As I mentioned last week, we’re off to Philly this weekend. What spurred this getaway is Matthew Neenan’s new work for the Pennsylvania Ballet, set to six Rufus Wainwright songs. There was quite a positive review yesterday in the Philadelphia Inquirer. An excerpt:
If the new Pennsylvania Ballet triple bill, featuring works by Peter Martins, Matthew Neenan and Twyla Tharp, were a meal, Neenan’s 11:11 would be its sumptuous main dish. Its world premiere Wednesday night brought cheers from a euphoric public. There are so many fresh ideas in the work that it made the rest of the program look dusty and tired.
Dancing to Rufus Wainwright’s lush, yearning music must be a high because in 11:11, set to six Wainwright songs, the dancers are by far the fullest and most impassioned we see them all evening. The curtain opens on five duos in sheer, flowing, greenish-and-beige costumes, bathed in the first of John Hoey’s washes of colored light. To “Vibrate,” Neenan feathers the timing of the group’s jumps and dips for a multidirectional, eye-popping richness.
Neenan splays his cast of 20 into assorted groupings for the succeeding songs, transitioning between them with whimsical touches — one lady is literally thrown offstage! — and with swift waves of dancers reconfiguring. There’s a circling women’s quartet to “Natasha,” two separate, hurtling trios to “Poses,” a duo featuring a powerfully sultry Riolama Lorenzo to “Greek Song,” and more. The movement is energized but soft, allowing us to see the fullness of momentum and also pointing to a humanness replete with vulnerabilities, ecstasies and pranks.
With “Oh What a World,” Neenan pulls out all the stops, rendering garlands of fleeting geometries and finally constructing a giant carousel of dancers, the women rising and lowering like its horses. Breathtaking.
After that, it’s hard to focus on a lone duo before more dancers and more complexity filter back in. Just as the action begins to peak, a single black curtain slides swiftly across the stage. In one deft motion, dancers vanish behind it, leaving a pensive, solitary Meredith Rainey. It may be the strongest ending I’ve ever seen.
Seeing a work that’s so much of this moment, beautifully crafted, warm and accessible is a great and all-too-rare delight.
Yowza. I can’t wait.
One reply on “A passionate premiere”
Have fun!