Joffrey Ballet

The Joffrey was back in town this weekend. They performed their recreation of Rite of Spring along with several other short pieces. I went on Friday when they performed a new piece by Stanton Welch and Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain.

I had seen the Joffrey's Rite years ago when they brought it to LA. Their piece is based on research by a dance historian and a costume historian working for years to piece together what the original Nijinsky choreography was, along with costumes and sets. We were up in the upper balcony, with the hoi polloi (seemed like a lot of graduate dance students!) and so the patterning and groupings of the dancers was most evident. This piece (both choreography and music) is 100 years old and I swear, it could've been created yesterday. I loved the first half but the second half felt like a little repetitive and dragged a bit. The connection between the music and movement was really strong. My friend studied modern dance in college and she could see in this piece the precursor for much of today's modern dance. After this piece, the dance majors were all ecstatic, while their 'plus ones' were a little confused.

The first piece was a new short dance to John Adam's music. I'm not a big fan of Adam's music, however the Joffrey is a company of beautiful, strong dancers and it was great to watch the movement from our high angle. It really emphasized upper body and port de bras (arms) over the typical legs and feet.

The middle piece, After the Rain is one that I believe I've seen before in NY. The music is by Arvo Part (there was a time when every other new piece I saw was choregraphed to his music). This is a gorgeous piece, particularly the duet and here it was danced by the Joffrey's main principals, Fabrice Calmels, their gorgeous 6'-6" dancer, and Victoria Jaiani, who has the most beautiful supple body and feet. They were amazing together. (Here is a brief video from the NYCB page, on which this piece was originally created.)