DANCE REVIEW: Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet at Jacob's Pillow

JACOB'S PILLOW
Ted Shawn Theatre
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
Orbo Novo
July 8-12, 2009
 

Review by Robin Catalano

(BECKET, Mass., July 8, 2009) -- In a serendipitous triple coup, Jacob’s Pillow presents the left-of-center young dance company Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in a world premiere by sought-after Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Orbo Novo is Cherkaoui’s first collaboration with an American dance company, and is bound to attract lots of attention.

 

Cherkaoui has pointed to the dualities of East and West, the two hemispheres of the brain, and past and future as inspiration for this piece. While these elements certainly come into play in the performance, the message that resonates strongest is that we construct our own boundaries -- and have the choice to either work within them or transcend them.  

 

The program begins with a gymnastic sequence through, over, and around the movable set. This segues into a spoken-word section about the brain, with excerpts from Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight, which chronicles the experience of having a stroke. The section goes on a bit too long, but when it finally flows into a loose, elastic group dance, the performers effectively capture that uniquely human state of constant “brain chatter,” and how disconcerting it feels when it suddenly stops. At first there is a sense of loss; then it transforms into feelings of expansiveness, soaring, and a surrender of control. Or as Taylor puts it, “I was no longer the choreographer of my life.”

 

Orbo Novo is not strictly based on Taylor’s memoir, but uses it as a backdrop for exploring what happens when we feel trapped within our own minds and cultural biases. Cherkaoui uses his eclectic movement vocabulary, firmly rooted in classical ballet but with distinct African influences, to express a variety of emotions, and his work -- full of repeating motifs; noodle-like upper-body undulations; deeply grounded movement; and contrasts between gorgeous long lines and sharp, animalistic movements -- is seamless and often lyrical. He is especially adept at male solos (look for the one performed by tall, flame-haired Manuel Vignoulle), and gives them lightness and fluidity rather than simply relying on athleticism. Cedar Lake’s dancers, an intriguing collection of body shapes, sizes, and ethnicities, are more than up to the challenges the choreographer presents.

 

Alexander Dodge’s set, a series of gridlike structures that break apart, come together in different configurations, recede into the background, and push to the forefront, is a brilliant complement to Orbo Novo’s central themes. The score, created by Polish composer Szymon Brzoska and performed live by the Mosaic String Quartet, with its dissonance, bent notes, and scoops, evokes the mind’s habit of distorting information and reassembling it into personal memories.

 

There are two small bones to pick, however. Shortly after the halfway mark comes a 10-minute section that lacks dynamics in the music and movement; the company lost a few audience members here, and neon watch lights and cell phone clocks flickered like fireflies. And the long prairie skirts on some of the female dancers, while no doubt a nod to the “old,” are distracting and take away from the body line.

 

Nonetheless, Orbo Novo is a triumph. When, at the end, the lone dancer trapped in the set simply chooses to move his boundaries instead of being defined by them, we too feel free.

 

 

Robin Catalano is Berkshire Living's dance critic.