Shortly after Gil Boggs was named artistic director of the Colorado Ballet in February, I asked him to cite something in the company’s current artistic mix he liked and would want to emulate in the future.
It came as little surprise that he cited “Choreographer’s Showcase,” a program of three contemporary works that opened Saturday and runs for six more performances through April 1.
Such a program is typical of the American Ballet Theatre, where Boggs was a dancer for more than 15 years. Like its Denver counterpart, the New York company strikes a good balance between the classical and contemporary.
If story ballets are the consistent crowd-pleasers, adventurous lineups of modern and contemporary works attract serious dance fans and boost the Colorado Ballet’s profile among national critics and professionals who have seen enough “Swan Lakes” and “Giselles.”
“In my eyes, from an outsider’s point of view, this is what I think the dance world looks upon,” said Jessica Lang, 31, the youngest of the three choreographers featured in the showcase.
She is exactly the kind of person whose attention the Colorado Ballet needs to attract. The hot, up-and-coming talent adds zest to the company’s offerings and helps place it at the vanguard of the dance world.
Many, if not most, choreographers get started after a significant stint as a dancer, but Lang, a 1997 graduate of the Juilliard School, started creating dances after just two years with a company led by dance giant Twyla Tharp.
Good fortune came Lang’s way almost at once. She submitted a piece to a 1999 national competition sponsored by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and it was one of two pieces selected from more than 100 entries.
In September of that year, she presented another work during a festival in New York City’s Union Square. John Meehan, director of the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, attended and liked what he saw.
Meehan (who first learned of Lang through Boggs) called the next day and commissioned a new work, giving a huge boost to her career. She has since worked with such companies as the Pennsylvania Ballet, Richmond Ballet and Ballet de Monterey in Mexico.
“I was really lucky,” she said. “It went from ‘I’m dancing. I’m a dancer’ to ‘Wow, oh my gosh, I have these commissions. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but they are such great opportunities. Why are these doors opening?”‘
The answer is simple. The ballet world, awash in tired retreads and short on inspiration, is hungry for fresh choreographic voices such as Lang’s.
“I think I have a lot of parts in my movement,” she said. “Behind it, there’s intention, there’s motivation that’s real. It’s not something false or overanalyzed. It’s quite simple, actually, in style.”
In addition to sheer talent, Lang is also attractive to companies because, unlike most young choreographers, she has the ability to handle large ideas and large performing forces.
A production of “Senbazuru,” commissioned by Juilliard for its 100th anniversary, ended Feb. 26. The large-scale work, which uses a new orchestral score and incorporates four onstage opera singers, was inspired by a Japanese belief that folding 1,000 origami cranes will lead to the fulfillment of a wish.
“I really feel like one of the things that I can bring to the field of dance is a broader imagination and not just a focus on movement,” she said.
Lang met Martin Fredmann, the company’s former artistic director, and Jocelyn Labsan, associate artistic director, in Grand Junction, where the company performed in the summer of 2004. That meeting led to the commission of “From Foreign Lands and People.”
The 20-minute piece, which the ballet premiered last year at the Vail International Dance Festival, revolves around black piano keys with the work’s eight dancers representing notes in a musical octave.
The only problem with “Choreographer’s Showcase” is the ballet’s decision to present it in repertory with “Cinderella.” There is a danger it simply will get lost in the swirl of publicity around the fairy-tale adaptation.
However the showcase is received, the good news is Lang already has been engaged for another commission in 2007.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-820-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
