’s “very distinct style and personality” brings out different elements of her as a dancer, she says. 

 

“He is extremely clear and definite about details, and still lets you express your own personality.” She likes the playful, witty nature of his choreography and finds the atmosphere at Whim W’Him “very nurturing—the positive energy contagious.”

 

FRAGMENTS, a vibrant and quirky duet by Olivier, premiered at Spectrum in 2007 and was part of Whim W’Him’s first full program last January. Both a spoof and a loving, quite serious dance interpretation of Mozart vocal music, it started out as a dance for two women, one of them Kelly Ann (the other Hannah Lagerway, who danced last year in Whim W'Him's  3Seasons and is now in Germany at the Nuremberg Ballet).

 

The piece has had an interesting evolution. When Vincent Lopez, also a Spectrum dancer, was put into the second role, Kelly Ann says (perhaps a little wistfully?), “It became somewhat of different story for me. Some may see it as an exploration of gender roles.”  

But she also is enthusiastic about how great it has been to dance with Vincent. They have become friendly and close in a way that probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise, she says. And she loves the playful quality of the piece, "the way we play off each other, especially at the start."

When I asked about the 13th Annual Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival competition in Palm Desert last month, where FRAGMENTS won the Grand Prize, Kelly Ann laughed.  
“It was a long and eventful 24 hours. We had an incredible time!” 
Vincent was guesting in South Carolina. He arrived the day of the performance. The tech rehearsal was in a parking lot. The theater didn’t have the cues for the lighting—so crucial to FRAGMENTS—and Olivier ended up taking on the job of lighting director for the performance. “I was really nervous,” he admits. But the audience was wonderful, “so responsive and engaged from the very beginning,” says Kelly Ann. “And it’s great for Olivier’s work to get that recognition.” 

Fans of Kelly Ann, Vincent, and FRAGMENTS will have another opportunity to see them in action at the A.W.A.R.D. (Artists With Audiences Responding to Dance) show at On the Boards, on the last weekend in January 2011: 

whimwhim.org/performances2010/awardsshow.html

Photos courtesy of Spectrum Dance Theater: 

spectrumdance.org/company/dancers-01.php 

La Vie Photography: 

LaViePhoto.com

and Kelly Ann Barton
 

rehearsing-this is not a raincoat

The rehearsal on Monday is hard. It was a big Nutcracker weekend. Olivier and the dancers are tired. 
After four intense hours, things even get slightly testy, 
a rarity with this troupe.

Raincoat seems on the surface straightforward, 
more in the whimsical line of Olivier's earlier works. But it's subtle, not simple to perform. The music though relentlessly metric is hard to get a grip on. 

 


Ballet terms like "assemblé" or "soutenu" are seldom used. 

Mostly it’s odd little words—“pancake” or “pickle" or "Chinese Water Torture.”

 

The lifts and partnering, for Chalnessa and Ty, are tricky, 
the instructions—a tilt of the head, the way you hold your fingers—very precise. 
 
                            Chalnessa, Sugarplum Fairy just the day before, looks exhausted.

Difficult too, I imagine, to learn nuances from a bare, artless (and heartless) video. It's just, as Chalnessa says, a skeleton. 

 














Moving in exact synchrony is also a challenge for a group of highly distinct dancers. (Only Andrew is currently a corps de ballet member.)

Sometimes it’s tough to see what is being got at.
Toward the end, though, patterns begin to emerge: the contrast between silly, loose, aimless bits and rather stern, lockstep sequences in exact formation; the surfacing of individuality out of convention.

 












Like the original title of the Magritte painting that suggested the title of this piece, Raincoat is about La trahison des images, the treachery of images in our lives. We hide behind our images, our painted representations, our raincoats. The raincoats aren’t raincoats, though, or not merely. They are masks covering what we are underneath. Most people don’t like to go naked without their covering, without a protective hood. Because of the nature of the movement in Raincoat, alternating between free-wheeling whimsy and assertive conformity, this seems to me a piece about adolescents. Youth is a time of experiment, of trying on what it’s like to expose oneself, of living without a raincoat, of seeing one’s true self without a mask.

It’s not so simple as it seems in life or in dance. We are what we wear to some extent. Most people find it too difficult, the raincoat becomes part of them. But bit by bit, one or two decide that what they really are is an open, unguarded self.

Photos by LaVie Photography LaViePhoto.com