Page 435 - Demo

Pennsylvania Ballet Is Versatile And VibrantBY JUDITH STUARTThe Pennsylvania Ballet is coming to town again next week with three new ballets in its repertory and Benjamin Harkarvy, the company%u2019s artistic director sounded very optimistic in a telephone interview last week. %u201cThis is the first time we have played for a solid month. There are so manyperformances on such a high level. The Company is extremely up. The company has reached a new pitch.%u201dThe new works have been premiered in Philadelphia where they have been received enthusiastically. Two are entirely new ballets: %u201cCasella 1, 3, 4,%u201d bychoreographer Choo San Goh and %u201c A ura,%u201d by the Pennsylvania Ballet's long time member, Dane LaFontsee. The third is a revival by David Lichine, %u201c Graduation Ball,\done in 1940.Megali Messac, a relative newcomer to the company, is constantly proving herself as a fine performer. Her characterization in %u201c Graduation Ball%u201d of the %u2018pigtail girl%u2019 is particularly outstanding as is the overall work of William DeGregory. Both dancers found themselves replacing injured performers when the season opened in Pennsylvania.Four major dancers had various illnesses and injuries that prevented them from participating thus far. Harkarvy, while distressed at the misfortunes each experienced, was delighted to note that %u201c despite the injuries, this has been an exhilarating season. The injuries revealed that equalization ofstrength among the dancers exists. Replacement was not at all a huge problem.%u201dHe went on to comment that that is the strength of the company, and rather than just getting through the ballets, dancers were having really beautiful performances.Harkarvy attributes the strength and versatility of his group to the fact that almost half of them have come up through the ranks at the Pennsylvania Ballet School and apprentice program. While auditions are held while they%u2019re on the road, it is always chancy to pick up a dancer that way. While they certainly have made some good choices in this fashion, Harkarvy feels that there is \producing your own dancers. You know their strengths, their work habits. They know how to work with the company.\He stressed versatility as a valued quality possessed by the Pennsylvania Ballet Dancers. The repertory is highly varied and so must be the dancers. He was truly excited about how this company is maturing, really growing together. %u201cThere%u2019s a flow on stage that comes from a company that%u2019s been schooled together. It is beyond precision. There is a sweep to the stage.%u201dPennsylvania Ballet, NOv. 13and 14 at 7pm; Nov. 15, 16 and17 at 8pm; Nov. 17 and 18 at2pm at the Brooklyn Academy ofMusic, 30 Lafayette Ave., ticketinfo. 636-4100.P h i l h a r m o n i c M e e t s M o d e r n s W i t h F l a i rBY JACK DIETHERAn intense and exciting concert of American music was given by members of the Brooklyn Philharmonia under Lukas Foss%u2019 direction last Thursday. It was the start of a new %u201c Meet the Moderns%u201d series, held in the Lepercq Space at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.Foss has devised a series of four programs, spread over the coming winter season, which offers a survey of American music since 1900. This first one was entitled %u201c Rediscoveries and Revivals (1900- 1920),%u201d although in fact it also included some world premieres of considerable interest.The printed program billed composer-critic Virgil Thomson (whose own music was not represented in this concert) as %u201c moderator%u201d and as participant in a %u201c symposium%u201d with Foss. Actually, his role wasPark Slope%u2019s Gallery Players, on ihe near end of an opening run of ihcir production, %u201c A Sleigh Ride In July,\all performances of the show because, according to Players' Vice President Mary Ruch Goodley, director Bud Andrews left the play too close to opening time. %u201c One night, he just didn't show up for rehearsal,%u201d she said, noting that %u201c this is the first time in the history of the Gallery Players that this hasnapp^iicu.The play had been an original piece by the director's wife, Barbara Perkins Andrews, a Parksubstantially that of a commentator, introducing each work in turn and offering personal observations about its composer. In contrast to the serious tone of Foss%u2019 own preface in the printed program, the 82-year-old raconteur made light, bubble-pricking comments in his own waggish style, drawing quite a few laughs from the audience. A more statistical commentary was provided by Cynthia Bell%u2019s program notes.The first half of the program was devoted mainly to solo piano music, and to songs with piano and violin accompaniment. It began with three early pieces by Henry Cowell, the prolific %u201ctone cluster%u201d iconoclast and impressionist who made his splash around World War I. They were elegantly played with fingers, fists, elbows and forearms by Julius Eastman.Slope resident. The company fell ihai it was better to shut the production down rather than try and substitute a new director for the work because the script had never been performed before, and someone just coming into the job would have no established ropes to work by. Plans for the play were eventually scrapped, in part because there had been some controversy within the company over whether or not to perform it in the%u00ab- %u00ab . . .i_ %u201e %u2014 %u201e1 _____i l l I p i U k V . . H V , I U V M V u I C U I V O U I K . V .on it,%u201d Goodley said. The play was due to open last weekend. %u2014LZGMezzo-soprano Jan Curtis was the vivid and attractive soloist in the premiere of %u201c Trios Poemes Tragiques%u201d by Dane Rudhyar, old enough to be a friend of Debussy and Ravel, but still living in California. She was accompanied by Harry Glickman (violin) and Kenneth Bowen (piano). Miss Curtis then returned with Julius Eastman to sing %u201cToys%u201d by Carl Ruggles. The chamber-sized orchestra complement made its first appearance just before the intermission, accompanying the mezzo in John Alden Carpenter%u2019s %u201c Water Colors.%u201d And although Carpenter enjoyed a huge reputation as an orchestral colorist (%u201c Adventures in a Perambulator,%u201d etc.), this was actually the first performance of these 1916 songs using the prescribed orchestra score.The most stimulating event on the agenda followed the intermission: the New York premiere of the chamber-orchestra version (1919) of Charles Ives%u2019 %u201cThree Places in New England.%u201d This major work by a pioneer genius, which is enjoying its greatest popularity at the present day, could make its fullest effect in Lepercq Space, with the audience sitting in tiers of %u201c bleachers%u201d looking down on the orchestra at close range on two sides. With such distinguished musicians as Paul Dunkel on flute, Henry Schuman on oboe and English horn, Paul Ingraham on French horn and Seymour Barab on first cello, it was a performance not%u2666 %u00bb> Ur%u00bb t o n wv *~ * * %u25a0'---The rest of the concert was devoted to orchestral ragtime. There was an encore piece forCharles Ives (whose most imposing photograph, by the way, decorated the cover of the program), in the New York premiere of one of his %u201c Ragtime Dances.%u201d This did not add a great deal to the rag literature, but the two final numbers did: the joyful %u201c Cascades%u201d by Scott Joplin and the exuberant %u201c Charleston Rag%u201d by Eubie Blake, with Kenneth Bowen featured%u2014BY VIRGINIA CAREYThe signatures that discreetly huddle in the corner of the paintings, photographs, and that accompany the marble sculpture and silversmith work that are on exhibit in the Community Gallery at The Brooklyn Museum are missing one thing...the initials M.D. (short for Medical Doctor). The exhibit, which will run through Dcccnber 2, and is appropriately entitled %u201c Doctors As Artists%u2019%u2019, includes 55 works of various forms of art by 27 doctors who all reside in Brooklyn.Ages of the artists vary although two of the exhibitors are in their 80%u2019s still practicing their specialization. The doctors span most of Brooklyn%u2019s neighborhoods from Brooklyn Heights to Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, and Sunset Park.T ho H ic n la v nrr*%u00ab;pntrH in r*onn- 1 V %u25a0 1 fteration with the Medical Society of Kings County, shows oil paintings, using both canvas andand bringing down the house%u2014on the piano. The wonderful Eubie Blake, fourteen years older than Virgil Thomson and a mere 96, resides in Brooklyn and was present to take the equally enthusiastic appreciation of the audience.The next concert on January 2, which covers the years from 1920 to 1940, will have Aaron Copland as its commentator.masonite as mediums, along with sculptures in wood and marble: two stained glass silhouettes and numerous photographs.There is a preponderance of photographs that depict serene and sometimes mystical scenes. The paintings are more figurative with hints of pastel colors throughout, while sculptures adhere to the realistic school of art with a mother and child bust in marble and a head figure made of stone.%u201c Doctors As Artists%u201d , at the Community Gallery of the Brooklyn Museum, located at 200 Eastern Parkway, open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 to 5, Sundays noon to 5, and holidays 1 to 5.%u201cDoctors As Artists%u201d , at theCommunity Gallery of the Brooklyn Museum, located at 200Eastern Parkway, openWednesrlo*' (lifAimli C ofnwrl a%u00ab/ 1H (a 5Sundays noon to 5, and holidays1 to 5.No %u201cSleigh Ride%u201dIn NovemberMuseum DisplaysMedical ArtsNovember 8,1979, The PHOENIX. Page 17