Tag: Pontus Lidberg

Pontus Lidberg’s UNE AUTRE PASSION

Photo by Gregory Batardon

~ Author: Oberon

Tuesday April 24th, 2018 – Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève have brought Swedish choreographer Pontus Lidberg’s abstract take on Johann Sebastian Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion – UNE AUTRE PASSION – to The Joyce.

Pontus’s trademark flowing – and fluent – choreography is beautifully executed by the Geneva dancers, and – needless to say – the music is sublime. The audience seemed literally enthralled by the production, in which some stunning underwater film segments add a striking visual dimension.

Pontus turns to the classic 1959 Karl Richter recording of the Saint Matthew Passion, featuring the legendary Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau and the no less marvelous Hertha Töpper; the choreographer excludes the recitatives, assembling a soundscape of choruses and arias. He does not attempt a narrative of the story of Christ’s final hours, but rather an abstract essay in movement on the theme of the Passion, full of desire, uncertainty, and consolation.

At curtain-rise, six tall white panels form a wall at the back of the dancing area. Overhead, shadowy clouds hover and moonlight pierces the gloom. The dancers emerge, all in white: their skirts, trousers, shirts, and tank-tops are not gender-specific. They dance en ensemble.

The moveable panels become part of the choreography as the dancers slide them about the space; illusions are conveyed when one dancer vanishes behind a moving panel to be replaced by another as the panel slips away. The wall re-forms and the dancers crash into it.

Now the film begins: white mannequins stand under the water as a nude man swims lyrically among them…could the swimmer be the choreographer himself? From time to time, the film continues throughout the ballet. The mannequins get dis-assembled, and later the ‘lamb of god’ appears to float by in the guise of a stuffed creature.

The panels are transformed into slides, the dancers sliding down while colleagues dance a stylized ritual; solo passages, and a male ensemble, continue the endless fluidity of movement. A luminous passage shows the dancers in silhouette, like a living frieze. This gives way to a walking motif as groups of dancers cross the space – urgently – in regimented order.

At the heart of UNE AUTRE PASSION is a pas de deux performed to the great aria ‘Erbarme dich‘, sung by Ms. Töpper. The couple (I’m sorry to say I am not sure of the dancers’ names) move hypnotically; the woman has a solo and then they are reunited, only to part again. Then the man dances alone, seeking among the moving panels until he finds her again.

Now one by one the dancers remove their outer garments. The movement is stylized, filled with gestures of supplication. From solo and duet phrases, the dancers slowly assemble, lying in a row upon the floor along the side of the space. The panels are then formed into a wall, enclosing the bodies. A single man now seeks entry into this repository of souls; a second man prevents him, and their duet becomes yet another memorable passage in this deeply moving ballet.

The dancers re-assemble in a swaying motion; a male solo follows as the music becomes a hymn. The voice of Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau fills the space as we wait breathlessly to see how this Passion will conclude. The wall now stands along stage left, and the dancers approach it – at first walking, then running, then rushing. They pound on the surface, pray before it, collide with it, collapse at its feet: but the wall remains impenetrable.

“We are living through a very hard time, our gift is to be alive,” said Pontus Lidberg in an interview during the creation of UNE AUTRE PASSION. In this ballet, Bach’s immortal music and the poetry of the dance that it has evoked feel like an affirmation of life: a refuge of beauty in a darkening world.

The ballet ends with a naked man standing before the paneled wall. Has he been shut out of heaven, or does his vulnerable presence mark the dawn of a new day, freed of the hypocrisy, hatred, and oppression that have undermined the great religions?

~ Oberon

April 25, 2018
Pontus Lidberg’s UNE AUTRE PASSION

Photo by Gregory Batardon

~ Author: Oberon

Tuesday April 24th, 2018 – Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève have brought Swedish choreographer Pontus Lidberg’s abstract take on Johann Sebastian Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion – UNE AUTRE PASSION – to The Joyce.

Pontus’s trademark flowing – and fluent – choreography is beautifully executed by the Geneva dancers, and – needless to say – the music is sublime. The audience seemed literally enthralled by the production, in which some stunning underwater film segments add a striking visual dimension.

Pontus turns to the classic 1959 Karl Richter recording of the Saint Matthew Passion, featuring the legendary Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau and the no less marvelous Hertha Töpper; the choreographer excludes the recitatives, assembling a soundscape of choruses and arias. He does not attempt a narrative of the story of Christ’s final hours, but rather an abstract essay in movement on the theme of the Passion, full of desire, uncertainty, and consolation.

At curtain-rise, six tall white panels form a wall at the back of the dancing area. Overhead, shadowy clouds hover and moonlight pierces the gloom. The dancers emerge, all in white: their skirts, trousers, shirts, and tank-tops are not gender-specific. They dance en ensemble.

The moveable panels become part of the choreography as the dancers slide them about the space; illusions are conveyed when one dancer vanishes behind a moving panel to be replaced by another as the panel slips away. The wall re-forms and the dancers crash into it.

Now the film begins: white mannequins stand under the water as a nude man swims lyrically among them…could the swimmer be the choreographer himself? From time to time, the film continues throughout the ballet. The mannequins get dis-assembled, and later the ‘lamb of god’ appears to float by in the guise of a stuffed creature.

The panels are transformed into slides, the dancers sliding down while colleagues dance a stylized ritual; solo passages, and a male ensemble, continue the endless fluidity of movement. A luminous passage shows the dancers in silhouette, like a living frieze. This gives way to a walking motif as groups of dancers cross the space – urgently – in regimented order.

At the heart of UNE AUTRE PASSION is a pas de deux performed to the great aria ‘Erbarme dich‘, sung by Ms. Töpper. The couple (I’m sorry to say I am not sure of the dancers’ names) move hypnotically; the woman has a solo and then they are reunited, only to part again. Then the man dances alone, seeking among the moving panels until he finds her again.

Now one by one the dancers remove their outer garments. The movement is stylized, filled with gestures of supplication. From solo and duet phrases, the dancers slowly assemble, lying in a row upon the floor along the side of the space. The panels are then formed into a wall, enclosing the bodies. A single man now seeks entry into this repository of souls; a second man prevents him, and their duet becomes yet another memorable passage in this deeply moving ballet.

The dancers re-assemble in a swaying motion; a male solo follows as the music becomes a hymn. The voice of Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau fills the space as we wait breathlessly to see how this Passion will conclude. The wall now stands along stage left, and the dancers approach it – at first walking, then running, then rushing. They pound on the surface, pray before it, collide with it, collapse at its feet: but the wall remains impenetrable.

“We are living through a very hard time, our gift is to be alive,” said Pontus Lidberg in an interview during the creation of UNE AUTRE PASSION. In this ballet, Bach’s immortal music and the poetry of the dance that it has evoked feel like an affirmation of life: a refuge of beauty in a darkening world.

The ballet ends with a naked man standing before the paneled wall. Has he been shut out of heaven, or does his vulnerable presence mark the dawn of a new day, freed of the hypocrisy, hatred, and oppression that have undermined the great religions?

~ Oberon

April 24, 2018
Pontus Lidberg Dance: Recent & Upcoming

Above: from Pontus Lidberg’s FAUNE; photo by Nir Arieli

Photographer Nir Arieli has sent me some images from Pontus Lidberg Dance‘s recent performance at Kykuit, the Rockefeller Estate at Pocantico, NY. The Company danced there on August 8th, 2014, in beautiful outdoor setting.

Above: Adrian Danchig-Waring and Georgina Pazcoguin in an excerpt from WITHIN (Labyrinth Within)

Above: Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside in a work-in-progress: a new duet scheduled to premiere at Fall For Dance on October 18th, 2014.

Above: Adrian Danchig-Waring and Nadja Sellrup in TACTILE

Above: Pontus Lidberg Dance in TACTILE

Above: Pontus Lidberg Dance in TACTILE

UPCOMING: Pontus Lidberg Dance will perform Pontus’s atmospheric Debussy ballet FAUNE on Saturday October 11th at the Hudson Valley Dance Festival. And on October 18th and 19th, Pontus’s duet for Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside will premiere at the annual Fall For Dance Festival at New York’s City Center.

September 25, 2014
Upcoming: Pontus Lidberg for MORPHOSES

Above: MORPHOSES rehearsal director Reid Bartelme and ABT’s Isabella Boylston in rehearsal for Pontus Lidberg’s WITHIN; photo by Jade Young. MORPHOSES will present Pontus’s evening of dance and film entitled WITHIN (Labyrinth Within) at The Joyce from November 7th thru 11th. Information and tickets here.

The performances will open with the newly-staged ballet which has evolved from Pontus’s haunting film LABYRINTH WITHIN. Watch a brief trailer for the film – which features New York City Ballet principal Wendy Whelan, Pontus Lidberg and Giovanni Bucchieri – here. Following the ballet, the film will be shown.

A couple of weeks ago, Jade and I went to a rehearsal of the ballet at the Gibney Dance Center. It happened to be Isabella Boylston’s (above) first rehearsal of the work;, and indeed it fell on a day of firsts since I had earlier watched the New York City Ballet‘s compelling soloist Adrian Danchig-Waing in his first-ever APOLLO rehearsal. Adrian is Isabella’s partner in the Pontus Lidberg work, so I felt like a bit of a stalker following him from one studio to another.

Isabella Boylston and Adrian Danchig-Waring, photo by Jade Young.

Isabella worked with Reid Bartelme, Pontus’s rehearsal director, while Adrian perfected the partnering with Laura Mead, a lovely dancer I’d met earlier this year when she danced for Cherylyn Lavagnino. Laura will alternate with Isabella at The Joyce performances.

Laura Mead, photographed by Kokyat.

I was curious to find that a second couple are also involved in the ballet, since in the film it is definitely a romantic triangle (real or illusory). But Gabrielle Lamb – a favorite dancer of mine – and the handsome Berlin-born danseur Jens Weber were working on another pas de deux, Gabrielle wearing the stiletto pumps that Wendy Whelan wears in the film.

Gabrielle and Jens, photo by Jade Young

Now I’m very curious to see how the two couples will be woven into the story once the ballet takes the stage, and also to find how the staged dance dovetails with the film.

As the appointed studio time seemed about to run out, Pontus let the other dancers go but he stayed behind to work on his solo passages with Reid. Evening was falling outside, and the studio took on a very dreamlike atmosphere.

If you have seen the film, you will recall the striking image of flowers growing thru the floorboards of the mysterious old castle where the film was shot; that’s a Wendy Whelan photo, above.

For today’s rehearsal, Pontus had brought his own flower. His dancing is so poetic, and in these last lingering moments of the rehearsal the outside world seemed to vanish and the beautiful dancer drew us into his dreamworld.

Click on Jade’s images to enlarge.

October 25, 2012
Labyrinth Within @ BAC

Tuesday February 21, 2012 – Swedish dancer/choreographer/film-maker Pontus Lidberg (above) created his half-hour film LABYRINTH WITHIN over a four year period; as he revealed at tonight’s showing at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Wendy Whelan was his muse from the start – even before she got involved in the project.

The movie is a fascinating experience on many levels: as a captivating visual work of art; as a choreographic melding of two contrasting pas de deux; as a poignant musical expression; and in its exploration of relationships where ideas about trust, jealousy, and passions real or imagined provide restless, suspenseful undercurrents right from the opening frame. The film also serves as a spine-tingling introduction of a great ballerina to a new medium: Wendy Whelan on-screen is as thoroughly riveting as Wendy Whelan onstage.

The dreamlike atmosphere of the film leaves us to ponder whether the romantic triangle we are watching is real or imagined. LABYRINTH WITHIN wraps themes of infidelity, the allure of sexual enticement, and of escape from the everyday into a passionate dreamworld in a veil of mystery. The realms of reality and fantasy overlap; the viewer can only savour the elements of the film and draw his own conclusions.

The three protagonists draw us into their respective worlds: Giovanni Bucchieri is the darkly handsome husband, Wendy Whelan the evasive and enigmatic wife, and Pontus Lidberg the blonde and beautiful lover. Giovanni seems like a pre-occupied workaholic who has neglected his marriage, yet his sensuous mouth indicates a voluptuous nature under the businessman facade. Wendy, the most intriguing person I have ever encountered, doesn’t need to act; by simply being on-screen her character lives and draws us deeply into the mysterious story and into the secret room where her fantasy becomes flesh. Pontus is the idealized lover, the embodiment of masculine grace and tenderness, his torso a landscape of muscle and fair skin.

In the film’s opening moments, the two men appear to be wrestling with one another in fragmented dream sequences. But once the tale is underway, they meet only fleetingly on a staircase. Wendy dances with both of the men in sharply contrasted styles: with her husband the movement is angluar, cool and detached. Her beautifully-filmed scenes with her beloved are sensuous without being sexual; their passion is urgent yet somehow languid at the same time. Pontus strips down to his black briefs but Wendy keeps her black dress on; the glimpses of thigh, neck, streaming hair and entwined limbs are more evocative than any more blatant sexual scene that might have been crafted.

At the end, Giovanni breaks into the forbidden room. What does he find there? Ah, you must see the film to find out!

Pontus spoke of creating the entire work with composer David Lang’s music in mind but without having the actual pieces from the composer (some already written, some specially created for the film) to work with. Amazing how organic the final fusion of film, dance and music turned out. Maya Beiser’s ravishing cello playing gives an added texture of romance, longing and suspicion to the film.

LABYRINTH WITHIN – both the film and the staged dancework inspired by it – may be seen this Summer at Jacob’s Pillow (details here), followed by a two-week, five-city tour of Sweden as part of Dancenet in October, and then at here in New York City in Autumn 2012.

Tonight’s showing at BAC drew a packed house and many luminaries: NYCB‘s Janie Taylor and Sebastien Marcovici, the radiant Pauline Golbin, ballerina de luxe Alessandra Ferri, photographer/film-maker David Michalek (husband of Ms. Whelan), MORPHOSES‘s lovely Frances Chaverini, choreographer Laura Ward, and my dear friend writer/artist Monica Wellington. NYC Ballet soloist Adrain Danchig-Waring makes a brief appearance in the film.

In 2010 as the film was being completed, both Pontus and Wendy generously contibuted to an article about the project for my blog, and Wendy loaned me her evocative images. You will find the story here.

February 21, 2012