Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company present Mixed Repertory and Three Bay Area Premieres
October 21, 2002
By
ALLAN ULRICH
allan@voiceofdance.com
Bill T. Jones and the Orion String Quartet Photo by Richard Termine
Despite, or maybe because of the politically progressive extravaganzas he mounted in the 1990s, Bill T. Jones remains one of the most sophisticated formalists of American postmodern dance. That gift is probably the legacy of Joneslate partner, Arnie Zane, who was always the more architecturally inclined of the pair. In the past decade, both with his own company and in the pieces he has created for other troupes (principally the Lyon Opera Ballet), Jones has used important music but has never seemed entirely impelled by it.
Still, there was much hope for the choreographer's collaboration with the Orion String Quartet and the Chamber Music of Lincoln Center. Eight musicians have been touring the country with Jones/Zane for much of the past year and last Friday evening they finally brought this program (more or less intact) to Zellerbach Hall, University of California, Berkeley. With scores by Beethoven, Shostakovich, Ravel and the contemporary Romanian composer, Gyorgy Kurtag, the bill emerged a test of sorts and one in which, except for a brief walk across the rear of the stage, Jones did not appear (a sightly
different program was danced Saturday).
To plagiarize from Winston Churchill, Jones is a conundrum wrapped in an enigma. There was a keen structural mind at work Friday, a sensibility from which erstwhile demons had been purged (or, at least quelled), but the observer was often constrained to assign meaning to the flow of imagery produced by Jonesdancers. The repertoire included Verbum, Black Suzanne and World II (about which, more later) and an improvisation, set, improbably, to the third movement of Ravel'sString Quartet in F Minor. The 11-member company is a winning assortment of different body types and coiffures, highly articulated dancers who reveal hidden aspects of their talents as the evening proceeds. There's no "company look," and the diversity yields happily unpredictable performances. Again, as on previous visits, Bjorn G. Amelan was responsible for the arresting decor; Liz Prince
did the eye-catching costumes. Robert Wierzel, as usual, designed the spectacular lighting.
And Jones, superior showman that he is, saved the best for last. Black Suzanne doesn't seem to strain for significance, which, possibly, is why I liked it so much. The playfulness and shifting alliances brim with good humor, emanating from the eight dancers clad in red maillots, performing on a red floor and backed by a drop emblazoned with the flower of the title. The groupings, with two women, Ayo Janeen Jackson and Toshiko Oiwa, hoisted aloft and walking across the outstretched palms of the supporting dancers, recalls one of those Yuri Grigorovich epics from the good-bad old days of the Bolshoi Ballet. Performers hurl themselves across the stage, hitting quartets of huddled colleagues, demolishing their equilbrium; this is amusing stuff and the repeated sequence may suggest the need for balance in life. The music, played in the pit, is Shostakovich'sPrelude and Scherzo for String Octet, Op. 11. The other performers in Black Suzanne were Eric Bradley, Catherine Cabeen, Leah Cox, Denis Boroditzki, Wen-Chung Lin and Malcolm Low.
The rest of the evening held less immediately digestible pleasures. Cox offered an improvisation to the third movement of the Ravel, with the Orion on stage. Yet, this luminous music inspired from this imposing dancer desultory rondes de jambe and lots of walking, which failed either to cohere or entertain. The final movement of the Ravel accompanied a quiet set change - a rather flippant deployment of a great score and something of a gimmick.
Verbum(Word) began as a solo to the third movement of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135, danced by Jones at a Classical Action benefit in New York. In its halting, introspective way - arms raised in supplication or clasped in prayer, slow trajectories across the stage - it remains the outstanding section of the dance and Low, to whom the solo was assigned on this occasion, offered a most eloquent account. The remainder of the work finds the eight dancers, in attractive pearl gray velour jumpsuits, playing gestural games (fingers are always pointing and wagging) and so frequently turning their backs and undulating their torsos that one suspects there's a message here. Each meeting of two dancers reeks of danger; you never know what is going to happen, when a limb will flare or a lift will erupt. Amelan's set, three white picture frames, slightly bent, are moved during the dance to rearrange space.
World II (18 Movements to Kurtag) wasn't making much of an effect Friday and, after reading the press kit I knew why. This is a stripped-down version of WorldWithout/In, which featured a tiered set, masked dancers and offbeat costumes. In the piece's current manifestation, the dancers wear black and white and interact with the players from the Orion, wandering over the stage. The aphoristic music frames a series of disconnected movement phrases. It's all magisterial in its control, as the dancers conscientiously repeat and embellish a small set of gestures in different spatial relationships. The rhythm is sensed rather than heard. The asceticism is somewhat alienating and the transitions are abrupt. It's a work that commands respect, but no one should ever be asked to sit through World II a second time.
