Student dancers pirouette like professionals in CBC show

Though it is a student-run group, the Columbia Ballet Collaborative could be favorably compared to many professional dance companies.

Over the weekend, CBC presented a program of six new works at Miller Theatre. The group, which was founded in 2007 by five students who were members of various dance companies before coming to Columbia, includes dancers from all four undergraduate schools. The performance showed evidence of thoughtful programming, and the tasteful costumes and lighting seemed professional.

Two pieces in the program—Justin Peck’s “Enjoy Your Rabbit” and Lauren Birnbaum’s “Navarasa”—were choreographed to music by Osso and Sufjan Stevens. Peck, who is a part-time student at Columbia and a dancer with New York City Ballet, choreographed a pas de deux for himself and NYCB principal and part-time Barnard student Teresa Reichlen. The dance, which borrowed more heavily from classical ballet vocabulary than did most of the other works performed, at times seemed to wander, but it was notable for its refreshing simplicity. It was beautifully danced, with airborne supported leaps and a lovely solo for Reichlen, who brought a quietly unrestrained quality to her dancing.

Birnbaum’s piece departed more definitively from the classical ballet tradition and made use of a much larger cast. During one particularly visually interesting moment, guest artist Eric Conrad Holzworth beat his legs while his arms flapped upwards, like a bird in blue jeans. At another point in the piece, three dancers in short, shift-like dresses sat at the front of the stage while others danced freely behind them and alternately lay still, like a tableau vivant, or moved their limbs restlessly. At the end of the piece, all of the dancers joined in embraces except for one, like Yeats’ unevenly paired swans.

In Claudia Schreier’s “Excursions,” four dancers successfully executed difficult choreography, which included high leg extensions and tricky lifts. It was Emery LeCrone’s “Five Songs for Piano,” though, that was the highlight of the evening. LeCrone is CBC’s resident choreographer, and deservedly so—her choreography is of the sort that, without resorting to gimmicks or self-consciously calling attention to its inventiveness, seems entirely new.

LeCrone fused structural aspects of dance—experiments with linearity and form—with a dramatic sensibility, which felt neither sentimental nor artificially imposed. In “Five Songs for Piano,” a piece for five dancers choreographed to Mendelssohn’s “Lieder ohne Worte,” she evoked opposing sentiments while using visually similar positions. In one solo variation, for example, dancer Victoria North’s arabesque was lyrical and expansive. Later, the dancers echoed the shape of this line with their arms, but the effect was entirely different—shortened, abortive, confined. LeCrone has a finely tuned sense of structure and pacing, deftly interspersing quieter moments with busy ones and repeating images just often enough that they play only at the corner of audience members’ minds.

Yet LeCrone went beyond these formal elements and brought dramatic intensity to her piece with subtly arresting movements—a dancer’s arms tucked in at her sides and unfolding at the elbow as she glances behind, a palm that turns over to press into the floor, a hand flitting from stomach to back in agitation. Moments like these, along with the piece’s sophisticated costumes and use of light—particularly softly illuminated grays—made “Five Songs” worth seeing.

John-Mark Owen’s “Ah, Mio Cor” and Monique Meunier’s “Solid Ground” completed the evening’s program. In Owen’s ballet, choreographed to Handel’s “Alcina,” the five women wore backless shirts with high, ruffled collars and seemed to imitate opera divas as they danced on a dark stage.

“Solid Ground” lacked the dramatic subtlety of LeCrone’s piece. It featured a dichotomy between a traditionally beautiful dancer in pointe shoes (North) and a woman dancing closer to the ground (the wonderful Elysia Dawn). Some of the choreography was striking—particularly Jen Barrer-Gall’s percussive solo—and the dancers effectively brought out the nuances of the movements.
The dancers of CBC are highly accomplished, and it was exciting to see them perform the works of largely equally talented choreographers.