sophsterr Posted May 16, 2006 Share Posted May 16, 2006 What did everyone think of it? Link to comment
Mike Gunther Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Sorry it took me so long to get back to this post. I was delighted, and more, with the evening - the choreography of both pieces (Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beatles' songs) was great, and it seemed to me the company was dancing on a whole new level - graceful, fast, and strong, obviously overjoyed to be back on the stage, and best of all, secure and confident, in spite of the incredible difficulty of their demandingly repeated allegro passages & lifts. To take just one example, Jason Hartley had an amazing moment where he was leaping so high in the air, and defying gravity with such a beautiful attitude (legs together, canted with torso at a perfectly-judged acute angle between earth and sky) and poignant expression that I'll never forget it - the best of many "flashbulb memories" of this performance. While both works were excellent, the Washington Post reviewer, and the very enthusiastic audience, clearly gave the most applause to Trey McIntyre's Beatles piece. To me, although I thought Beatles very good in itself, there was a disconnect between Trey's rather satirical and my own, more guileless, 1960's-era feelings about those songs. I've no reservations at all about Septime's Goldberg Variations, which I thought unabashedly brilliant in concept, staging, and execution. With only a little bit of necessary polishing up - specifically, to smooth out that one awkward moment in the middle of the piece where the dancers move irresolutely between piano and harpsichord, like spectators at a tennis match - this deserves to be repeated by the WB, and mounted by other companies! Lots of people are interested in the WB, although not too many are posting these days. Welcome, sophsterr! And, what did you think? Link to comment
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