Musicians, Dancers In Their ‘Elements’
Dance Baroque IV Friday at The Met
Allegro kicked off its season, literally and figuratively, with an evening of music and dance from the 1700s. Let it be said at the outset that the turnout for this concert was just a bit disappointing.
Attendance was fine, but surely there are enough people out there who would have enjoyed the performance to fill The Met and then some.
The featured piece of the evening, which lasted the entire second half of the program, was Jean-Fery Rebel’s suite, “The Elements.” This was a remarkable and innovative piece for its time that is not often performed. In fact, it is hard to determine when it was last performed in the United States.
This piece was brought to life thanks to the specialization and research of Allegro’s music director, David Dutton.
The dance master for the evening needs an appreciative mention as well. Rebel’s music deserves to be danced to, and Peggy Goodner Tan’s choreography elegantly brought out the notions, moods and contrasts of the writing.
The suite’s overture, “Chaos,” began with absolute discord and brought it first to harmony, and finally to a unison note, stretching out the slow process to make a wonderful point. Once the world was arrayed in perfect musical order, the dancers, attired as the elements - Earth, Water, Fire and Air - interacted for the remaining nine movements.
There were multiples of each element that, when appearing together, were mostly choreographed in symmetry and balance in a rather classical style. This was quite appropriate to the music, rendering a formal telling of the tale. Fire, with the lone male dancer of the troupe included in its trio, was rather more independent.
There were many solo opportunities for elements and dancers, which provided visual variety from the mirrored movements. When the elements mixed, there was a lot of fun in realizing what was being portrayed. Fire appeared to fan the breeze and water appeared to put out the fire.
The matched movements were exactly that. All the dancers were precise and controlled. There was never a distraction from the flow of movement. Along with the excitement of the musical performance, there was never a reason to lose focus from the stage for the second half of the concert.
The first half included only one piece with dance, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure that was going to happen.
The first movement of the Albinoni Oboe Concerto, which opened the concert, was to be reprised with the addition of dance as the pre-intermission finale.
No dancer appeared. After a complete reading of the movement, there were some humorous comments from the musicians on stage, and we were treated to the music for a third time, this time with dancer. The music was plenty exciting enough to hear three times, and Thyra Demetrick’s performance of her own spirited choreography was worth the wait.