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Thursday, October 4, 1979
University Daily Kansan
Houston Ballet merits crowd's appreciation
Houston Ballet, featuring "Britten Van De Dex," "L," "Ramifications" and "Graduation Ball." Presented as part of the show at The Jazz Club, 5 p.m. last night, Beeb Auditorium.
By JUDY WOODBURN Staff Reporter
Many regional ballet companies must rely on the talents of one or two dancers for difficult solos or complicated choreography, but not the Houston Ballet.
Although last night's performance highlighted the talents of Kenneth McBride and Suzanne Longley in "Brittan Pas De Ceau", the technical capabilities of
other members of the group were by no means overshadowed.
At times, intermittent applaure for Longley's seemingly endless pirouettes and McCannie's leaps seemed to break the continuity of the dance. The pas dedeau was choreographed especially for the two women by Ben Stevenson, Houston Baler's artistic director.
The audience's appreciation of technical strength had gained momentum earlier, during an elaborate series of fouette
pirouettes at the end of "L," an all-male rock ballet also choreographed by Stevenson.
"L." PERFORMED in eight sections to a commissioned percussion score by Don Lawson, was a study in contrasts. Was it a performance or dancers' stamping feet and clapping hands. In other sections, the movements were almost dreamlike, mimicking the sounds of a drummer's foot.
Solo performances by Kevin Meyers, Daniel Jamison and McCombe were powerful, but the effectiveness of "IL" was slightly higher by inconsistent ensemble work.
The multiple image created in the 12-man opening ensemble of "L" was marred at times by a lack of togetherness in the ensemble.
It is unfortunate that “Ramifications” had to follow such an energetic dance as ‘L’. It was a quiet yet emotional piece, but it was also not the kind of friends, but the subtle meaning of “Ramifications” was to be missed by an audience too unequalized to be the previous dance.
The final dance, "Graduation Ball," choreographed by David Lichine to music by Johann Strauss, was a celebration of
some of Strauss' most memorable waltzes and polkas.
An exaggeration unless done by the young man, and not in a dance meet for dancing and entertainment with the young men of a nearby military academy. "Graduation Ball" at times is a good time to dance.
These technical accomplishments seem to be one of the reasons the Houston Ballet has attracted so much attention lately as a regional company. And a crowd gathered at the concert showed that Lawrence and the University of Kansas are ready for more dance groups of this caliber.
UNION ACTIVITIES
POETS & WRITERS SERIES
presents
MONAVANDUYN
"Mona Van Duyn is one of the best women poets around. . . American poetry has a fine new addition."
JAMES DICKEY
"She does see, and takes her life in her hands to say so. Out of much searching and finding come poems that will. I think, live happily ever after."
RICHARD HOWARD
JAMES MERRILL
Recipient of the Eunice Tietjes award (1956), the Harriet Monroe Award (1968) from Poetry, the Helen Bullis Prize (1964) from Poetry Northwest, the Hart Crane Memorial Award from The American Weave Press (1968), first prize in the Borestone Mountain Awards Volume (1968), the Bolliigen Prize (1970), and the National Book Award for Poetry (1971).
Author of Valentines to the Wide World (1959). A Time of Bees (1964).
To See. To Take (1970). and Bedtime Stories (1972). Co-founder and
editor of Perspective, a Quarterly of Literature.
"She is our Penelope in verse, and inversely; day by day undoing the web she weaves each night against her missing Ulysses' return, against her mysterious suitors' departure. With what ardor yet what responsibility (to herself, to her surroundings, to the time served in them) she sets about her scandalous task, her scalding play, her homework, as she calls it . . . how Mona Van Duyn's poems work!"
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