‘Precise, strong, elegant’
New Jersey Ballet fills Centenary College stage with classic dances

The New Jersey Ballet deserves a public service award for bringing ballet to northwestern New Jersey. Every year, the Livingston-based company makes a weekend-long visit to Centenary College in Hackettstown, where its dancers risk life and limb executing difficult leaps and lifts on the miniscule stage of the Little Theatre.

Always a hot ticket, the two N.J. Ballet performances Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 3 and 4 played to enthusiastic crowds. The program, governed in part by consideration of the performance space, was kept simple. Except for the closing piece, it consisted entirely of pas de deux, for the most part traditional duets drawn from 19th and early 20th century ballets.

While there is a certain sameness to classical pas de deux, in the sequence of the dances and the repetition of movements, it was interesting to watch for differences among the pieces and their choreographic visions.

The first was the pas from the ballet “Flower Festival in Genzano,” choreographed by Auguste Bournonville in 1858 for the Danish Royal Ballet. Danced by Christina Theryoung and Vladimir Roje, the short piece is light and airy. The ballerina’s character is a flirtatious ingénue. Roje, a strong and beautifully balanced dancer capable of spectacular high leaps, was hampered by the limitations of space.

The second piece, from a ballet called “Halte de Cavalerie,” featured choreography by the famous Marius Petipa. Although a classical duet with some of the same material as the first, it was more sculptural than the Bournonville work, somehow less airy and more solid. Gabriella Noa-Pierson was partnered by Andres Neira, who benefited from his small, wiry body type and looked good in proportion to the stage.

It was good to see David Tamaki, a home-grown dancer who came up through N.J. Ballet’s school, dancing the “Diana and Acteon” pas de deux with the lovely Mari Sugawa.

Following a brief excerpt from “Le Corsaire,” the performance went on to two Petipa ballets which may very well show the choreographer at his best: pas de deux from “Swan Lake” and “Sleeping Beauty.” Both were enhanced by the beautiful Tchaikovsky scores.

The White Swan was exquisitely portrayed by Sugawa, who was partnered by Roje. Flowing and richly romantic, it allows the dancers to create magical images on stage. Sugawa seemed to have no sharp angles in her body, but instead an astonishing fluidity. The flexibility in her spine enabled her to bend in ways that call to mind the graceful curves of a swan’s neck.

The pas from “Sleeping Beauty” was virtually a primer on the role of the male partner in a classical work. Andrei Jouravlev was precise, strong, elegant and flawlessly positioned, enabling Theryoung to execute some dazzling and apparently effortless fish dives, bringing appreciative gasps from the audience.

The most modern piece in the program, and one which stood in sharp contrast to the rest, featured Jouravlev again, this time partnering his wife, Era Jouravlev. It was choreographed for the couple by Vladimir Salimbaev of the Perm State Ballet Theatre in Russia.

Entitled “Meditation,” it is set to music of that name from the opera “Thais” by Jules Massenet. The dancers begin and end the piece intertwined as if they are one. The dance is organic, full of holds that shift the center of gravity, tension between the dancers’ bodies holding them upright. Intense and passionate, the piece is an artistic whole, unlike some of the classical pas de deux which can look more like a series of flashy but interchangeable tricks.

The program ended, astonishingly, with the Waltz of the Flowers from “The Nutcracker.” It was astonishing because at moments, there were as many as seven dancers moving on the postage-stamp size stage! Noa-Pierson was lovely as the Dewdrop, a role she no doubt will dance during some of the company’s many Nutcracker performances, which begin Saturday, Dec. 1 in Englewood. The N.J. Ballet’s production of the holiday piece will include 14 performances between Dec. 21 and 30 at Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn.

Meanwhile at Centenary, there is a new performing space on the horizon and we hope N. J. Ballet will be among the first to perform in the 500-seat theater that will be part of the college’s Lackland Center. Ground was recently broken for the new arts center, expected to open in 2009. Then local audiences will really get to see what N. J. Ballet can do when it has space to flex its muscles.

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