ing choreography developed by Parsons and Daniel Ezralow, right up to the obligatory bows — and exits to opposite wings. We only glimpsed the full ambition of Remember Me through a convulsive excerpt, Ebben, danced by Billy Smith and the ever-wondrous Gavezzoli. No, the music from Alfredo Catalani’s opera, La Wally, only distantly resembled the passionate plaints revived by the ethereal Renée Fleming. The East Village Opera Company obviously had other ideas in its adaptation and it chimed very well with Gavezzoli’s precise catatonia. All else was pure light in Nascimento Novo, which brought down the curtain for intermission, and the rowdier In the End, which closed the Parsons visit to Charlotte. A quick glance at the company website revealed that the tribute to Caribbean composer Milton Nascimento had been condensed, for the drummers who appear on the video did not join the troupe on the road, and the final segment, beginning with five couples spelling out “WE LOVE MILTON” had been abridged to “LOVE.” The rousing finale was a tribute to the music of the Dave Matthews Band, a joyous perpetual-motion celebration that streamed Satellite, When the World Ends and Out of My Hands before climaxing with the whole ensemble onstage for Stay. That was certainly the audience’s sentiment as they sprang up for a standing ovation. There was nothing perfunctory about this outburst of enthusiasm, for the crowd had risen just as spontaneously to its feet moments earlier when Quiñones landed onstage at the end of Caught. Charlotte’s second standing ovation merely sealed the Parsons triumph. Perry Tannenbaum
ming and, of course, dance entertain. On January 1, 2010, the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo was the setting for a beautiful display of elegant and restrained traditional dance, colourful kimonos, and fluttering fans and sashes. However, the Japanese don’t limit themselves solely to the traditional arts when ringing in the New Year. If anything, the Japanese are masters at adopting foreign cultures without compromising their own so during the first two weeks of the year, Tokyo is also abuzz with every type of dance, from flamenco to hip hop to contemporary. Yet tradition, albeit by Western standards, was exactly what the New National Theatre chose to observe in their New Year Opera Palace Gala on January 5-6, with two evenings of ballet and opera. A short train ride from Shinjuku Station, Tokyo’s New National Theatre, a modern yet opulent building, was constructed in 1997 to house opera, dance and theatre. The gala took place in the largest of the venue’s three theatres, the Opera Palace, which was packed to the rafters with a restrained yet very appreciative Japanese audience. The first half of the gala was devoted entirely to two ballet pieces performed by the New National Theatre Ballet and accompanied by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted beautifully by Ooi Takeshi. The opening piece was the Pas des Fiancées from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, a welcome change from the composer’s seasonal favourite The Nutcracker. Maki Asami’s staging and the new choreography by British choreographer Jack Carter were simple yet elegant, and gave each of the six female dancers the room and liberty to express small bursts of individuality. Each dancer had the enormous task of filling a very large and sparsely decorated stage throughout each brief solo, which was masterfully accomplished with a spritely choreography that used all the open space while
highlighting each of the ballerinas’ musicality and playful charm. The already up-tempo performance became even livelier with the Grand Café sequence from Roland Petit’s La Chauve-Souris with music by Strauss, a perfect selection for this celebratory gala. As the lights went up on Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s minimalist yet effective set, the audience was welcomed to the legendary Parisian restaurant Maxim’s by a trio of waiters performing near-acrobatic feats of dance. With a tremendous complicity and rapport, this threesome infused the piece with humour before and after welcoming the café’s patrons to the stage. Their female counterparts arrived in the form of the leggy, traditional cancan dancers, who established the scene’s more bawdy tone. The corps de ballet demonstrated not only their excellent timing and elegance as the Parisian social scene, but also made evident a natural theatricality, giving the performance a warmth and joy that filled the immense theatre. Although the performances of Bella, Johann and Ulrich, danced by Yukawa Mamiko, Henmi Tomohiko and Yoshimoto Yasuhisa respectively, were magnificently and expressively danced, it was really the collaboration of the New National Theatre Ballet as a whole that made this piece a downright success, making the audience feel like it was revelling onstage with the dancers and witnessing first-hand all of the individual storylines unravelling inside the Grand Café. If the New National Theatre accomplished anything with its New Year’s gala, it was to prove that Japanese dancers have mastered the classical Western arts, and that Tokyo’s body of talent is well worth the attention and praise usually reserved for ballet companies in cities such as Paris, London and New York. Justine Bayod Espoz
Japan
I
n Japan, the celebration of the New Year is a sacred event lasting two weeks. From the evening of December 31, the Japanese visit shrines and temples to worship, and to seek luck and prosperity in the year to come. The area around these houses of worship becomes a veritable fairground of traditional activities. Rows of open-air food stalls ply visitors with everything from roasted chestnuts to a variety of skewered meats and seafood, while displays of archery, falconry, swordsmanship, Taiko drum-
Tomohiko Henmi, Mamiko Yukawa and Nobuo Sawada in La Chauve-Souris (Grand Café) Photo: Hidemi Seto
Summer 2010
Dance International
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