A ballet company that premieres two original works in one night and includes the "Black Swan Pas de Deux" of Tchaikovsky is offering an adventurous program as it is. Throw in Bizet's "Carmen" in the second half and it becomes an ambitious and exciting evening.
But Ballet Theatre of Annapolis pulled it off last weekend at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis.
The new works were Anton Wilson's "Seep," an abstract piece based on Emily Dickinson's poem "Almost" and danced to the music of contemporary composer Phillip Glass, and Edward Stewart's traditional "The Crowned Jewel," a moving tribute to his late mother set to the music of French romantic composer Gabriel Pierne.
Both choreographers have local appeal. Wilson, who has danced all over the world, grew up in Severna Park and Stewart is the ballet's artistic director.
Wilson's dance started with a slightly open curtain through which the audience viewed dancers sauntering back and forth, approaching the opening. The late-20th-century music worked well with the mid-19th-century poem, which was quoted in Hebrew and English.
The dancers moved freely to the insistent pulsating beat, sometimes writhing to express the frustration the poem expresses at not grasping life's treasures.
"The Crowned Jewel," done in a classical ballet form, was visually lovely with an ethereal quality enhanced by a gauze curtain that created a cloudlike setting.
BTA's principal dancer Leslie Bradley was joined by six dancers portraying angels, Aram Manukyan and Jeffrey Watson as two archangels, and six children. With its harp music and dreamlike setting, the ballet could have become a parody of Hollywood versions of heaven, but in Stewart's sensitive hands "The Crowned Jewel" is an elegantly serene ballet that celebrates a life well lived.
Zhirui Zou, from the National Ballet of China in Beijing, delighted the audience with her execution of 32 fouettes (toe spins) and her exquisite line dancing in the role of Odille in the "Black Swan Pas de Deux." Dmitry Tuboltsev as Prince Siegfried partnered with Zou beautifully, contributing greatly to the flawless performance.
Just as beautifully danced and more exciting was "Carmen" with principals Natasha Kiryanova as Carmen, Tuboltsev as Don Jose, Zou as Micaela, Watson as Escamillo and Manukyan as Lieutenant Zuniga.
Again Tuboltsev was an ideal partner for Zou, executing beautiful lifts and seamless turns without music, the silence stressing the purity of their art. Although the deliberate silence worked, later there were intermittent problems with the sound that detracted from the ballet.
Kiryanova was a gorgeous Carmen in the habanera dance with Manukyan's Lieutenant Zuniga.
Ballet Theatre of Annapolis' next performance in the family series will be "Swan Lake" and "Beauty and the Beast" on April 24.
Information: 410-263-2909.
Pub Date: 3/11/99