Richard Kostelanetz

 

From The Material World: 1001 Contemporary Ballets

A good libretto, even an impressionist, double-exposed or portmanteaued one, follows most of the rules of simple dramaturgy. Balanchine once said the perfect type plot for dramatic narrative ballet was the story of the Prodigal Son. Once there was a man who had everything, then he had nothing; finally he had everything again.

-Lincoln Kirstein, Ballet Alphabet (1939)

Ballets...

An artist admiring intently, for days without sleep, a painting of the Holy Family eventually identifies himself with Christ on the cross.

Imitating the kinds of movement typical of roller skaters, the dancers in bare feet enact various kinds of kinetic trysts.

As the curtain opens, its moorings at the top begin to crack, the curtain falling down onto the stage in a clumsy heap, leaving the platform otherwise bare and the audience justifiably angry.

Two impresarios try to steal each other's dancers, in full view of each other.

Inspired by birdlike movements, this ballet is essentially plotless.

A man with an easily divisible personality is torn severely between body and soul, convention and dissidence, wealth and love; his role can be played by two or more dancers.

In an apartment too large for two people, an attractive young woman tries in vain to get more attention from a husband who is more devoted to cocaine.

A beautiful young girl who loses her virginity prior to marriage is turned into a butterfly, which may or may not in the end represent a punishment.

The assassins who appeared to be male turn out to be women.

Though from all appearances she looked like a contemporary woman, the prima donna was also a skilled automotive mechanic.

In an all-night performance, several dancers represent the planets slowly rotating around the sun, whose role is played by the choreographer.

Thanks to effects possible with videotape, we see on the small screen a man, obviously exhausted, continually climbing upwards to heaven and repeatedly passing a sing marked only with an infinity symbol.

All available spotlights are shined directly at the audience, preferably in steadily increasing number, until everyone leaves.

A prostitute enslaved by a demonic pimp is required to murder her customers until she encounters a man who, even though he is stabbed many times, does not die.

When a prophecy made by a psychic proves to be false, disappointed and disgusted dancers throw him into the orchestra pit.

The protagonist is someone, apparently a dance patron, for whom everyone is continually waiting, even though he or she doesn't appear.

In a ballet accompanied by primitive music, a devilish young woman, dancing with extravagant movements, strangles prospective suitors with her extended ponytail.

During an hour of continuous movement, a game of musical chairs evolves into a brawl that requires the intervention of the police.

According to the program, "The purpose of this ballet is to represent male-female relationships realistically--as harmonious as they should be."

From over two dozen famous classic ballets this dance called Inventory, really the epitome of compilation choreography, takes phrases familiar to all dance lovers.

Before any human performers appear, water floods onto the stage and out into the audience, which is forced to leave. Their commotion becomes the ballet.

The women mount bicycles at the back corner of the stage and, as they ride forward, crash into each other.

An imperious woman employer gives a young man marijuana, which he brazenly shares not with his employer but with another employee, female, prompting his immediate dismissal.

In this version of Alice in Wonderland, all the dancers working in a studio conspire to crash into a mirror that, when it breaks, becomes a doorway to another world.

Christ is reborn in the urban slum, experiencing again, after a period of miraculous good deeds, a crucifixion and resurrection whose significance is apparent not to those around him but to the audience.

A ventriloquist and his dummy gradually exchange the theatrical roles assigned to them.

This nonrepresentational ballet has several continuous, uninterrupted movements in which the dancers carry string from suspended hook to suspended hook until the stage comes to resemble a spider's web.

In a search for psychic and financial security, four homeless people ritualistically exorcise bad habits.

Against a background of orchestral versions of pop songs, the dancers shift between classical choreography and dance-hall movements.

While a professional actor recites the texts of John Donne, the dancers portray various crises of faith.

The first act shows a family rich and happy; the second act shows them poor and depressed; the third act shows them rich and, alas, still unhappy.

This ballet integrates sequences from these chapters of the Old Testament, in roughly the sequence: Genesis, The Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Job. Peace follows Tolstoy's mammoth novel but eliminates all battle scenes--thus the different title.

While continually echoing the stations of the cross, this ballet portrays a man who, having discovered his wife's infidelities, takes violent revenge.

While very busy jazz is heard, the soloist, perhaps in a meditative position, turns very slowly on a single foot, his other leg extended forward at an angle perpendicular to his body.

A young woman, devoted to marijuana, is searching in her solo dance for a symbol of her addiction.

A newly wed couple, both from farm families, set up their first home in an inner-city slum.

 

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