BalletX: Entering the Talented Tenth (year)

BalletX Summer Series 2015
Choreography by Adam Hougland
The Wilma Theater
265 S. Broad St., Philadelphia
July 8-12, 2015

By Lisa Traiger

To celebrate entering its tenth year, BalletX gave its summer season over to a single choreographer. That can be a risky proposition, resulting in a bland program of works drawn from the same creative wellspring, but in this case the three works by 38-year-old Dallas native Adam Hougland provided ample distinctive differences in movement invention, tone, and approach to satisfy a multiplicity of tastes.

 

“Risk of Flight,” Hougland’s earliest work for the company, was for ten dancers and Zoe Keating’s taut and somber score. A dark piece, it begins with the dancers, sleekly garbed in subdued shades of black and gray, splicing and parsing out the stage as they are drawn to and fight against ineffable waves from a hidden force. Dimly lit by Drew Billiau, “Risk” suggests indefinable but arduous interrelationships. The centerpiece of the work is a duet of struggle and acquiescence between muscular Gary W. Jeter II and featherweight but powerful Andrea Yorita. He gathers her up and swings her, legs propellerlike, into arcing circles. She punctuates her airy weightlessness with arms that slash, footwork so precise it could thread a needle. The resulting duet contrasts gravity-pulling weight and the yearning for freedom.

A lark, “Mashup,” from 2012, puts five 1980s college characters in a 21st-century setting. The score is an embarrassment of clichés: easy-listening covers of ‘80s New Wave, rock, and funk classics (“Super Freak,” “The Rose,” “Dancing in the Dark”) ironically recorded by Big Daddy. The characters — a nerdy girl, a prep, a dominatrix, a glasses-wearing geek, and the cool dude — find the playful antics in Hougland’s fluid scenarios drawn from the music of a “forgotten” generation — post-rock, post-soul, post-disco, pre-hip hop. The humor is arch, the portrayals broadly and lovingly played, and the dancers — Chloe Felesina, Francesca Forcella, Zachary Kapeluck, Daniel May and Richard Villaverde — are in on the jokes. They don’t mug, though; they dance it out dryly, wittily, and archly, just as Hoagland intended, so everyone is in on the joke.

All This and a World Premiere

The third work, a world premiere, drew inspiration from Philadelphia roots rock composer Chris Kasper and his band, who played on stage as backup to the dancers. “When We’re Alone” featured the entire company of 10 in a haunting evocation of life’s trials and triumphs played out with smartly sentimental poetics of Kasper’s aching compositions. Hoagland demonstrates his choreographic ballet chops in some highly detailed and classically imbued balletic partnering sequences early in the piece. Then it gets more personal with trios, duets, and solos unspooling from the dancers, who are draped in muted flowy pastels designed by Christine Darch. A few loving struggles play out on a carpet, with couples connecting and separating in the eternal metaphorical struggle between love and independence. The dancers here exude a sense of calm thoughtfulness and exhibit loping ease in Hoagland’s phrases, especially the way he has them casually cross the stage or sit at the edge of the band’s raised platform, connecting with the musicians.

BalletX has developed a keen eye for introducing new choreographic voices. This series proved that ongoing relationships — BalletX and Hoagland have been working together for eight years — with choreographers can reap artistically rewarding results.

Above, Gravity vs. freedom: Andrea Yorita and Gary W. Jeter II in “Risk of Flight,” photo Alexander Iziliaev

This review originally appeared in Broad Street Review on July 19, 2015, and is reprinted with kind permission.