Most dancers know when they catch a dance bug. Give Choreographer Christopher Williams, grew up in Syracuse, it was the performance of “Les Sylphides”, recognized as the first ballet blanc, aka ballet without a plot. This work by Michel Fokine, first performed by Sergei Diaghilev’s influential Ballets Russes in 1909, presents a shimmering world in which a young poet meets a group of sylphs, long white-spotted dogs Their glare is setting the scene in a ghostly haze.
Over the years, Williams has held on to that experience: It was the first ballet he ever saw that, as he wrote in the program notes, “makes me want to show something that haunts the world. other worlds”.
Weird, ethereal, magical and, yes, otherworldly: These words are synonymous with Williams’ dances, which he tapped into Greek mythology, folklore, and the lives of saints. For his first show at the Joyce Theatre, which opens Tuesday, Williams pays homage to his own dance awakening – and other works from Ballet Russes team – to create a new version of “Les Sylphides.”
Williams’ “Les Sylphides” is over-repetitive, an insurmountable barrier with a moving vocabulary that seems to constantly spiral. But it becomes something of a gem when the choreography becomes less about creating than feeling them. Undoubtedly, this euphoric “Les Sylphides” was the highlight of the evening.
It is also personal. As with another new Ballet reimagining the Russes on the show, “Afternoon of a Faun,” Williams made a strange twist from the original. Both are closely associated with Vaslav Nijinsky, the sensational dancer who choreographed and starred in the first, very erotic “Faun” film; Williams’ answer is to choose Taylor Stanley, a gifted New York City ballet principal that the dance has soul, delicate expression from the inside out. Although extremely accurate, Stanley has mysterious abilities without even trying; here he is a wizard in the way he animates sculptural poses reminiscent of Nijinsky, but with his own modern beating heart.
In “Les Sylphides,” set in Chopin, Stanley has an excellent partner, the dancer Mac Twining, who also appears with him in excerpts from Chopin. “Daffodils.” (Other excerpts from “Daphnis & Chloé” only served to slow the show; the first half, including parts of “Faun,” landed somewhere on the dreary side.) As the Poet , Twining, who is first seen writing in a brush diary while sitting on the edge of the stage – it’s not as gruesome as it sounds – encounters Queen Sylph (Stanley), the ruler of a series The tribe belongs to the forest elves.
For Sylphs, Williams drew inspiration from the Radical Faeries, a counterculture movement of eccentric communities living off the grid; His sylph – spiraling and twisting as they flow in and out of the system on stage – evokes earth-tone butterflies, darting and darting through a murky night.
Topless and wearing gossamer skirts adorned with cobweb-like veins and delicate wings attached to their arms – the outfit is from Andrew Jordan, Williams’ longtime, talented collaborator – these Sylphs , with Stanley as their leader, and the band to show the Poet that their way of life is a good reason for him to leave and join their tribe. Refreshing and tender, with an eye on eroticism, they entice him until he walks with the group.
After a gliding dance reached feverish heights – Sylph’s piqués spun faster and faster until they rose, seemingly floating in the air – Twining, blazing with freedom, was left alone. Stanley, who turned him out of his clothes. Together, they dashed into the wing of the plane. It’s lovely.
For “Afternoon of a Faun,” for Debussy, Williams once again worked with an all-male cast to reinvent the sex story featuring Faun (Stanley) and the Chief Nymphs (Joshua Harriette). Williams’ version has a more sinister tone than Nijinsky’s erotic version, sparked by a line in the Mallarmé poem for which the dance is named: Faun alludes to – as Williams writes – a “quietly assured kiss” for betrayal.”
Williams’ Nymphs are more savage than usual; His faun, an innocent one, doesn’t stand a chance and ends up being devoured by them. It’s a bit goofy – funny rather than shocking, like a scene from a zombie apocalypse. There is laughter. But the success of “Les Sylphides” — with its nod to Nijinsky and apparently to Isadora Duncan — led to a different kind of laughter, one born of amusement. It’s not just Jordan’s fanciful outfits that hold dances together, it’s also dance. And that was different.
Christopher Williams Dances
Come Sunday at the Joyce Theatre, joyce.org.
