Baryshnikov in Berkeley

Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 03:59:31 GMT
Newsgroups: ba.dance
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As a performer, Baryshnikov comes in front of the public with such
name recognition that I wondered if he is Baryshnikov, the Commodity.
He is no longer performing classical ballets. Instead, he has become a
proselytizer for modern dance. His celebrity enables him to perform
the works of lesser-known choreographers, and to charge star prices
when he tours them. Baryshnikov came to Berkeley this week and
performed dances by 6 choreographers. The Berkeley show emphasized
choreography more than dancing.
This happened because Baryshnikov is a diffident performer. His
dancing is not spectacularly athletic although it is very, very good.
And he picks his works interestingly. Watching these dances is like
being in a room with a genius who is excitedly making connections as
he encounters something new. He is excited and he wants us to see why
and to experience excitement too.
Most in the audience have adjusted expectations to Baryshnikov's
abilities at age 55. But some people may come to star-gaze, or because
they mistakenly think he dances as famously now as he did in the
1970's; these are not the people who will really appreciate what he is
doing. They may even be disappointed.
The highlights of Baryshnikov's life are well known, even to
non-dancers. In then Leningrad, the legendary Alexander Pushkin
coached Baryshnikov. Pushkin had also taught Nureyev who died of AIDS
in 1993 and Soloviev who committed suicide in 1977. Baryshnikov was
said to be Pushkin's best pupil ever. At age 18, Baryshnikov joined
Leningrad's Kirov Ballet. In Canada in 1974, he defected to the West.
The bio in the Cal Performances handbill plays down that Baryshnikov
worked primarily for the American Ballet Theater afterwards for 4
years. At ABT Baryshnikov managed to win romantic leads in spite of
his short, stocky body. As Albrecht, he partnered with Natalia
Makarova in 'Giselle'. He and Gelsey Kirkland appeared in 'La
Sylphide'. During this time he originated 'Push Comes to Shove' with
Twyla Tharp, who developed it for ABT. He became a star whose solo
turns, such as 'Les Patineurs', were as popular as his ballets with
famous ballerinas. He left ABT and joined NewYork City Ballet so he
could work with Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. He starred in cross
over movies like 'The Turning Point'; and on TV in 'Baryshnikov on
Broadway'. As he grew older and he could no longer leap about, he
became artistic director of ABT. He left ABT after two years and
worked with modern dance companies. Modern dance, the poorer cousin to
ballet, allows classical dancers to continue working. He toured with
Twyla Tharp. In 1990, he and Mark Morris founded the White Oak Dance
Project.
White Oak Dance Project is a self-supporting vehicle. Dancers in the
company make competitive wages when they dance. Ticket prices are
high. The only extravagance is live music. Works from relatively
unknown choreographers are commissioned. Touring includes a half-year
abroad.
Early in his career in the West when Baryshnikov danced in the
'Nutcracker' and in 'Don Quixote', he impressed the 'New Yorker'
critic, Arlene Croce. She wrote: " He carries the impeccable to the
point where it vanishes into the ineffable. One can't see where the
dazzle comes from. When he walks out onto the stage, he doesn't
radiate - doesn't put the audience on notice that he's a star. His
body, with its short, rounded muscles, isn't handsome; he's no Anthony
Dowell. His hands are large, and his face-pale, with peaked features
and distant eyes - is the face of Petrushka. He attends carefully to
his ballerina and appears utterly unprepossessing. When he dances, the
illusion - its size and glow - comes so suddenly that it takes you by
surprise…Baryshnikov is able to perform unparalleled feats as an
extension of classical rather than character or acrobatic dancing.
Lovers of flashy entertainment, of sport, of raw prowess, may not take
to him at once, but lovers of classical style will go mad. He gets
into a step sequence more quickly, complicates it more variously, and
prolongs it more extravagantly than any dancer I've ever seen. And he
finishes when he wants to, not when he has to. Perhaps his greatest
gift is his sense of fantasy in classical gesture."
In the first half of the Berkeley program, 'Solos With Piano or Not…'
dances were accompanied by a pianist. The second half featured canned
music. The choreographers were Lucinda Childs and Eliot Feld, and
relative unknowns outside New York dance: Michael Clark, Tere
O'Connor, Ruth Davidson Hahn, and Cesc Gelabert.
The program started with Ruth Davidson Hahn's 'Upon a Whim'. The music
was Schumann, the great introvert. Baryshnikov appeared in a Bee
Gees-like 'Saturday Night Fever' costume. Flowing cream colored pants
and vest. A purple shirt peeking beyond the wide lapels. Davidson Hahn
lives in Nebraska. Some years ago she had choreographed a dance,
"Remembering Archie - Extinction is Forever". The title made me laugh
like I would at a Monty Python skit. A promotional photo of the dance
shows Ruth in an attitude ouverte, in front of a gigantic picture of a
mastodon complete with curved tusks. I had laughed because I was
thinking of the words "Extinction is Forever" and imagining a Godzilla
foot squashing Ruth in her pious pose forever. Her work for
Baryshnikov was equally filmy. It looked precious with lots of pas a
terre avec parcours. Essentially running like a fairy. One movement
defined the dance. It occurred at least three times. It looked like an
Ameircan Black move. Baryshnikov rotated his hips. He did it once,
waited. Then did it again. It was provocative like a thrust.
A sly, comic turn followed. from Tere O'Connor. He may be a dancer's
dancer. He is associated with David White's extremely influential
Dance Theater Workshop on West 19th Street in NYC. O'Connor is known
for his theatrics. In this piece, Baryshnikov appears with an
open-sided box on his back. Imagine a Mexican retablo with Baryshnikov
being the All Soul's death's head. Staring out. Electric candelabra
frame his shoulders. He stands front and center stage and puzzles his
predicament like Gregor Samsa in Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis'. It is
more mime than dance. The audience around me laughed at Baryshnikov's
facial tics and the accompanying body language.
Lucinda Childs' 'Opus One' followed. This is an interesting piece
because Childs was a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater in
New York. Baryshnikov performs her work often. The Judson made its
name in the 1960's. Trisha Brown, Childs, Simone Forti, David Gordon,
Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton and Yvonne Rainier, were the crux of a
movement against Martha Graham-like theatricality. They issued a
manifesto of renunciation: "NO to spectacle no to virtuosity no to
transformations and magic and make believe no to glamour and
transcendency of the star image…" For this dance the costume
designer, Deanna Berg, stripped Baryshnikov down to red swimming
trunks.
The complaint about Childs beyond the backtracking from "No", is the
repetition of her choreography. Where do you go when you have stripped
away everything from dance but an idea? You elaborate, of course. Some
say she doesn't do this well, and that the results are gaudy. Childs
is also attacked for her selection of music, It often has nothing to
do with the movement. In this case, Berg, the disciple of Schoenberg,
accompanies. Dense. I was struck by a movement that was performed over
and over. Barishnikov, with his back to the auditorium, would begin to
crouch, but never actually kneel (agenouillement sur un genou) If you
knew about his knees - that he has physical therapy for 2 hours every
day - you could flinch with him as he did this. It was poignant and
submissive in a pitiable, moving way.
Intermission came and went. The fireworks and showstoppers began.
Canned music accompanied.
Cesc Gelabert choreographed ' In a Landscape'; music by John Cage.
Gelabert is Spanish. He has worked extensively in Berlin. He is
anti-Expressionistic. His choreography defines the narrative. It isn't
about the dancer's interpretation. What a marvelous choice for
Baryshnikov after the dense self involvement of Hahn-Davidson and
Childs. I expected Merce Cunningham-like obscurity, but this piece
revealed itself to me as my favorite. The music was melancholy in its
low tone notes. Baryshnikov appeared in deep blues. Baryshnikov's
movements - lots of arabesques, tours en dehours, arms tendus and
plies. During this dance, I sensed for the first time what Baryshnikov
was doing.
The final 2 pieces by Michael Clark, 'Rattle Your Jewelry', and Eliot
Feld's 'Mr XYZ' were jolts of energy and finesse. Michael Clark is an
English choreographer who came onto the scene in London in the 1990's.
He uses props a lot. Some tongue in cheek. Like a massive papier-mache
arm and with fist that juts out from backstage. Ballerinas dance
around it as it pumps up and down. Ummmm…yes, it was…well you know!
Unfortunately the arm's rhythm was off or it broke down altogether,
which I guess just made everything more hilarious. Nina Simone's
"Everyone's Gone to the Moon' introduced the piece. Simone sings off
key while Brayshnikov tumbles drunkenly into and around a bright white
spotlight moon on the stage. At the end of the song, the house lights
up and the Beatles sing "Back in the USSR' as Baryshnikov pieds a
terre around the stage doing a lot of arm chops and nonstop Tharpian
variations on every movement. The music is upbeat and Baryshnikov
dances that way. The crowd, mostly middle aged Berkeley folks, is
energized by the music and the dancing. This piece gets the loudest
response from them.
I was especially looking forward to the Eliot Feld because I had never
seen one of his dances before, and I had heard about him - unlike the
other choreographers here. Once again, the music was wonderful, a
collection of Leon Redbone songs: 'My Walking Stick','LuLu's Back in
Town', 'I Ain't Got Nobody' and 'Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone'.
Feld often uses Redbone's music. It's white New Orleans bluesy music
that sounds like a cross between Tom Waits and Dr. John. Prior to
Baryshnikov's entrance, stage hands assemble a mechanical chair and
spotlight that will hover above him and light him brightly as he
dances. Baryshnikov dances with props: a cane, a dress form, an office
desk chair - in ways that amplify the sentiment of the songs. It was
slapstick elegantly done like a Fred Astaire number, I guess. The
dance title "XYZ" suggests the end of the alphabet like maybe it's the
twilight of Barshnikov's career. The 'Don't Talk' number carries an
inside joke that alludes to one of his star roles of the past. Two
lovely dancers enter the stage area carrying lilies. They strew them
about. Barishnikov chases after the flowers on the stage, collecting
them up and inhaling the scent deeply. It is a reference to Albrecht
in "Giselle'. The whole piece was sweetly lyrical and won everybody
over.
His encore was to drag the pianist out four times for bows. Then he
waltzed with a female stage hand. All the while seeming reluctant to
hog the limelight for himself. What a great guy!