The Portland Ballet on Friday night opened a brief run of a program of new choreographic works before a full house at its studio theater.
Often mixing the expressive elements of modern dance with the line and form of classical ballet, the work of all three choreographers demanded much of the all-female cast of company dancers. They proved up to the task.
New to Portland, choreographer and dancer Savannah Lee offered two of the four works in the one-hour program. Her “Half of Me,” described in the program as a response to a family crisis, featured Kaitlyn Hayes, Kelsey Harrison, Jennifer Jones and Erica Diesl en pointe in movement that initially reflected distress and confusion. Heads in hands, as if agonizing, the dancers spun and twisted to stormy music by Steve Schwartz.
Hayes was particularly strong and athletic in solo passages before Harrison returned for a resolution capped by some mutually supportive gestures and embraces.
Lee’s second work, “Dream Catcher,” featured imaginative winged costumes by Amy Baxter to complement light and flowing movement supported by rich string music. Eliana Trenam, Jane Howard and Diesl created a swirl of form and color that felt inspired and uplifting.
Lee danced in Annie Kloppenberg’s “Expert Witness.” The Colby College choreographer also employed Diesl, Harrison, Hayes, Howard, Jones and Trenam in this work, which her notes stress “eclipses narrative.”
Barefoot dancers, dressed in black, engaged in episodes where they moved to center stage only to quickly retreat into their own, side-lit shadows, sometimes leaving one or more fallen comrades. Ominous electronic music by Albert Mathias focused the rise and collapse of various performers, until collective passages wove the ensemble together.
Fernando Ramos Cintron’s “From the Cracks” gave a sense of struggle to more classically minded choreography performed by Diesl, Hayes, Harrison, Jones and Howard. Ensemble tableaux and solo turns marked a piece that achieved a sense of resurgent beauty, set to music highlighted by a piece by Carlos Noguera Ramos.
An obviously hardworking, committed and, most of all, talented group of dancers and choreographers kept the bar raised high for local dance performance.
Steve Feeney is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.
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