Houston Ballet’s ‘bravo’ to leader’s 20-year run
Houston Ballet is dipping more deeply than usual into its well of talent this season. That dynamic was on full display during its annual Jubilee of Dance.
The Friday program honored Stanton Welch’s 20 years as the company’s artistic director without dwelling on the past. A survey of key scenes from 10 of the more than 40 ballets Welch has created in Houston had the spark of forward-focused casting. So did premieres by three of the company’s developing choreographers. Welch’s own, showy, big-picture premiere zoomed in on the technical skills and growing star power of next-gen leading lights.
When Welch succeeded the legendary Ben Stevenson in 2003, he goosed the company technically to push dancers who could do twice the pirouettes (or any other step in the book) twice as fast as their predecessors. Today’s company grew up with Welch’s highoctane classical works; landmark 20th-century ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Jîrí Kylián; and new commissions by a diverse constellation of acclaimed contemporary choreographers. They’re fearless and versatile as all get-out.
Every dance company evolves, of course. Such is the nature of the beautiful beast, reliant on a toolbox of human bodies that can’t be frozen in time. Four of Houston Ballet’s six principal women are off duty for most of this season — one injured, three on maternity leave. Another was guest-starring Friday in an out-of-town “Nutcracker,” and one of the two female first soloists who would be next in line is injured.
Welch has learned the hard way to adapt, keeping the company busy through the COVID shutdowns, and before that steering them through 18 months without a theater following Hurricane Harvey. He did it again with his 34-minute “Vi et animo (Heart and Soul),” choreographed for 46 dancers — the kind of “big wedding cake of a ballet” (as he called it in his program notes) that normally would feature company principals. Instead, only one principal was among this ballet’s 10 lead dancers.
“Vi et animo” takes its cues from one of the most bombastic compositions in the Tchaikovsky canon, the Piano Concerto No. 1. You’d instantly recognize the pounding opening chords. (Pianist Katherine Burkwall-Ciscon made sure we heard them but also captured the buoyancy of the music’s spirited allegros.)
Armies of dancers often present themselves to the audience as they jump or balance or spin in place, a device Welch employs often to build a sense of euphoria, but the men really caught my eyes during a moment when they were more still, posing upstage with their gazes fixed on the lead couple.
The solos of “Vi et animo” celebrate dancers’ individual technical specialties: Eric Best’s thrill-aminute power. Jacquelyn Long’s bright, spring-loaded energy. Danbi Kim’s poise and beautifully arched feet. Naazir Muhammad’s tornadic tours en l’air. Aoi Fujiwara’s balance and grace. Simone Acri’s acrobatic pizazz. Mónica Gómez’s speed, balance and perky spirit. Harper Watters’ elegant lines. Yuriko Kajiya’s sublime quietude and her ability to balance on one leg for days.
Costume designer Holly Hynes’ classical finery — including tutus with some sparkle in the bodice (white for the corps, black for the soloists) — enhanced the choreography’s grandeur. Resident lighting designer Lisa Pinkham kept the surroundings simple, suffusing the stage with classical purity. Hynes and Pinkham also gave the night’s smaller-scale premieres a polished look that some Houston Ballet choreographic debuts have lacked in the past.
Corps de ballet dancer Jindallae Bernard’s “Parodie de l’histoire du ballet” swept four couples through groupings that riffed on iconic moments of the big classics without turning mimicky. The music — Camille SaintSaëns’ rich “Introduction and Rondo Cappriccioso” — was ballet-neutral yet alive with precise emotion. (Brava to Violinist Denise Tarrant and the Houston Ballet Orchestra.) Some of Bernard’s choreography might have been challenging for the performers, but in those gorgeous midnight blue tutus and jackets they still looked picture-perfect.
Wolff’s contemporary “Category Four” explored the emotional journey a monster hurricane can inflict. Its roiling choreography sent three women and five men through turbulent leaps, taut partnering, fluid waves and gestures as sharp as flying objects. The recorded music was from “Landfall,” a Kronos Quartet-Laurie Anderson collaboration inspired by Hurricane Sandy. As much as I love the bottled-up terror of Anderson’s voice, the narration limited the larger metaphorical possibilities of dance.
Long’s “Illuminate” flew as swiftly as a rushing river to capture the sunny feel of composer Oliver Davis’ “Frontiers,” an Aaron Copland-esque violin concerto from 2015. (Tarrant found another flavor of virtuosity, more homespun, for this one.) The choreography sang best near the end, when its architecture shifted slightly and the six dancers were suddenly in a snaky diagonal line. One quibble: The light bulb hanging upstage right was glaringly bright, a little too much illumination.
Two performances from the jubilee’s first act could haunt me for a while. First soloist Gian Carlo Perez, who is new to Houston Ballet, appeared as Albrecht opposite Kajiya in a pas de deux from “Giselle.” As brief as it was, the scene revealed a refined actor with a stage presence the likes of which this company hasn’t seen since the era of Carlos Acosta in the 1990s. I also hope to see more of a guy who tore through the live version of Welch’s hard-charging video work “In Good Company” like a banshee. That was Skylar Campbell, a nimble-as-Nijinsky dancer who joined Houston Ballet as a principal last year.
The jubilee made one thing clear: No matter who is out front when the company resumes its regular season in February, there will be excitement in the air.