Review: BalletX Opens Season with Premieres and the Return of a Showstopper

After tour stops at the Vail Dance Festival mid-summer and at the Joyce Theater in New York in late September, BalletX was back at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia with premieres by Jamar Roberts and Matthew Neenan and a return of barnburner ballet by Jennifer Archibald that that BX premiered in 2022.

Artistic director Christine Cox was onstage to introduce the program to the all but sold-out opening night and to announce the expanded programming throughout the 2023-4 season. The curtain came up on Jamar Roberts' 'Eros & Psyche' a dance retelling of the mythic story of the joys and pains of love scored to music by Philip Glass performed by a chamber group led by pianist Grant Loehnig, who performed haunting Etude no. 8.

Francesca Forcella and Jared Palazo dance the title roles and are instantly dynamic in this first duet, their palpable chemistry building in intensity throughout the ballet. They are joined by nine other dancers who sweep on and off stage in a series of interludes, sinuous, wavy canon lines. The mythos gets a bit hazy, and the ensemble sections had an unfinished fragmented look vis-à-vis the central couple. That aside, Roberts has a lot to say choreographically that looks fresh, if overpacked at key points, especially in the back half of the ballet.

The Etude gives way to Glass' 'Piano Quintet 'Annunciation'' with musicians Maria Im, Gared Crawford and Alexandr Kislitsyn (violins), Katharine Oark (viola), and Branson Yeast (cello). Roberts' choreography was ignited by Glass' percussive drive.

The ensemble's passages have an infectious perpetual motion, with Roberts' choreography looking more like a musical visualization than connected to the story. Still, in his third ballet with this company, Roberts' vocabulary taps into both the technical and interpretive artistry of the individual dancers, And of course, there is always a unique dynamic when the music is performed live and the musicians are onstage with the dancers.

Next is Neenan's "Siete." He opts for seven dancers, an odd number, "to push past symmetry and create unbalance." Guitarist-composer Michael Poll was also onstage with the dancers and his Spanish guitar, performing such titles as 'Fandanguillo, 'Les Folies D'Espagne,' and 'Danza Melancholy Galliard," a classic Fandango by Joaquin Rodrigo. Neenan conjures dance 'mise-en-scenes' to these tunes are alternately dramatic and comique.

'Siete' opens with the cast of seven dancers in a V formation who at intervals stomp dramatically a la Flamenco which gives way to Neenan's playful hints of Flamenco aesthetic as a jumping off point for unexpected moves: feral jumps, comic exits, and abstract gestures next to soulful dramatic moments. Otherwise, he fills the stage with wry and spirited new ideas very reflexive to Poll's soulful virtuosity. Costume designer Christine Darch has the dancers in silky black jumpers with red strips.

Canadian choreographer Jennifer Archibald's "Exalt" mixes neoclassical ballet fusion with 'House' choreography, which was the explosive concert closer. The company premiered it in the spring of '22 at the Mann Music Center in Fairmount Park, but the specificity of Archibald's choreo was lost on the expanse of the open-air stage, whichis not an issue in the Wilma Theater's more intimate setting. The house music starts with Hindu chant that catapults (via house DJ Muye) into club mix with his exaltations of 'This is House!' then the music segues into a propulsive mix of throbbing global dance tracks cueing Archibald's potent mix of liberated dance club and ballet idioms for the cast of ten dancers.

Jared Kelly personifies the attitude in a series of solo interludes, commanding the floor with pulsating Africanist pulsations, divadive slides and muscled aerials.

Costume designer Olivia Mason has the women in glistening singlets and pointe shoes which could be somewhat limiting for the visceral attack of house moves, but, Archibald concocts gorgeous moments for them. The men, in contrast, are dressed in leathery kilts slit up the middle, spicing up some feral leaps and Judo-esque layouts and torso pulsations.

Among the outstanding duets were Peter Weil and Itzkan Barbosa, two new members of the company. And there is a sumptuous trio in the final moments of the piece with Jerard Palazo, Ashley Simpson, and Jared Kelly entering and dancing different solos, then moving slowly downstage in dramatic squared off spotlights.

Archibald could easily expand on several of the scenes of fusion between club moves and contemporary balletics, especially for the dancers on pointe.

BalletX Fall series at the Wilma Theater continues through October 29, 2023, for more information, follow this link.