In addition to chamber works on pointe by two alumnae (Claudia Shreier and Larissa Koch), the program included Opalescent, a dance for five women in a sort of early-modern-cum-Graham style choreographed by Dance Program director Elizabeth Bergmann. The gently skimming dance patterns were woven into muted chiming and drum rhythms — composed in collaboration with Bergmann by Jody Diamond — for a Javanese-style gamelan built by the American avant-garde composer Lou Harrison. This ensemble of instruments, on loan from Diamond to Harvard's music department, has five sets of tuned bowls and metallophones, drums, violin, and a great gong that hangs in its own frame and is struck with a soft mallet to mark the long intervals of the music.
A certain subdued exoticism about this piece reminded me that the early Ballets Russes shocked and subverted the dance stage at the same time as the American revolutionaries Ruth St. Denis and Isadora Duncan.
The celebrations continue with Boston Ballet's "Diaghilev Centennial" program (May 14-17) and a week of events surrounding a three-day conference at Boston University (May 18-23; www.ballets-russes.com).
Related:
The real deal, Slideshow: Ballets Russes at the Wang, Review: Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center, More 
- The real deal
Nineteenth-century ballets are not all alike. But Boston Ballet's Sleeping Beauty is the real McCoy.
- Slideshow: Ballets Russes at the Wang
Boston Ballet performs "Diaghilev's Ballets Russes Centennial Celebration" at the Wang Theater
- Review: Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center
Gotham was awash in dance during early January as the annual Dance on Camera Festival coincided with the conference of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (better known as APAP, the national bookers' convention).
- Scenes from the city
I missed more things in two and a half days last week than I managed to take in, so whatever I might infer about dance in the New York vortex could have come out a different way if I’d reversed my priorities.
- Not quite Nina
On hearing the opening notes of the Kronos Quartet composition and seeing the dancers lit in sunny yellow, I feared we were about to be subjected to one of those “up with people” ballets.
- Tragic tropes and anti-tropes
The only question to ask about a new Romeo and Juliet, besides “Why?”, is “Why New York City Ballet?”
- Love and death
“Classic Balanchine” as opposed to . . . “Jazz Balanchine”? “Porno Balanchine”? What was the alternative?
- Dreaming and remembrance
Two momentous revivals in town showed us how big the category of classical ballet really is.
- Links to a legacy
In her Pillow Talk at Jacob’s Pillow last weekend, Suzanne Farrell was asked what she expects of the young dancers who are reviving George Balanchine’s ballets under her direction.
- State of the art
Maybe it’s the economy, but Boston Ballet’s third-annual season-opening gala was a sober evening, without the orchestral overture that graced the first two affairs.
- Adam and Eve
A day at New York City Ballet that starts with a matinee of Coppélia and ends with a Balanchine evening might seem to offer merely the contrast between classic and modern, old and new.
- Less
Topics:
Dance
, Entertainment, Harvard University, Serge Diaghilev's Ballets, More
, Entertainment, Harvard University, Serge Diaghilev's Ballets, Boston University, Dance, Dance, Performing Arts, Igor Fyodorovitch Stravinsky, Erik Satie, Boston Ballet, Less
