Earlier this month, The New York Times’ new chief dance critic, Alastair Macaulay, ventured to Seattle to review the Pacific Northwest Ballet, a high compliment at a time when travel budgets are shrinking even at the largest newspapers.
What drew him was in part the sheer quality of the company (which will appear this summer at the Vail International Dance Festival). He wrote that it has ranked among the country’s foremost ballet companies since the 1980s and even reached international stature in the 1990s.
The more specific lure, though, was “Celebrate Seattle!” an April 17-22 festival in which the company performed works by some of biggest names in dance, such as Trisha Brown, Robert Joffrey and Mark Morris, all with regional connections, and hosted other companies in the region.
It seems safe to say that Macaulay will probably not be making a similar visit to Denver anytime soon. While the Colorado Ballet is certainly a top regional company, it is not on the level of the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and it is not presenting anything as innovative or ambitious as “Celebrate Seattle!”
But the occasion of the festival and Macaulay’s trip offer a good time to consider what artistic hurdles are facing the Colorado Ballet and what it needs to do to bolster its national profile to make it impossible for major critics not to travel here.
Gil Boggs, who took over as artistic director in March 2006, acquitted himself well during his first season, with the company looking consistently strong. But bigger challenges lie ahead as he tries to put his imprint on the troupe.
Here is a look at a few of those challenges:
All the company’s current soloists and principals were selected by Boggs’ predecessor, and many of them will be retiring in coming years or leaving through normal attrition. He will need to find replacements of equal or greater quality, no easy task given the competitiveness for good dancers.
Especially tough will be finding successors who can match the classical refinement of Maria Mosina and Igor Vassine, two of the company’s stars – both in their 30s. It is not clear that anyone in the company has the level of artistry to step up and fill their shoes.
Boggs has to give the company’s offerings some kind of a distinctive shape or focus. For the 2007-08 season, he has kept the basic programming structure the company has followed in previous seasons, giving it the flavor of the American Ballet Theatre, where he served as a principal dancer.
While importing some of the fine works the New York company has presented over the years makes sense, it is only a partial solution. He should go further, picking works that will be specifically identified with the Colorado Ballet and potentially garner national attention.
One possible answer is hiring a resident choreographer. Another is reviving forgotten or underappreciated works by significant choreographers of the past. A third is some kind of imaginative themed approach.
In 2002, for example, the Kansas City (Mo.) Ballet assembled a program of solos created by such dance legends as Michel Fokine, Lotte Goslar, Agnes de Mille, Anna Sokolow and Merce Cunningham, gaining national kudos in the process.
The Colorado Ballet has to find a way to perform in New York, which remains the dance capital of the United States. Most of the country’s major dance critics, the ones who can really affect a company’s national standing, are based there.
In 2005, the Colorado Ballet made its third trip to the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, gaining modest notice. But it has been overshadowed in this area by the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, which has had multiperformance runs at New York’s Joyce Theater for three years running.
New York trips are expensive, but they are essential if the Colorado Ballet is to gain a true national standing.
Of course, none of this is possible without a firm financial base, something the company has worked hard to achieve but has still not fully attained.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
