Flawed, But Fascinating. . . And Always Stylish

Integrating film and dance is a tricky thing. How can a five- or six-foot tall body compete with a 15-foot high image, especially in closeup? And no stage set can compete with the intricate and changing scenery in film. For a while, Within (Labyrinth Within), presented last week at Jacob’s Pillow by ballet company Morphoses, solved the problem very elegantly. It starts with one dancer onstage, Pontus Lidberg. He lies on the floor, gets up, and picks a red poppy growing nearby. Soon many flowers appear, and then other dancers, engaging in fast, flowing and elegantly intertwining pairings and trios. The music, both driving and meditative, is by David Lang, known regionally as the artistic director of the Bang on a Can festival. The dancers’ langorous, stretched arms, their lifts and falls, convey young love, rivalry and contemplation. When the giant screen lights up with filmed images, the dancers continue, as their doppelgangers appear on screen, entering and exiting, or standing quietly in a forest or on a beach. The real and projected dancers interact in interesting ways, with simple crosses from right to left, or looking at themselves in a giant mirror. Less successfully, they also dance behind the screen, visible only as a colorful blur. On screen, figures often appear as torso only, the head not visible. It allows the eye to focus on the beauty of the body, but serves to make it more impersonal as well. It seemed, somehow, that through lighting or the choreography itself, Lidberg de-emphasizes faces, making it difficult to tell one dancer from another except by the color of their costumes — an elegant red dress for one, blue for another, a man in formal vest and slacks. In the second half of the hour-long piece, the film, Labyrinth Within, took over, and the live dancers disappeared. The film features Giovanni Bucchieri and New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan as an apparently unhappily married couple and Lidberg as Whelan’s putative lover. Whelan is extraordinary to look at, angular, sinewy and grave. Her pas de deux with Lidberg was terrifically exciting, intensifying as Bucchieri comes closer and closer to discovering them. The film is wordless, with Lang’s cello music and the occasional sound of footsteps or jangling keys as the only sounds. Was the affair real or the product of the jealous husband’s fevered imagination? The movie doesn’t say. Gorgeously filmed, highly stylish, it also veered into melodrama and had very little to do, choreographically and content-wise, with what was happening on stage. Morphoses is itself constantly morphing. Founded five years ago by longtime NYCB star Lourdes Lopez and choreographic wunderkind Christoper Wheeldon, it was hard to reinvent itself after Wheeldon’s departure. Lopez has done something very unusual: she’s chosen to work with one resident choreographer each year, rather than hire one to put a permanent stamp on the company. Lidberg, who is Swedish, has worked with a wide range of companies and is seen as a fast-rising star. He chose dancers specifically for this work, rather than the more usual practice of choreographing a piece for the dancers in a company. Lopez is moving to Florida to take over Miami City Ballet from the retiring Edward Villella. She is reportedly considering a merger between the two companies, but is committed to presenting new work. On the strength of this flawed but fascinating piece, I hope she makes good on that promise. For information about this season’s schedule and tickets, call 413-243-0745, or go to www.jacobspillow.org.