Company:  Ballet Etudes

Choreographer: Amy Wudel

Performers:  Mikayla Bryan, Katie May Chen, Whitney Dana, Abby Foster, Melina Garry, Sarah Girard, Anna Inwards, Chloe Johnson, Kyrene Miller, Kirstyn Rodgers, Lara Schreck, Hazel Sherwood, Kadence Spanovich, Isla Springmyer

Whenever I see a deluge of dancers flood the stage to perform a group piece, I cringe a little and do a silent “Uh-o, here we go”. Anytime a company is fielding more than six or eight performers, I assume one of two things is going to happen. Best case, the choreography needs to be simplified (read, less interesting) to accommodate the number of people versus the available real estate and the audience focus will be seriously diluted over so many performers. Where are you supposed to be looking? Worst case, and all too frequently, it’s the result of a school or company feeling the need to give everyone a chance to perform. In these cases, it’s common for there to be some version of “one of these is not like the others” in the ensemble. As an audience, we try to be tolerant, even sympathetic and supportive of these mismatches in talent or presentation, but in truth, this is a professional stage and there should be no need for participation awards.

I was at first relieved, and then legitimately thrilled, when Ballet Etudes took the stage with a cast of thousands for their piece, The Space Between, and immediately proceeded, with some real authority, to knock it out of the park.

OK, so choreographer, Amy Wudel, was not presenting a Busby Berkeley extravaganza or a Communist Chinese cultural showcase, but it fit solidly in that distinct genre of dance performance where the uniformity of the performers and the precision of their movement becomes the driving aesthetic. And the level to which it succeeded on this local stage was very impressive.

At first impression, the assembled company was a visual treat. Perhaps just because she could, Wudel peopled the stage with pulchritude. But it wasn’t just an assemblage of lovelies, there was an attention to detail, both obvious and subtle, that formed it all into an aesthetic whole. Her criteria for this presentation required what I assume was most of the available tools – similar body types, uniform costumes and hair styles, and yes, attitudes and expressions. I’m trying and failing to remember another time when I was remotely conscious of a dancer’s makeup, yet here, that was present too, right down to the lipstick – just one more example of the careful attention to detail that helped make this performance as cohesive as possible.

OK, so maybe much of this may be standard operating procedure in certain dance forms, but this was definitely a contemporary piece, with low floor work atypical of ballet so, really, we were seeing two worlds collide. And as the movement commenced, I was given the distinct impression that Wudel, bringing her highly trained ballet dancers with their rigorous visual aesthetic to perform in a festival which included several free-form modern pieces, seemed a whole lot like bringing chess players to a checkers match.

The quality of movement demonstrated by these dancers and their classical refinement was immediately apparent. The precise gestures, their flexibility, their effortless extension was impressive. The choreography in The Space Between would have worked as a solo or made a very credible synchronized duet. And while an individual dancer may have surrendered her identity to the whole, the precision with which these fourteen dancers mirrored each other created a synergy greater than the sum of each individual performance and made the entire performance a delight to behold.

In truth, the piece would have benefited from better lighting design, only because it deserved every enhancement, but I realize those options are limited in this multi-presentation format. Fortunately, this level of loveliness was able to shine regardless.

In a way, I am exposing my limitations as an audience member here. I don’t pretend to understand ballet. Perhaps it’s the highly prescribed movement or the arcane story lines, but as a consequence I don’t attend many performances. Still, I reserve the right to be stunned by the talent of the performers. Any time you can stand on one toe and put your ankle behind your ear, leap three feet into the air or twenty feet across the floor, or spin endlessly like a gorgeous top, you are a creature apart from mere mortals.

Choreographer Amy Wudel brought fourteen such creatures to The Space Between, a very accessible contemporary piece which their very presence and talent elevated to art.

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