Verb Ballet's debut proved substantial both in terms of length (two and a half hours including intermissions) and in terms of the weight of the choreography and music presented. Audacity paid off for Verb and their audience on almost every front. Verb's Artistic Director Hernando Cortez has long intoned his belief that "If we build it they will come." So far this seems to be true. So often we've seen first-rate concerts attract disappointing houses; but Verb sold the 900 and some seat Ohio Theatre out. Which is a great thing to see. We were also glad to see Playhouse Square's box office handling the unexpected (?) crush better than they had handled the Momix performance several weeks previously. Momix sold out the State Theatre two weeks before but the often notoriously slow box office forced the show to start 30 minutes late and then only by calling out names, and eventually just letting people in. What if you build it and they come but box office falls flat? Audiences cannot be expected to put up with that kind of exasperation. Fortunately, the box office had taken stock and made some changes. Tickets were distributed more efficiently. The show started on the minute. Martha Grahams' Appalachian Spring led the program. We ran into a friend of ours, a classical musician, on the way into the concert. This was someone who is not a regular at dance concerts. "I'm here to see Appalachian Spring, he said. "I love the music but I've never seen the dance." He's probably not the only one who was attracted by music he knew and loved. Audacious is what it seemed when Verb first announced that they would perform a twentieth century dance masterwork, Martha Graham's signature piece. Since then Verb has performed Appalachian Spring several times with several casts. Every performance that we've seen has demonstrated Verb's fluency with the Graham technique. This performance was no exception. What was new for this performance was redesigned costumes and sets by Appalachian artists Suzy Campbell and Robert Katkowsky. What would they be like? Not terribly unlike the originals, it turned out, just slightly more abstracted, with an interesting play of positive/negative space. The costumes likewise had some interesting touches, but like the originals they were revealing of form though not of flesh: the Followers' bodices, the Husbandman's trousers, somehow entirely appropriate to a dance drama with a quietly screaming subtext of so much sublimated sexual tension. The new color palette, which the program notes spoke of, did not particularly jump out. The dancing, all movement that defines relationships between the protagonists, was even better than we expected. Tracy Vogt as the Bride, Graham's role, was brilliant; the best contemporary performance of the role we've seen. We have much less to say about Verb's performance of Paul Taylor's Esplanade and Hernando Cortez's own Carmina Burana. Esplanade is always welcome and anything this company performs is well worth watching. One expects excellent dancing, well rehearsed, and Cortez's own choreography is always well crafted and fluent. We found ourselves with some questions concerning Carmina Burana but despite these it was still a pleasure to watch. However, for us, The highlight of the evening was Appalachian Spring. from Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas vicnelsa@earthlink.net (:divend:)