Vail International Dance Festival
What: Vail International Dance Festival
Where: Vail Valley Colorado
When: July 30 to August 7
The Festival's outdoor amphitheater is grand. Named for former President Gerald R. Ford and former First Lady Betty Ford, a Graham student in her Bennington College days and a devoted supporter of the Martha Graham Contemporary Dance Company. The all-weather theater is nestled in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, 8150 feet up into the clear air. The entire valley with its small towns welcomes Olympic-level skiers in the winter, when it looks like a Christmas post-card from Switzerland. But in the summer, when the bikers, rafters, tennis and golf players and dance followers come, the festival is in full bloom like the vivid, glorious flowers that are in the Ford Alpine Garden and throughout the small, jewel-like chain of towns that cling to the mountainsides.
Katherine Kersten, artistic director of the Vail International Dance Festival, is an energetic woman with a past in performing, teaching and producing productions of ballet. "The summer program began in 1989," she tells, "when the Bolshoi Ballet Academy of Moscow, under the artistic director Sophia Golovkina was looking to fill a cancelled engagement in Texas.
The result, in 1990, was a 4-week summer of study under Bolshoi teachers with 4 American students eventually winning scholarships to study one semester in Moscow. (Sacha Radetsky, a former winner at that time, is now a soloist in American Ballet Theatre.)"
By 1992 it became apparent to the administration of the Vail Valley Foundation that supports the dance fes-tival, that they needed an artistic director with a professional dance background. They choose Kersten as producing artistic director. She was the perfect choice with her Paris Opéra ballet and European history, performing and directorship of the Milwaukee Ballet School. Unique to America, was the introduction of world-class master teachers, such as Gilbert Mayer of the Paris Opéra, made available at Vail for American teachers and students in 1993, as the International Dance Teachers' Conference. A workshop in 1995 for students called "World Masters at Vail" followed. Unfortunately, this program of study with renowned teachers no longer exists.
Kersten spends her winter months traveling to find artists for Vail that represent the best from major ballet and modern dance companies to be seen in duos or as a small ensemble from those companies. In the past, some of the artists included: Agnes Letestu, José Martinez, Vladimir Malakov, Galina Stepanyanko, Evelyn Hart and Rex Harrington from the National Ballet of Canada as well as artists from American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Royal Ballet, Victor Ullate Ballet and other companies. It would take a year of performances in New York to experience all that the Vail festival presents in just one week. The extraordinary opportunity to see major artists in a small context presents them in a new perspective...close up, exposed, without a large corps to frame them or distract.
Kersten handles the loss of costumes in transit, the obstruction to passport entry, injuries, summer showers just before curtain time, lost luggage, altitude sickness, transportation difficulties, changes in the program and any imaginable obstruction faced by directors, producers and teachers the world over, all with patience. "In the year 1992, I was planning going to come to Vail for one year," she says. "I had, after all, international guest teaching and school to take care of, but here we are in 2005 and I'm still! Audiences come from throughout the United States, ready for a front-row seat or to sit on the hillside lawn and become as acknowledgeable as any audience in a major city. We also present regional American companies at nearby Vilar Theater and commission works from emerging choreographers each year. This year, we invited the Colorado Ballet and Jessica Lang, US choreographer."
The first night's program, July 30th, brought international ballerina Tamara Rojo, from the Royal Ballet with a group from Buenos Aires, Inaki Ballet Concierto. It is headed by another Royal Ballet member, Inaki Urlezaga, who creates works for the company. Rojo, Montreal-born and Ullate trained, appeared in excerpts from "Don Quixote." She disappointed when she relied entirely upon her internal gyroscope that permits her to do triple fouettés and high extensions. Despite her beautiful face, she was not present in the production. But when she appeared a few days later in Sir Kenneth MacMillan's "Manon," with Inaki Urlezaga as her partner, she, coached by the Royal Ballet staff, created a touching, gentle and compelling role. The July 30th program concluded with irresistible music from Argentina, choreographed by Federico Fleitas.
"Pas de Quatre," was on the second night program, July 31st, and performed by dancers from Ballet Rosario Suarez. Suarez is director of the company based in Miami, and it has a strong Cuban influence. The pas de quatre version was obviously a version by Alicia Alonso, who danced the work when she was a member of American Ballet Theatre. One of the surprises was a contemporary dance performance by the Dominic Walsh Dance Theater, in Walsh's intriguing "Katharsis," based on the premise that art, once created, takes on a life of its own. Walsh, formerly with the Houston Ballet shows humor and great imagination.
A transported audience, glowed with nostalgia as Michael Smuin presented his visualization of songs to the creamy baritone of Frank Sinatra. The favorites from the '30s and '40 movies were performed with elegance, taste, wit by a delightful company. The finale, "New York, New York," had the audience standing, singing and still singing as they dispersed to the car park. In the smaller theater, The Vilar Center for the Arts, the Colorado Ballet's most notable offering, on August 3rd, was a work by Jessica Lang, "From Foreign Lands and People," to music of Schumann's "Kinderszenen." Here, Lang alluded to the white and black keys of the piano as the dancers quietly moved long, black props as "keys" and used them to change levels. Lang is an excellent choreographer with much promise.
Outstanding in this bouquet of Festival performances were the International Evenings of Dance on August 5th & 6th, with duos including Jean Christophe Maillot's "Romeo and Juliet," performed by April Ball and Jens Weber from Monte Carlo; Agnes Oaks and Viacheslav Samodurov in Balanchine's pas de deux; and a lighter side of Marius Petipa in his playful "Harlequinade" danced by Rio's Rene Salazar.
What is apparent is the continued pyrotechnics of male dancers, who retreat into their former training of tour-de-force steps as if it were expected and obviously pleases the crowd. Those with good training and coaching pull these "tricks" off without calling attention to them and immerse themselves into the role and become part of the pas de deux. Most shocking was the work of the kamikaze approach of Koichi Kubo, originally from Japan, of the Colorado Ballet and China-born, Zhang Yao, who with his partner Faye Leung, both members of the Hong Kong Ballet, showed the simpering early training of a dated English style. His arched lower back in lifts were enough to cross the fingers of many in the audience. Sheer strength doesn't do it. Correct placement and technique do.
In contrast, Agnes Oaks, Moscow-trained and member of the Royal Ballet, and her partner, Kirov trained, Viacheslav Samodurov are the distinct opposite. They whip off the required number of tours and jumps with ease and no affectation. At the bows, when the entire cast received flowers, even the men, Samodurov gave his to his partner. Manners. Ah, well.