HANDEL-ING MODERN BALLET,  OLD MOROCCO
                                              By Paul Hertelendy
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music & dance
                                                                 Week of Nov.  6-15, 2005
                                                                  Vol. 8, No. 39
        Mix up modern ballet with traditional Moroccan music and you have a wild, high-energy fling with dancers all but flying off the stage.
       The new all-premiere program of San Francisco's own LINES Ballet climaxes with Alonzo King's "Moroccan Project" for the whole eight-member company, plus a live sextet of  Morroccan musicians in their native costumes.
       But do they blend? Well, don't ask. It's amulti-cultural  overpass on different levels, with Company Director King content to overlay his tremendously  athletic choreography of bends, twists and falls over the intensely rhythmic, propulsive music featuring the prominent Casablanca-born artist Bouchaib Abdelhadi.
       The 45-minute Moroccan piece features hands---lots of 'em. It's as if a choreographer discovered the hands for the first time since stylized rituals of mime were abandoned nearly a century ago. The canted wrist, the turning palm, the fast-moving parallel forearms obscuring faces in a flash, all played into a bigger canvas of bodies and body parts stretched to the limit on a well-worn stage before a stone wall that might be a Moroccan inspiration.
       With the half-naked group of virile males and the ululating female voice punctuating the action from the pit, a sense of frenzy and ecstasy permeate the dashing dance groups' impact. Particularly effective was the quintet of a lone woman, the newcomer Aesha Ash, with all four company males (Brett Conway, John Michael Schert, Prince Credell and newcomer Adam McKinney).
         The influx of newcomers was inevitable with no less than three regulars off on leave, along them LINES' long-time star Chiharu Shibata.
          The solo work of Credell, the powerfully built African-American in this attractively integrated company, left its mark. Overall, the company has a marvelous sense of ensemble from dancers with versatile styles from ballet (without the pointe shoes, in this opus) to modern dance. Despite my perceived clash of dance with the music, King's choreography bursts with imagination, carrying a long piece without undue repetition.
          King found an apt key for his other piece "Handel" linking modern ballet with far older traditions. Baroque, after all, is synonymous with the ornate, the exaggerated, the over-emphasized. Therefore in "Handel," the performers overdo every ballet movement. In a pas de deux, the ballerina reaches far and sweeps hands to the floor. Dancers become spiders, men adopt half-squats that are tiring just to watch.
          The stress and strain of this piece, especially with such a small company, surely sap the performers  in their duos over the 10 miscellaneous sections performed mostly to recorded organ-concerto excerpts. King creates arresting enigmas: The ballerina in tutu giving way to innovations, the writhing pair so closely linked as to seem one, the  dancers radiating their contorted, twisting energy.
          The disciplined ensemble managed all this beautifully, without any notable flaws in the concluding performance of the opening weekend we caught Nov. 7. Right now King, who founded the troupe 23 years ago,  has got a very good thing going. But one hopes that this choroegraphy does not take its toll on the dancers' bodies.
       AWARDS TIME--LINES' Drew Jacoby recently received the Princess Grace Award, given annually to only five dancers nationwide. LINES now has three such winners on its roster, counting Prince Credell and Lauren Porter Worth (currently on leave).
        Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, at Yerba Buena Theater, 3rd and Howard, S.F., through Nov. 13 with "Moroccan Project" and "Handel." For info: (415) 978-2787, or on-line.
        ©Paul Hertelendy 2005
                                            #
        Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into recordings by local artists, books (by authors of the region) and theater as well.
                      #
         Return to main menu.