[DANCE]
DUBOIS AND BLUM DRAMATIZE THEIR SUBJECTS WITHOUT IDEALIZING THEM
FRESH LEGS {BY STEVE SUCATO}
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PITTSBURGH BALLET THEATRE SCHOOL PRE-PROFESSIONAL SHOWCASE. 7 p.m. Fri., May 17; 1 and 7 p.m. Sat., May 18; and 1 p.m. Sun., May 19. $20. 412-281-0360 or www.pbt.org N E W S
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[ART REVIEW]
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CONTRAST {PHOTO COURTESY OF DUANE RIEDER}
{BY ROBERT RACZKA}
A dancer as the white swan from Swan Lake
While Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre is one of the nation’s top ballet companies, its school also has a reputation for turning out top talent. The school draws dancers from around the world to hone their skills in preparation for a professional career. A highlight of that training is the annual Pre-Professional Showcase, May 17-19 at Point Park University’s George Rowland White Performance Studio. For area dance fans, the showcase is an early look at some of the high school and graduate-student dancers, ages 14 to 22, who will soon populate companies including PBT. One such dancer is Willoughby, Ohio, native Diana Yohe, who will join PBT as an apprentice next season. Yohe, 18, trained at Cleveland City Dance and Joffrey Ballet’s trainee program before entering PBT’s graduate program. She’ll dance lead roles in two of the showcase’s six works. At the matinee on Sat., May 18, she’ll perform the role of the white swan Odette in Act II divertissements from Marius Petipa’s classic ballet Swan Lake. It’s staged by PBT artistic director Terrence Orr, who Yohe says calls the role as a “thinking game.” Adds Yohe, “You have to picture each step you do in your head. They can go perfectly or come out terribly wrong. Your job is to still make them look beautiful.” Yohe will also be featured in Michael Smuin’s 1978 ballet “Quattro a Verdi” (7 p.m., May 18, and 1 p.m. May 19). Staged by PBT School’s newest faculty member, Andre Reyes, and set to opera music by Giuseppe Verdi, the ballet is a virtuoso pas de quatre that pays homage to Petipa’s classic pas de deux formula, only with four dancers instead of two. “It’s super-energetic and the hardest thing I have danced so far,” says Yohe. Also on the program will be: David Lichine’s one-act ballet “Graduation Ball”; August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble member James Washington’s celebratory work “Beauty, the Lack Of,” set to music by Olafur Arnalds; the classic Italian “Tarantella” dance; and “Prossimo,” a new ballet by Reyes for 12 male dancers that he calls “a showcase for the boys to do what they live to do.” Of the showcase, Orr says, “It’s very much a full-fledged production and quite challenging for the dancers.”
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ONTINUUM: Doug DuBois and Aaron
Blum is the first in a projected series of contemporary photography exhibits exploring mentorship and influence — generally between teacher and student. Blum received an MFA in photography in 2010 from Syracuse University, where he studied with DuBois, and each is represented by selections from a recent longterm project focusing on a social group in a defined location. DuBois and Blum dramatize their subjects without idealizing them, creating nuanced images that reflect an intimate knowledge acquired through extensive personal interaction and, in Blum’s case, shared history and identity. Doug DuBois, a 50-ish prof, has been prestigiously exhibited, published, collected, fellowshipped and honored as an educator. His project “My Last Day at Seventeen” (2009-12) is a sensitive depiction of coming-of-age in a housing estate in southwestern Ireland, where the project grew out of an artist’s residency that included working with at-risk youth. DuBois’ photographs feature people — mostly teen-agers — alone or in groups, and in their expressions we can read uncertainties and anxieties that are not unusual among those on the threshold of adulthood. But those emotions are heightened by Ireland’s economic problems and the lack of opportunity that beclouds the subjects’ future. Each of DuBois’ portraits has an emotional poignancy, along with an unsettled
From Doug DuBois’ “My Last Day at Seventeen” series
quality created by facial expression, pose, details (patches of graffiti, broken windows, an antisocial tattoo) and subtle tensions of angle and composition. Many also include
CONTINUUM: DOUG DUBOIS AND AARON BLUM continues through June 1. Silver Eye Center for Photography, 1015 E. Carson St., South Side. 412-431-1810 or www.silvereye.org
a considered slice of locale, including seacoast, park and street views around the brightly colored housing. The houses and surroundings generally look relatively clean and decently maintained, and the young
people look fairly healthy, though many appear anxious or sullen, coupled with flashes of bravado among the young men. This is not a picture of desperate poverty, but a world in which young people of limited means are challenged by an uncertain future, short on optimism and hope. Aaron Blum’s “Born and Raised” (201013) depicts an environment closer to home: his hometown of New Martinsville, W.Va. Thirty-year-old Blum, formerly director of education at Silver Eye, currently works as an adjunct photography instructor in the Pittsburgh area. His lyrical color photographs portray his “upper middle class family and friends,” showing an underrepresented side of life in often-stereotyped rural Appalachia. As with DuBois, Blum includes evocative portraits of people posed CONTINUES ON PG. 92
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