Sometimes dance is better understood when you try to see it through the eyes of someone who designs it. In an interview several years ago, Christopher Wheeldon Obe, the choreographer for Commedia, the first dance opening The Joffrey Ballet’s winter season at the Auditorium this past Wednesday, talked about the beauty of having you own dance company. He was probably aware he was also divulging some of the properties that make dance so entrancing. Having your own company allows you “to have dancers who know just how you like them to move, the way you want them to cut shapes in space, the way you ask them to respond to music.” These are also the key components that define what we in the audience see and how we see them.
Thinking of each of these points while recalling opening night’s performance of The Times Are Racing adds to the appreciation of the program and all that the Joffrey Ballet does. The program covered a broad arch of dance; from classic ballet, to Mono Lisa, a dance that defies the limitations of time and the capabilities of the human form. Mono Lisa’s choreographer, Itzik Galili, can also take credit for creating another jewel of the evening, The Sofa. This three-person piece proves that exceptional imagination can create a story built from music and movement that’s humorous, conceptually beautiful and completely unconventional. The closing piece, The Times Are Racing, created by the Joffrey’s Resident Choreographer, Justin Peck, is an exuberant polyglot of a dance; contemporary at its core with sweeps of jazz and tap to accentuate the dance’s exultant celebration of youth.
Both Wheeldon Obe’s Commedia and Stephanie Martinez’s Bliss underscore Joffrey’s artistic dominance in ballet. Although Commedia isn’t at all narrative, it’s still broken into different episodes that follow the mood of the Stravinsky’s music. Dancers parody medieval harlequins, sleek jesters who mimic both the beauty and the excitement of the music; dazzling the audience with their perfection of form. Because it’s not as structured as the opening ballet, the male dominated Bliss ebbs and flows with a slightly different energy. One that keeps the door open to surprise and uses dramatic throws and other devices to show how strength can be grafted onto grace to produce something thrilling.
But it was in Galili’s Mono Lisa where the tone truly turned. Discipline, training and individual talent commanded the stage as two dancers pushed themselves and challenged each other to reach the outer limits of skill. This dance for two was not about the delicacy we associate with a traditional pas de deux. In this pairing, the under layer of intensity had a much stronger presence and rode the rhythmic staccato sounds of a typewriter that formed the foundation of the musical score. Lighting resembling inverted typewriter keys blanketed the stage’s sky. The soul rumbling sound of drums arrived later to accompany the tapping insistency of typewriter keys. Stefan Goncalvez led with a display of dance prowess intended to impress and intimidate. It did. Every jump, landing and rotation happened with a precision that, as they continued, seemed unfathomable. His virtuosity was matched by that of Victoria Jaiani as they would alternate; dancing as a pair and individually, with unparalleled exactness and athleticism. Even though it’s not usually customary to go to the ballet for a visceral experience, Mono Lisa, with its demand for stamina and expertise, certainly provided it.
From a completely different point of view, The Sofa did too. This was a clear story anyone who’s been on the outs with their main squeeze could relate to immediately. With some Tom Waits rusty blues setting the tone, a couple sat in vengeful silence on a comically large yellow sofa. They scowled, they fought, they kind of made up, and fought again until they knock the sofa back; disappear, and one of them is replaced by another person when the sofa is righted again. Who that new person is, is important. And then they go through the whole re-enactment again; only in reverse. It all happens with the quickness of an animated movie short; the brilliance lying in the language of the dance.
Joffrey Artists Anna Gerberich and Temur Suluashvili in The Sofa -_Photo by Cheryl Mann
Blessed with many exceptional dance companies, Joffrey Ballet still holds a unique place in the city’s dance galaxy as this year’s winter program so clearly illustrates. It keeps improving and its talent pool keeps getting richer and deeper. Chicago has plenty of reason to look forward to the way this company “moves, cuts shapes in space, and responds to music” for another 25 years.
Joffrey Ballet Chicago
The Times Are Racing
February 12 – 23, 2020
The Auditorium Theater
50 East Ida B. Wells Drive
Chicago, IL 60605
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