Terpsichore

Friday was my final day of classes for the term, and Andrew and I decided we should do something fun Friday night.

We explored various alternatives, and narrowed our choices down to two: Boston Ballet’s “Nutcracker” and a local performance of Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. We settled upon the latter, largely because we can save Boston Ballet’s “Nutcracker” for another time, while Lar Lubovitch Dance Company was offering only two performances in Boston.

Neither of us is particularly interested in modern dance. Indeed, I am not especially interested even in ballet, while Andrew appreciates ballet primarily for Balanchine and only for Balanchine. However, Andrew’s parents had attended the same Lubovitch program at Northrop Auditorium exactly a week ago, and they had rather liked it. They told us we might enjoy the program.

It was OK. The best dance was the first work on the program, “Concerto Six Twenty-Two”, danced to Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and named after its Koechel listing. The work displayed a wide range of emotion, and held our interest for the entire half hour. I could sit through it again.

Returns diminished from that point forward. The second work, to music of Bartok, did not hold my interest, and the final work, to music of Dvorak, seemed to recycle ideas from the Mozart. The program might as well have ended after the Mozart, because the following works did not contribute anything of sustained interest or pleasure.

Lubovitch is probably not talented enough for his own choreography, and only his own choreography, to hold an audience’s interest for an entire evening. He uses a few stock gestures ceaselessly—dancers running in circles, dancers lifting their arms in circular arcs—and these gestures quickly become tiresome, even clichéd. His vocabulary lacks the invention, richness and sheer imagination of Balanchine. Moreover, his choreography does not spring forth from and illustrate the music, as does the work of Balanchine. Music is background for Lubovitch. His steps and patterns vaguely follow the contours of the music being played, but nothing more. There is no detailed, specific and organic connection between Lubovitch’s choreography and the music he has selected.

The program we attended would have been more successful had “Concerto Six Twenty-Two” been followed by works of other choreographers, such as Paul Taylor, Eliot Feld and Twyla Tharp.

Perhaps we should have gone to Boston Ballet’s “Nutcracker” after all!

Boston is fortunate that it is home to a major ballet company. Andrew and I intend to take advantage of this fact and attend several Boston Ballet performances. We have already attended a performance of its full-length production of “Cinderella”, and next term we plan to catch Balanchine’s “Jewels”, a full-length “Sleeping Beauty”, and a program celebrating the Centennial of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. It is possible we may attend a program devoted to works of Jiri Kylian, too.

Minneapolis does not have a major ballet company, the one thing the Twin Cities lacks, so Andrew and I must take advantage of Boston Ballet while we may.

Apparently everyone in Minnesota has given up attempting to establish and sustain an important ballet company in the Twin Cities. The effort has been made, over and over, always without long-term success. Metropolitan Ballet, the most recent Minneapolis company to attempt major status, quietly scaled back its operations a year or so ago, even before Andrew and I had an opportunity to attend one of its performances. Perhaps as a result, Northrop Auditorium has substantially expanded its dance presentations this season, offering a larger number of performances by a larger number of visiting companies than it offered the previous season. However, this does not do much for Andrew and me, since we no longer live in the Twin Cities.

The first ballet performance I ever attended was a performance of “The Nutcracker” by Tulsa Ballet. My grandmother took me to that performance. I was seven years old at the time. It was the color of the costumes that made the greatest impression upon me.

I always thought it was interesting that Tulsa has a major ballet company. The city of Tulsa does not seem large enough to support a major performing arts institution. Tulsa Philharmonic and Tulsa Opera, for instance, have always been comparatively minor operations, perfectly in scale for a city of Tulsa’s size. Tulsa Ballet, however, has been a major ballet company, by any standard, for fifty years, a company worthy of a city many times the size of Tulsa. In fact, Tulsa Ballet is the only performing arts organization of note in the entire State Of Oklahoma. Nevertheless, it is pretty remarkable, I’d say, that Oklahoma—given its small and widely-scattered population—has ANY important performing arts institution.

In contrast, Minneapolis has no major resident ballet company. It is puzzling that Minneapolis, a city of vast wealth, which handsomely supports numerous museums, two full-time orchestras, an opera company, and more full-time professional theater companies than any other city in America, cannot sustain a ballet company.

It is said that ballet has always thrived in cold, Northern climes. Minneapolis certainly satisfies that requirement!

It is also said that ballet requires a well-educated, sophisticated and musical audience. Minneapolis easily meets that standard as well.

It is puzzling, therefore, that the large music and theater audience in the Twin Cities is seemingly indifferent to ballet.

Such indifference can have nothing to do with the Scandinavian heritage of the Minnesota populace. Copenhagen and Stockholm have long supported major ballet companies.

It is my prediction that, at some point in the future, Minneapolis will become home to a significant ballet company.