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Round 2, Session 1, June 21 - part 1

Jackson’s contemporary choreography round used to be one of its unique features. I can still recall some material I saw here, including the hoop solo which David McNaughton danced from Lew Christensen’s Scarlatti Portfolio, as sparkling a bravura piece as any in the contemporary repertoire. Unfortunately, this session turned out to be very much “the pig in the poke.” Long-time balletomane friends remarked around rounds of wine following the session that “This is supposed to be a contemporary Classical, repeat Classical ballet round.”

We saw twenty-three out of sixty competitors on Friday night in pieces purportedly designed to demonstrate their technique and expressive capacities. What was paraded before our eyes utilized everything but the kitchen sink. Crazy cliches, but yea, verily, Jackson’s organizers will need to consider seriously the value of the model the Paris Competition provides in contemporary choreography. Let me proceed with examples.

Yudai Fukuoka
© Richard Finkelstein

Yudai Fukuoka, Japan, in Salut, started in a spotlight on a chair, the light shaft gradually extending as he dragged his chair upstage on the diagonal. He stood on it, used it for handstands, draped his body over it, dragged it, fell with it. His costume was an open white shirt and faded jeans, visibly torn at one knee and one buttock. To Camille Saint-Saens “Danse Macabre” and Speed Master’s “Signs of Fish”, the frantic anxiety of contemporary punk youth couldn’t have had a better reading. The shirt was used in spots as temporary ostrich-like oblivion, before the final center stage spot, where Fukuoka, exhausted, stretched himself.

Eun Ji Ha, South Korea, performed Min Jun Kim’s Shadow in the Water to music by David Long, Kevin Shields titled “New Look.” This new regard was so advanced I have absolutely no register of its nature. Ha, dressed in a short maroon tunic, and in soft slippers, moved parallel across the upper stage, executed some careful a la seconde developpes and a sustained renverse into attitude which registered as impressive. My notes say “extensive port de bras and floor work, best parts beginning and end,” where something of a shadow quality was conveyed. Ha danced with flowing hair. The shadow element would have been better conveyed with a longer costume, movingwith equal freedom.

Kyoko Watanabe, Japan, chose a short piece by John Neumeier, Badinerie, to music by J.S. Bach of the same name. Dressed in a cream colored tunic and dancing en pointe, the brief essay was an exercise in phrasing and a subtle use of the classical vocabulary. As I write early on Saturday morning, it stands out as one of the stellar examples of good taste seen on Friday night.

Sarah Kathryn Lane
© Richard Finkelstein

Sara Kathryn Lamb, U.S.A., performed an ambitious essay to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Adagio sustenuto-Presto to a recording by Pamela Frank and Emmanuel Ax. Jamey Leverett’s musical choice placed Lamb on pointe, gave her rapid challenges, pert gestures and shoulder shifts. She wore a two piece burgundy costume connected down the middle with a piece of the same-hued fabric, and some elegant black brilliants along the edge of the V-neck. The piece, titled Unbound, presented an anomaly of costume and steps to the connotations of its title.

Yu Yonezawa, Japan, gave us Ben Iida’s Little Angel to Brad Fidels’ “Our Gang Goes to Cyberdine.” In her short black shapeless tunic, accented by a few vertical white stripes, Yonezawa gave us variations on a scruffy-waif posture, legs apart, torso thrust forward, hair in two pigtails, and a variety of shoulder rotations. Iida did give us a reprise of the same movement, but for me it’s not one for the memory bank.

Sang Yi Han, South Korea, had the good fortune to dance to some intrinsically Korean music, a kayagum piece by Hwang Byong Ki, recently retired professor of kayagum at Ehwa Women’s University. Hwang has the distinction of being not only a virtuoso performer, but also a composer on this quintessential Korean instrument, which is played on the floor and plucked with the fingers instead of plectra. While the music may be an acquired taste, it is gutsy and full of atmosphere, and, I think, suited Misook Jeon’s purpose very well. It also made a distinctive statement in a program which I felt smacked of cultural homogenization, something I don’t think classical ballet need be.

Han stood upstage center, back to the audience, in a full-length white satin gown, striking and gothic-like, which she shortly took off to reveal a two piece black tunic with a red stripe accenting the left side. She danced with some floor work, primarily in lateral stage movement and classical vocabulary around the floor, eschewing the vertical, to the running strokes of the kayagum with its occasional rapping sound on its wooden body. The use of pauses, and a single note lent an unusual focus. Han took the white satin length, swung it aloft like the handkerchief in sal pu ri , slung it on the floor, collapsed over it and tossed it. This morning, reading these notes, I suddenly realized the garment symbolized the Jeon’s study of a Korean woman’s view of marriage, appropriately titled The Last Step. I have discussed this excessively, probably because I have been partially privy to Korean culture, but also because the music was one of the genuinely unusual moments in the evening.

Sarah Lamb
© Richard Finkelstein

Sarah Lamb, U.S.A., started the senior entries with Viktor Plotnikov’s Sometime, Somewhere to an orchestral version of Bizet’s Toreador song in Carmen. Lamb’s blonde locks were collected into a slouched black cap and her slender body encased in a shapeless black jacket and short trousers. She came on like a street punk, Our Gang fashion, complete with hunched chest over legs, which seemed to move around each other like a conniving hand gesture. We watched her execute a few street gestures including the thumb to the nose, and the stiffened two fingers holding a cigarette. Then, back to the audience, the jacket is discarded, two edges of a black skirt are unsnapped from the shoulders and hat comes off to allow Lamb’s blonde pony tail to cascade. Lamb threw the cap off stage and launched in to circular stage movements, swinging the black skirt to the swinging melodic line, and pulling on her pony tail like the nature of the coxcomb swagger of the toreador himself.

Haven’t quite reached the intermission break yet, but will continue... in part 2

This piece is part of Ballet.co's overall Jackson Competition coverage. The competition runs from the 15th to the 30th June 2002 and we plan daily reports to keep you in touch:
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