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ARTS
Friday, October 28, 1983
The Michigan Daily
Page 6
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Need an outlet for the
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Uninspired footwork fails
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By Ellen Rieser
I AM RARELY bored at the ballet.
After two decades of viewing all sorts
of dance companies from small civic
and chamber groups on up to American
Ballet Theatre, the New York City
Ballet, and the Royal Ballet, I have
found that most performances give me
something memorable to take away
from the theater. Perhaps it is a new
interpretation of an old and tired piece.
Perhaps a dancer rises above the corps
de ballet and adds an extra zip to his or
her attack. It may be something as in-
definable as a unique style or as insub-
stantial as a lovely stage presence.
I am not a ballet snob - performan-
ces by hard-working civic companies
and unknown members of the corps
frequently give me as much pleasure as
do performances by the likes of Martine
van Hamel and Peter Martins. Unfor-
tunately, the Wednesday evening per-
formance of New World Ballet of
Caracas (Ballet Nuevo Mundo de
Caracas) at the Power Center was one of
those few times when a performance
failed entirely for me.
This is not to say that New World
Ballet gave a terrible performance or
to imply that technically they are an
awful company. They do have
technical problems (the men
especially), but technique does not ex-
plain the failure of the performance to
please. The performance fizzled
because of lack of excitement in both
choreography and dancing.
The first ballet on Wednesday's
program was Quicksilver,
choreography by Dennis Nahat, set to
Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1.
This was an attractive piece in three
movements that was not danced well by
the company until the final movement.
In the first movement, the men ten-
ded sloppy arms and unpointed feet.
Even worse, for movements one and
two, there was no electricity, no sense
of contact with the audience. Until the
third movement, when the dancers ac-
tually looked at the audience and at
each other, the audience could have
t - - - -
been watching molecules in a chemical
solution for all the interest and emotion
that seemed to be happening on stage.
Apollo and Daphne followed
Quicksilver. In this piece, Renato
Magalhaes as choreographer took a
stab at interpreting what has become a
modern ballet clique piece - Debussy's
Afternoon of a Faun. It is difficult to
say anything new with this music and
Magalhaes did not succeed in his at-
tempt.
VanessaOrtiz as the female lead in
this pas de deux was technically ex-
cellent. She was flexible 'and strong
throughout the many difficult tran-
sitions between poses on pointe.
Manuel Molina was a considerate
partner for Ortiz, but rather wooden
when occasionally on his own.
The real flaw in the ballet, however,
was the abysmal choreography. It was
never clear who the characters were
and why suddenly at the end the char-
ming Vanessa Ortiz turns into a tree.
Why and more importantly, who cares?
(Yes, the myth of Apollo and Daphne is
that Daphne was a nymph who attrac-
ted the love of Apollo and was pursued
by him. She prayed for escape and so
was turned into a laurel tree. But that's
not the point here.)
After the disappointments-of the first
half of the program, the third work
presented, Lost Cry, offered hope for
the rest of the evening. First, the ballet
was by Choo San Goh, a popular young
choreographer-in-residence with the
Washington Ballet. Choo San Goh
works in an eclectically pleasing style
that combines elements of both ballet
and modern dance. Second, the music
selected for Lost Cry was by Alberto
Ginastera (Concierto para Cuerdas,
Op. 33), an unusual choice.
New World Ballet danced Lost Cry
quite well. As the female lead, former
ABT principal dancer Zhandra
Rodriguez showed off her fluidity and
exquisite balance. This ballet provided
the first bit of genuine emotion of the
evening. As Rodriguez and her partner
(Alejandro Menendez) were threatened
by groups of identically dressed dan-
cers, it looked like something was ac-
tually happening on stage. Lost Cry
wasn't the most original ballet-never-
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The choreography doesn't work for the Caracus New World Ballet.
theless, for what it was, it worked and
the company performed it well.
New World Ballet of Caracas ended
its program with a ballet grandiosely
entitled New Dawn. Unfortunately, at
least for ballet, it wasn't. The music
was pleasant (Heitor Villa-Lobos), the
choreography wasn't bad (Carlos Orta,
New World's resident choreographer),
and Zhandra Rodriguez looked nice in
the steps as did the rest of the company.
All this considered, the piece lacked
distinctiveness.
What makes a review such as this so
difficult to write is that New World
Ballet of Caracas should be capable of
giving a better performance. The com-
pany has toured extensively. By now,
its dancers should know how to relate to
an audience and how to dance a piece as
opposed to merely pacing through it.
Furthermore, New World Ballet's ar-
tistic directors, Zhandra Rodriguez and
Dale Talley, should know better than to
put together a program of four works
that are too much alike in
choreography and feeling.* By the
second half of the program, it became
difficult to remember which ballet I
was seeing.
New World Ballet's repertoire con-
tains interesting and different works
by such choreographers as Hans Van.
Mannen, John Butler, and Asaf
Messerer. These are works that I
suspect the company dances well. In-
deed the Van Mannen work (Five
Tangos) and the Messerer work
(Spring Waters) are prominently
featured for the company's November
performances at New York's City Cen-
ter. Why New World Ballet didn't
choose to vary its program and present
some of these works in Ann Arbor is a
mystery. I won't give up on the New
World Ballet. But I'll be interested to
see what sort of programs they present
in the future.
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UNION
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'-4
A very X-traordinary group
By Frank Sehraner
D ON'T LET the title of its latest
album, More Fun in the New
World, fool you - X is just being sar-
castic. X's music still deals
passionately and intelligently with the
sleazier and less than "fun" aspects of
life on planet earth - loneliness,
drunkenness, poverty, violence - no
silly love songs on its fourth album.
Detroiters will get a chance to hear
X's new music performed live, as the
Subscribe to the Michigan
Daily-Phone 764-0558
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band will be appearing at St. Andrew's
Hall tonight.
X remains one of the few bands whose
lyrics consistently avoid rhyme, yet
still work. "The New World," the
album's opening cut, for instance,
alludes to ineffectual politicians and
economic desperation in America: All
we need is money just give us what
you can spare/20 or 30 pounds of
potatoes or 20 or 30 beers/A turkey
on Thanksgiving like alms for the"
poor/All we need are the necessities
and more/It was better before,
before they voted for what's-his-
name/This was supposed to be the 4
new world. Detroiters will no doubt
appreciate the song's oft-sung line,.
Don't forget the Motor City.
"We're Having Much More Fun" con-
tafies a reference to X's hometown and
an ace simile; Los Angeles treates
everyone like a drunk in
bed/Washing dirty bums with rain.,
like dishes on the floor. ,
-"" -" - -""- "- ' "" -*
villa o
Apothocary
1120South Universiy 663-5533
X is not without a sense of humor.
Consider the following lines from "I
Must Not Think Bad Thoughts": The
food cooks poorly and everyone
goes hungry/From then on it's dog
eat dog, dog eat body, and body eat
dog.
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"Poor Girl" is one of X's most
melodic songs to date and features a
fine solo vocal performance by bassist
John Doe and a downright pretty
chorus.
X exposes some of its roots by
vigorously covering Jerry Lee Lewis'
"Breathless" and by incorporating par-
ts of numerous '50s and '60s tunes into
"True Love Pt. -2," the album's last
song.
Doe and wife Exene's vocal har-
monies are truer than ever on this disc;
on two of the tracks, they allude to the
banality of current American rock
radio, exhibiting a bitterness toward a
medium which has largely ignored
them Gunitarist Rillv7Zom exhibits his
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