Photos by Margo Moritz
Alonzo King Lines Ballet’s fall season, which ends Nov. 3 at the Lam Research Theater, comprises Concerto for Two Violins, set to Bach, and Writing Ground, set to Colum McCann.
Let’s pause to stipulate that McCann is no composer, but a writer, known principally for his contemporary novels, including Let the Great World Spin and Transatlantic. Here, though, he has written poetry. McCann’s poetry, included in the program notes, is never recited during Writing Ground, yet choreographer King describes their creation of the work, in 2010 for the Ballets de Monte Carlo, as a collaboration. Writing Ground finds its voice in 14 overlapping dances, each to a different music, some of it collected by Catalan musician and musicologist Jordi Savall. These are sacred songs by composers of Muslim, Jewish, Tibetan, and Christian origin.
McCann’s poetry, King seems to say in the program notes, is inspiration and through line, and once it’s been incorporated into the choreography, no words are necessary. The gifts of McCann and King, not to mention the spectacular powers of the dancers in his company, are points in favor of the argument, but the notion can certainly lead to indecipherable narratives. Such was the case Friday night during Writing Ground’s San Francisco premiere.
Robert Rosenwasser’s backdrop, which looks like scribbling, links to the poem, Handwriting, opening with, “She began to write her life on pillowcases,” and going on to say that she would wake up with blue ink smudged on “her calves, her thighs, her breasts.”
Sensuality imbues the dancing, too, whether physically languorous, or athletically exciting, or closely held and intimate, or an appalling sequence depicting rape. “The work of surviving rhymes the living and the dead.” And we see Kara Wilkes being lifted and turned, this way and that, by four of the men, to The Lama’s Chant.
The work of their quintet seems arduous, yet somehow it resolves. That’s how the piece ends, not with a bang, but not with a whimper either. There are many moods to these scenes, and many costume changes as well. The garb, also by Rosenwasser, looks abstractly naturalistic, ranging from a wonderful brown pleated circle skirt for the spectacularly spinning Jeffrey Van Sciver, to leafy green pedal-pusher rumba pants for a couple of vigorous men, to an artless brown shift dress, worn by Courtney Henry, towering in her pointe shoes, knifing into dangerous extensions, and simply impossible to take your eyes off.
Pointe shoes are handy tools, or bizarre instruments, or enchanting enhancements, and it’s always interesting to see what King cooks up for the women who wear them. Often, they seem like springboards for, say, a wonderful sideways slip-slide, or platforms to create a sense of dominance. In Writing Ground, it was amazing to see them used in a series of squatting bourrees, deliberately effortful in their execution, as well as oddly compelling and suspenseful. Axel Morgenthaler’s lambent lighting contributes to the sense of drama, illuminating Yujin Kim’s quietly powerful solo to an aria by Kathleen Battle.
If Writing Ground was lovely, strange, sad, and indecipherable, not so the premiere, Concerto for Two Violins, set to the Bach Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043. Its musical charm is seductive; it’s easy to see why King wanted to make a dance for this company to this Bach. But it’s also disappointing. Qualitatively, it’s no match for the two ballets that have become such dear friends to dance lovers, George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco and Paul Taylor’s Esplanade.
Like the latter, the new King ballet is not on pointe, but that hasn’t added grace or ease. Its allegro portions feel uninspired and a bit slapdash. And certainly it lacks the freedom yet meticulousness of the Balanchine classic. It doesn’t seem to be an issue of technique, but rather voice; this Concerto lacks a sense of eloquence — of poetry.