SPARKS LACKING IN SEWELL BALLET OUTING.

SPARKS LACKING IN SEWELL BALLET OUTING JAMES SEWELL BALLET THE SYLVIA AND DANNY KAYE PLAYHOUSE NEW YORK, NEW YORK MARCH 18, 2001

The James Sewell Ballet, an eight-member chamber ensemble whose dancers include Artistic Director James Sewell and his wife, Artistic Associate Sally Rousse, present dance ideas that radiate sweetness and honesty. And the company, although uneven in style and rhythmic impulse (despite the guidance of two highly reputable ballet mistresses, Bonnie Mathis and Lou Fancher), performed this program with full belief in the choreographer's intent. Then what was missing? It was inspiration. Sewell consciously builds movement phrases, rather than letting them evolve naturally and inevitably.

His most serious statement was Good Mourning. It began with a group pacing through a lamentation. The second episode found a woman (Hitomi Yamada) leaping hysterically from her conjugal bed. Her husband lay inert, seemingly dead. Then why did she begin to pump his arms and legs? Upstage, a shadowy couple danced tenderly. They evidently symbolized the initial couple at an earlier, happier time. The woman then covered her lifeless husband's face with a pillow and screamed. We had experienced not so much a dance as a tract advocating euthanasia.

The program's opening and closing works were both suites using a potpourri of musical sources; Good Mourning paired J.S. Bach with Samuel Barber. In Moving Works, these ranged from Bach to Combustible Edison, Monteverdi to Japan's Kodo Drummers. The choreography combined free-swinging unison patterns that varied less widely than the music.

Made in America began with a danced version of "The Star Spangled Banner." Unsure of how to respond, the audience shuffled to its feet. The other sections of this eleven-part opus seemed to be, for the most part, a gently satirical commentary on American fun and foibles. Rock and jazz sealed its continuity.

The costume concept for the entire program consisted of leotards and unitards, unadorned and brightly colored or adorned in various ways that spelled economy but not always high ingenuity. Mary Hansmeyer was the designer, with Kevin A. Jones adding flair with his lighting.