San Francisco Ballet-Stern Grove

In dance theory and performance studies discourse, the avant-garde, the off-beat and the uber post-modern exert overwhelming pressure. There is nothing wrong with any of these characteristics; what is problematic is the insistence that for art to be meaningful, it needs to be anti-mainstream. The emergence of this opinion is not surprising nor is the accompanying disdain for the traditional. What is somewhat unexpected is that the contempt has also become extremely vocal. It is possible for the contemporary and the conventional to peacefully co-exist; the two are not mutually exclusive. Some performance companies, like the San Francisco Ballet, are successful at marrying these two styles. They seek to combine new and exciting experimental works with more classic pieces, presenting a repertoire that can actually be described as well-rounded. At Stern Grove this past weekend, the SF Ballet once again constructed a program that beautifully combined modern works, such as Tomasson’s Concerto Grosso and Possokhov’s Reflections with Balanchine’s neo-classical Allegro Brillante and Agnes de Mille’s Americana masterpiece, Rodeo.

It is with the production of Rodeo that San Francisco Ballet confirmed that the current breed of vanguard dance theorists can be so misguided in their criticism of traditional material. Revivals of Rodeo constantly come under fire from academic circles, who have historically found fault with two aspects of this ballet: 1) what they describe as the archaic nature of its primary theme and 2) the portrayal of women in society which they argue is both humiliating and degrading. With in-depth exploration of the ballet and the choreography, responses to these two accusations begin to surface. And, the clearest realization of all is that these ‘critical’ interpretations are representative of a simplistic assessment and superficial analysis of the work. Disliking a performance piece is one thing, and an entirely valid reaction-no one expects that everyone will like everything they see. But, there is no excuse for skimming the surface of an artistic work and trying to disguise it as academic rigor.

In response to the first accusation (that the theme is archaic), Nancy Mason said it best in a 1972 edition of Dance Magazine, “…Women’s lib may now quibble about the theme-‘How to get a man’-Rodeo isn’t dated because it deals with basic emotions.” This comment is so accurate-the story of Rodeo is really about finding love and going after it, which is a phenomenon that is timeless. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, we both see and participate in the formulaic yet, incredibly popular adage of finding love everyday. We are inundated with novels, magazine covers, movies, song lyrics and advertisements for internet dating services that illustrate this point. Is the issue really that the theme of Rodeo is outdated or is it that we don’t like being told that pursuing love is the only way to be happy?

With respect to the role of women in Rodeo, it is much more complicated than it appears. At first glance, one may argue that the depiction of women in the ballet is old-fashioned and subordinate, but this is oversimplification at its core. You have to go much deeper into the role of the cowgirl to see that sections of de Mille’s choreography and Anita Panciotti’s staging are painting a profoundly contrasting picture: an image of women as strong, confident, willful and determined. The beginning scenes between the cowgirl, the Head Wrangler and the Cow-Hands are overflowing with images of women attempting to accomplish goals traditionally reserved for men. Despite ridicule from the men, the cowgirl is resolute. After falling or failing, de Mille has the character brushing off the dust, and hitching up her trousers and trying again. This gestural choreography occurs throughout that entire first scene, and produces a feminine character who refuses to give up and goes after what she wants with incredible drive. Is that not the image of a strong woman?

Maybe the abstract, anti-establishment scholars should think more about what they believe art and dance is. Is it not a post-modern ideal to step out of the box and explore alternative explanations for what we see? Judson dancers pushed the limits of categorization by walking down buildings and jogging around gymnasiums and calling it dance. They stepped outside of the comfort zone. Isn’t it possible that de Mille did the same thing and reached outside of the role of women in the 1940s when she choreographed Rodeo? Avant-garde dance criticism should look for the avant-garde, even if it comes in the form of a traditional Americana story.

Margaret Jenkins Dance Company - A Slipping Glimpse

Patrons of the arts often have pre-conceived notions about ‘the what, how and where’ when they purchase tickets to attend an arts event. Expectations may include the theatre as the traditional venue, with a raised stage structure, a standard proscenium archway and a curved downstage apron. The majority of playhouses and theaters have this type of arrangement. And, the seating in these theaters is designed to follow the curvature of the stage, affording any audience member premium viewing capacity, regardless of their particular angle. Aficionados of modern dance, which has a reputation for being anything but conventional, know better than to come to a performance with any rigid ideas of what may or may not transpire. Rather, these fans know to expect the unexpected. Margaret Jenkins Dance Company’s world premiere of A Slipping Glimpse at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts certainly was no exception-the two-part piece explored an unusual dramatization of her choreography in an unorthodox venue with an alternative stage design. The second section, which was the bulk of the piece, achieved stunning results with the successful use of nonconformist staging and ingenious dance composition. In contrast, the introductory portion’s use of alternate space didn’t work and its manipulation of movement lacked continuity, failing in its endeavor to initiate and support any degree of consistency between the two segments of the work.

The piece began with a ten minute “prologue”, as the company called it, outdoors in the garden setting of the YBCA. This overture or prelude resulted in two challenging problems. Firstly, in San Francisco, it is always a crapshoot to perform any dance outside-it is more than often too cold. Past dance performances at the annual outdoor Stern Grove Festival have been cancelled half-way through because of the dropping temperature. This sometimes “arctic” environment is too dangerous for the dancers and not pleasant for the audience. It is difficult to concentrate on the intention of, the meaning behind, or the movement within the choreography when all you can think about is goose bumps and frostbite. Second, and more importantly, the prologue of A Slipping Glimpse lacked connection with what followed in the rest of the piece. In fact, the two sections really could have been separate works-the only commonality was that the dancers were wearing the same costumes for both. This lack of correlation was most obvious in the drastically different choreographic vocabulary within the two segments. The prologue section was a unison, “yoga-like” salute to the sun, with slow controlled movements that were calming and meditational in nature. This piece was a world premiere so perhaps over time, the link between the prologue and the body of the piece will be further explored and will evolve in terms of the work’s overall cohesiveness.

Following the outdoor prologue, there was a ten minute pause so that the audience could move inside and be seated for the duration of the piece. The rest of the dance was a juxtaposition of different groups of dancers, performing dissimilar choreography that had much more of an energetic, up-lifting, and vigorous feel to it. The movement vocabulary of this indoor section was completely different than what had occurred outside. The choreography seemed to be stylized like original contact improvisation, created by former Judson dancer Steve Paxton in the 1970s. This type of movement explored the idea of lifts and balances where two or more dancers were connected by a particular point on each other’s bodies. It challenged the idea of traditional lifting in choreography by creating a method by which women could lift men, men could lift men and dancers could support each other in unusual ways as opposed to the common balances in dance that had traditionally been performed on both feet and hands. This was all possible by a process of giving and receiving weight. One specific example of the use of this method came at the beginning of the inside portion of the piece. The company began on a platform which must have been approximately ten feet above the ground and through this idea of giving and receiving weight, all of the dancers were lowered effortlessly from this podium onto the main dance space. It is important when talking about contact-improvisation to make the distinction that Jenkins’ piece was not improvised, it was clearly choreographed, but the style of the movements and the gravity-defying lifts and balances brought contact-improvisational technique to mind.

The staging area inside was arranged as a diamond-shaped Marley dance floor, with bleacher-style audience seats on each side of the diamond. Also, platforms had been built behind the seats and jutting out from within the seats so as to create further surfaces for choreographic exploration. Jenkins had composed some movement phrases on the main part of floor as well as on all of the other smaller stages, which together, comprised this unconventional stage design. Sitting in the audience, it immediately became clear that it was impossible to watch everything that was going on at the same time, because dance was happening literally all around you, causing your focus to be constantly moving. At first, this seemed troubling-one minute you were engaged with a group of dancers directly in your line of sight. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you would be drawn to a soloist performing so close to you that you really could touch them. What is important to realize is that this one element that appeared to be disturbing at first was the whole point of the piece. Through her creativity with movement and space, Jenkins was able to emphatically emphasize the importance of constant motion in our world and often our inability to control what we see. In life, do we ever really get the chance to completely focus on what is right is front of us?

Berkeley Dance Project 2006

Much of modern and postmodern dance seeks to challenge the current limits of movement and choreography, push the boundaries of social, economic and political subject matter, and provoke its audience to question accepted gender roles and relations within performance. While attempting to achieve these lofty goals, modern dance choreographers have often leaned towards the production of extremely serious and weighty interdisciplinary works. In fact, attending an evening of modern dance can often feel like an angst-ridden emotional roller coaster ride through an avant-garde exploration of one’s inner demons. Thankfully, from time to time (although not often enough) audiences do get a break from the melodramatics of modern dance when choreographers create pieces that are purely celebratory in nature minus the internal histrionics.

Two examples of this type of composition were recently produced in The 2006 Berkeley Dance Project, featuring student performances from UC Berkeley’s Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies program. This mixed repertory evening was not entirely made up of doom and gloom; and, with two of the five pieces, allowed a glimpse into sentiments rarely expressed in present-day modern dance-namely, joy and engagement. Although both of these concepts were apparent in the re-staging of Margaret Jenkins’ The Gate of Birds (1993), they were particularly evident in the premiere of Reggie Wilson’s People are dying (some/every) where and I [still] don’t know what to do (ANYTHING)! So. The title of this piece certainly suggests a heavy, emotionally-charged narrative; however, such a narrative was downplayed and the focus was placed on the exuberance and entertaining nature of the work itself. While not an entirely abstract piece, the choreographic theme suggested ancient African tribal dance, with percussive rhythm-based foot movement that clearly evoked images of the final segment of Alvin Ailey’s Revelations. While the sequences of the feet definitely drew focus, it was also impossible to ignore the torso of the dancers, which were completely void of the verklempt Graham contraction that is present (and grossly overused) in so much modern dance. Wilson’s dancers displayed a feeling of openness in the torso, drawing the gaze upwards to the faces of the dancers. These faces were so full of joy: engaged with the movement; engaged with the audience; engaged with the music. How wonderful to see modern dancers who are both technically proficient and look like they love to move, as opposed to much modern dance choreography, which often appears to be dancers fighting against movement in an exercise of rage, guilt, revenge and shame. It was so refreshing to see a new work, clearly within the classification of modern dance esthetic, where the choreography allowed the dancers, and in turn, the audience, to be transported to a place of elation and happiness instead of feeling punished for the sins of mankind.

The evolution of modern dance is confusing. What began as a fundamental struggle against the conventional structure and rigidity of ballet has really changed. Unfortunately, by working so diligently to avoid any deference to the authority of ballet, modern dance itself has now formed its own establishment and institution where the acknowledged norm is this negative, fatalistic view of the world. And, choreographers that examine a different perspective from this often are accused of bowing to the pressures of the vision of traditional dance and betraying their revolutionary heritage. But, aren’t these choreographers the ones who are now challenging what has become an often static enterprise known as modern dance?