Softly As I Leave You, by the Dutch team of Paul Lightfoot and Sol León, returned for a second run with Morphoses, featuring Drew Jacoby and Rubinald Pronk in expressionistic solos of personal angst and a seduction duet. Trapped in a narrow box at the beginning, Jacoby escaped, then lured Pronk into the booth. She was scrambling along the outside of it when the lights went out.
Alexei Ratmansky’s Boléro wasn’t new, but it confirmed the choreographer’s great gift for combining craft with human warmth and kinship. I thought dances to Ravel’s Boléro ought to be banned forever. Those kitschy 15 minutes of variations on a theme of RUMP-pa pa pa paahhhRump.RUMP-pa pa pa nag at me for days afterward like a twisted ankle. But Ratmansky’s dance created a visual analogy to the way the insistent ground bass holds the whole musical structure together.
The dancers, only six of them, formed a unison coalition at the beginning. In ones and twos, they broke away to dance independently, but they always returned to the group, remnants of which seemed to be in motion somewhere in the background all the time. This sounds like any standard piece of ensemble choreography, but it’s the way Ratmansky engineers these comings and goings that makes them seem like casual, social passages instead of platforms to display dancing. It’s the way he makes the individuals reflect or contrast with the group while reminding us always that they’re part of a bigger community that marks him as an original.
Related:
2009: The year in dance, Giant's steps, Cyberloops, More 
- 2009: The year in dance
You could say there were two tremendous forces that propelled dance into the world of modern culture: the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev and the choreography of Merce Cunningham.
- Giant's steps
Merce Cunningham's death on July 26 wasn't unexpected. He'd been in frail health since this past winter. He was in a wheelchair for his 90th-birthday celebration in April at Brooklyn Academy of Music. In June, the Cunningham Foundation announced plans for the future of the company and the repertory after his death.
- Cyberloops
Merce Cunningham has used computers as co-creators for his choreography since 1991, and it was his evolving dance Loops that inspired the six works shown Friday night at the MIT Museum to open the sixth Boston Cyberarts Festival.
- High stepping
The heavy-hitter repertory shows this season come from ALVIN AILEY and GEORGE BALANCHINE . But why not welcome spring by taking a chance on fresh experiences as well?
- Screen scenes
One persistent question surrounding the 35th Dance on Camera Festival, which winds up this Saturday at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, is “Just what is dance film?” As a category it’s even more accommodating than dance itself.
- Diaghilev days
The Ballets Russes come to town
- Fusions and effusions
Performed on the chapel lawn at Concord Academy a week ago Thursday, Anna Myer’s All at Once utilized a sculptural, gestural movement idiom, but it looked more like a ballet than a modern dance.
- Untold tales
Some dances are made on specific story lines that they keep to themselves.
- Drama dance
Half a century ago something known as dance drama occupied a large part of the modern-dance repertory.
- 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.
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Topics:
Dance
, John Cage, Dance, Igor Fyodorovitch Stravinsky, More
, John Cage, Dance, Igor Fyodorovitch Stravinsky, Erik Satie, Modern Dance, Merce Cunningham, Merce Cunningham, Alexei Ratmansky, Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, Less
