BW dancers show impressive choreographic chops in “Works from Within”
Ballet West is finishing its season with “Works From Within,” which opened Wednesday night at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.
This program, which alternates yearly with the company’s “Choreographic Festival, has long been an incubator for new works by Ballet West dancers and an important part of the season since Adam Sklute was hired as artistic director in 2007. This year’s program includes premieres by returning choreographers Emily Adams and Katlyn Addison, plus newcomers Jazz Khai Bynum, Nicole Fannéy, and Vinicius Lima.
The program opened with the world premiere of Katlyn Addison’s Andromeda. With an original score by Jonathan Sanford, Andromeda is a dramatic retelling of the Greek myth of a beautiful princess, angry gods, a sea monster, and a brave hero. Addison has a nuanced approach to the corps dancers filling the stage, and they moved through the background and foreground in complex layers, into and out of unison.
Jenna Rae Herrera was a vivacious Andromeda, and her pas de deux with Jordan Veit as Perseus was tender and enchanting. The sea monster Cetus was performed by three dancers—Anderson Duhan, Robert Fowler, and James Jobson-Larkin—which added additional depth to the battle with Perseus as they partnered in solos and as a unified group.
Lingering Echoes by Nicole Fannéy was a stunning and insightful journey through connection and loss, set to music by Erkki Salmenhaara, J.S. Bach, and Antonio Vivaldi. Opening with subtle and hypnotic wavering, additional couples were slowly revealed as they ebbed and flowed in rectangles of light before hiding in shadows. Fannéy has a strong grasp of the importance of contrast, with the coordinated turns and arabesques set off by powerful moments of stillness.
Pas de deux between the couples were choreographed to offer visual distinction and highlight the dancers skills. Lillian Casscells and Adrian Fry were focused with sharp precision, while Rylee Ann Rogers and Loren Walton melted into intricate shapes while balancing on each other.
With Feeling by Jazz Khai Bynum, which premiered in Orem in March, featured Utah Valley University’s Repertory Ballet Ensemble in an upbeat work with the jazz music of Derek Bermel and Duke Ellington. Bynum’s staging focused on symmetry and collective motion as a backdrop for a series of solos. Incorporating brief entrances and exits that occurred on the far sides of the stage added variety to the staging.
Vinicius Lima presented a series of four vignettes of Brazilian life in Elis, set to popular music by Pixinguinha, Gilberto Gil, and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Lima’s choreographic vocabulary leans into quick, energetic turns and exaggerated arms to accent syncopation. In one clever pas de deux, Lima has a couple traveling across the stage, whirling and reaching for each other while locked in a kiss.
Lima showcases a versatility of styles. One section shared loss through harsh, angular poses and partnering, while another focused on playfulness by including samba steps. By regularly changing partners and soloists, Lima kept the audience curious for each progressive element.
The evening closed with Mass Hysterical by Emily Adams, a commentary on social behaviors and structures. Adams has a comprehensive understanding of physical space, and this precision allows the company to roil with kinetic energy in close proximity to one another. The use of lifts, deep pliés, and lunges to the floor propelled them dramatically across the stage. Her awareness of levels was gloriously executed through a repeated motif of dancers suspended upside down in complicated lifts.
Rylee Ann Rogers was fascinating in a solo that explored her individual gestures and glances, highlighting the disparity between herself and the rest of the group. Adams’ movements and the score by Katy Jarzebowski wove effortlessly together, with the orchestral melodies diverging and converging with industrial noise and nature sounds.
Hadriel Diniz captivated in a pas de deux with Victoria Vassos, where they seemed to lightly float through a series of lifts and floor work. His final solo featured explosive jumps and turns, but Adams’ decisions to take the other dancers offstage and not center the solo toward the audience added a beautiful vulnerability to the ballet’s final moments.
Ballet West’s “Works from Within” continues through Saturday. balletwest.org