Step up, folks, pick your winners and lay your bets on the stars of Ballet West tomorrow! The Ballet West Conservatory is looking more and more like it can produce them.
Bear in mind that these dancers only go through high school age, and some are very young. Many of them come to the conservatory as referrals from the strong studios around the valley. But in the weekend's concerts, some excellent technique and dance-selling theatricality was evident in five new choreographies.Star of the evening was the grand pas de deux from "Paquita," staged by Willam F. Christensen. It's of the classic-romantic tradition, with its sequence of bravura display solos and duos, and it was fearlessly and joyously danced by Angela Rogers and Seth Olsen, remarkable dancers who are poised and able beyond their years.
Rogers is one of those gifted youngsters who makes ballet look natural and even inevitable, with her sure balance, clarity of line and gesture, and easeful technique. Olsen is forceful, unafraid to go for the big technical challenges and put them through, and altogether virile in his approach.
Indeed, one of Christensen's finest abilities is to draw fresh, buoyant, eager performances from his dancers. And he's always been expert in training male dancers of grace and aplomb, yet who take charge of the stage with the utmost virility. A pas de quatre for two couples gave the pas de deux a spirited introduction.
For his premiere, "Our Light," Raymond Van Mason saw to the depths of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings - lyrical music that wells up from some dark place and never quite finds the full light of day, only escaping through scarlet cracks as it climaxes.
The dark opening with girls in sheer black gowns holding little lights is fine theater, and the dance that followed reflected the nuance of the music with a floating, disembodied feeling, an ethereality, as restless souls seemed to flit about in the dim milieu, making transient connections, then flowing on alone, reaching and aspiring upward. There's a Balanchine influence, but Van Mason's individuality continues to shine as he more surely finds his own voice in each new choreographic challenge.
Opening the program was "Water Music," set to Handel by Joe Dewey, who pleasingly displayed the abilities of the Intermediate I class, with some comic touches.
From Peter Christie came "Sevens Own," set to Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, and "Rhapsodie pur petites Merveilles," a dance for seven girls with music by Lalo. In both cases, Christie showed a pleasing sense of the dictates of the music and finding the right physical interpretation. But his choreographies sometimes become fussy and overloaded with movement, and dancers get bunched up rather than utilizing the full stage. There need to be those little open spaces, where the mind can subconsciously relax between exertions.
The conservatory continues to show the beneficial results of a talented, caring faculty, led by the daily presence of assistant director Sharee Lane. Costumes courtesy of Ballet West added to the professional effect, and solos by pianists of the Conservatory staff made enjoyable interludes between dances.