D.C. DanceWatcher, Lisa Traiger

The Banality of Evil

“Chapel/Chapter,” Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
George Mason University Center for the Arts
March 22, 2008

By Lisa Traiger
© 2008 by Lisa Traiger

Bill T. Jones has long been contemporary dance’s resident moral provocateur. Like his choreography, the implications of his work are rangy, far reaching and unapologetic. “Chapel/Chapter,” his 2006 evening-length meditation on guilt and innocence, percolates with ripped-from-the-headlines currency like a series of vignettes from a “Law and Order” episode, yet in the end the questions that bubble to the surface are as old as time. Why does evil exist and how can justice be exacted on criminals for actions that, for so many, seem completely senseless? Jones doesn’t provide us with the answers, but he poses the perspicacious questions with his articulate and clear-eyed artistic structure in ways that remain with the viewer long after the evening has concluded.

Dance, Dance, Dance, Go Forth and See Something

Well, I’m just coming down from The Kirov Ballet’s gorgeous and ethereal opening performance of “The Bayadere,” last week at the Kennedy Center, particularly the Act III “Kingdom of the Shades” scene. While ballet companies of a certain stripe often perform this scene replicating Petipa’s succinct but meaningful choreography, no company dances it like the Kirov. The corps de ballet, 32 lithe beauties, literally inhabits the steps, those rotating arabesques, as accurately appointed as a Swiss watch, the deeply spiritual sense of time standing still as the increasing line of women unfolds, and unfolds, and unfolds, almost like a mandala come to life. I’ve seen American companies, most recently American Ballet Theatre, perform “Shades” and the difference is palpable. While there is nothing wrong with the ABT corp’s performance, there’s something nearly unattainable in the Kirov’s. The dancers, gossamer netting and poufs of white tulle, notwithstanding, it's their exquisitely ingrained sense that ballet is not democratic, but hierarchic that takes one's breath away. It’s in the way they present a pointed foot, the way they step into their arabesque, the manner in which they hold their heads, exactly so. The Kirov’s dancers exhibit that desire to reach the highest realm of the spirit; it's that sense that marks these dancers as superlative. No company dances “Shades” like the Kirov.

Photo © Natasha Razina and the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet

Enough about the Kirov, a busy dance week begins in Washington tonight