When I planned this 22ndseason for Ballet Memphis, I decided to build it around a central theme, “Beyond Skin” from which new work would commence and grow, and make a finished product that you had to "See to Believe." This theme serves many purposes, including providing a lens for work or stories in existence; serving as a base for every program we perform this season; and being a gauge for all the other programs and activities we do beyond our professional company’s performances. “Beyond Skin” is intended to help us focus.As dancers, teachers and students of dance and movement, and body awareness, Ballet Memphis’ very existence is owed to our belief that there are mysteries our bodies are here to attend to, to express, to care for. When a child is captivated by the magic of a performance and wants to take ballet lessons, that child is expressing a belief that there is somehow a “world” to be entered, to believe in. It is an impulse that is very real, and very important as we make our way in life.
One of the ways we enter this very real world of magic is the way we create stories about animals, giving them human characteristics. This program takes us into that plane of reflection and response through three works centered on aspects of our animal kingdom. All the works in this program have been commissioned by us. The first is Trey McIntyre’s Pork Songs, done for our Connections: Food series last fall and reprised now on the main stage. Although it is humorous, and danced to some very interesting Southern roots music, the fight for survival, which is not always pretty, is one we will all understand. Choreographic Associate Steven McMahon has tackled Carnival of the Animals without the verses by Ogden Nash, and the result is a gentle but penetrating portrait of some of our most interesting human fears, foibles and quirks, all colorfully illustrated. How he handles the formerly iconic “Dying Swan” is a marvel and its vulnerable beauty one of poignant exposure.
We close with Mark Godden’s new Firebird. I continue to appreciate Mark’s delightful way of thinking. He is looking at the story’s two chief characters—the Princess and Koschei—as exemplifying ways that humans struggle to decide how they will live. Koschei has chosen never to die. The animal creatures personified in the Russian tales of the long-living mythical Firebird, Mark sees as exemplary of the life cycle we must all experience. They accept death as part of life. Simultaneously, he is amplifying the shimmering music, and punctuating this seriousness with flights of humorous fancy that nod to us, reminding us that wit is a quality reserved for humans.
One of the most wonderful aspects of what we do at Ballet Memphis is that in helping people, young to old love and respect their bodies, we help them love the beauty that surpasses an image. The body and its image are a way to travel, not a stopping point. Our dancers look the way they do because they still believe in a greatness we all could share as living creatures.
Idealistic? Absolutely. Necessary? Indisputably. Spiritual? Of course. And that, above all else, is why art matters.
