Cayetano Soto creates a dynamic new work for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet by susan bell | photos by Peter Ogilvie
On Memorial Day 2013, the Colorado Mountain College campus in the Roaring Fork Valley west of Aspen is devoid of students. But strains of a piano and the sound of voices echo across the sunny courtyard. Hard at work in a small basement studio, members of the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet (ASFB) are at their barres focusing intently on classic ballet drills and patterns. Their coach, Sharee Lane, visiting from the University of Utah School of Dance, marks time and moves from dancer to dancer, touching recalcitrant limbs, refining this motion, honing that pattern. This is not a troupe chosen to form a physically seamless corps de ballet in the Balanchine manner— these dancers’ bodies are as wildly divergent as their hair and skin tones. But their high level of technique is instantly apparent from the leanly muscled lines of their legs and arms and their beautiful arching backs. Each dancer directs powerful and individual athleticism to the service of graceful movement. These traits have become hallmarks of the ASFB, a dynamic, year-round dance company renowned for presenting the work of contemporary choreographers. Now in its 17th year, the troupe has assembled a repertory of compelling work, and it tours to great acclaim worldwide. This particular rehearsal is for Catalan choreographer Cayetano Soto’s new piece, Beautiful Mistake, created exclusively for ASFB and scheduled to premier in six weeks, first in Aspen, then a week later at Santa Fe’s Lensic Theater. When the class finishes, the dancers applaud their instructor and, as if on cue, Soto bursts through the door in a T-shirt, baggy pants, and scarf. Born in Barcelona to a nonmusical family, at the age of 12 he became enamored with Bob Fosse. After studying ballet at the Instituto del Teatre in Barcelona, he went on to become a classical star with companies in the Netherlands and Germany. Soto danced with the Munich Ballet Theater until 2002, when he left to begin a career in choreography. It did not take him long to establish himself as one of Europe’s leading talents in contemporary ballet. Now based in Munich, the 38-year-old Soto leads a peripatetic life. He has two assistants who visit diverse dance companies throughout the world to help him prepare his pieces for the stage. On this particular day, one was in Brazil working with Balé da Cidade de São Paulo. Soto has worked with the ASFB twice before: In the 2008–09 season, he staged Fugaz, a work dedicated to his recently deceased father, and in 2010 he premiered Uneven to enthusiastic reviews. Thrilled to be choreographing his second debut for the company, he finds the ASFB dancers, whom he collaborates with during the creative process, to be exceptionally individual and versatile artists. “Each one of them is one-of-a-kind, and this is beautiful,” he says. Because they have worked together before, Soto finds their learning process breathtakingly rapid, he says, boasting that they learned in 90 minutes a complicated 20-minute section he anticipated taking four hours. Today the energy remains high as Soto begins work, praising the dancers while urging them to push the boundaries of their bodies. “Don’t play it safe!” he calls out. “Lower, lower,” he says of a plié, ignoring a dancer’s exclamatory “ouch!” and responding with an encouraging, “Lower! I think you can!” Then, with arched brows and an impish grin, “More weird, more weird!” He leaps up to demonstrate the movement precisely as he wishes to see it. This, he explains later, is what he considers the core of the piece and his favorite part of all dance, the pas de deux. >
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