Juilliard Dance Ensemble; Juilliard Theater; New York, New York; February 19-22, 1998.

JUILLIARD THEATER FEBRUARY 19-22, 1998

The Juilliard Dance Ensemble offered an unusually well-balanced program to the public for its "Spring Performances" in February. Consisting of Paul Taylor's Roses; the American premiere of Jiri Kylian's Stoolgame; a new work by recent Juilliard graduate Charlotte Griffin, In Time Taken; and Igal Perry's Mourning Song, which was also new, the program revealed the continuing growth of the Juilliard Dance Division since Benjamin Harkarvy's appointment as director in 1992.

One of Taylor's most classical works, Roses received a somewhat listless staging by Linda Kent. The tempi were slow, and the dancers, perhaps because of this, seemed less fluid and more inhibited than elsewhere on the program, emphasizing the good manners and tender relationships of the choreography rather than its sweep. Still, the shapes were right, and there was lightness in the skittering runs. The men had buoyant leaps and the bearing of danseurs, and they partnered the women with care. And what a treat to hear Wagner's Siegfried Idyll played by the Juilliard Orchestra.

Nothing could have been more different from Roses than Kylian's Stoolgame, choreographed in 1974 but unseen until now in the United States. Set to a score by Arne Nordheim, the work evokes the brutal, sunless world that followed the suppression of the "Prague Spring," a temporary liberalization of the former communist regime which first inspired the music. Although the program note speaks of the Last Supper and the children's game of musical chairs as Kylian's inspirations, the grittiness and violence of the work belong to the realm of the jackboot.

There are seven dancers, all dressed in shades of battleship gray. We glimpse them first laid out like corpses, then pleading, needling, slapping bodies and stools against the floor like instruments of torture, or being brutalized by rape, if that is the right word to describe an act in which violence, comfort, and need are equally present. There is a fantastic dance to the crackle of electricity, a current that sends mad spasms of movement through the bodies locked in this prison house of horror. Staged by Hans Knill, Stoolgame was powerfully danced (in one of the two costs) by Adam Hougland, Asha Thomas, Henry Jackson, Helen Hansen, Iyun Harrison, Michael Snipe, Jr., and Erica Strubbe.

Griffin, a 1997 Juilliard graduate, gave further evidence of her talent in In Time Taken, a neatly crafted piece to the Andante of Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto. Griffin's idiom is casual, with turns, falls, scoops, and place changes that work against the music's piercing lyricism but don't seem out of place. Fond of limitations, she keeps her sixteen dancers toeing the horizontal that Mark Morris used so dramatically in Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes.

Perry's Mourning Song, dedicated to the memory of his mother, has a fine picture-frame set by Robert Mitchell, marvelous lighting by Clifton Taylor, and excellent performances by the large cost. Unfortunately, the ever-changing floor patterns seldom allow the eye to rest, and there is a drone of exalted mournfulness. A good dose of stillness and a little emotional variety would have made the expression of grief more convincing.