Letting the Light In: Ballet Austin's Light/The Holocaust and The Humanity Project

Ballet Austin in Stephen Mill's Light/The Holocaust and The Humanity Project

This story starts when I was timidly walking the center line of the exhibition hall at the Association of Arts Presenters (APAP) conference. When I looked up and saw the Ballet Austin booth--off to the side in a lonely little corridor-- I was moved to go over and say “hi.” (Why do they always put the Texans off to the side?) I should also add that I am a lover of all things Austin.

At the booth I met Ballet Austin’s main man, Stephen Mills, a soft spoken gentle man. I mentioned I was in Austin when the streets were covered with Hamlet banners advertising his ballet. “What’s left to do after Hamlet?” I asked. Mills told me he was working on a new project, something to do with light and the Holocaust. I said my goodbyes and promised to keep in touch.
The words, “light” and the “holocaust” rumbled in my thoughts for while; it was enough for me keep my promise and give Mills a call. The official name of the project is Light/The Holocaust and the Humanity Project. The project began when Dr. Mary Lee Webeck, a professor at the University of Texas College of Education, asked Mills if he had ever considered making a dance about the Holocaust. Webeck, a Ballet Austin fan, saw something in Mill’s work that made her think it was a subject worthy of consideration. “I was fascinated and horrified with the same questions that everyone else had,” remarked Mills.

Webeck and Mills began planning a city wide event that includes art, forums, lectures and a new ballet by Mills. With some key figures like Rick Perry and Ann Richards behind him, he was heading up one of the most original urban arts events in Texas history.

Mills had some homework to do tackle this serious subject. Making a ballet wasn’t the end of the story. “It’s just not respectful of the significance of the ordeal that people endured to just make a ballet. I wanted to ensure there would be some meaty educational opportunities as well.”

He contacted Holocaust Museum Houston and landed a Warren Family Fellowship. Five straight days of education immersed in the museum’s exhibit and remarkable testimonies by Houston Holocaust survivors left him deeply steeped in Holocaust history.

Speaking directly to Holocaust survivors was life-changing for Mills, “I can’t even describe what this experience was like. These testimonies put a face on actual experiences. It changes your whole paradigm on what we take for granted.”

Mills continued his education by visiting seven death camps in Europe, including Treblinka, Auschwitz, and Birkenau. “There is so much you learn about an event by being in the place that it happened.” On the plane ride back Mills wondered if he was in over his head. Processing all the information, emotion, and enormity of this event into a dance seemed like a monstrous task.

Mills narrowed his focus by telling the story through one person’s eyes. The “person” is a composite of the many compelling stories he encountered during his research. Mills saught to convey the loss of personal space in movement. Film sequences by Austin film company, Action Figure, and a minimal set by Christopher McCollum also provided a canvas for Mill’s choreography.

I was curious how Mills brought his dancers into the picture. How does a choreographer, who has undergone such a personal transformation, communicate the depth of his discovery to his dancers? Mills had an unusual plan to bring the dancers into the process. Holocaust survivor Naomi Warren spoke to the dancers. Warren entered a concentration camp at the age of 17. It’s not a surprise that the dancers found her testimony both horrifying and riveting. The Holocaust Museum Houston provided a trunk full of books to supplement their education. The dancers started a book club to further their research. Issues of race, gender, and identity surfaced during their discussions.

Mills engineered this project for his ballet to be one of many opportunities for engagement. An art exhibit organized by the Museum on the Seam in Jerusalem, Israel on the theme of co-existence graces the river banks at Auditorium Shores. These 30-foot posters, created by artists from all over the world, stand like beacons of hope. I was able to attend the opening, with my two reluctant teens in tow. For a time they forgot the mud collecting on their fancy sneakers to take in these powerful visual messages.

Many events make up this grand project and all the details can be had by visiting www.balletaustin.org/light. Special events for educators occurred in February. Elie Wiesel, author of Night and probably the most famous Holocaust survivor, will speak on March 31st at Bass Concert Hall. Linda Ellerbee will moderate a town hall meeting on KLRU-TV on April 19th to be aired at a later date.

Several times during the course of my conversation with Mills I had to remind myself that I was speaking to the Director of a ballet company. With this project Mills distinguishes himself as an Artist/Citizen who dares to reinvent the role of a ballet company in an urban environment. So often arts organizations and artists isolate themselves into their own microscopic world and wonder why no one pays attention. Mills’s project models the power of a city uniting towards a common goal-enlisting a catastrophic world event to initiate a community-wide dialogue. And who says choreographers can't change the world?

Little did I know, when I strayed off the path that day at the APAP conference, I would meet someone who also strayed off the path of “traditional ballet person.” As always, I am inspired by those that seek to bring the arts into the center of a city’s vitality. Houston has much to learn from Mills’s efforts in enlisting the intellectual capital available in his own city.

As we were ending our conversation I inquired how the concept of “light” got attached to a project about the Holocaust. “Every survivor I spoke with mentioned hope.” So, it follows, in the hope we find light.

Ballet Austin presents Light/The Holocaust and The Humanity Project at Bass Concert Hall, April 1-2, at 8pm, April 2 at 2pm. For tickets, please call Star Tickets at 512-469-SHOW, online at http://www.startickets.com/. Group tickets are available at Ballet Austin by calling 512-476-2163 or visiting http://www.balletaustin.org/

REVIEW: Houston Ballet's Romeo & Juliet

Sara Webb and Simon Ball in Romeo & Juliet
Photo by Jim Caldwell

Shakespeare's tale of feuding families and doomed love remains timeless -- both emotionally and politically. And Ben Stevenson's 1986 ballet based on the tale holds its own amidst other ballet versions bySir Frederick Ashton and John Cranko. The pas de deux flaunt Stevenson's lyrical brilliance, and all the elements that make story ballets seem like museum pieces -- mime, folksy street dances and tedious non-essential interludes -- are kept to a minimum. SergeiProkofiev's delicious score moves the story along with finesse, and David Walker's sets and costumes rise to high-brow opera level as he recreates Verona with the glow of a Renaissance painting. Sara Webb, in her first performance as Juliet, triumphs as the sweet teen finding love. At first, Juliet is all girl and games, amusing her nurse and annoying her mother. Webb captures that pesky teen spirit in her lightness and flightiness, her tiny steps and weightless leaps evoking the carefree nature of adolescence. All this changes when she sets eyes on Romeo, who Simon Ball plays with a stoic, more adult quality. Webb plays up the "coming of age" theme beautifully as her qualities shift, later in the ballet, to those of a woman in bloom. After Romeo mistakenly finds Juliet dead, he hopelessly dances with his limp secret wife. It will make you want to yell, "she's only sleeping!" Webb handles the final moments of waking and finding Romeo dead with the subtle drama that this epic story deserves.

This review originally appeared in The Houston Press. www.houstonpress.com.

REVIEW: Sandra Organ Dance Company I Have a Dream at the Hobby Center

Choreographer Sandra Organ takes her heritage seriously. Every February, she presents a program in honor of African History month. This time around she honed in on a milestone in African American History, Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream Speech.”

The evening began with Freedom Bytes, bite-sized dances set to the words of High School students’ writings on freedom. The text, read by children of City of Refuge church, alluded to multi cultural ideas of freedom while the innocence of the children’s voices added potency. Bytes were choreographed by Yolanda Gibbs, Robert Valenta, Richard Decker, Brea Cali, and Alessandra Herszkowicz. Each choreographer sustained interest using a very simple formula: when people are talking about freedom, the smallest movement has meaning. These straightforward choreographic sketches provided some of the most satisfying moments in of the evening.

Organ restaged Dogan, her tribute to Houston’s black newspapers and her own family history. Dogan shows off Organ’s finesse working with text and her own mature dancing.

In I Have a Dream, Organ let the words do the talking. Without any accompaniment, other than MLK’s words, the dancers found their cadence from the deep rhythms of his speech. At times, it felt like too much was going on a stage. Other times a balance emerged.

Organ was joined by a fine group of dancers. In fact, the technical level of the company has significantly improved. Yolanda Gibbs stands out in each work she performs. Her ability to elongate movement, combined with a strong technique that maintains a sense of naturalness, keeps the viewer on edge. When Gibbs takes the stage it’s hard to notice anybody else.

From the overall feeling of the evening, it appears that SODC is on an upswing. The abundance of short pieces gave the evening a slightly choppy feel. I will be curious if Organ takes her interest in meaningful text to the next level.

SODC, I Have a Dream, was presented at the Hobby Center on Feb. 17 & 18, 2005.

REVIEW: Martha Graham Holds her Post

After a two-year hiatus- -due to a nasty law suit-- Martha Graham Dance Company returns to the stage with full force and fresh faces. The program, jammed packed with Graham classics, featured works that dated from 1936 to 1958. In this particular cluster of works demonstrates Graham’s mastery of the architecture of emotion and her keen sense of body’s line.

Sketches from Chronicle (1936), Graham’s lament on war, proved the most powerful. The opening section, “Spectre-1914,” demonstrated Graham’s famous ability to extend the lines of the body with fabric. Soloist Elizabeth Auclair exuded a “larger than life” quality as she swirled her tremendous skirt. The sight of 17 statuesque women, draped in body-clinging black dresses, with their arms twisted around their deeply contracted spines, set a solemn mood. They cross the stage in a dirge-like stilted walk that speaks of longing and loss. If grief had a walk-- this would be it.

Diversion of Angels shows Graham’s “lite” side. Free of the usual angst, Diversion explores the innocence of love. Graham paints in bold strokes with each color representing a different aspect of love. Katherine Crockett danced the “woman in white” with a royal elegance. Virginie Mecene gave ample fire to “the woman in red” and Yuko Suzuki spent most of her time playfully airborne as the “woman in yellow.”

Errand in to the Maze (1947), danced with precision and passion by Alessandra Prosperi and Christophe Jeannot, showed off Graham’s finesse in re-telling Greek Myths. A spare, but effective set by Isamu Noguchi, framed the dance with intensity.

Embattled Garden (1958) reaches into biblical history to examine the life of Lilith, Adam’s first wife. Noguchi’s brightly colored and surreal set complements Graham’s economy of movement. The evening, presented by S.P. A., secured Graham’s post as the reigning icon of American modern dance.

Martha Graham Dance Company, presented by S.P.A., took place on Feb. 25, 2005 at Jones Hall.

This review originally appeared in The Houston Press online.
www.houstonpress.com

REVIEW: Diavolo Explores the Air Space

Jacques Heim, the man at the helm of LA-based Diavolo, is riding high these days. His $165 million Cirque du Soleil show, KA, just opened in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Hotel. Heim’s show, nearly three years in the making, involves a 50-foot stage that transforms into a vertical wall, spectacular technology, 70 performers, and no acrobatics. Diavolo recently flew into Houston, literally, to show two of their signature works at the Cullen.

Diavolo’s dances originate from “structures” that generate the actual choreography during “improvised play sessions.” Tete en l’Air’s Magritte-inspired staircase unfolded in a barrage of unconnected follies involving falling, rolling, skiing, tobogganing, and jumping. Amidst this flurry of visuals some novel moments surprised me. The slinking backwards down the stairs reading the newspaper and the death defying backwards fall that ends the piece were both high points. Tete lost its sinister core towards the end during in the evening gown competition. Original music by Jean Pierre Bedoyan and Juliet Prater, created an eerie mood, but later eroded into repetition.

For viewers of Diavolo’s next piece I have some advice: hold on to your life preserver, or the person next to you. This piece gives new meaning to the song, Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat. Trajectoire places a rocking boat-like structure in the center of the stage. The dancers ride, slide, fall overboard, swing from the rafters, balance in the most precarious positions, and fearlessly fly in and through the airspace. Forget about eye candy, this is air candy. Sure, you can read all kinds of meaning based on the slippery slope of cosmic thresholds. But, why bother?

At its heart, Trajectorie’s power dwells in the complex juxtaposition between an entity that rocks and the human body. You see humans at work coping with both the affordances and challenges of this gigantic structure. They accomplish this task with a mixture of beauty and strife. This work, in particular, serves as potent reminder that we are not alone on this planet. We exist in relationship to our environment. Diavolo’s mission of generating art from the landscape of a structure alters the hierarchy between that which is human and non-human. In this abstract realm of form, the boundaries between motion and matter thrive; Diavolo yields endless possibilities.

Diavolo's performance, presented by Society for the Performing Arts (S.P.A.), took place on Feb. 12, 2005 at Cullen Theater.
www.spahouston.org

The "Attack" of Attack Theatre at Barnevelder

Michele de la Reza, Dave Eggar, Peter Kope
Photo by Sarah Higgins

One way to liven up your modern dance concert is to have a live rock band on stage. Attack Theatre, of Pittsburgh, tempted the audience with several high energy ways of getting our attention, including a band.

Boxed in (2002) mixes film and live performance with a gritty gusto. A program note suggests a story involving a relationship, a remote control gone wrong, and a musician trapped in a boxing ring. I prefer to make up my own. On that note, Boxed in examines the idea of control, the loss of control, and the control of control. Perhaps the piece points to the human tendency to create security through containers that, in the end, don’t work as well as promised. Whatever the piece is ultimately about, it’s exciting to watch. And about that rock band, Dave Eggar’s score added zest, dimension, and intensity. The band, Eggar, Tom Papadatos (percussion), Tom Pirozzi (bass) rocked the house throughout the show.

The choreography by Peter Kope and Michele de la Reza, contained a kind of all out fierceness that played well against the artsy film sequences. Performances by Kope, de la Reza, and Jill Stifel matched the intensity of the music. Kope and de la Reza, both handsome and substantive dancers, bounced off each other with magnetic energy. de la Reza danced with a richly textured clarity that is heavy on the intense end of the spectrum. For Boxed in, it worked. It’s in the risky partnering that Attack Theatre earned its name. Kope and de la Reza threw themselves at each other with precise abandon (if there is such a thing), and managed to create drama without killing one another. I haven’t seen such terrifically exciting partnering in a while. Video by Nick Fox-Gieg, Chas Marsh, and Dax Parise added intrigue and made for potent contrasts with the live dancing.

The second piece, The Fitting Room, didn’t seem to fit well into the evening. The idea of changing one’s world by changing the outfit has been done. Still, the dancing was fabulous, and the band, again, just great. Houston will gladly welcome this multi-talented troupe of Pittsburghers any time.

http://www.attacktheatre.com/
http://www.barnevelder.org/