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Tulsa Ballet's Winter Celebration
Published: 12/2/2011 5:56 PM
Last Modified: 12/2/2011 5:56 PM

Tulsa Ballet dancers are nothing if not flexible. For example: Thursday night, Alfonso Martin and Sofia Menteguiaga performed in an outlandish parody ballet that crossed "The Merry Widow" with "Desperate Housewives" and more camp humor and cross-dressing than a John Waters film festival, then shared a preview of one of the pas de deux from Edwaard Liang's upcoming world premiere of "Romeo and Juliet."

Then, Friday morning they were off to Pinckney, Michigan (a small town between Detroit and Lansing), to perform as guest artists in the Fountain Dance Ministry's production of "The Nutcracker."

But then, showing what the dancers of Tulsa Ballet can do is a big part of the ballet's annual "Winter Celebration," a special performance held once a year at the ballet's Studio K theater.

Thursday's night show, which opened with that "Merry Widow" parody that incorporated everything from "The Merry Widow" waltz to Britney Spears' "Oops, I Did It Again" to the zombie dance from "Thriller," was one of the best of these events we've seen.

One reason for that is it showcased the next generation of Tulsa Ballet -- students from the company's Center for Dance Education and members of its TB II company.

These groups, each performing works by principal dancer and resident choreographer Ma Cong, gave some exceptional performances. TB II dancers performed excerpts from Cong's 2005 debut as a choreographer, "Folia," with great energy and poise.

Center for Dance Education student Nikolas Gaifullin held the stage with remarkable assurance in his solo "Angelo," while the seven young women who performed Cong's "Mirabilis" made the joy of this complex ballet infectious, as they demonstrated a great sense of ensemble in the inventive and fascinating way Cong made use of the Studio K stage space.

Another new work by Cong, "Calling," a slightly edgier piece for six dancers, was captivatingly danced by Diana Gomez, Hanae Seki, Andres Figueroa, Rodrigo Hermesmeyer, Joshua Slayton and Alexandra Christian, who seemed to embody this expressive choreography just a little more fully, a little more confidently, than her colleagues.

TB II dancer Chelsea Keefer gave an electrifying performance of a contemporary solo as part of the "Gala Performances" section of the evening, her dancing not at all out of place amid the bravura work of company members Hermesmeyer, Ian Buchanan, Lawrence Knox, Jonnathan Rameirez Meija, Gabriela Gonzalez, Soo Youn Cho and Wang Yi.

Liang's "Romeo and Juliet" -- the first full-length ballet Tulsa Ballet has commissioned -- will be presented in February, and if the glimpse Thursday night's audience saw is any indication, it is going to be a stunner.

Menteguiaga and Martin performed the Bedroom pas de deux, and the choreography -- with its moments of surprising, erotically charged stillness -- beautifully captured both the passion and the terror of this particular morning for Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers.

The crowd also got a glimpse of a yet-untitled work by Douglas Lee that will be part of the "Creations in Studio K" program later this season. It reminded one -- in rough outline only -- of the Arabian dance from "The Nutcracker," with the female dancer seeming more or less to flow among a group of men.

Here, though, the atmosphere was more charged, the intentions less clear, as Beatrice Sebelin was twisted, turned, flipped and folded around Alberto Montesso and Yoshihisa Arai. Resistance and acquiescence, trust and betrayal, control and surrender all seemed to be happening at once in this brief and intense section. It will be interesting to see what the finished piece will be.


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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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