Review: FLIP at Charlotte Ballet

Whenever you see a Charlotte Ballet performance at Knight Theater or the mighty Belk, you’re going to see talent, grace, athleticism, imagination, and dancers in abundance. At the McBride-Bonnefoux Center for Dance, however, only the first three of those wondrous plenitudes are guaranteed. Formality is loosened. Scale is often reduced. And over the past few years, Charlotte Ballet’s season has concluded with evenings of homegrown choreographies by members of the troupe, many of them new to the art.

The title of these venturous, experimental evenings has evolved from Choreographic Lab, when Hope Muir established them in 2018, to the current Flip – as in flipping the script – when Alejandro Cerrudo took over as artistic director. Moving from the big venues to the double-studio layout of the McBride-Bonnefoux, one studio accommodating the audience and the adjacent studio (partition opened) serving as the dancers’ stage, you feel like you’ve abandoned Broadway for a black box.

But without sacrificing the swank factor: the façade and lobby of the Center for Dance are more like a modern museum than a ballet school. So there’s an elegant patina layered onto the funky ambiance of briefer, smaller budget pieces, often reduced to solo performances or pas-de-deuxs. You might expect two or three pieces at most before an intermission at the Knight or Belk Theater. This year at Flip, there were nine, with five more in the lineup after the break.

So you can conclude that, among the 20 dancers in the Charlotte Ballet troupe, 70% can now affix the profession of choreographer to their résumés. Not quite. At this year’s Flip, members of the secondary Charlotte Ballet II troupe also participated in performing and choreographing the program. Six of the eight CB2 members profiled at the charlotteballet.org website danced in the program, with David Anthony Scheuerman-Saucedo also among the choreographers.

What happens behind the scenes must be a fascinating process, as the dancers choreograph for their comrades, teaming up by preference, negotiation, or random assignment. Two lighting designers, Jenni Propst and Rick Moll, split the 14 pieces between them, another negotiation or lottery.

Normally, two solo dances would be two too many for me. But at Flip, Raven Barkley’s “Groove” and Clay Houston’s “Nuit tombante” both transcended the norm. Set to Jackie Wilson’s cover of “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher,” Barkley’s choreography put little demand on her athleticism and was hardly unique. She was: lithe and charismatic in a vivid red dress.

In a sense, Houston’s piece wasn’t a solo at all. When night fell, he not only switched soundtracks, he also switched genders, discarding a wig and assorted paraphernalia and becoming more himself. At first, the transformation hit me as surprising and comical, but the mood – and the choreography – deepened and became touching.

Between these two solos, two of the best duets were programmed: Anna Owens’ “That’s all” and Adriana Wagenveld’s “Tethered.” Owens’ piece, set to a couple of non-Tiny Tim versions of “Tip Toe Thru the Tulips,” actually offered a rather comical reason for all the tiptoeing. At the climax, Owens in the female role gets Oliver Oguma to assist her in reaching a tulip that dangles temptingly from above. That’s when the “That’s all” came into play, as Owens departed instantly afterwards, without according Oguma the thanks he deserved.

Oguma, in the comical spirit of the music, looked more bewildered than pissed by the brush-off.

Wagenveld spliced two favorite Sebastian Plano tracks together for her soundtrack, recruiting her sister from CB2, Serafina Wagenveld, to join her in the project. Fortunately, Adriana’s tethering concept isn’t carried out literally. Though neither of their bios suggests that the siblings are twins, the matching costumes for the piece only encouraged that conjecture.

At times, Plano’s minimalist style seemed mated with the Wagenvelds’ walk-like-an-Egyptian grace and their stolid serenity. The sisters’ intertwinings, beautifully timed and carefully composed, might also take on a hieroglyphic look. Their costumes were sleek and timeless, sheer taupe tops with tight half-sleeves – think nylons – over flowing white slacks.

Two other duets stood out for me. Rees Launer’s “Kinetikos” was appropriately pulsating and percussive in opening the evening, set to a mashup of a couple of Aphex Twin tracks for Scheuerman-Saucedo and Serafina Wagenveld, growing more lyrical and nostalgic when the music transitioned to an Emile Mosseri piece. Most unique of all, perhaps, was Isaac Aoki’s “Topaz,” set for himself and Remi Okamoto to Mark Izu’s “Mermaid in a Silent Sea.”

With Aoki’s videography, we were taken more explicitly to desert lands in “Topaz” than we were by “Tethered.” The torrid climate fit hauntingly with the plodding tempo of the music, caravan-like when the whining Japanese shakuhachi dominated. Or the flute. Or the bass clarinet. The loneliness of the dark-clad Asians contrasted starkly with the sun-drenched hilly terrain, justifying that whining sound. Unlike “Tethered,” there was little connection at first between the two dancers. The piece was the antithesis of festive – until the tabla began to bubble underneath, gradually emerging and quickening the pace.

Of the remaining pieces, I found that the love-triangle narrative shape of Scheuerman-Saucedo’s “you and me and me and you” overcame my misgivings about listening to yet another setting to Jules Massenet’s “Meditation from Thaïs.” Although Part 1 of Mario Gonzalez’ “Fever Dream” struck me as a generic piece for four dancers, never once reminding me of Geppetto’s search for Pinocchio (let alone “Chapter 35”), Part 2, “25%,” enabled Stephen Myers to deliver one of the most vivacious solos of the evening, set to “Orchestra” by Labrinth.

Both his costume and charisma rivaled Raven’s. Nor was “Chapter 35” a waste, for it prodded me to investigate the insane “Big Hammer” video by James Blake. A cinematic masterwork!

You may disagree, but discovering new music is a key part of the adventure that Charlotte Ballet’s labs or Flips has to offer me. That was not the case with the closing offering of the evening, Maurice Mouzon Jr.’s “Ne Me Quitte Pas,” set to the Nina Simone recording. It’s been done before – and before that.

Mouzon’s setting, for four dancers, doesn’t stop at the threat of separation. It crosses over into the agony of it when it happens. So two couples is the right choreographic choice, for Mouzon allows ample opportunities for the two women, Barkley and Adriana Wagenveld, and the two men, Launer and Luke Csordas, to suffer and commiserate with one another in alternating segments.

Nor does Mouzon send the women off, an annoying choreographic tic, when the spotlight shifts to the men. Instead, he freezes them in a sad attitude while Moll dims their light. Why should they be out of sight if they’re not out of mind? Since the Simone track peters out in pitiful pleas, seemingly repeated after being irrevocably denied, Mouzon can only offer us a wan hope of reconciliation.

Hugged from the rear by their partners, their legs bent and suspended in air, Barkley and Wagenveld reached across the void between them and embraced with their arms fully extended, forming a poignant bridge. What a wonderful closing tableau.

Newsflash: Printed programs for Flip and Charlotte Ballet’s previous show, One Thousand Pieces back in early May, contained announcements of the company’s 2026-27 season and a slate of touring engagements, an exciting new dimension for the troupe. A couple of new developments since Flip concluded its run on June 20.

The company has already appeared at the American Dance Festival in Durham for the first time since 2017, bringing with them a work by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin once again later in June. Then, less than a week ago, they fulfilled their promise to add to their announced touring dates.

Newly augmented, here’s the slate:

• Sept. 25-26, 2026: Ballet Bend - Fall Dance Festival (Bend, OR)
• Oct. 29-30, 2026: Brooks Center for the Performing Arts at Clemson University (Clemson, SC)
• Nov. 7, 2026: Dance Cleveland (Cleveland, OH)
• Jan. 27-31, 2027: The Joyce Theater (New York, NY)

The 2027 rendezvous at The Joyce Theater will be the first time Cerrudo has brought them there during his tenure. Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, who died in the spring of 2025 at age 82, was still the artistic director when the company last wowed New York audiences at The Joyce in 2004. Ten years later, he would rebrand his troupe, but back then, they were known as the North Carolina Dance Theatre.

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