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[DANCE REVIEW] Ballet Du Grand Theatre de Geneve at Jacob's Pillow
8.2.07
JACOB'S PILLOW DANCE
Ted Shawn Theatre
Ballet Du Grand Theatre de Geneve
August 1-5, 2007
review by SETH ROGOVOY, editor-in-chief and critic-at-large, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
(BECKET, Mass., August 2, 2007) -- They may be based in Geneva, Switzerland, but based on the program they danced last night at Jacob's Pillow, the Ballet Du Grand Theatre de Geneve is truly an international company in every facet: content, personnel, dancers, and outlook.
The two-dance evening included Saburo Teshigawara's Para-Dice and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Loin. Where the former piece was minimalist, with the four women
in yellow and four men in shades of black and gray, performing arm and body extensions solo and in unison to the gorgeous, cinematic score of Willi Bopp in a seemingly timeless dimension of netherland (as opposed to etherlands), the latter piece was elaborate, a multi-part dance including nearly two dozen performers who created a strong sense of community -- if not a particular place, a virtual community that was seemingly at home in medieval Europe as easily as China.
In Loin, simple, playful arm gestures passed through the ensemble couple by couple, perhaps like a virus or a plague. It seemed malevolent because at the conclusion, everyone collapsed, and one sole survivor walked over all the inert bodies.
But they got up again, and other things happened. There was a terrific pas de deux, and several funny all-ensemble lineups where dancer/actors recounted horrifying tales of dancing in China amidst a stage and dressing room full of cockroaches (again, raising the specter of disease or plague).
But the mood wasn't morbid at all, rather, funny, as the dancers just shrugged it all off and danced. And they were wonderful dancers in all different shapes, sizes, and colors, with terrific classical ballet training at their foundation, but with an unbounded willingness to toss it out and roll around on the ground.
The final image, of all the dancers somehow scrambled together in a very disorganized looking pyramid, spoke again to the sense of community, perhaps shattered but then restored, and was vivid enough to stay in dancegoers minds
forever.
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