Skip to main contentSome happy souls hum along with each charming line of "Do-Re-Mi" while others desire only to cram jam and bread down the precious throats of the Von Trapp brats. As Oregon Ballet Theatre presents its 12th annual American Choreographers Showcase, a tribute to the work of a musical-theater great, composer Richard Rodgers (part of an international Rodgers centennial celebration), new opinions might surface.
Decades away in style and sound from the company's last new work, the moody and modern Doors-inspired Alta Cienega, the quintet of Rodgers-scored pieces (bursting with standards from "Some Enchanted Evening" to "My Funny Valentine") returns audiences to a more lighthearted era. Running the gamut from schmaltz to extrasensory overload, it's a bill that should delight the musical masses, convert some naysayers and infuriate the tone-deaf remainder.
Dedicated to building the company's repertoire through the varied talents of both established choreographers and emerging talents, ACS has become one of OBT's signature events--a hit-or-miss evening in which the wheat and chaff of contemporary movement find equal stage time, with often positive results. This year, OBT director James Canfield keeps ACS centrally located: Five of his own dancers (Christopher DeMellier, Tracy Taylor, Alison Roper, Anne Mueller and Vanessa Thiessen) will present new work alongside himself and Portland choreographer Sarah Slipper during the show's two-program series.
ACS Program A, which premieres this Friday at the Newmark Theater, features a trio of the showcase's most expansive works. Mueller and Thiessen throw down the multimedia gauntlet with In the Style Of--the duo's karaoke-centric ballet featuring live singers and video segments. Not to worry, Kwang-Suk Choi's exuberant lovestruck, robo-regimented solo to This Can't Be Love, proves that dance is still No. 1.
Dancemaker Sarah Slipper, who regressed the Jefferson Dancers to Converse-clad school kids à la Pink Floyd earlier this month, works her over-extended charm on OBT with Perhaps, Mr. Rodgers--an ambitious
melodrama featuring four balletic couples, pianist Richard Bower and one very large, extremely mobile (and inherently dangerous) Steinway piano.
Former Lady Lucille succubus Alison Roper rounds out Program A with the evening's largest and most nostalgic work, Between Cupid and the Crush, a jaunty, silver screen-inspired romp featuring the entire OBT company, set to early Rodgers ("Thou Swell," "The Girlfriend").
Canfield unveils his quietly fabulous, Up, a clean procession of solos, duets and groups that each encompass a version of "Blue Moon," from Billie Holiday to Cowboy Junkies, during ACS Program B next week, along with Taylor's short, high-voltage "Bali Ha'i" satire, Room 31. Roper, five months pregnant, trades off with Larke Hasstedt in DeMellier's Warped Perception, a lovingly executed piece the dancer created, focused on women's hypercritical body images.
The great thing about doing Rodgers is that it gives over-sentimentality and grandiose gesture a plausible outlet. Though there are obvious nods to a musical-theater pedigree, the dancer-choreographers have done well to scale back the over-the-top work in favor of smaller, more personal dancing. These are creations that seem to whisper of the music man's lovely, timeless intentions without needing Broadway's bloat.
Oregon Ballet Theatre at the Newmark Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 222-5538. Program A: 7:30 pm Friday- Sunday, May 24-26, and Wednesday- Sunday, June 5-9. Program B: 7:30 pm Wednesday- Sunday, May 29-June 2,
and Wednesday- Saturday, June 12-15. $5-$80.
WWeek 2015