Wheeldon ballet, Morphoses
November 02, 2009 - by Dean GarnerSunday afternoon Adelphi University Honors College students enjoyed the last performance this season of Christopher Wheeldon's ballet company Morphoses. And I do mean they enjoyed it...
The program at City Center began with "Continuum," a Wheeldon ballet from 2002. My reaction to this piece was one I usually have to Wheeldon's choreography: no one creates dance positions and compositions more beautiful and enjoyable to watch and no one creates as many varied movements as Wheeldon.
The last piece was a Wheeldon premiere, "Rhapsody Fantasie." Although there are other Wheeldon pieces I like better, there were brilliant and moving sections throughout.
But for me, and I think for most of the audience, the most striking and moving part of the program was "Softly as I Leave You" choreographed by Paul Lightfoot and Saul Leon. The piece uses only two dancers and a rectangular box standing upright, barely large enough to hold the dancers. The choreography broadly suggests the birth, realization and end of a relationship between the two dancers. The movement is sufficiently abstract that different viewers could provide further details in very different ways. But the execution was electric. The lighting inside the box was a luminescent gold. When either or both of the dancers were in the box it had the feeling of a Klimt painting. Audience members wept. This is high art.
Wheeldon has been unable to hire full-time dancers, but dancing in his company is an honor and an exciting artistic experience, so he is able to attract extraordinary talent. Wendy Whelan from New York City ballet is well-known and was predictably lovely. Lesser known but magnificent to watch were the Dutch dancer Rubinald Pronk (voted Holland's sexiest dancer ever), the Australian Andrew Crawford, and Taiwanese-born Edwaard Liang.
Wheeldon is comparatively young and attracting a young audience. Good news for those of us who love ballet.
