Oregon Ballet Theatre.Oregon Ballet Theatre Oregon Ballet Theatre is the premiere ballet company for the state of Oregon. The company is the result of the 1992 merging of Ballet Oregon and Pacific Ballet Theater. James Canfield, formerly a dancer with Joffrey Ballet as well as a principal dancer for Pacific Ballet Theater, Keller Auditorium, Portland, OR APRIL April: see month. 22-29, 2006 Mad for Mozart--that describes Portland in April and May as it honored the composer's 250th birthday. The symphony played his music; the opera sang Don Giovanni; and Oregon Ballet Theatre devoted its spring program to three contrasting choreographic takes on Mozart's many moods. Each ballet was performed to live music, well played; each showcased the dancers' technical versatility--in spades--and the breadth of the art form. No opener could have proclaimed this a company rooted in classicism classicism, a term that, when applied generally, means clearness, elegance, symmetry, and repose produced by attention to traditional forms. It is sometimes synonymous with excellence or artistic quality of high distinction. better than Balanchine's Divertimento divertimento Eighteenth-century chamber music genre consisting of several movements, often of a light and entertaining nature, for strings, winds, or both. Though the name was applied (c. No. 15, danced for the most part with a naturalness and ease that made it look flesh and spanking spanking Pediatrics Corporal punishment, usually of children, in which the buttocks, are pummeled, swatted, or otherwise struck. See Corporal punishment Sexology Slapping, usually of the buttocks as a part of sexuoerotic activity. Cf Sadomasochism. new. Staged by Francia Russell, who restored some details lost since its 1956 premiere, the precisely patterned, intensely musical ballerina variations in particular were technically impeccable and joyfully danced. In James Kudelka's Almost Mozart, grief weighs on the mourners--or the dying--in tandem with gravity's pull. For this world premiere, the edgy Kudelka fashioned a score with Mozart's Masonic funeral music, bits of the orchestral accompaniment to Piano Concerto No. 23, and large slices of silence for a work radically different from Divertimento in mood, style, and technical demands. Earthbound earth·bound also earth-bound adj. 1. Fastened in or to the soil: earthbound roots. 2. a. , it begins in silence while two men dance a brief duet; on opening night Damian Drake and Paul Destrooper set the heavy-hearted tone. Three entwined trios (with the addition of Alison Roper) follow, separated by musical interludes. Roper, on pointe, struggles to get flee; each part ends with the men collapsing to the floor while she stands, triumphant. An eloquent pas de deux pas de deux (French; “step for two”) Dance for two performers. A characteristic part of classical ballet, it includes an adagio, or slow dance, by the ballerina and her partner; solo variations by the male dancer and then the ballerina; and a coda, or follows, to the funeral music, given sexual undertones by Kathi Martuza and Ronnie Underwood and, in a different performance, a shattering grief by Roper and Artur Sultanov. The choreography suggests heavy sorrow as the ballerina clings to her partner, keeping her body rigid; she cannot let him go, nor he her. A silent solo with fleet footwork, danced by Roper opening night, Yuka Iino later, suggests that life goes on, that grief becomes lighter. Lar Lubovitch's Concerto Six Twenty Two made a good closer, although by the third viewing it seemed inexorably cute as the dancers kicked up their heels and capered in the choreographer's well-crafted arrangements. The Adagio a·da·gio adv. & adj. Music In a slow tempo, usually considered to be slower than andante but faster than larghetto. Used chiefly as a direction. n. pl. a·da·gios 1. duet, performed tenderly by Jon Drake and Underwood, seems dated and sentimental in the light of Brokebaek Mountain. But the company had a fine grasp of Lubovitch's Taylor-inspired vocabulary, and clarinetist Todd Kuhns infused his playing with all of Mozart's sadness and delight. See www.obt.org. |
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