A Futuristic, Flowerless ‘Rite of Spring’

At the top of the evening Saturday night, the affable new conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Michael Christie took the microphone and reminded audiences of the riots that erupted at the 1913 Paris premiere of “The Rite of Spring,” when the Ballets Russes performed Vaslav Nijinsky’s groundbreaking choreography to Stravinsky’s music. There was nothing worthy of a riot in choreographer Nicholas Leichter’s new version of the work, presented in conjunction with the Brooklyn Philharmonic on this evening. However, there was something distinctly revolutionary in the idea of a New York orchestra offering to accompany the premiere of a new modern dance.For many years, New York’s modern dance companies have been struggling to pay the high costs of live music at their performances, and many venerable companies have had to give up and retreat to taped music. Thus the opportunity given to Mr. Leichter was an especially coveted one.He seized it with great energy, setting a firm tone for his “Rite” and never looking back. Sloughing off the pagan sacrificial rites of Nijinsky’s original narrative, Mr. Leichter chose to set his “Rite of Spring” in a slightly surreal, highly mechanistic world. Working without set or props, with only lighting changes for atmosphere, Mr. Leichter succeeded in creating a distinctive landscape with costumes (steel-gray workers’ coveralls) and repetitive, machinelike movements.Mr. Leichter’s dance responded to the fluctuations of tempo and temperature that course through “The Rite of Spring” like electrical surges. But the marchlike choreography failed to utilize the music’s dynamic shifts. Rather than riding the waves, Mr. Leichter’s dance coexisted with Stravinsky’s score.Dressed in bulky work clothes that obscured body lines and rendered them relatively anonymous, the ethnically diverse group of dancers initially moved like a herd, hunching up against each other, or stacking their bodies like spoons in a drawer. A lighting shift dispersed the workers to their individual paths; now they moved across the stage as if riding down a series of parallel assembly-line belts.Having set himself the challenge of working with shapeless bodies performing monotonous tasks, Mr. Leichter understood the need for attack in the dancing. His dancers powered through intensely kinetic phrases: harsh stomping, vigorous arm accents, flouncy backward jogging. From a low squat, the dancers rose up to full height, arms grasping for the sky, then dipped again. These movements had a kind of learned look to them, as if taught and enforced by some invisible authority.Still more compelling was the surprising partnering. A man and woman faced each other and he backed her into a corner, matching sensual, slightly threatening strides. A woman lifted a man, dropping him to knee level, where he dangled in a prone position. At one point, a woman lay on her back with her feet in the air, and a man sat between her feet, as if they were a chair. Later, fights broke out, and one man grabbed repeatedly at another’s head, finally locking it between his palms.Throughout, the seven dancers dispersed and reappeared in interesting formations, but rarely was anyone alone onstage. Clearly a study of group dynamics, Mr. Leichter’s “Rite” had a vaguely futuristic tinge, as if it were a distant, low-tech cousin of fantasies such as “Blade Runner.”Yet this futuristic landscape was more thought experiment than nightmare. It made its case with a light touch, leaving a lot about this odd society unexplained. Little progress was made, with the dancers repeating the same figures at the end as at the beginning, like ants in an ant colony. A last burst of bulky figures marching in unison pulsed with energy, but then all seven dispersed, standing apart on the final note.While it was by no means a smash hit, Mr. Leichter’s “Rite” provided an engrossing visual counterpoint to the score. The dancers carried off his intent with wholehearted intensity, and seemed to draw energy from the orchestra in the pit below them. The evening’s program began with two works by the Australian composer Peter Schulthope, performed by the orchestra and its fine guest soloist, the Australian didgeridoo player William Barton.

A Futuristic, Flowerless ‘Rite of Spring’

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