Scottish Ballet in Christopher Bruce's Ten Poems at The Joyce Theater. Photo by Andy Ross.
You know how it goes: You never get a second
chance to make a first impression. Behind that adage is the suggestion to
present your best self when meeting someone new. But is your best self your
true self?
Scottish Ballet makes its New York debut at
The Joyce Theater with two US premieres and one piece created for Atlanta
Ballet that it’s performing for the first time. The company doesn’t take any
chances with its first impression. New York will think of Scottish Ballet what
the company wants the city to think.
Scottish Ballet would like New York to think it
has stylistic range. It can do pretty-in-pointe-shoes ballet. Artistic
Director’s Christopher Hampson’s Sinfonietta
Giocosa, set to Bohuslav Martinu’s jubilant score, functions as
Balanchine-lite with flexed-footed echappés and showy canons. It can do twitchy,
angst-filled modern. Bryan Arias’ Motion
of Displacement shows ten dancers touching hands to knees, elbows, and cheeks
to end the way they begin — downstage in a frieze of curved spines. It can do a
nostalgic, wispy narrative. Christopher Bruce’s Ten Poems uses sweeps of the torso and legs to evoke the words of Dylan Thomas as read aloud by Richard Burton.
To read the balance of my review, please visit The Dance Enthusiast.