Another Houston Ballet evening

Woohoo, I got another autographed program cover. Ian Casady (at left) danced the role of Pecos Bill in Pecos by Stanton Welch, and I got him to sign the program bearing his photograph in that role. I say "role" because the piece was more theatrical than anything else, an impression Ian agreed with.

That piece closed a program that started with Ballo della Regina by Balanchine, which pleased one of my companions, since she learned classical ballet for eight years, but was too old-fashioned for me. And as fun as Pecos Bill was, I far preferred the middle part of the program, Sandpaper Ballet, a very abstract piece by Mark Morris, set to Leroy Anderson's music, including such whimsical pieces as Sleigh Ride, the Typewriter, and others.

Apollo, Hush, and Fancy Free

After a bit of a dry spell, I went to the Houston Ballet tonight and saw three good pieces. And since the season's Playbill has Connor Walsh on the cover, about whom I wrote before ("Arts and Politics, part II" on February 23, 2008, and "Icing on the Cake" on November 7 of the same year), I came back with a little prize besides having seen a great performance:

All three pieces had the common quality of combining great choreographers with great musicians. Apollo is by George Balanchine, on music by Stravinsky. However, composed in 1928, this is both relatively early Stravinsky and very early Balanchine. Interestingly, this means the score is more classical — not sense-jarring and almost cacophonous like the Rite of Spring — while the choreography is more modern than what Balanchine became known for later, even though it is based on Greek mythology. At least I was positively surprised.

Hush is by Christopher Bruce, who also choreographed Swang Song, the piece danced by Mr. Walsh that I commented on in my post two years ago. The dancing, while inventive, did not strike me as particularly extraordinary, but the accompaniment by Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma, with McFerrin's amazing ability to make his voice sounds like various sorts of musical instruments, added an extra dimension.

Fancy Free is a fascinating piece, not only because of its inherent qualities, but because it was premiered in 1944, and one might have almost found it sacrilegious to feature sailors on leave while WW II was still going on. But the other interesting aspect is that while it is a very traditional "boys chase girls" story, the guys try to win the girls by demonstrating their not-very-macho footsteps, there are gestures that hint at the traditional semi-funny, semi-homophobic jokes that guys can make about each other... and then both the music and the dance were composed by two of the biggest closet queens in New York's so-very-gay artistic world, Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein!

I got my autograph in the Wortham Center's Green Room after the performance, and had time to chat a little with Mr. Walsh. I complimented him on giving a very complex dimension to his character in Fancy Free: especially during the duo dance with one of the girls, his sailor had at times the cocksure attitude you would expect of a slightly drunk sailor on leave in New York; at times, the hesitancy and shyness of a corn-fed boy who doesn't know what to do in a new world; and finally, a big grin on his face that says "I can't believe what's happening to me!" He said, in different words, that there was indeed a conscious attempt to layer several personality aspects onto the character, and he seemed genuinely pleased to be told that it had come across successfully.

Icing on the Cake

I'm just back from seeing Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal at the Wortham Center, home of the Houston Ballet. Interesting program with two resolutely contemporary pieces, Toot and Noces, the latter on the eponymous music by Stravinsky.

I enjoyed the program, but the icing on the cake was the chance encounter with Connor Walsh during intermission. Mr. Walsh is a principal dancer with the Houston Ballet, with whom I had a very interesting conversation after a very moving performance — see my "Art and Politics" entry dated February 23rd. While I was buying a snack at intermission tonight, I saw a man rush through the line to order a pasta dish and sit down with it at a table. I thought I recognized him and chose a table that gave me a chance to observe... and got convinced that it must be him. Dancers can of course be hard to recognize in their street clothes, without makeup, and in his case with the beginning of a beard. He was obviously totally wolfing down his food to make it before the end of intermission, so I didn't interrupt then, but I kept staring and got worried that he'd be offended, although I would assume that he get stared at a lot!

Finally, he shoved the last bite into his mouth, it was high time to go back to our seats, but I went over and asked him if he was Connor Walsh. He was very gracious, we chatted for a second, mostly so I could remind him of the performance of Swan Song I had liked so much, and off we went our separate ways. I felt a bit like a groupie. Artists in general humble me, and people like him who personify the union of art, beauty and grace (I know this is multiply redundant to some extent) are exceptional. When I shake their hands, I wish that some of those gifts would rub off a little on me.

Art and Politics, part II

I went to the Houston Ballet on Saturday night. It was a long and rich program. It started with what, in Houston, I call the "obligatory Balanchine piece," Sérénade on music by Tchaikovsky. That's the piece that they have to dance so that the blue-haired ladies and the men with the sterling silver banknote clips don't run away screaming.

(Actually, I'm way too harsh: the Houston Ballet has become much better since Stanton Welch took over as choreographer-in-residence, and the audience is now also much more diverse in terms of age, gender, looks, etc. But I digress...)

The second piece was Swan Song by Christopher Bruce, on a score by Philip Chambon. The third piece was The Core, Welch's rendition of Gershwin's Concerto in F for piano -- a piece set in post-war New York that was boisterous and colorful and funny and had a wonderful decor and costumes, but a little too close to Jerome Robbins' Fancy Free for comfort, especially since the latter is danced to music by Leonard Bernstein, who is certainly Gershwin's heir.

But it is Swan Song I want to talk about. Curtain up: three male dancers -- two dressed in khaki slacks and shirts, clearly a uniform, standing on both sides of the third man, seated on a chair, wearing a red tee shirt and blue jeans. Almost from this first tableau, and certainly after the first moves, you get the point: two torturers and their victim. The scenes of simulated violence alternate with the prisoner's dreams of escape, and with his attempts to placate his enemies by obeying their commands -- in a brilliant metaphor, this is symbolized by the victim repeating his captors' footwork after them.

I found the piece mesmerizing because of the dancers' skill, but hard to watch because of the evocation of brutality and hopelessness. At one point, the torturers pick up their victim by the legs and hold him upside down, clearly mimicking the act of half-drowning him. With the recent discussion of waterboarding of terrorism suspects by the CIA, this was frighteningly relevant. I was also impressed by the fact that the dancer who played the victim actually looked scared when he was sitting in the interrogation chair at the beginning. Now there is always a bit of acting in most dance routines, but perhaps because of how serious the subject was, his acting seemed more compelling than usual.

After the performance, there was a small "meet the performers" opportunity in the Wortham Center's "Green Room." It was actually poorly attended, perhaps because 10 p.m. is bed time for Houstonians. Three of the dancers were conversing with people. I noticed principal dancer Connor Walsh, still wearing his sailor's costume from The Core, but whom I recognized as the "victim" in Swang Song. So I went over and asked him how it felt to dance on this subject, and whether he was totally focusing on his moves or thinking about the theme of the piece at the same time. He told me that actually, the piece is physically brutal to the dancer: he does get thrown around a lot, and said that "it's a long and difficult piece, and as it progresses I feel more and more tired, and I actually hurt from all that's happening. So it is very realistic to me, and the look of exhaustion and pain is really not faked. Right now, I am bruised all over." I mentioned noticing that he really looked scared at the beginning, sitting in the chair between the other two guys, and he said "thanks for mentioning that, but in a sense it's because I really am scared of what is about to happen."

We didn't discuss the relationship with current events -- Mr. Walsh only said something very short about "how this is so important right now." By then, someone was waiting to talk to him, so I got him to sign my program and I went on.

Oh, I forgot to mention that when the ovation had ended after that piece, the man sitting next to me in the theatre had turned to me and said, in a tentative way, "what was that about?" As I was trying to recover my breath after feeling so tense during the piece, I didn't burst out as I might otherwise have done ("what do you mean, you idiot, what was that about?). I just calmly said "torture." And he said "oh." I guess if you can't recognize a metaphor for torture (and believe me, it wasn't that hard to "get it"), you're probably not the kind of person who will think much about what the U.S. is doing to itself when the Attorney General refuses to say what his position on waterboarding would be if it came up to him for a decision on its legality! I just think I know which party the gentleman in seat 29-3 is going to vote for...

Yup, art and politics, once again.