Verb Ballets Raising Cain, Premieres at Cain Park

You have to credit Verb for their excellent renditions of modern dance repertory. At first we wondered how they found the nerve to attempt Martha Graham’s masterpiece, Appalachian Spring, but their premiere and successive performances of that modern dance classic have been exemplary. Our process was similar with Verb’s performances of the signature Paul Taylor work, Esplanade, David Parson’s The Envelope, and Heinz Poll’s Bolero, all highly thought of works that we were already familiar with. In every case, Verb’s dancers and the company’s rehearsal process have shone with a light of their own; they’ve made us and Cleveland’s dance audience into believers.

“So how about more of the same?” one might ask. Verb’s Artistic Director Hernando Cortez is up front about his desire to do more repertory, especially more works by Taylor, for whom he danced for many years, but money quickly becomes a limiting factor. “$40,000 for a Taylor work, that’s just what it costs,” said Cortez in a casual conversation at the Taylor concert at Cain Park earlier this month. So for the summer concert season, Cortez himself has stepped up to the plate, choreographing 2 premieres. In addition, Verb shows a Poll duet, Andante Sostenuto, and one of our favorite Cortez works, Frontrow.

The Verb Ballets performance at Hardesty Park in Akron - to which we drove through blinding rain in order to see the premiering pieces in order to better be able to talk about them in this preview - was first delayed by the rain, and then marred by the rains’ after- effects of slippery stage and flooded backstage crossover. Andante Sostenuto was eliminated entirely as being too dangerous to perform (slippery stages and pointe shoes not being a good mix), and the longer, more important premier, titled Mondo Jumbo at Hardesty but to be called EarthBeat at Cain Park was cut short by 6 sections, so we got barely a taste.

We did observe, however, that in EarthBeat, Cortez plays to several of his established strengths. As in his popular Planet Soup, he and his dancers continue to explore the fusion of world and ethnic dance forms, in this case bringing African, West Indian, Chinese, and Caribbean dances to the concert stage. In what promises to be another fertile collaboration with local musicians and composers, Cortez has brought members of the University of Akron Steel Drum Band into the mix; the musicians will be performing live at Cain Park, including some original compositions by the band’s Co-Director, Matthew Dudack.

In his other premiere, Ski-Du, Cortez takes off in a new direction with an homage to Moses Pendleton’s Skiva, a popular Pilobolus work. Ski-Du attempts to expand upon Pendleton’s original exploration of “the possibilities for motion when one’s feet are encased in boots attached to skis.” Does Cortez expand upon Pendleton’s original essay? Do Verb’s dancers have the acrobatic ability for a Pilobolus homage worthy of the name? While we ourselves were somewhat underwhelmed, we understand that the previous evening Ski-Du was enthusiastically received by a much, much larger audience. So perhaps, blame it on the rain. One thing for sure, watching from a raked house where one can actually see the dancers feet will improve everything visually.

Frontrow is one of our favorite Cortez works. It expanded upon an earlier Cortez work, Backlash (world premiere 10/20/05), in a number of ways. First, Cortez found a surprisingly satisfying way to extend local composer Eric Ziolek’s “jazz-like” original score for Backlash, sandwiching it between some of postminimalist David Lang’s compositions recorded by Bang on a Can All Stars. Then, despite his claim that the “complete abstraction” of Backlash’s jazzy neoclassical choreography was “totally alien” to him, Cortez found lots of interesting dancing for his dancers to do in that vein.

For us, though, the best thing about Frontrow is the way it successfully integrates all of Verb’s dancers into a contemporary ballet. Verb has some dyed in the wool ballet dancers in its ranks -- all 3 of the company’s men were ballet dancers first and several of the women can perform en pointe, and Cortez has used them in balletic works in the past -- but many of Verb’s women are primarily modern dancers and in Frontrow they get a chance to shine along with the ballet dancers (who seem to function as a kind of balancing counterpoint)… all beautifully done up in iridescent costumes designed by Gina Dudek and reconstructed by Brittany Boettner.

Cain Park's Evans Amphitheater and box office are located at Goodnor & Superior Ave., Cleveland Heights. The Park’s west entrance is at Lee Road & Superior; the east entrance is at Goodnor & Superior. Advanced reserved seats are available now by calling 371-3000, or by visiting http://www.cainpark.com, or the Park's box office.

'From Cool Cleveland'' contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas vicnelsaATearthlink.net
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