1,000 thank yous
Choreographer Ron De Jesus pays tribute to his mentor with Ensemble Espanol premiere work
Choreographer pays tribute to his mentor as Ensemble Espanol premieres at North Shore Center for Performing Arts.
Chicago’s Ensemble Espanol is one of this city’s most remarkable, if too often hidden, treasures. Just ask anyone who has caught its grand-scale “Flamenco Passion” programs featuring a troupe of 40 performers — resident dancers, singers, instrumentalists and guest artists, who are masters of Spanish dance culture and music, from classical, folkloric and flamenco to contemporary.
Over the course of nearly four decades, Dame Libby Komaiko, the Chicago-bred dancer, choreographer and teacher who founded the company, and who serves as its artistic director along with associate Irma Suarez Ruiz, has created an internationally recognized center of the arts in residence at Northeastern Illinois University. And the company’s annual performances at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts earn standing ovations.
This year’s programs, Friday through Sunday, will include four world premieres and two U.S. premieres. Among the debuts will be be “Mil Calvos” (“A Thousand Nails”), a Spanish contemporary ballet choreographed by Ron De Jesus as an homage to Komaiko, the woman who mentored and inspired him when he was a dropout from Roberto Clemente High School.
A child of the 1970s, De Jesus, now 51, was one of nine children in a family with Puerto Rican and Russian roots, and with a mother who suffered from undiagnosed mental illness.
As De Jesus recalls: “I grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood where everybody was dancing, and I often escaped by watching Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies on TV, and becoming saturated with their style and musicality. Also, every day at Clemente, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., our study period took the form of a disco with a live DJ, and we’d do break dancing and The Hustle, and have competitions that diverted our energy in a good way, even if I was rebellious and floundering and eventually dropped out of school.
“When a girl I was dating enrolled at Northeastern Illinois, I followed her and sat in on Libby’s classes,” said De Jesus. “And Libby eventually challenged me to take classes, made me get my GED, got me a scholarship, and helped me get my life together.”
De Jesus went on to work with the Joseph Holmes Dance Theatre and the Chicago Repertory Dance Ensemble, and then spent 17 years with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. He left Hubbard Street to dance in the original cast of the Twyla Tharp/Billy Joel musical, “Movin’ Out,” and subsequently worked on Tharp’s Frank Sinatra-scored show, “Come Fly With Me.”
De Jesus had discussed creating a piece with Ensemble Espanol for three years. Then, on very short notice, he had to come up with an idea for a grant the company was submitting.
“I began thinking back to the days when I was a naive, un- educated adolescent and first saw Libby. Accompanied by her mom, a pianist, she was rehearsing ‘Danse Orientale,’ playing the castanets, and dancing with incredible delicacy. It was just so moving to see the bloodlines of those two artists, and the beauty of their bond. So I was on to something.”
What evolved was “Mil Clavos,” whose title suggests the nails hammered into the heels and tips of flamenco shoes.
“The opening section, ‘Pasaje Nuevo,’ is a passage out of blackness that suggests the masculine aspect of flamenco, with all its thrust and power,” explained De Jesus. “The women flourish in the second part [‘La Paloma Roja’ or ‘The Red Dove’], with flamenco dresses suspended like chandeliers. The final section [‘Fuego Negro’ or ‘Black Fire’], builds to a big, chaotic crescendo that echoes Libby’s signature piece, ‘Bolero.’ My goal was to marry the traditional and contemporary, and to introduce more partnering and lifts that have not been part of the company’s vocabulary.”
Joining the “Flamenco Passion” program will be the always sensational Carmela Greco, daughter of the legendary Jose Greco. She teams with Suarez for the debut of “Marismena” (“Herbaceous”), a duet evoking the flamenco style of Cadiz, and debuts “Faroleando” (“Bullfighting”), a Cuban-influenced solo in which she portrays a bullfighter. Suarez’s 2013 work “Rendición” (“Surrender”), depicting the passions of everlasting love, will be reprised. And another world premiere. “Andaluza,” set to the music of Enrique Granados, and choreographed and danced by Gala Vivancos (formerly of the National Ballet of Spain), will suggest the Spanish classical style of the 1900s.