w w , . V -114 wd w V V w _W Ce ... ,......... :.:: :.:.::...... ............:............................:::....,.. ....:.::::::.:::.. r::::::,......,... ::" .....:.:..:" ::......... .....................::::: r.::::.:::::..............................................................:..::............... ;.; Bueno ballet Caracas New World Ballet University Musical Society Power Center 8 p.m., Wednesday, October 26 By Ellen Rieser C ARACAS New World Ballet (Ballet Nuevo Mundo De Caracas for you Spanish scholars), the official company of the Venezuelan city, makes its Ann Arbor debut Wed- nesday evening, October 26th, at Power Center. Although the troupe is only a few years old, it has already managed to acquire worksby internationally noted choreographers such as George Balanchine, Alvin Ailey, Brian Mac- Donald, and Choo San Goh. Formerly known as the International Ballet Caracas, Caracas New World Ballet was created in 1981 when the In- ternational Ballet came under the joint artistic direction of Zhandra Rodriguez and Dale Taley, the then-principal dan- cers with the International Ballet. Rodriguez and Talley radically reorganized the company, changing its A Publication of the Michigan Daily Friday, ( . . Ohman: The boy wonder By Jonathan Stewart JACK OHMAN is the first to admit he's always been a bit ahead of himself. But not even the 23-year-old Ohman could have predicted he would go from a University of Minnesota freshman to one of the nation's top editoral cartoonists in less than four years. Ohman, whose work appears regularly in more than 300 newspapers around the country, is considered the boy-wonder of his profession - a profession where there are far more ap- plicants than there are jobs available. His success story - one in which he went from a 17 year-old college freshman who had "done some work for (his) high school newspaper" to a nationally syndicated unusual one. Today is Ohman's Detroit Free Press wher the last 17 months. Next'N six-figure salary move o: Portland, Ore. Not bad for got his college degree. In the world of editoria tists rise to the top as qu He has withstood the pres. material day after day, age, and comparisons to ] the most influential 4 The Caracas New World Ballet: Changes bring success ,\, .. _ °, , company in Caracas, of all places? Un- til recently, Venezuela has hardly been a center of the ballet world. The an- swer lies in the personalities at the helm of New World Ballet. In particular, the success of New World Ballet in acquiring a small but distinguished repertoire of works by prominent choreographers can be directly traced to the efforts, and, perhaps more importantly, the professional connections of the com- pany's new artistic directors, Rodriguez and Talley. During the early 1970s, Ahandra Rodriguez was a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre. Her career was a promising one. Indeed, I can remember seeing her perform at Cor- nell University with Marianna Tcherkassy in a. tour billed as "Young Stars of American Ballet Theatre." Despite her successful North American career, Rodriguez chose to return to her native Venezuela to co-found the then-International Ballet of Caracas. Through her years with American Ballet Theatre and her extensive ex- perience as a great artist with such companies as the National Ballet of Cuba and the Berlin, Vienna, and Ham- burg Ballets, Rodriguez has been able to draw upon the ballets of the many choreographers with whom she has worked. Dale Talley, the other co-director of New World Ballet, has similar blue- chip credentials. An alumnus of North Carolina School of the Arts, Talley dan- ced with the Harkness Ballet and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. Like Rodriguez, Taley has also had the op- portunity to work with well-known choreographers ranging from the New York City Ballet's Jerome Robbins to Margo Sappington. As New World Ballet is fairly small as far as ballet companies go (40 dan- cers, of which only 21 are on tour) and is still rather young, Rodriguez and Talley have concentrated on presenting smaller programs of excerpts from the classics (pas de deux from Don Quixote, Swan Lake, and Nutcracker) and short one-act ballets. This smallness has had its benefits. "I try to bring out their (the dancers') abilities, to see things the dancers themselves do not see," says Talley. "In a small company, with two direc- tors, you can give this your personal at- tention." The program that Caracas New World Ballet will present at Power Cen- ter will consist of four works, each in a markedly different choreographic style. Quicksilver by Dennis Nahat will lead off the program. Following Quicksilver will be Apollo and-Daphne, a pas de deux set to Debussy's "After- noon of a Faun" with choreography by Renato Megalhaes. The third work on the program will be Lost Cry, a work by Choo San Goh, the popular young choreographer with the Washington Ballet. Caracas New World Ballet's program will close with New Dawn, a large work by Carlos Or- ta, resident choreographer of the com- pany. Ballet afficianados should find this second dance concert in the Musical Society's "Choice Series" to be in- teresting both in terms of adventures in new choreography and the chance to see a company new to Ann Arbor and the world. ITY and LSTEo Rr A fl I 1 ! .'j'Y,,A -. Rodriguez: Dance little sister staff and revamping the company's repertoire. Since its reconstruction in 1981, the young company has achieved con- siderable success. Caracas New World Ballet has toured extensively in the Americas and the company has received favorable New York City reviews. But why a world-class ballet ti/ ILL LKLAM L A I KAUKUINARY! NOW OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK! MON.-FRI. 9 A.M.-8 P.M. SAT. 9 A.M.-7 P.M. gelato SUN. 11 A.M.4 P.M. ARMY ___ SURPLUS tUEICia rv, 201 E. Washington at Fourth Across from the Movies 994-3572 BRIARWOOD MALL 12 Weekend/October 21, 1983 I 4