That alone would be reason enough for Tampa Bay dance fans to take the trip south to the Sarasota Opera House, whose elegant surroundings make any performance feel like a grand occasion. But the mood seemed especially electric last night: One of the world’s greatest male dancers (not to mention a major ballet heartthrob) was in attendance to see the first performance of his work.
Sarasota Ballet is no stranger to the national spotlight — or to dance history, for that matter. In fact, its allegiance to the work of British choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton (1904-88), who ranks with George Balanchine as one of the 20th century’s greatest, is a chief reason the company is regularly reviewed, and reviewed glowingly, by the New York Times. The paper’s chief dance critic, the formidable Alastair Macaulay, is as picky as they come, able to dissect a pirouette with a surgeon’s precision. But when it comes to SB and Ashton, he’s an out-and-out fanboy:
“The Sarasota achievement in Ashton choreography would be cause for warmest congratulation in a British company,” he wrote in a review of a 2015 performance at Jacob’s Pillow, the Massachusetts dance mecca. “To find it in an American company based in a city perched on the Gulf of Mexico is beyond extraordinary.”
So that’s another reason this weekend’s program, overall entitled “Metropolitan,” is so intriguing: In addition to the Gomes premiere and a Balanchine classic, Theme and Variations, it also features a piece by Ashton, the rarely done Iluminations.
But back to Dear Life…, which opens the program. It would seem to be addressing a solemn subject, at least as described in the playbill: the “one final, lucid moment” of a dying man as he writes “a letter to his own life.” And sure enough, even as the orchestra is warming up and before the house lights have gone down, The Man (long, lean Ricardo Rhodes) looks to be in pretty bad shape, hunched, hurting, eventually collapsing on the lip of the stage, his coughs in concert with punctuating chords from Beethoven’s Seventh. But then, as if defibrillated, he gets his breath back, plus a handy piece of paper on which, yes, he begins to write “Dear Life…,” his cursive script simultaneously unfurling on an upstage projection screen like the opening titles to an old Hollywood movie.
Whether or not this lissome goddess was leading him on, his “Dear Life” letter sums up the relationship (cue handwriting on screen) with “You have allowed me to find love.” The pair do reunite, beautifully, but before they do there’s an interlude that more than lives up to the thank-you, which reads “I will treasure my rambunctious youth.” His Youth — represented by the totes adorbs Samantha Benoit, Logan Learned and Ivan Duarte — is indeed rambunctious, full of leaps (with arms and legs akimbo), stolen kisses (both boy-girl and boy-boy) and pure glee.
The Man does eventually come to the end of his life, and his letter (“I bid you farewell,” the screen reads). But, if he got to take these final memories with him, you think, well, what a way to go!
Dear Life… being a world premiere, it wasn’t surprising to see a slip here, a misstep there, which was also evident in a few places in the Balanchine. Given the furious attention to precision which Balanchine’s dances require, though, this young company carried off Theme and Variations remarkably well.
And there were more gasps to come. Erni, who has the bearing of a danseur noble but a fresh-faced gee-i’m-so-lucky-to-be-here grin, acquitted himself well in the difficult solos, with their multiple virtuoso spins, as did the graceful Honea. What’s most exciting about any Balanchine (for me, at least) are those moments when the full ensemble is at work and you realize anew how brilliantly and intricately his choreography responds to musical changes. The SB dancers acquitted themselves extremely well, their movements opening up and contracting as the Tchaikovsky score swelled and faded, some shifts sudden and some gossamer-subtle. You could see the music shimmering in the dance. Theme and Variations had its world premiere almost exactly 70 years before Dear Life…, but it feels just as fresh.
And the Ashton? Fascinating. Fanciful. And like nothing else I’d ever seen. This was not the audience favorite, judging by overheard murmurs (and a departure or two) afterwards, so I guess you could say Ashton — at least this Ashton — is an acquired taste. But I can’t stop thinking about it, so I guess I’ve acquired it.
In its whimsies and un-ironic allegory, Illuminations doesn’t just conjure up an imagined world; it feels like a world that could only have been imagined in an era more tolerant of whimsy and allegory than our own (Illuminations premiered in 1950). I can see how that might not be everyone’s cup of Earl Grey, but I was enthralled.
And I know I’ll be taking more trips to see the Sarasota Ballet.
This article appears in Nov 30 – Dec 7, 2017.