New Jersey’s foremost classically based dance troupe, American Repertory Ballet, closed its 2021-22 season last weekend with “Movin’ + Groovin’,” an exciting presentation of world premieres of three fine contemporary ballets. Performed at New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, the inaptly titled program proffered an abundance of gratifying “movin’,” yet not the kind of “groovin’” one might have expected.
The program’s three works are all built predominantly of standard ballet vocabulary and celebrate the enjoyment of dancing in such fashion. The pieces are not driven by funky styling or hip inventiveness, nor do they exude any retro ’60s pop-culture sensibilities. And as for the idea of groovin’ as deriving relaxing pleasure from harmoniously moving in the groove of the music, the show’s opener, Ja’ Malik’s attractive quintet, “Moving to Bach,” is the only piece that really exhibits that congruous music-movement relationship — and that dance is set to a busy J.S. Bach solo violin sonata, a far cry from “Sunday afternoon” groovin’ tunes.
But the way Ja’ Malik utilizes the music to spark his choreography is brilliant. The newly appointed artistic director of Wisconsin’s Madison Ballet, Ja’ Malik devised lyrical phrases of classical steps, incorporating lots of lifts, light jumps, and expansive turns, ornamented with tiny decorative actions, like wrist circles or head tilts. Each movement statement is impelled by a temporal or melodic element in the music, yet the choreography doesn’t mimic the musical score. Rather, it calls our attention to specific musical details and then expands upon them visually, allowing us to hear the music more meticulously and experience its aesthetic impact more fully.
Choreographed by Caili Quan, a former member of Philadelphia’s contemporary-ballet troupe BalletX, the program’s middle work, “Circadia,” resembles a bill of one-act plays. A four-part, episodic piece, set to an eclectic assortment of musical selections that each strongly evokes a different dramatic quality, the work never puts forth a coherent overall impression. But that’s okay, because each section is a blast! Sporting the program’s most innovative vocabulary, it begins comically with a tuba barking out a basic rhythm that sends an ensemble of dancers striding about the stage, with hunched postures, big emotive gestures, and weighty leg work.
Highly entertaining, though derivative, it recalls everything from decadent German cabaret to Groucho Marx and the sensual contemporary dance explorations of Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin. Next comes showy dancing to brassy big band sounds, a playful duet exploring how two bodies can clownishly intertwine, and then a big group finale set to an experimental string quartet by Gabriella Smith inspired by the arrangements of artwork at the Barnes Foundation — somewhat hard-on-the-ears, yet enlightening.
The closer, “Time Within a Time,” pits gloriously executed ballet choreography against the soft rock sounds of Fleetwood Mac. Choreographed by American Ballet Theatre corps member Claire Davison, the upbeat work should displease only those bothered by the incongruity of, say, soaring grand jetés done to quiet guitar music, or precise classical steps danced to a mellow, country-tinged song.
While the program’s choreography is enriched throughout by the polished performances of ARB’s dancers — this season under the new artistic direction of Ethan Stiefel — at the matinee performance I attended on June 5, different individual performers stood out in each of the works. With her supple spine and sensitive musicality, company apprentice Clara Pevel was eye-catching as she interpreted Ja’ Malik’s choreographic lyricism. In “Circadia,” Ryoko Tanaka overshadowed her fellow dancers, embodying the movements’ oddities with a captivating clarity. And Annie Johnson made a love-triangle sequence the highlight of Davison’s piece, passionately rendering charged partner work that propelled her back and forth between two men.
