danceviewwest
writers on dancing

 

Kids Only

Company C
Cowell Theater
September 5, 2003

reviewed by Rachel Howard

When can a children’s ballet charm grownups, too? When the music is as layered and complex as, say, Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.” Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” also fits the bill, but although it was composed as a ballet in 1918 it is rarely performed as one. The fiendishly polyphonic music, for a small ensemble, is surprisingly folksy, danceable, and memorable if not downright catchy. Combine that with a dramatic reading of C.F. Ramuz’s rhymed story about a military man who sells his fiddle—and with it his soul—for corrupting knowledge, and you’ll have audiences of all ages paying attention.

Which is not too say that Charles Anderson’s new production, premiered at the Cowell Theater Friday, succeeds.

A former New York City Ballet dancer and the son of two well-connected East Bay ballet teachers, Anderson returned from the East Coast a few years ago and, after a stint at the helm of Moving Arts Dance Company, founded his own troupe. His choreographic forays for the whimsically named Company C, as well as Oakland Ballet, have been dismal. Never have I seen so few ideas attached to so much thankless petite allegro as in Voiceprint, premiered at July’s Summerfest. At least Anderson then had the humility to remove it from The Soldier’s Tale’s shared program, which also presented a work by James Sewell. But while this setting of The Soldier’s Tale had potential for adult appeal, the choreography proved juvenilely thin. Company C may have a children’s matinee and school outreach hit on its hands, but adults looking for a Friday night entertainment surely left disappointed.

This production’s key strength is a fabulous recording, uncredited in the program, led by conductor Kent Nagano and dividing the narration between Sting, Ian McKellen, and Vanessa Redgrave. Redgrave’s performance as the devil, especially, is so rhapsodically snarling that you could have closed your eyes and found your imagination still fully engaged. Which you might as well, since only the blandest and most perfunctory miming acts out the long passages of storytelling.

If you kept your eyes open, it was probably because of Sharon Booth. Anderson has had much better luck finding interesting dancers than crafting interesting dances, and Booth is his pillar. A recent Juilliard grad with a refreshingly womanly figure, radiant skin, and a space-eating jeté, Booth revealed serious stage presence beneath pounds of theatrical makeup while mugging, Cruella DeVille-fashion, as the devil. The other MVP in Anderson’s eight-member company is the elegant Ashley Flaner, who took on the work’s most difficult choreography (including a brief passage of partnered turning) as the princess who helps the soldier rediscover the deeper meanings of life. Former Smuin Ballet dancer Charles Torres, in a guest appearance, dispatched the military man’s classroom-combination jumps and turns (a pirouette with a flexed foot held at the ankle and hand raised in salute was about as distinctive as the material got) with aplomb and an appropriate air of naiveté.

Unfortunately, after the long mime sections, most of the interesting music was left to a six-dancer chorus in black tights and white masks. The mono-monikered costume designer Vincent, who never met a pair of pointe shoes he couldn’t glam up with sequins, contributed well-constructed but often overly busy costumes. Matthew Antaky’s excellent lighting enhanced Sedley Chew’s admirably simple set designs.

Minneapolis-based James Sewell’s Appalachia Waltz, disturbingly indistinguishable from Anderson’s choreography in its blandness, opened the evening. The music was by Edgar Meyer, whose homey Americana has been used to more nuanced effect by the likes of Twyla Tharp and Brenda Way. Six dancers, three wearing trousers and suspenders to play the boys, skipped-to-my-lou through a countryside where the occasional torso contraction or angled arm counted as choreographic invention. The cross-dressing was unconvincing (and unnecessary, since the work really had no sexual content) but the dancing, by Booth, Flaner, Laura Sefchovich, Katherine Orloff, Lizabeth Saenz, and Amy Malepeai, was solid.

Photos:
first :  Ashley Flaner and Charles Torres.
second:  Sharon Booth as the Devil. Photographer: Susan Vogel

copyright 2003 by Rachel Howard

 

 

 

 

 

 

what did you think?
Share views about performances, post announcements of upcoming events and news, on our forum.
 

(c) 2003 by danceviewwest
page last updated: October 8, 2003