BalletX takes center stage at Laguna Dance Festival
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Chatter and laughter filled the lobby of the Laguna Playhouse before the planned programming, but a hush fell over the crowd as clips from the past two decades of dance began to play in the theater.
The attendees were there to help mark the contributions and longevity of the Laguna Dance Festival.
“Twenty years ago, today was just a dream,” Jodie Gates, the founder and artistic director of the festival said as she walked on stage to greet those in attendance Thursday, the first night of the four-day anniversary celebration.
When the curtain went up and the lights came down, only pianist John Wilson was on stage. Then female soloist Minori Sakita glided from stage right — just in front of Wilson — and acknowledged the provider of the evening’s live music.
“It was really fun to work with Jodie, finally, because we met earlier two years ago, but I was injured, so we didn’t get to work together,” Sakita said in a post-performance discussion.
Peter Weil joined her in short order, as the duo — dressed in blue against a royal purple background — carried out the movement of “Dear One,” the world premiere of Gates’ latest as a choreographer.
“Everyone on stage here is telling a story in how they feel about this music, either through movement, or, in my case, sound,” Wilson said, in response to a question about how he took cues from the first duet. “You have to hear through the movement and see through the sound.
“When I was seeing someone do something — like 50 million moves in the span of a second … when I’m watching this, I’m thinking, ‘OK, let me give them a little bit of extra time,’ and then maybe there’s a moment where I was sort of slowing down. I thought, ‘Well, no, look at all this movement and energy you’re providing,’ so I need to adjust what I’m doing, and together, we’re telling a whole new story that you maybe never heard, and you will only hear in this moment because it was live.”
Wilson, who played selections from Sergei Rachmaninoff and Stephen Sondheim, among others, also joked, “I thought I had a lot going on with my 10 fingers.”
The dancers came from BalletX, a company hailing from Philadelphia.
In the middle frame, a trio of pairs featuring Eli Alford, Itzkan Barbosa, Francesca Forcella, Jared Kelly, Jerard Palazo and Ashley Simpson took the audience on a journey full of emotion.
Against a sunset gold backdrop, the pairs donned expressions of longing and contemplation as they embarked on an adventure of discovery — grappling with a desire to maintain individuality while working toward an on-set chemistry.
Jamar Roberts’ “Honey,” as the work was called, put the sensuality and vulnerability of a relationship on display.
“Mapping Out a Sky,” the evening’s finale choreographed by Matthew Neenan, proved a more whimsical piece. For this dance, 10 performers took the stage, all dressed as black-and-white piano keys.
There were moments of linear formation. At one point, Weil lay on the ground, looking up and pointing at his fellow dancers as though they were stars to be counted. He then got up and took Sakita by the hand, and the pair strolled off stage.
Savannah Green, in her fifth season with BalletX, said Neenan choreographed “Mapping Out A Sky” right after the coronavirus pandemic.
“Something that he speaks about is the interpersonal relationships that are present in Sondheim’s musicals that we hear from the work,” Green said. “He’s a magnificent storyteller on the imperfect kind of relationship. There is a sense of hope, of course, you know, ‘Love will prevail,’ but it’s not without its darkness.
“I think that particularly shines in the two duets. There is so much beauty, but there’s a lot of mistrust and pulling apart, and I think that it’s inextricably linked to the time that it was created. There was a mistrust of touch and group dynamics.”
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