BWW Reviews: DIRECTOR'S CHOICE Winter Series from Nashville Ballet

With the North American premiere of Twyla Tharp's The Story Teller generating most of the buzz prior to opening night, Nashville Ballet's Director's Choice winter series provided a much-needed jolt of electricity to the city's midwinter arts calendar. But it was the exquisite pairing of Molly Sansone and Jon Upleger in Salvatore Aiello's completely sensual and mildly erotic Satto that truly turned up the heat in the company's annual salute to contemporary dance.

Tharp's The Story Teller, which made its debut at The Australian Ballet in 1997 and had not been performed since that time, "is inspired by the tradition of continuing a community's oral histories by telling them beside a fire," according to program notes.

"At its core, it is an abstraction of the creation myth - the spirits and ancestors who inhabit the tale dancing just beyond its circle of light, brought forth by the storyteller's voice," read the program notes. "Loosely grouped into four sections, the first movement evokes "Dreamtime," the pre-historical time period when nothing existed but mist and spirit. The second heralds the nativity of the earth; building in power and ferocity, it represents the [sic] violence inherent birth. The third movement finds the first primitive being viewing the newly minted land with temerity and struggling to find his place in creation. The four portion celebrates the beauty of the new earth and speaks to the goodness of the world and the gift of life."

While depending upon program notes to determine what the choreographer is saying in her work seems lazy and, quite frankly, it bothers me to even repeat them here, I'm left with the feeling that had I not read those notes, I'd have no idea what Tharp was trying to convey in The Story Teller. It was rather disarming and somewhat entertaining, but lacked any of the anticipated emotional heft that such a description would suggest.

Percussive and vaguely ritualistic, the piece was danced expertly and with a much-needed blending of both serious emotion and carefree abandon by Christopher Butler, Christopher Stuart, Eddie Mikrut, Sadie Bo Harris, KrisSy Johnson and Andrea Vierra. Butler and Stuart were both particularly impressive in the piece, which features Tharp's creative expression set to the music of Kiyoung Kim.

The reaction to the program's second offering, Aiello's Satto, was much more satisfying and the resulting performance much more in keeping with what is expected from the talented artists who are Nashville Ballet. Described as "an adaptation of an Asian legend about an encounter between a wind god and a leaf," the very emotion of such an encounter is felt throughout the beautiful, lyrical and sensual piece, danced so beautifully by Upleger and Sansone. Sansone's rhythmic and undulating movements so ideally capture the movement of a leaf in motion, while Upleger's athleticism and awe-inspiring skill and strength is exquisitely expressed through his thoroughly significant performance.

The pairing of Sansone and Upleger is sheer perfection, their obvious trust of each other coupled with their impressive artistry, thereby creating a work that is memorably romantic and extremely sexy. (Okay, they were hot - very hot, in fact - and intermission gave audience members a chance to catch their breath and, well, cool off.)

Staged by ballet Master Timothy Rinehart Yeager, Satto is performed to the wonderfully evocative music of Chip Davis and Katutoshi Nagasawa, which captures the perfect tone for the piece, while the design aesthetic for Satto adds to its overall effect, particularly the costumes designed by Evelyn Miller and the stunning original lighting design of Randall Harrison and recreated by Nashville's own lighting artist Scott Leathers.

Sarah Slippers' Postcards from the Boys, originally commissioned and performed in 2005 by Nashville Ballet (this year staged by Yeager and Allison Zamorski) closed out the evening in wonderfully theatrical fashion, set to the music of Guy Clark and Darrell Scott, arranged by Conni Ellsor, and performed live by a tremendous collection of Nashville musicians, featuring vocals by Shawn Camp.

Completely engrossing and altogether captivating, Slipper's choreography for Postcards from the Boys allows company members to become "everyman," creating a series of vignettes that portray the collective struggle to live day-to-day, to overcome the obstacles and realities of life while somehow realizing one's dreams and aspirations.

Artfully and stylishly staged and creatively mounted, Postcards from the Boys very effectively blends all the conflicting emotions of daily life while perfectly interpolating the songs in the storytelling. Again augmented beautifully by Leather's exceptional lighting design - and the terrific costume design of Aubrey Hyde - the work runs the gamut of emotions brought so vividly to life by the well-trained dancers of Nashville Ballet.

Particularly compelling is "Homeless," which somehow conveys the plight of society's forgotten people, featuring Andrea Vierra, Chistopher Butler, Damian Drake, Eddie Mikrut and Mark Allyn Nimmo.

Other performances of note are those of Alexandra Meister, Brendon LaPier and Christopher Stuart in the fourth section, "Shattered Cross," which spotlights each of the dancers, allowing them to show off their individual artistry while providing a showcase for their lovely teamwork. Upleger and Harris are notable in the subsequent "She Ain't Goin' Nowhere" and the entire cast (with a nod toward the exquisite efforts of Kimberly Ratcliffe and Mikrut) is exemplary in the final movements, "I Wanna Be Free" and "The Dark," which are beautifully danced.

- Director's Choice: Winter Repertoire Program. Presented by Nashville Ballet. Paul Vasterling, artistic director. At James K. Polk Theatre, Tennessee Performing Arts Center, February 11-13. For further information about the company, visit the website at www.nashvilleballet.com

Pictured: Jon Upleger

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