BWW Reviews: GREAT BRITTEN Astounds at the Alexander Kasser Theater

Enlighteningly mystical, compelled by the bleary-eyed madness of religious conviction, the deeply personal and moving testaments to the mysteries of the inner life were embodied magically throughout Great Britten. From the American premiere of Rejoice in the Lamb to Illuminations, the early 20th century music of Benjamin Britten unfolded as a touching four-part series of spiritual devotion and the loftiest of loves.

Unfinished Business Duet followed, played by the virtuosic Jason Ridgway, delighting with every step of dance along the andante scales of Mozart's Piano Sonata no. 15. Composed at the end of his life, the sonata gave body to the soulful movements of dancers Elly Braund and James Muller.

The wonderment of Unfinished Business played out as a unification of musical and choreographic forms. During the piece, the Alexander Kasser Theater stage was alit with the painterly visions of Alston at his finest, having matured to a special grace after 20 years with a fiercely independent company, choreographing nearly forty dance works. In fact, Alston formed the UK's first independent dance group, Strider, in 1972, just four years after choreographing his first oeuvre.

The second American premiere of the evening, Hölderlin Fragments, bared the masculine religiosity of Western Europe towards a light beyond the opaque veils of truth. The words of Canadian poet Leonard Cohen spring to mind, "There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in". The echoes of Hölderlin can surely be heard in their most subtle of traces, resounding as in the words of the third song in the cycle put to music by Britten, Socrates and Alcibiades: "He who has pondered the most profound thoughts loves what is most alive."

The very last image of Hölderlin Fragments mesmerized, with the talented Ihsaan de Banya leading the five other dancers with his opened palm upheld, facing outwards. The double meaning of the image presaged the final piece of the evening, Illuminations, which chronicled the flight of Rimbaud beyond the continental divides of Europe.

One is left wondering what a different world today would be if the hemispheres had been so joined under more creative circumstances than the economic and military histories of the past two centuries. Illuminations unraveled the recurrent themes into the wide-eyed night, as the French symbolist poets Rimbaud (performed fascinatingly by dancer Liam Riddick), and Verlaine (by dancer Nicholas Bodych), twisted and writhed under the religious and gender oppressions of continental Europe.

Transitioning from Hölderlin Fragments, to Illuminations, the double meaning in the visual concept of "fragment" was revealed artfully. As by cracks, and so by lights, the fragments of artistic expression performed during Great Britten stirred the audience enjoyably. The American Contemporary Music Ensemble quickened to the vocal dramatization of Nicholas Phan, who exhibited all the tragic mastery of a true performing artist. Alston, as a seasoned visionary, exhibited his immensely passionate choreography as among the most apt means to recover bygone historical and cultural remnants, or fragments, as through the divine imagination of art.

Photo Credit: Chris Nash

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