Tulsa Ballet Theatre
To use a sports phrase—typically the most effective way to get across complex ideas in Oklahoma—Tulsa Ballet Theatre appeared to face a “rebuilding year.” The company lost a third of its roster at the end of the 2004-2005 season; and its lone female principal, Daniela Buson, retired.
But any concerns about maintaining the excellence Tulsa Ballet has established under Artistic Director Marcello Angelini were swept away by the company’s first mixed bill this season, “World Rhythms,” presented in October at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.
If anything, the personnel changes have energized the company, with demi-soloists and corps de ballet members getting more chances to take on principal roles, proving that the pool of talent at Tulsa Ballet is impressively deep.
“World Rhythms” featured the première of Samsara, the second ballet choreographed by principal dancer Ma Cong. Samsara’s music, by Liu Xing, mixes traditional Chinese instruments with contemporary dance rhythms. Cong’s choreography also combines elements of Western dance (the women wear pointe shoes) with Chinese folk dance (a fluid upper body, an athletic attack, a delicate balance between the yin and yang of speed and stillness).
It’s also a work that plays up the strengths of individual dancers, as in the sinuous trio with Buson (who came out of retirement for this performance), Justin McMillan and Rupert Edwards. But the real heart of Samsara is the fourth-movement sextet in which Cong’s choreography is at its most musical. Performers Rene Olivier, Michael Eaton, Alexandra Bergman, Joshua Trader, Cecile Tuzii and McMillan exploited that musicality to its fullest.
Val Caniparoli’s Lambarena was another exuberant hybrid, this time swirling together Western and African dance. The mix here is less homogenous: While the music layers J.S. Bach compositions with African voices and instruments, Caniparoli’s choreography strives to keep the divergent styles distinct.
Lambarena is fast, flashy and vigorous—and not much else. There were moments when the mood turned somber, as in Michael Eaton’s haunting solo, but for the most part, it was all about the joy of movement made palpable by Bergman’s full-out performance as the lead woman, the gently comic duet by Serena Chu and Edwards, and Cong’s slashing solo amid a quintet of men.
Compared with these works, Nacho Duato’s L’amoroso seemed subdued. The choreography has many Duato hallmarks: exceptional musicality, risky lifts and an undercurrent of menace in even the tenderest moments. But the sense of all these elements—and the dancers—being pushed to their limits was missing.
Only in the middle section, as dancers Bergman, Tuzii, Cong, Eaton, Edwards and Jennifer DeWolfe writhed through a trio of pas de deux at once erotic and chaste, did L’amoroso strike with the emotional force one expects from Duato.
James D. Watts Jr. writes about the visual and performing arts for the Tulsa World.
