Although New York choreographer Doug Varone has created a piece for Colorado Ballet and worked on two Opera Colorado productions, his company had never appeared in Denver before Saturday evening.
Considering the respected place Doug Varone and Dancers holds in the national dance world and that the ensemble is celebrating its 20th anniversary during the 2006-07 season, its visit here was long overdue.
The nine-member company did not disappoint during its appearance at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts, performing three recent works showing complementary sides of this enormously talented and original choreographer.
There is nothing obvious or easy about Varone’s approach – no daredevil thrills, comedic high jinks or Broadway pastiches. Instead, he goes for and usually finds something more emotionally profound, thought-provoking and ultimately elusive.
While the movement has its share of complexities, the choreographer is just as interested in a meaningful walk as some spectacular combination, and his fine dancers, all keenly tuned to his aesthetic, modulate between the two with virtuosic ease.
Varone’s movement can just as easily be inelegant as elegant, as became clear in “Castles” (2004), which was all about engagement and disengagement. It was easy to imagine the title referring to the defenses that humans can put up to keep anyone from getting too close.
In this work set to Prokofiev’s Waltz Suite, Op. 110, the eight performers never really dance with each other. They slide under a leg or push off each other, and as quickly as they embrace, they pull away – the recurring motif of a duet between Natalie Desch and Ryan Corriston.
Although Varone managed to effect an overall sense of continuity and cohesiveness, individual sections and phrases have a deliberate sense of disparity and disorder. Asymmetry rules. A dancer would be suddenly out of the action and then just as suddenly be back in.
Employing the haunting, mystical music of Arvo Pärt’s “Te Deum,” “Boats Leaving” (2006) chillingly suggests a hopeless, post-apocalyptic world. Eight isolated figures come together in enigmatic frozen tableaux only to be torn apart again.
The evening ended on a joyful note with “Lux” (2006), an exuberant moonlight romp set to pulsating music by Philip Glass.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
