Elements Contemporary Ballet continues as a welcome enterprise, showing off certain detailed virtues of the art, thanks to the intimacy of the Ruth Page Theater.
The drilled turnout of the women, for instance, is much more enjoyable up close than in larger auditoriums, especially that of Gabrielle Del Re Ashley, who employs hers to particularly tricky effect in one pas de deux from artistic director Mike Gosney in his new piece, “Curiosity.”
Gosney also shrewdly provides work the ensemble can handle, so the performers are (mostly) steady, the point work sharp and the extensions impressive. You won’t see flashy jumps or double turns, but the troupe avoids amateurish embarrassment.
But so far the company struggles to find choreography worthy of its mission. Though this engagement enlists three choreographers, whose separate works share the umbrella title “In This Place,” none of the four pieces manages a mature artistic vision or structural development — they’re exercises, likable, at times, but they leave the viewer wanting.
Surprisingly, the most fully realized piece turns out to be one the program labels a work in progress. Gosney’s “Great and Small,” designed in part to show off the troupe’s young apprentices, is a tad simplistic, an eco-friendly paean set to soaring, melodic music by James Horner. But here Gosney hints at a choral design missing elsewhere, particularly in the nice section where the corps separate into two groups, each circling on and off stage at opposite ends.
But “Curiosity” suffers from too much ambition and too little clarity, overstuffed with eight segments and unpersuasive in linking such disparate composers as Beethoven and Philip Glass.
“Fallen,” by James Gregg, is full of angst and anxious coupling, but meanders, unhelped by gaudy costumes that made me think of “The Moor’s Pavane.”
Joseph Caruana, who choreographed the modest duet called “Angel,” is also a strong, forceful dancer, as are Ashley, Shelby Moran and Arion Tanabe. Making ballet work on this level isn’t easy. But, for now, Elements’ search for likable dancers remains more effective than its hunt for exciting dance-makers.
When:
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Where:
Ruth Page Theater, 1016 N. Dearborn St.
Price:
$25; 312-337-6543 or
brownpapertickets.com
