Ballet BC: Forsythe, Molnar, and Legacy
This year marks a decade since Emily Molnar diverted Ballet BC from financial ruin with her vision for a “creation-based company committed to exploration and collaboration in contemporary dance.” The company’s program at the Brooklyn Academy of Music emphasized their international reputation within the contemporary canon, consisting of William Forsythe’s “Enemy in the Figure,” followed by two pieces directly displaying Forsythe’s influence. Both were choreographed by Canadian alums of Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt—Molnar herself, with “To this day,” and Crystal Pite, with “Solo Echo.”
William Forsythe’s “Enemy in the Figure,” image Michael Slobodian via Ballet BC
“Enemy in the Figure” effectively illustrates many of the elements Forsythe is best known for: deconstruction and manipulation of balletic lexicon, precise attack, weight shifts and counterbalance, and pushing the limits of ballet’s recognizable vocabulary. The extremes—angularity, strength, fluidity—of Forsythe’s choreography are heightened by the piece’s theatricality. He delineates stage space through various architectural features: a thrashing rope, an undulating partition, an inward-facing floodlight, and solid wings all contain and separate the eleven dancers. These dividers dictate what is seen and unseen, but that which is just out of sight remains a constant question. The opacity of the wooden partition allows the outlines of the dancers it conceals to become visible when illuminated by the floodlight. The rope emerges from both sides of the partition, but the forces manipulating it remain hidden. The unrelenting cadence of Thom Willems’ score is as peculiar as Forsythe’s choreography, but together, they draw the viewer in with an almost hypnotic effect.
Emily Molnar’s “To this day” image Michael Slobodian via BAM
Forsythe’s influence was palpable in Molnar’s “To this day,” though the latter failed to pique interest the way “Enemy” did so naturally. Set to music by Jimi Hendrix, Molnar’s choreography grapples with the bluesy conundrum of collective identity and individual voice: the piece begins with the entire cast standing tall on the stage’s front edge, their right arms extended above their heads, and dancers peel off—sometimes finding another, sometimes dancing alone—throughout the piece. Various solos and duets were particularly effective (one solo by a young man I couldn’t identify felt closely related to the frenetic speed and corporeal humor of bits of Tharp’s “Deuce Coupe,” and a fluid duet danced by two men also injected welcome energy), but the piece overall fell short of those bookending it.
Crystal Pite’s “Solo Echo,” image Sharen Bradford via Ballet BC
While the stretch and torque used by Forsythe was apparent in the bodily manipulations present in Crystal Pite’s “Solo Echo,” her work had a resonate sentimentality that set it apart from its two predecessors on the program. The interplay of set (Jay Gowner Taylor) and lighting (Tom Visser) created a horizontal band of light just above the dancers’ heads, illuminating the falling snow that most obviously linked the work to the poem reproduced in the program notes, Mark Strand’s “Lines for Winter.” The dancers slide across stage, coalescing from moments of touch to knotted masses, evocative of Strand’s “tell yourself” refrain, until the final image of the ballet, in which the cast forms a single disconnected line. They attempt to embrace the dancer before them, closing their arms on absent space as the dancer in front of them slips to the ground and exits the stage, a poignant reminder of how far Ballet BC has come these past ten years under Molnar’s leadership.
