"Are you exhausted?" one audience member asked another as they left the theater after the final vignette of choreographer Ron De Jesus' "Six Vignettes."
It was a legitimate question, given the intensity and sheer physical force of the dance and the dancers. Whew! It's obvious why they didn't do this dance first – it used the entire company – and who could have danced more afterward?
"Six Vignettes," performed Sunday, was the last of six dances last weekend on the Sacramento Ballet's Modern Masters program. Performances will continue Thursday through next Sunday.
The Modern Masters program offers young or new choreographers the opportunity to create a dance and see it performed by the Sacramento Ballet company. Many of the dances are more traditional than experimental, but there seems to be at least one each year that excites in an unconventional way. Last year, it was John Selya's "Unlikely Saint," a gritty urban ballet danced to a hip-hop soundtrack. This year, it was De Jesus' "Six Vignettes," danced to six separate but compatible music tracks by composers as varied as Antonio Vivaldi, Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Philip Glass.
The first vignette, "Voice," featured Ilana Goldman (whose mother attended Sunday's performance), seated for nearly the entire piece, her bare back to the audience. Through torso and arm movement only, she established an emotional backdrop for the elegant pas de deux by Jack Hansen and Kirsten Bloom. Each vignette grew in intensity and became more active.
"Undertow" was full of male energy, with lots of leaps and jumps by Hansen, Stefan Calka, Timothy Coleman, Ted Keener, John Speed Orr, Nicolas Pabst and Gabriel Williams.
"Seven Medusas" was bewitching with Goldman, Alexandra Cunningham, Nicole Haskins, Annali Rose Lülebas, Merett Miller, Amanda Peet and Heidi Zolker. Then came the red-clad company racing here, there and everywhere in the closing vignette, "Chasing Pavement." In addition to the dancers already named, Brik Middlekauff, Nikki Trerise, Brian Roethlisberger and Michael Vester joined the fray. Despite its mad pace, the dancing was quite precise.
Styles varied in the other dances. Nolan T'Sani's "Just a Kovich," set to music by Dmitri Shostakovich (get it?), was light and traditional – except for the line of step-dancers at the rear.
In his first ballet, Parrish Maynard (a former Sacramento Ballet dancer who now teaches at the San Francisco Ballet school) paired swooping arm movements and neck rolls suggestive of bird behavior to music by Shostakovich, mixed with nature sounds. There was some awkwardness in the lifts in this piece, however.
There was no awkwardness at all in "Le Baiser (The Kiss)," choreographed by company member Hansen for himself and Bloom. It highlighted his strong, sure lifts and her perfect stature in a classical romantic pas de deux set to music by Claude Debussy.
Former Sacramento Ballet dancer Amy Seiwert, now with San Francisco's Smuin Ballet, choreographed "end quote," marked by synchronized leaps and twists and turns.
"Opus Romanza" is only the second dance created for a ballet company by Sidra Bell. It emphasized the strength of the company's female dancers and placed the commanding figure of Goldman, partnered by Williams, out front. It was one – along with Hansen's "Le Baiser," Seiwert's "end quote" and De Jesus' "Six Vignettes" – that one could easily see being performed by other companies.
Call The Bee's Jim Carnes, (916) 321-1130.
