DANCE REVIEW
Boston Ballet: Falling Angels
Boston Ballet Explores the Modern Repertoire

By Fred Choi

Although the Boston Ballet relies on classic "story" ballets to
attract the casual dancegoer, their modern dance programmes certainly
have admirers. Last weekend their audiences had the opportunity to see
a slice of the contemporary spectrum which, while mixed, was
satisfying.

The program began with "Ten Part Suite", a world premiere by American
Lucinda Childs who is well-known for her collaborations with American
minimalists Phillip Glass and John Adams. Set to violin sonatas by
Arcangelo Corelli, the work consisted of less literal representations
of the florid music than similar works by Mark Morris. Here Child's
choreography was oftentimes similarly symmetrical and cooly, almost
coldly, precise, despite near-constant movement, pervasive jumps, and
lovely low lifts.

By all accounts the highlight of the evening and certainly one of the
highlights of the Boston arts season proved to be a pair of works by
the Czechoslovakian Jirí Kylián. Kylián's work is too rarely seen
outside of Europe and the Netherlands Dance Theater, his "artistic
home", and two linked dances were presented here, "Sarabande" (1990)
and "Falling Angels" (1989). The works were among that valuable breed
of art, worthy, yet rare: so crowd-pleasing that they are virtually
impossible for critics and audiences not to love, but crafted and
presented with such integrity and so expertly done that they never
suggest artistic compromise or a bid for popularity.

The first of the pair, "Sarabande", is for six men and wonderfully
misleadingly billed as being set to the music of the movement of the
same name from Bach's Unaccompanied Violin Partita #2. In fact, the
work is mostly comprised of very eerie ambient electronic sound
(calling to mind any number of horror and thriller movies, although
closer in spirit to the perfectly-pitched Donnie Darko) and the
dancers' miked and distorted wails, shrieks, mad laughter, flapping
fingers, and slapped hands and body parts. The dancers' synchronized
vocals and choreographed sounds, as each has to listen carefully to
the other while executing moves that tend to be simultaneously
athletic and unabashedly bizarre, adds a disquieting tension not found
in other works. The atmosphere created, whose surreality is compounded
by six golden ball gowns hanging sinisterly overhead and the gradual
removal of (and wrestling with) the dancers' clothing, juxtaposed the
macabre, the insane, and the clownish to great effect.

The second Kylián work was the dazzling "Falling Angels", set to Steve
Reich's "Drumming" and for eight women. The work begins with
on-the-beat choreography that fits the rhythmic music fairly
straightforwardly, but once a duo splits away from the others, the
work continues to expand, even up to the ending that comes too
soon. As with "Sarabande", Kylián doesn't shy away from incorporating
quirky, mime-like motions into his vocabulary for "Falling Angels",
but the perfectly coupled lighting (Joop Caboort) and the cornucopia
of ideas assured that the artistic intent transcended any mere
gimmickry.

Following the exhilirating works by Kylián, the Company's revisit of
William Forsythe's "In the middle, somewhat elevated", performed to
acclaim by the Boston Ballet in 2002, was decidedly inferior. The only
piece on the program to be en pointe the work engages the eye, but
little else did as dancers stride on and offstage with -A Chorus Line-
levels of swagger, then lapse into bursts of frenetic, showy movement
with apparently the same level of indifference. Unfortunately the
score by Thom Willems, perhaps best described as "Yanni does techno",
quickly grew as tedious and repetitive as the choreography.

For students who have even a passing interest in dance or the Boston
Ballet, there's really no excuse not to go. The Ballet sells student
tickets for $15, and they frequently have other discounted but
excellent seats. Next up is the well-loved ballet "The Sleeping
Beauty" (May 5-15), with the classic score by Tchaikovsky.