The Christmas Revels, December 19, 2004, Moores Opera House

The Christmas Revels is a Christmas show that presents the traditions and customs of a particular culture while having traditions of its own. The show is presented each year by Revels Houston. This year's show was titled A Scottish Celebration of the Winter Solstice. (Past shows have included the Italian Renaissance, Nordic culture, and Meso-American culture, to name a few.) The show is something of a song-and-dance review of the culture and includes copious opportunities for the audience to sing along. Songs in this show included "Deck the Hall," "Derry Ding Dong Dason," "Skye Boat Song," "Will Ye No' Come Back Again," and of course "Auld Lang Syne" (including a version with the original melody written by Burns). The performers presented several examples of Scottish country dancing, and there was Highland dancing and Scottish step dancing. One young lady (not credited very well in the program) performed a lively and impressive version of the Argyle Broadswords dance accompanied by live bagpipers; my calves are still cramped just from watching. My favorite dance of the evening was the "Hebridean Weaving Lilt," which is a group dance inspired by the motions of a handloom. Purely musical sets ably played by the musicians were interspersed with vocal renditions. Jayne Tankersley and the ensemble gave a moving performance of the ballad "Ca' the Yowes, " which starts

Ca' the yowes to the knowes,

Ca' them whare the heather grows,

Ca' them whare the burnie rowes,

My bonnie dearie!

As I gaed down the water side,

There I met my shepherd lad,

He row'd me sweetly in his plaid

And he ca'd me his dearie.

(That's Scottish English, by the way.) Also of note were Christy Hood's performance of "When I was No' But Sweet Sixteen" and Jane Tankersley and Michael Vaugh with the Gaelic "Mo Run Geal Dileas." The program was rounded out with traditional children's song charmingly sung by the "bonnie bairns," the telling of a Scottish folk legend, and a silly but funny mummer's play. The show ended as it traditionally does with "The Sussex Mummers' Carol," which calls a blessing on the audience.

Upcoming Performances

Here are a few performances that I recommend: Contemporary Baroque Dominic Walsh Dance Theater and Mercury Baroque January 7 and 8, 2005, 7:30 pm Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall Les Ballet Trockaderos de Monte Carlo presented by SPA Houston January 29, 2005, 8:00 pm Jones Hall (A funny story about Zilkha Hall. I have tried to go to performances there twice, without sucess. One time I went on the wrong night. The other time I actually bought a ticket to the wrong show, as I didn't realize there were two performance halls in the building. Third time's the charm?)

Arthropodic Animal: Insecta, December 17, 2004, DiverseWorks

This new work was choreographed by Amy Ell of Houston. To quote the DiverseWorks press release, this piece "investigates the dichotomy of nature, the beauty within horror." Insects are the theme, and presumably we should be horrified by the maggots, who frankly are just doing what they need to do without trying to bother anyone. (After all, they only eat you after you're dead.) Which is my way of saying that I found much beauty and little horror in this performance. When the dance opens, we see a white wall across the back of the stage covered with projected images of insects in the larval stage. The wall is tilted back somewhat, and has hand- and footholds much like a climbing wall. There are also about 8 seats on wall, which gradually reveal to seat dancers dressed in white who blend in with the wall and the projected images. (I was terribly impressed by the ease with which the dancers climbed to their starting positions in the dark.) The music started as an amplification of what can best be described as insect noises. The dancers moved slowly among the projections, first in place and then moving along the wall. Eventually the dancers came down to the floor, where it became clear that their hair was artfully arranged in random ponytails and braids that gave the illusion of antennae. ("Hair and makeup" was credited to Solution.) A striking part of the work came when Lindsey McGill, Bonnie Boykin, and Paola Georgudis performed a short trio, which given the spacing of the dancers and stationary nature of the movement, amounted to more of a solo and a duet, since one could not see both groups at once in the small theater. The dancers faced the audience and went through a series of deliberate hand and arm gestures. The music was gentle but had a persistent pulsing rhythm. The effect was mesmerizing. Eventually the dancers shed their white costumes to reveal their adult black costumes beneath. Several dancers exited and re-emerged with headpieces consisting of hair extensions that draped down and were attached to their wrists. Attached to the hair were cable ties (an ingenious touch) that stuck up in all directions. The dancers repeated the slow gestures from before, this time in a larger group. The headpieces served to add new dynamics to the movement. Perhaps it was meant as a reminder that as adults we do the same things that we're taught as children, but with more significance this time around. Dynamically most of the movement in the production is pretty sedate, but a nice contrast came towards the end, when the dancers marched across the stage like ants. Additional dancers came in for this part and added to the momentum. The dancers moved across the stage in fits and starts, but enough were moving at any one time to give an impression of continuous flow. The dancers circled around both backstage and out in front of the house to keep up the flow for several minutes. When the flow ended, the core dancers enacted a confrontational scene, evoking several parallel fights for dominance. The movement was energetic and aggressive and over far too soon! The performance ended with Paola Georgudis walking from downstage right in the tiniest steps, dragging a long tail like the train of a wedding dress, which she eventually started manipulating with her feet. The other dancers made their way back up the wall, and the lights went down. This seemed to be the end of the life cycle, as the adult insect had just laid eggs, to be hatched at the beginning of the next performance. Arthropodic Animal: Insecta is well-conceived, original, and thought-provoking, and I hope Houston gets another chance to see it. All of the dancers (all women) did an excellent job with this material. I found out afterwards that Lindsey McGill was sick; she did an amazing job of performing without even giving a hint of this. It couldn't have been easy (or painless) for the dancers to move around on the wall, which they managed with both grace and dignity.

American Ballet Theater, November 12, 2004, Jones Hall

This first post is going to be a little fuzzy, because I saw this performance over a month ago, and all of the pieces were new to me. Here are a few random thoughts on the program. Mozartiana (Balanchine) Julie Kent was the lead in this, and boy does she ever deserve all the fame she has. I sat in an unusual place for me, the front row, so I could see EVERY little nuance that she put into her performance (and hear her breathe, too!). This is a great piece, although I wasn't that crazy about the choreography for the men. The piece incorporated 4 Texas girls (about 10 years old) who did a wonderful job in what was surely a stressful situation for them. Pillars of Fire (Antony Tudor) A nice narrative piece with much stylized movement. It tells the story of a middle sister who fears she is doomed to become an old maid like her sister (gasp!). Gillian Murphy played the lead role (Hagar), and her dancing was lovely, if a little stiff. I ended up wondering why The Friend was attracted to her at all. Petite Morte (Jiri Kylian) This was my favorite piece of the evening. It combined raw masculinity with grace and a stunning sense of line (mostly as provided by Sascha Radetsky). The men start out the piece dancing with fencing foils and did some inventive movements rolling the foils on the floor and manipulating them with their feet. My overall impression of the movement was very European, perhaps because of the almost sculptural quality of the movement. Some later partnering work was equally breathtaking. As the ABT website says, "Petite Mort, literally meaning 'small death' serves as a paraphrase for orgasm in French and Arabic." As I understand it, this term applies more to women than men, and I think this informs much of the movement, especially the fact that the actions of the men were the focus. Throughout the piece dresses in the style of the court of Louis XIV, stiff and on casters, made appearances in ways that didn't seem to go with the rest of the dance. Sechs Tanze (Jiri Kylian) Something of a continuation of Petite Morte, although choreographed before it and in a completely different mood. Silly, funny, and unpredictable, it may be the only "serious" choreography I've seen with a man in drag. The dresses were back, and this time they made sense are part of the comic mood of the piece. Six dancers flitted through complex movements to Mozart's Six German Dances, with powdered wigs playing a small but surprising part in the action.

Yes, those really are my feet

This picture is posted here so it can show up in my profile.

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to my blog! This is a place for me to gather my thoughts on dance events in Houston, Texas, USA. I'll start out soon with comments on the recent performance by American Ballet Theater and then talk about an exciting new work by Amy Ell. We'll see how things develop from there!