danceview
a quarterly review of dance

Reviews

Baryshnikov in Europe
The White Oak Dance Tour

by Sylvia Kargl
Winter 1998

In most of the European cities where the White Oak Dance Project appeared as a guest company in 1996 there had been few previous possibilities to see their most famous dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov. For example, in Vienna we saw him only in 1977, when he had a big success as Apollo, in the Corsaire pas de deux, and in Push Comes to Shove. Except for The Turning Point, his films never became really popular here. Baryshnikov made his debut in Prague, at the age of forty-eight, with White Oak. He had neither danced there with the Kirov Ballet nor as a guest dancer until October 17, 1996.

His two performances in the National Theater, with the musicians of the White Oak Chamber Ensemble, were completely sold out. The first performance was dedicated to the late Olga Havel, the wife of the president Vaclav Havel, who sent an enormous bouquet of flowers to Baryshnikov. There were so many fans who bought flowers for Baryshnikov that the flower shops around the opera house were nearly sold out! Not only was the audience very grateful to see this famous personality of the dance, whose name was not allowed to be mentioned behind the Iron Curtain for years, but the critics were also impressed by his solo evenings, which contained Mark Morris's Three Russian Preludes, Twyla Tharp's Pergolesi, Dana Reitz's The Unspoken Territory, performed in silence and Jose Limon's Chaconne, for which Baryshnikov altered his costume. Due to the black background on the stage he wore a black T-shirt without sleeves, which gave a more intimate note to the piece, as opposed to recent performances in London, where he wore a black shirt with long sleeves.

The company was also invited to dance in Milan, and in Basel, where the choreographer Joachim Schlomer has been company director since this autumn. He had already created Blue Heron for White Oak in 1994. The invitation of Baryshnikov might also help Schlomer to get more recognition by his opponents in Basel, who want to continue the tradition of classical ballet after the directors Heinz Spoerli and Juri Vamos, instead of Schlomer's more modern style. London, where the European tour started at the end of August, had seen more of Baryshnikov before, as Baryshnikov's first appearance in the West took place there when he was still with the Kirov Ballet in 1970. Maybe this is the reason why some people in the audience and some critics in London were disappointed—they might have preferred spectacular show pieces. But both London and Vienna were the cities where Rudolf Nureyev was looked upon as the incarnation of classical ballet already. We were pleased not only with Nureyev's dancing, but with his productions of Swan Lake (which was reproduced in November 1996 for the Wiener Staatsopernballett), Don Quixote, Sleeping Beauty, and Raymonda. In spite of his success it cannot be denied that it was bitter to watch his decline as a dancer. His last performances in Vienna from the beginning of the '80s onwards were painful, but he could not resist the temptation to continue dancing all the princes.

In Europe, there has always been a tradition of discussing the question of aging dancers. In some companies like the Wiener Staatsopernballett, a dancer is obliged to retire after a certain amount of years of being employed, regardless what she or he still is able to dance or if she or he, or even the director, wants to go on working. If the older dancer is still an active principal, she or he is granted several performances in main roles. Thus members of the audience who are not insiders have come to conclusions like "Now I know it exactly: Odette is Siegfried's mother". Until the beginning of our century choreographers used to solve the problem with the creation of roles like Rothbart or Carabosse (Petipa), a tradition which for example goes on in Hungary, where the main choreographer Laszlo Seregi still creates interesting "character parts". Another famous attempt is Jiri Kylian's "Nederlands Dance Theatre III" for those artists who cannot dance in the main company any longer, but whose experience, and personality are still worth seeing. So Mikhail Baryshnikov's idea of the "White Oak Dance Project" as an elite company of selected dancers with experience in several ways of dancing who concentrate on contemporary dance now is very well received by European audiences and dance experts as well. All of the dancers, regardless of their age, are interesting dancers with different exceptional qualities. Only in Great Britain did some critics have objections, especially to the latest choreographies for White Oak by Ruthlyn Salomons and Kraig Patterson.

The concentration on modern choreographies seems to be quite reasonable to audiences in Austria, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland though. Besides the centers for European modern dance in Great Britain and France or some festivals, we do not have many opportunities to see modern dance on a high level. The development of classical ballet on one side and the antagonistic way of Tanztheater on the other side caused an indifference for modern dance which can be seen in Europe both in the courses of instruction throughout many schools for dancing and in their performances. The situation in many countries of Eastern Europe is even worse. Talented young ballet dancers do not find employment in the West because they lack education in modern dance. Seen from this point of view, it was very interesting that Baryshnikov invited the highly acknowledged young German choreographer Joachim Schlomer to create Blue Heron for his company in 1994. In the same year Schlomer founded the Tanztheater Weimar. This season he is moving to Basel/Switzerland where he has already caused a scandal because he dismissed the classical dancers.

But many dance experts in Germany praise Schlomer as the most interesting German choreographer of the '90s, the heir of Pina Bausch. For him the cooperation with an outstanding dancer like Baryshnikov must have been very inspiring. His latest works contain more fluent movements. In addition there is an example of overcoming the gap which can be seen in the development of dance in America and Europe. Beside William Forsythe and Jiri Kylian, there seems to be no contemporary choreographer who works in Europe and whose dances can be seen in one of the main American companies. And since George Balanchine's death there is an ignorance of American choreographers in Europe as well. Glen Tetley, Jerome Robbins, and recently Twyla Tharp in London, seem to be the only exceptions. Unfortunately Blue Heron was shown neither during the tour to London in August nor in Vienna in October.

All the five performances in the London Coliseum were sold out. The seven performances in Vienna's Museumsquartier, a former exhibition hall which was adapted for theater performances and where American Ballet Theater had performed in March 1996, were nearly sold out. There were no posters in the city, nearly no advertising in the newspapers, and little information for the public. It was a small miracle that so many people came to see Baryshnikov. Even on the evening of the first night of Verdi's Stiffelio with Jose Carreras in the Opera House the Museumsquartier was full and Baryshnikov got ovations. Ruthlyn Salomons Quiet As It's Kept proved to be a good piece to start the program. It may be seen as a reverence to the dancing women in the small company. It also shows the choreographer's personal roots in the island of Aruba. Some critics in England saw an influence of Balinese dances. There is also a connection to her education with Alvin Ailey, a deep humanity in soft movements connected to the floor. It turned out to be a warm-up piece for the audience with a dancer being given the possibility to show her ambition as a choreographer.

With Layers, Vernon Scott also got the possibility to show a new choreography for "White Oak" this year. It is created for three male dancers to a rather complicated music by Henry Cowell. It was not quite clear whether Scott wanted to show the structure of the "Suite for violine and piano" or if he was looking for something else. Although he danced his part in an impressive way, this piece still looks a little like a work in progress. Kevin O'Day is also both a dancer and choreographer for White Oak. Quartet for IV contains a lot of amusing movements and difficult lifts, resulting in the most interesting contemporary choreography of White Oak's dancers which we saw. This piece revealed another choreographical approach to music by Kevin Volans than we have seen in La Chambre of Renato Zanella, director and choreographer of the Wiener Staatsopernballett. Like most of the contemporary European choreographers Zanella wants to tell a story with a philosophical background behind every step. But O'Day's works--unfortunately still quite unknown in Europe—show more concentration on pure dance. It might be interesting to see the difference of both works in one program.

O'Day and "White Oak" have one more advantage in the cooperation with musicians-in Europe we are used to tape recordings most of the time at contemporary dance performances. It was also interesting to see a dancer like John Gardner, who danced as a guest in Vienna three times before, in a choreography which showed more of his abilities as a modern dancer. Of course Baryshnikov's solos were the highlights of all performances. In Vienna he started with Tharp's Pergolesi, which was created in 1993. It was interesting to compare Tharp's style and of Baryshnikov's dancing with the memories of Push Comes to Shove from 1977. He is still the same wonderful entertainer, but he has more possibilities for improvisations. The piece was danced with little differences every evening, sometimes according to the reactions of the audiences. The balletomanes were entranced by his humorous interpretation of his own past when he referred to ballets like Giselle, Petruschka, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and others.

Mark Morris's Three Russian Preludes, a solo based on preludes by Dmitri Shostakovich made for Baryshnikov in 1995, gave the impression of being autobiographical of both Baryshnikov and Shostakovich. A man is looking for his way, he has to learn to be patient, until he starts with movements from every day life which later become very abstract and artificial—all the time with a melancholic undertone. Baryshnikov still can show his outstanding technique. Jose Limons's solo Chaconne (1942) led us to the heaven of dance for several minutes. Bach's piano music and Baryshnikov's body became one. The choreography reveals pure beauty instead of technical showing-off, reminding us of Mikhail Fokine's demand for a new understanding of dance at the beginning of our century: "The dance shall not show muscular strength, but pure poetry". It is fascinating to watch this idea from a Russian choreographer being transformed into reality by a dancer of Russian origin in a choreography created by a Mexican-American artist. Such grace, humility and devotion to the dance have never been stronger in Baryshnikov's dancing than they are now, maybe matched in the international dance scene only in the solos created for the twenty years younger Vladimir Malakhov.

Merce Cunningham's Septet (1953) was danced in a rather different way when we saw it from Cunningham's dancers. Now it is performed with a more classical attitude that stressed the relationships between the dancers on the stage and the funny moments. Why not? It is no damage to the piece-just one more interpretation. What a Beauty! by Kraig Patterson is a sharp contrast to the other choreographies, a new work made in 1996. It shows a variety of human relationships-a small gesture like a blown kiss can start a new series of movements. Again this piece reveals a quite unusual side of one of the most acclaimed dancers of our time, who was dancing in a group with all the others in London, never trying to draw the attention on himself alone. You may not be able to resist watching only him, it seems to happen without intention, resulting from the fact that Baryshnikov is one of the rare personalities on stage who is interesting even without performing any movement. In Vienna Jamie Bishton showed a different interpretation of that role which was also well received by the audience. The tour gave us the possibility to follow Baryshnikov's career in Europe. Both as a dancer and as a director of a small company, he has well-defined aims. Thus he and the White Oak Dance Project increased our horizon of dance.