http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/20020505pbt0505fnp2.asp
Brand new ballets
With Sting's music and sensibilities as their guide, three choreographers create works for PBT
Sunday, May 05, 2002
By Jane Vranish Anywhere else you could imagine being impassive, even momentarily immobile
-- lazily listening to a classic rock song by Sting and his Police pals.
Soon, though, you'd be moving to the music, at first easy and smooth, then
pumped up to accommodate that oh-so-sweet bass line ..."Every breath
you take,
But in a dance studio? Impassive? Immobile?
Impossible.
Yet here we are in the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre studios, where a group
of dancers are, indeed, standing around, waiting for some inspiration,
watching ...
Watching the choreographers, actually, each of whom begins his rehearsals
with unusual deliberation. At stake is PBT's ambitious season finale, "Brand
New Day," a tribute to Sting's music and the title of his most recent album.
Performances begin Thursday.
Rehearsals are often tense, and the nervousness here is manifested in
the rare passivity that accompanies new work. "Brand New Day" comprises
three world premieres. There is much to learn, and at least at the outset,
listening trumps movement.
But these choreographers are adept at relieving the pressure. Kevin
O'Day has the broad shoulders and extensive experience -- Paris Opera Ballet,
New York City Ballet -- to handle it. And, oh yes, he was a member of that
terrific trio (with Lynne Taylor-Corbett and Dwight Rhodes) who contributed
to PBT's jazz ballet success, "Indigo in Motion," a couple of seasons ago.
Still, O'Day says he's just trying to "stay out of the way of the success
of the music" and those familiar lyrics in "Every Breath You Take," so
eminently singable, so personally intrusive for anyone familiar with obsessive
love.Then there's Matjash Mrozewski (Mur-tchef-ski), who apart from dealing
with the multitudes who cannot pronounce his name -- "Just Mat," he says
-- is wrestling with how best to project the popularity and larger-than-life
image of Sting. His task is to connect with artistic director Terrence
Orr and his PBT dancers. Obviously, he has impressed the powers that be
on his home turf, the National Ballet of Canada.
Robert Hill seems the odd man out. Still a principal dancer with the
prestigious American Ballet Theatre, where he has authored several ballets,
Hill, too, is creating a new work. His ballet, however, is more in PBT's
"traditional" mold -- less a Sting thing than a jazz encore. With the help
of Marty Ashby and the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, Hill's piece, while
not necessarily following in the footsteps of PBT's "Indigo in Motion,"
does celebrate jazz. Its tenuous connection to Sting is through style rather
than the pop star's music.
Sting, you see, once played in big bands. He also plays Miles Davis
recordings once a week ("because I find it intellectually stimulating")
and confesses to reading Pittsburgh jazz musician (and "Indigo" participant)
Ray Brown's book about the bass four times.
All in all, Sting may prove one of the best pop artists to use as a
subject for the normally confining realm of classical ballet, which was
born in the theaters of Europe. The eternally inquisitive singer/songwriter/musician,
who has performed on stage and in the movies, delights in being the only
pop artist to use Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov in one of his lyrics.
And why not? Sting clearly likes to "seduce an audience slowly."
So, too, these choreographers, who in their separate rehearsals with
the dancers eventually move them beyond passivity, nudging them into movement
and into the moment.
"Brand New Day" represents a brand-new program for PBT -- three premieres,
two of which bookend the remarkable career of the pop artist formerly known
as Gordon Matthew Sumner and one that serves as tangential transition.
This is, then, one Sting operation where the principals are more pro
than con.
"Every move you make,
"Every bond you break, every step you take
"I'll be watching you ..."