Inspiration and collaboration: Ballet RI’s ‘Ballet Meets the Beatles’

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In her introduction to the program, Director Kathleen Breen Combes encapsulated that ethos at work with one John Lennon quote: “A dream you dream alone is only a dream, but a dream you dream together is reality.”

Artistic Curator and Resident Choreographer Yury Yanowsky’s enticingly enigmatic Es Muss Sein! opened the program. As part of the program’s strong spirit of collaboration, the live Beethoven score came from members of Providence’s Aurea Ensemble. It began with slow mystery, both in movement and sound. One dancer, facing upstage, walked slowly backward to upstage.

Energy rose, sound amplified, and movement undulations rippled from the foundation of strong lines. Rhythmic dynamics traversed the score’s terrain, offering much to savor but not so much as to be overwhelming. Dancers coming in and out of shadow, as well as shifting proxemics, added to the intrigue.

The enigma in the ether continued to resonate, even as new relationships emerged. New movement qualities and kinetic perspectives filled the stage, yet movement motifs served as a connecting thread. Gestures of opening and closing channeled momentum into new shapes.

Through it all, prominently featured ensemble member Alexandria Troianos demonstrated her unique technical prowess, yet also ability to have that secondary to the true soul of the moving moment. A more ebullient section toward the end softened the energy at hand, instilling ease into the compelling tension – yet the work closed back in enigmatic territory. We move in cycles.

Ken Ossola’s energetically steadfast and thought-provoking Alto Résonance came next. This work also began with a slow build. That was until several dancers – moving independently, yet synchronously – kinetically painted the space with the score’s layers. Continuing the collaborative spirit of live musicians and dancers, Aurea Ensemble also played the score for this work (by Dmitri Shostakovich).

Slumping shoulders, internal rotation and swiveling hips peppered a touch of quirky to the classical. Shifting groupings, facings and timing structures added further dimension to that mix. As a prominent ensemble member in this piece, Katherine Bickford Vigly offered singular power and expansiveness made aqueous.

The work’s last image was two dancers, hand-in-hand, undulating in unison – perhaps the connection that these personas were seeking all along. Yet with all moving in cycles, would quirky disconnection return? That’s an intriguing question with which we could leave the work.

Trey McIntyre’s A Day in the Life, set entirely to tracks from The Beatles, was quite the closer. Comforting and satisfying, it felt like a warm hug. The dancers began facing each other in a circle – very 1960s. A stripe of a different color on each of their costumes also instilled a “psychedelic rainbow” feeling (from the Bisou Consortium with painting by Lisa Waering Sacaris). As we shifted into new Beatles tracks – some more universally-known than others – the energy in the movement evolved accordingly.

Yet, a wholly appropriate, and absolutely infectious, joy remained: lifted hearts, easy smiles, natural visceral connections between and amongst ensemble members. It came off as a blast to dance, and the ensemble indeed seemed to be having a blast doing so. Yet there were indeed heavier moods to certain sections; The Beatles’ canon isn’t all sunshine and rainbows (because life isn’t). Overall, McIntyre – as he’s done before – painted a multichromatic emotional landscape on moving bodies from the foundation of pop music.

Also keeping things vital was fresh vocabulary with new sections, and generally avoiding predictability; I genuinely had no idea what to expect next. The music being so central to the work, musicality was another noteworthy element – and the ensemble fully delivered there. Garret McNally, as a featured persona, brought a particularly pleasing meeting of joy and technical mastery.

The dancers returned to the group circle, with McNally once again outside. Yet – with a few tracks after that, more to explore – it wasn’t quite an ending return to the very beginning. Instead, we got an ending of the ensemble frenetically thrashing as a cacophony of sound filled the space. Then came a resolution into still poses, perhaps a resolution into peace.

Either way, from the foundation of classic music came a full kinetic and energetic kaleidoscope – just as the two prior works grew from the rich soil of cross-disciplinary collaboration and inspiration. Wherever we find fodder to create, however we are moved, we can step forward in the process of creation: individually and as part of the human story of creation. What a gift! Thank you to Ballet RI for reminding us what a special gift it is.

By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.

Alexandria Troianos, Aurea Ensemble, Ballet RI, Choreographer, choreographers, choreography, dance review, dance reviews, Dmitri Shostakovich, Garret McNally, Katherine Bickford Vigly, Kathleen Breen Combes, Ken Ossola, Lisa Waering Sacaris, online dance review, online dance reviews, review, Reviews, Trey McIntyre, Yury Yanowsky