Lots of Gesture

Ten days before Halloween, the dancers of Ballet Tucson were trying
on their masks.

Elaborately painted and jeweled, the papier-mâché masks
were for the new ballet “Masquerade.” Mask-maker June Mullin made the
eyeholes unusually large, the better for dancers to see where to glide
into their glissades. But no one knew how well they would
work.

The dancers had already rehearsed the movements, and now they were
taking their first tentative steps with the masks strapped on.

After a split-second of hesitation, they began prancing around, the
women in long skirts and the men in tights, ladies and lords at a
masked ball. Cesar Rubio, who plays a joker, ran impishly between the
graceful couples.

“They’re fine!” assorted ballerinas called out, paying more
attention to their demi-pliés than their disguises.

Assistant artistic director Chieko Imada, who co-choreographed the
three-part work with artistic director Mary-Beth Cabana, was visibly
relieved. She reverted to giving movement directions, running the dozen
or more dancers through their paces as they danced to the big sounds of
a Shostakovich piano concerto.

“Lots of gesture, please,” she said.

The masked “Masquerade” will be the grand finale of the company’s
season opener on Halloween night. In keeping with the spooky holiday,
the concert also conjures up the gypsy girl and the hunchback of Notre
Dame in a new ballet called “Esmeralda.” In the classic Giselle Act II, a troupe of ghostly brides swathed in white will take to the
stage, dancing in the afterlife.

“Halloween night is well-planned,” said Amanda McKerrow with a
smile. The former American Ballet Theatre star is setting
Giselle Act II on the dancers.

Besides the seasonal offerings, the gala Saturday-night concert also
offers up a revered work by George Balanchine, danced by two guest
stars from New York City Ballet, the company that Balanchine co-founded
in 1948.

Maria Kowroski, who danced a Christopher Wheeldon piece for Ballet
Tucson last year, returns with dance partner Charles Askegard, who will
dance for the local company for the first time.

The two stars will perform the glittering “Diamonds” pas de deux
from Balanchine’s Jewels, the beloved full-length work from
1967. The piece is meant to evoke old Russia, and the music is by
Balanchine’s fellow Russian, Tchaikovsky.

“Maria told us she’d love to do it,” Cabana said. “All she has to do
is get permission from Peter Martins,” the New York City Ballet’s
director. “It’s fabulous as always to get a Balanchine, and I don’t
think the piece has been done before in Tucson.

“Maria is one of the best interpreters of Balanchine,” Cabana added.
“She’s in the prime of her career.”

Unfortunately, Kowroski and Askegard will dance only at the Saturday
night gala. Two Sunday matinees will feature just the local
dancers.

But the Giselle Act II being staged by McKerrow has its own
star power. McKerrow danced the title role over 20 years at ABT, and
she chose it for her farewell performance in 2005. (The Washington
Post called her final Giselle “impeccably tender and
lyrical.”)

McKerrow took a moment to speak during a rehearsal break while
Ballet Tucson’s Giselle, Jenna Johnson, lay on her back on the floor
with her long longs up on a wall. Johnson’s husband, Daniel Precup,
will play Albrecht, the young noble who jilts Giselle and then seeks
her out in the afterlife.

“I did the second act in 1985 with Misha,” McKerrow said, referring
to her dance partner Mikhail Baryshnikov, “and the full length in 1987
with him. He held the ballet in very high regard. It was sacred to him,
and it’s close to my heart.”

The ballet premiered in Paris in 1841 and remains a romantic
favorite. Danced to a score by Adolphe Adam, the work was composed at a
time when people were entranced by the supernatural. Some critics
believe it owes some of its charged atmosphere to Victor Hugo, who
published The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in 1831.

The ballet “is a good one to mature with,” McKerrow adds. “You can
take whatever has happened to you and use it.”

Three years ago, Ballet Tucson staged a theatrical version of the
Hugo novel. Voiceover narration told his elaborate story of the gypsy
woman who is saved by the hunchback in medieval Paris.

“Esmeralda,” a brand-new work by Mark Schneider, formerly a company
choreographer, is the “opposite of what we did before,” Cabana
said.

“That was theater. This is dance,” she explained.

A cast of 50, including kids from the Ballet Arts school, create the
mobs in the square in front of the cathedral of Notre Dame. Sets
conjure up the cathedral, its bell tower and its famous stained-glass
rose window. Schneider put together a musical collage of orchestral and
piano pieces by Rachmaninoff for the 35-minute piece.

The concert closes with “Masquerade.” Providing a counterpoint to
the deathly whites and grays of the earlier pieces, the big new work
dresses 22 dancers in vibrant reds, pinks and yellows: sparkly peplum
bodices and net skirts for the women, frilly shirts and quilted vests
for the men. (Lynn Lewis gets costume credit for “Masquerade,” Madelene
Maxwell for Giselle and “Esmeralda.”)

The costumes are essential to the theme of the dance. The dancers
“slowly unmask, take off some costumes (and) become less encumbered,”
Cabana said. “They gradually deconstruct emotionally, baring their
soul.”

Cabana is delighted to be starting up the new season, but the
economy has taken its toll on the troupe’s operations. The annual
Roots of Choreography (ROCS) show has been eliminated,
reducing the usual number of concerts from five to four. The
cash-strapped UA is now using Centennial Hall for mammoth classes and
can’t spare the time to rent the theater to Ballet Tucson for its
Nutcracker, which now will have to go to the TCC Music Hall.

The company had to lay off its managing executive director, Jeffrey
Graham Hughes, to cut costs, though he will still teach and compose
some dances.

“We had to make some hard decisions to keep the company going,”
Cabana said.

On the plus side, she was able to hire a few new dancers: Askar
Alimbetov, a native of Kazakhstan who recently danced with San Diego
Ballet, and Jessica Galgiani, a Tucsonan who trained with Ballet Arts
and danced with Louisville Ballet. Three apprentices were added, and
several others moved up to company ranks.

“They’re all happy to be working,” Cabana said. “It’s a good group.
Hopefully it will all work out.”

This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.