Richmond Ballet choreographers stretch out

Four choreographers new to the Richmond Ballet -- two men, two women; two local -- shape the foundation of its second New Works Festival.

Each was challenged to create a 10to 15-minute work in about two weeks' time. The resulting program proved to be just over an hour of light-spirited, contemporary, and surprisingly unpredictable dancing.

Light was the dominant theme for the evening, used by two of the four choreographers to describe their work. Julie Job Smithson, a 10-year faculty member of the School of Richmond Ballet, started off the evening with the only work that actually used point shoes, which artistic director Stoner Winslett commented on with pleasure.

Smithson's "All Something and Light" featured dancers Maggie Small and Fernando Sabino, who broke away from the ensemble with a lovely interlude of folding and unfolding. Beautifully performed, but not flawless, there was an apparent near drop at the start, one dancer lost his footing, and the women in the quartet were not quite dancing in unison.

Most unusual of the four offerings was Ma Cong's "Ershter Vals (First Waltz)," set to the music of an Italian klezmer band, Klezroym. The mix of German, Italian and Yiddish lyrics, paired with Spanish and Eastern European folk themes collected from ethnic ghettoes of World War II, accentuated the tango-like sensuality of the piece.

Cong is a principal dancer and resident choreographer of the Tulsa Ballet in Oklahoma.

Jacqulyn Buglisi's "Ninfee (Water Lilies)" stood out for the choreographer's technical decision to have the live dance performed in front of a real-time camera projection that created a sense of infinity. Buglisi, chair of the modern dance department of the Alvin Ailey School in New York, said the projection added another layer for the viewer's perspective and "created an awareness of being in the instant." It was a fascinating visual dimension.

The evening ended with the bright, Caribbean-flavored "Diversions," by James Frazier, chair of the department of dance and choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University. Frazier's torso isolations and asymmetrical balances were set to light-hearted selections from the Musica Latino album of the ensemble Quartetto Gelato. While the third and fourth sections of "Diversions" seemed to go on just a bit too long, dancer Thomas Ragland's stop action final pose suggested the dancers were ready to keep on dancing.

Julinda Lewis is an ordained minister of dance, the Virginia State Coordinator of the International Dance Commission, a teacher and writer. She lives in eastern Henrico County and can be contacted at .