As readers of these reviews have gleaned, the history of dance in America is intertwined with the history of Jacob’s Pillow in tiny Becket, Massachusetts. Like many estimable international dance companies, Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève made its U.S. debut at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. The year was 2007, and the company — under the direction of Philippe Cohen — returned in 2011. Another appearance was slated for the 2020 season… but we all know how that turned out. (Thanks, COVID.)
When the Pillow announced its 2024 season lineup, I was thrilled to see that Ballet Genève would make its long-anticipated return, with a new artistic director, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, at the helm. Attentive Pillow-goers recognized this name from years past, when the late great Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet presented his stunning piece Orbo Novo in 2009, and when his own company, Eastman, performed his all-male dance Fractus V at the Pillow in 2018. Cherkaoui is recognized for his global sensibility and genre-crossing choreography that makes no distinction between “high” and “low” forms of dance. His visionary approach led him to be named the recipient of the 2022 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award, before he was selected to helm Ballet Genève.
The Pillow’s Ballet Genève program was to be a double bill of two works Cherkaoui had choreographed before landing at Ballet Geneve: Faun, created at Sadler Wells in 2009, and Noetic, created for the Göteborgsoperans Danskompani. Unfortunately, this time, while the dancers arrived safe and sound, integral scenic elements were stuck in Germany. Fortunately, necessity being the mother of invention, Cherkaoui was able to stitch together segments of the dance that did not rely on the missing elements to create a cohesive excerpt. To fill out the rest of the program, another dance was added to the program: the U.S. premier of Strong, by popular Israeli choreographer Sharon Eyal.
Truth be told, had I not heard about Noetic in advance, I might not have realized that anything was missing. Rather than presenting something piecemeal — to my eyes at least — Cherkaoui created a comprehensive work that stood on its own, and his dancers’ skills enabled them to quickly learn the new sequencing in the little time they had to pull it off flawlessly.
The piece begins with musician Shogo Yoshii’s powerful drumming; he’s visible in front of the stage, which remains in darkness until a circle of light illuminates the dancers, clustered center stage, fit together like puzzle pieces , in black and white costumes (by Les Hommes) that suggest a sophisticated, urban sensibility. The stage remains mostly dark, lit from above with occasional accents from a row of bright lights at ground level on the back of the stage. The lighting, too, surely had to be quickly reworked for this Noetic remix, another remarkable feat in that it seemed as if it were made for this dance.
The dancers move as a group, breaking off into smaller groups while maintaining the connection to the whole, moving in and out of different groupings and in and out of unison — often in different orientations — all while each dancer remains part of something larger. There are also several striking solos and exciting partnering, all exceptionally performed with aplomb by charismatic individuals who hold the attention of the audience. It must be noted that Ballet Genève is one of the most diverse companies of this caliber; I’d guess its members span the globe. Their individuality in no way distracts from the cohesiveness of the ensemble work; rather, it enhances the rich weave of the dance.
The fast-paced movement is at times herky-jerky and sharp-edged with limbs and even wrists snapping into 90 degree angles, yet there is a fluidity to the transitions between sequences. Dancers frequently end up in headstands supported by goal-post arms. In one striking move, a dancer holds what would be a shoulder stand, except he supports himself upright on his chest instead of his upper back.
The dance is fast-paced and has lots of moving parts, even without its set, props, and technological elements. The pace slows with the entrance of singer Ana Viera Leite, who performs a stunning mournful vocal solo and recedes. In another segment, petite dancer Zoe Hollinshead recites a monologue touching on the convergence of nature and technology, such as the parallels between networks and mycelium in the mushroom kingdom, and the innate proclivity for people to look for patterns in the world. Such is the experience of the viewer watching this piece, in particular a scene where the floor patterning is all linear and sharp 90 degree turns, with those 90 degree arms, 21 dancers walking swiftly and turning sharply, avoiding crashing into each other with split-second timing, like a hyperactive city at rush hour, or, as described in the program notes, “a complicated clockwork, the building blocks of the inner workings of a society.”
The program notes that the word “noetic” in philosophy refers to the intuitive search for knowledge, and that this work ”explores the idea that a straight line is actually a curve and that everything can be connected through the shape of a circle.” From videos I watched after this performance, it seems that these ideas are borne out to a fuller degree with the missing props. However, it’s notable that this piece that begins with the dancers in a circle of light and ends with them in an illuminated square. Perhaps Cherkaoui has accomplished the geometrically impossible by squaring the circle.
Adding Sharon Eyal’s Strong to the program was a brilliant idea; the two dances bookend the evening and complement each other in many ways, most notably the interconnectedness of the ensemble. In Strong, however, the 17 dancers remain on stage for the duration of the dance, and they remain on their toes (not in pointe shoes) for most of that time, gliding around the stage, in and out of various formations — clustered together or spread out in a line — in smooth, nearly nonstop bourrées en couru. Costumed all in black, they mass and flow into disjointed positions in something close to unison, but for a dancer in the cluster taking a long look at the audience, or coming out of a bent-over position to rise above the crowd, or tiny-stepping out of the mass for a brief solo as the mass swarms into a new formation or area of the stage and eventually reabsorbs the breakaway dancer.
The tone of this dance is dark and somewhat lugubrious, with low light and fog effects. The score (by Ori Lichtik) begins with indecipherable utterances, layered and layered until the human voice dissolves into techno house music with a relentless pounding beat, matching the dancers tiny steps and bobbing pliés.
There are moments when the incessant stepping stops and the dancers suddenly strike poses, usually asymmetric, sometimes like distorted versions of bodybuilders flexing, before they resume the rapid tiny steps. At one point a dancer breaks away downstage, staring out at the audience, and steps so smoothly and skillfully from one side of the stage to the other that it appears as if she’s moving across the space on wheels.
While the feet remain in motion, much of the movement of this piece comes from the dancers’ shoulders, which are often scrunched up, lopsided, held in tension, or jutted forward. During one sequence, a male dancer’s collarbone was so extended it seemed to have separated from the rest of his skeleton.
When the dancers do come off their toes, the flat-footed movement seems awkward, making it something of a relief when they resume the bourrées. In a repeated motif, one dancer — or several, and at one point all of them — snaps into arabesque eight times in rapid succession, more like a precision machine than a human dancer. Other movements seem like deconstructed ballet moves, like a line of dancers lightly linking hands behind a soloist in a very awkward and distorted manner, then tiny stepping apart from each other while their arms remain suspended in those off-kilter shapes.
Like much of Eyal’s body of work, Strong is idiosyncratic, spellbinding, and exhilarating; like Noetic, the dance keeps the mind working as we watch the patterns emerge, resolve, unwind, and morph into something else. Both dances are also excellent reminders of how powerful it is to watch a large ensemble move together in sync.
After a musical interlude by Shogo Yoshii, singing and strumming a shamisen, Cherkaoui’s earthy duet Faun, a remix of Nijinsky’s L’Après-midi d’un Faune, provided respite from the two cerebral dances that began and ended the program. Nijinsky’s original ballet was radical and sparked great controversy at its 1912 debut in Paris; he gave audiences a lecherous, self-pleasuring faun. Cherkaoui’s version maintains the eroticism but adds a more romantic angle with his depiction of sexual awakening and longing between two consenting…mythological creatures.
The opening night Faun was danced by Oscar Comesaña Salgueiro, whom we first see folded over upon himself in an indecipherable mound on the stage, which was lit to resemble a mossy forest floor, an effect abetted by actual trees behind the stage, exposed by the theater’s open barn doors. Dimly lit, he gradually unfolds himself, extending long, gangly limbs that seem to go on forever to the familiar opening strains of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, rising from the earth then succumbing to gravity in loose, flopsy somersaults and sideways rolls, as if his bones were made of jello.
Madeline Wong, as the nymph, enters spotlit as the young, wobbly faun is finding his footing. She too is grounded, but she exults in her strength with self-assured sweeping movements, tying herself in knots and then unwinding, holding precarious balances with authority. He repeatedly approaches with natural curiosity and falls back, rolling or slinking away until they briefly sweep across the ground in unison then make contact, hand to hand, foot to foot, body to body.
Both dancers spend a lot of time in slinky, supple gravity-bound floorwork, eventually getting to their feet, entwining together, supporting each other in sensual balances and backbends, always pulled back down to the earth. The movement is so engrossing that the interjection of music by Nitin Sawhney into Debussy’s iconic prelude is barely noticeable.
In the face of adversity, Cherkaoui put together an impressive program that showed off the estimable skills of his company to great effect. One can only hope that it won’t be another 13 years until Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève returns to Jacob’s Pillow; I’m not alone in wanting to see Noetic in its full expression, nor in wanting to see what Cherkaoui does next.
Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève performed at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires July 10–14.
Splash Magazines
Be the first to comment