by Leigh Witchel
Troy Schumacher has always been meticulous in process and preparation. The company he leads, Ballet Collective, performed a second season at Trinity Commons, and even though he crossed his Ts and dotted his Is, things happen that no one can control. Sometimes, that’s all right. On the final performance, a sudden minor injury gave rise to a lovely solo.
The evening was collectively titled “The Moment is Imminent,” opening with a commission from Omar Román De Jesús, “Love Me While I’m Here” and Schumacher’s new “The World We Left Behind” to close. The elegant, wood-paneled and cool Commons space was used this season with seats only on two sides instead of in the round, and like New Chamber Ballet with the stage pitched at a 90° angle.
The Bergamot Quartet was seated at the side for “Love Me While I’m Here,” augmented by piano, clarinet and flute. Robert Honstein’s music started softly and stayed there. The costumes, plain unitards by Karen Young, kept to the same uninflected tone.
The full dancing cast of three women and two men began the work; Ruby Lister was lying on Sebastían Villarini-Vélez’s back. When she disengaged, they held hands in a chain that wriggled like an amoeba. It was a strategy that was a little too familiar.
De Jesús’ choreography had the stripped-down, neutral quality of Cunningham, but that didn’t work for everyone dancing. Villarini-Vélez’ movement looked indefinite without looking as if that were the point.
Devin Alberda’s solo that followed gave him much less trouble. His timing was interesting, and he worked closer to what he had done with Pam Tanowitz, and that accommodates a ballet-trained body. Kennedy Targosz came in to meet Alberda and wrapped her legs around him as he carried her. She left and David Garcia joined; Lister rushed on, then Garcia and Villarini-Vélez danced. Lister and Targosz briefly danced, then Targosz had a solo. The work was relying on entrances and exits as much as what happened while the cast was on. That was fine moment to moment but had little arc.
The music was bright and expectant as the full quintet returned doing tilts. The choreography on ballet bodies recalled “Summerspace.” The musicians played ostinato, but stopped. The dancers kept moving softly as the flute headed into the next movement.
Slowly everyone returned to the space but Garcia, who did loose modern-ette steps first, but then De Jesús did fan service and had Garcia tear into high turning jumps. He has amazing facility; wiry with a very arched back.
De Jesús made two short, deft duets, one for Alberda and Targosz where he quietly held her in soft intermediate positions, then Villarini-Vélez carried and spun her, for very distinct encounters. Still, a lot of different styles were bumping up against one another without blending. Villarini-Vélez and Alberda danced together while Garcia did a solo on the perimeter. They were in Cunninghamland; he was doing ballet. “Love Me While I’m Here” just didn’t suit Villarini-Vélez, the loose vocabulary made him look as if he were high at a disco.
In a final, nocturnal duet, Lister and Garcia, looked as if they were settling in for bed, but she slowly departed as he tilted to the floor in darkness.
It made sense that Kathrin Linkersdorff’s prints of flowers drained of pigmentation would have been the source material for “Love Me While I’m Here.” The dance had a similar wan, drained quality that the dancers couldn’t recolor. With more work or differently trained dancers, this might have looked calm instead of anemic.
“The World We Left Behind” was inspired by a video game by Samantha Leigh that Schumacher and composer Phong Tran played. You could see the influence both in Tran’s composition and in the costumes, “styled” by Barbara Erin Delo and Schumacher. The cast wore metallic leotards, tights and skirts adorned with paillettes, with the women on pointe. Tran’s score was mixed live and sounded like a video game, in ways that were less ingratiating as time went on.
“The World We Left Behind” was phrased densely, almost breathlessly, and in between the packed enchaînements the cast switched places by bourréeing, running or spinning. The stage cleared for Mary Thomas MacKinnon, who ripped through fast turns and jumps. Dominika Afanasenkov, a long-legged waterbird of a dancer, drifted side to side in bourrées. Garcia joined and also Alberda in a bright section.
There were lots of entries and exits here as well, but there was something the dancers could sink their training into in between. After a section that marked time (even Balanchine did them for pacing) the women leaped on for a quartet. “The World We Left Behind” was dancey in a way Schumacher wasn’t when he began choreographing. Schumacher was pushing himself in the phrases he was making for them. He was also testing the group and they responded, especially Afanasenkov and MacKinnon.
Villarini-Vélez looked good here; he and Schumacher have overlapping repertory at New York City Ballet: vigorous, tight jumps and they’re both best in motion. Everyone raced in and out in twos and threes. The dense petit and grand allegro vocabulary made the sequins fly off the dancers, yet the work had a calm quality. Targosz arrived and the lights went out on her mid-attitude.
Chance entered here. Lister sustained a mild injury during the piece, so Afanasenkov bourréed in alone, her hypodermic legs lit by multiple sidelights. As she drifted side to side, arms out wide, she looked like Myrtha. She extended her leg without coming down from point, a tricky move that never collapsed but only got nailed about half the time (then again, she was most likely thrown by the situation). MacKinnon punctuated what was now a solo instead of a duet with a brief cross. Alone, Afanasenkov had a calm, suspended quality that felt like a buoy floating on calm waters. Accidental or not, Schumacher pointed out something in her worth noticing.
MacKinnon crouched on and the music sped up. Once again she ripped into tight turns and jumps, with Villarini-Vélez and Targosz also spinning.
Everyone returned to a dense section, again packed with phrases. Was Schumacher goading himself into making a dance-y dance? The music slowed, and the dancers spun and stopped, breathing hard as they looked around. With their arms to the side, everyone took up Afanasenkov’s motif and drifted, their potion with arms side almost an homage to “Opus 19/The Dreamer.” The dancers left one by one, down to MacKinnon and Afanasenkov rotating like dwarf planets, finally they exited and the stage went to black.
Unlike many of his other works, Schumacher kept the cast largely locked into one aspect of themselves, but that could be because he was throwing so many steps at them and there are only so many plates you can spin at once. That could also have been the conceit: how multi-faceted are video game characters?
Still, and as always, Ballet Collective put one one of the most polished shows of any of New York’s chamber companies. Everything was at a level: live music with excellent musicians, top-notch dancers and a beautiful space, though it’s a schlep and you have to go through a security check and literally walk through a graveyard to get there. Like many New York City Ballet alums, Schumacher knew how to get the most out of his colleagues. Even if her featured part was accidental, Afanasenkov has the magic to be a soloist.
The driving concept of Ballet Collective, to use different artwork as the inspiration for choreography, has never been crucial from the audience’s perspective, no more than it would have been to know what dice Cunningham threw when he played I Ching. It may have impelled and governed the creation of the work, but sitting there and watching, you didn’t need that information.
Still, even though you never needed to play Leigh’s game yourself, it made perfect sense to know that Schumacher was inspired by it. He was imagining an electronic paradise.
copyright ©2023 by Leigh Witchel
The Moment is Imminent
“Love Me While I’m Here,” “The World We Left Behind” – Ballet Collective
Trinity Commons, New York, NY
November 2, 2023
Cover: (L to R) Sebastían Villarini-Vélez, Dominika Afanasenkov, Ruby Lister and Kennedy Targosz in “The World We Left Behind.” Photo © Whitney Browne.
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