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Ballet ArgentinoNovember 2000 University of California, Berkeley, Zellerbach Hall by Renee Renouf |
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Ballet Argentino, with Julio Bocca, is an enormously appealing group of thirteen dancers, the women, small, rounded in the right places, the men slender and well muscled, the port de bras and deportment gracious and the stage presentation warm and engaging. If the classicism, with the exception of Julio Bocca and Luciana Paris, lacked the crystal edge, suppleness and ease was present along with an unforced confidence and remarkable steadiness in performance. The ensemble have their nationality in common which heightens their obvious comraderie. Unfortunately, except for the Piazolla finale, they have to dance to tape.
Paris and Bocca commenced the program in an unfrilly rendition of Don Q. Notable to witness was Bocca nuzzling Paris while preparing to support her pirouettes. It is, after all, a wedding pas de deux and Bocca reminds you Basilio is quite pleased at being wed. In the full-length production, there are indeed variations, although my hazy memory wonders whether these variations dont happen earlier. Perez and Vadimovna do a pleasing, confident job, but nothing to underscore the excitement of the pas de deux, and their numbers spread out the impact of one of ballets great war horses. Paris variation seemed smooth and swift though lacking a certain exhuberance and spontaneity. She, unfortunately, traveled in her multiple fouettes in the coda. Boccas variation eschewed showy splits in his jetes until the coda which his turns seemed like a genie-induced mobile corkscrew, brilliant firework after precise, under-emphasized clarity.
We are not told in the program notes when the contemporary works were created. It would be interesting to know as Araiz is known in the United States primarily for his version of Prokofievs Romeo and Juliet where the Veronese heroine is split into three parts, mounted for the Joffrey Ballet at Robert Joffreys invitation. I was particularly intrigued because Gerald Arpino used the same music from Mahlers Fourth Symphony for Round of Angels in the mid-80's, danced by Patricia Miller and James Canfield and dedicated to James Howells memory, Arpinos musical collaborator. These asides are meant to convey similar use of the swoopy wavelike ebb and flow, but Arpino relied on at least three additional men to Canfield. Araiz has created an endurance contest for the small, rounded Figaredo and the dynamic partnering of Alessandria. The couple never faltered in their extended partnering, whether prone on the floor modulating into a complicated lift, one above the other, sustained and arching, or Alessandrias supported wavelike movements of Figaredo. Their execution and control was exemplary; still the Mahler piece is too lengthy.
Mendez is one of the major figures in choreography to emerge from Cuba, and his work was seen here when Alicia Alonso brought her company to Berkeley in the mid-80's. Tarde en Siesta, I think, was part of the name of the ballet, evoking the Hispanic side of polite Cuban society. That Cuban company visit sticks in my mind because riots broke out following Dan Whites acquittal for the shooting of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, and it was perilous to emerge from BART and try to complete the trip home. Chain of association aside, Mendez takes on the Balanchine formula in this trio and in performance emerges playful, with a few moves of his own and with more gracious port de bras. Gros is blonde, small, perfectly built, and perpetually smiling in a white unitard with glints of silver. Benjamin Parada has a grand jete which arches up, forward and is sure as a well-aimed arrow, in addition to a body graced with phenomenal suppleness. Sergio Amarante is tall, steady and hints at nobility. Both men are stripped to the waist and in trousers, unshaven in the arm pits. Why Mendez decided a concerto from two composers mystifies, unless Bocca specified that soloists deserved equal time and plenty of rest for the preceding couple. Like Mahler, it was a good impression overextended.
Bigonzetti, whose early affiliation was with Alterballetto prior to his career as a choreographer, enjoys a healthy credit line of works in Italy, with the English National Ballet, Stuttgart and Ballet Argentino. He has used two sonnets of Shakespeare for Boccas solos within the piece, spoken in Spanish, in this ballet using Two Gentlemen of Verona as its subject matter. The combinations seem anomalous, but Boccas phrasing in his solos, his accents and retards in movement drew exclamations from my friend, Ballet Russe-era dancer/choreographer Marc Platt. Admiration of an old pro, schooled to the intense immediacy which the Ballets Russes in their manifestations displayed, was not only wonderful to see, but gave an accolade to Boccas enormous sensibilities.
Black was de rigeur in this one, some of it quite stylish as in a black silk rose punctuating a drape at the lower thigh, in one number some sinister looking black hats and womens dresses which all had variations at the shoulder and embellished with varying quantity of jet plus those black heels one expects of the woman, strapped on for the duration. With the exception of Bocca with his cummerbund and a shirt which displayed his sculptured upper arms, most of the male wore a form of conventional male shirt. It made it all look pretty serious. Stekelman, of course, created three scenes in Carlos Sauras film Tango. The amount of conventional partnering in the piece was minimal, replaced by heated displays of essentially passionate despair by the women and more than hinted at homosexuality in the trio Primavera Portefia with Christian Alessandria, Sergio Amarante and Juan Pablo Ledo, a trio of disparate physiques eloquent and smoldering. Ledo, willowy and slight with a driving focus provided the question mark for the trio. Inverso Porteno saw Julio Bocca turn a table into a partner as he roamed around, over, under and balanced on it. Luciana Paris, the wearer of the black rose near the back of her left knee, appeared briefly as a woman abandoning herself to Boccas pursuasive body, only to slink away, leaving him alone with the table.
In Calibre Julio Bocca and Christian Alessandria paired off, Alessandria leading masterfully, Bocca as the intense follower, the ensemble watching in combined fascination, silent comment and as a suspended tribunal. At the end, there was, as with most of the other numbers, a lightning quick blackout leaving the audience at the edge of their seats, gasping.
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