Under way in person in an intimate venue: Indianapolis Ballet presents 'New Works'

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915), as visionary a composer as the history of Western music affords, provides the generative power for the major piece on Indianapolis Ballet's season-opening program, "New Works." The program runs through Sunday.

A selection of the Russian composer's solo piano pieces for ballet thus lends a proper highlighting of founder-director Victoria Lyras' vision of her increasingly accomplished and stable company. It's been newly underwritten with sponsors throughout its personnel, though it's still seeking a regular performance home downtown.

"Scriabin Suite": Making shallow space seem large enough.

"Scriabin Suite" cheats a little bit on the implication of "new works," however, since the work has been previously performed, as Lyras told the opening night audience at the District Theatre Thursday. But she regards setting such a piece on different dancers as qualification to be called new. And that may justify enough its inclusion in a program of actual premieres.

The choreography she created with Paul Vitali sheds light on some of the textural density of Scriabin's preludes, etudes and a couple of dances: a waltz and a mazurka. The design makes much of the overwhelming flow of the pieces and responds well to the composer's gift for coming up with miniatures that seem to say much compactly. The costumes Lyras designed make this a consistently "white" ballet, rooting the visual element in Romantic tradition and emphasizing the airiness of her concept.

It was especially impressive to note how well the sections calling for more dancers were designed so that the District Theatre's shallow stage did not seem to cramp the ensemble. Thus, in "Etude I," "Valse," and the concluding "Etude VII," the lateral movement felt expansive and free. There were some moments that explicitly gloried in the space, such as when the only male dancer in "Valse," William Robinson, made a dashing entrance behind the six women, crossing to the other side of the stage, then turned around and crossed in front of them back toward the first side. The effect was not just to assert the perpetual appeal of the waltz form, but also to underline a feeling of comfort and energy within the space. The perimeter was defined without crowding.

Before the grand finale, there was a typically enchanting duet for established company partners Chris Lingner and Yoshiko Kamikusa. Both had made their mark earlier in back-to-back solos in a couple of Etudes. In the second of three Preludes following the Etude that opened the show, Jessica Miller's solo was a standout. And for its virile energy, suitable to the bass-heavy music, "Etude V" allowed for concentration on the company's three men: Robinson, Lingner, and Filipe Aragao-Benton.

In the first half, the Brazilian dancer Aragao-Benton introduced "New Works" as both choreographer and one of the dancers in "Concerto in C." The well-crafted music of Leroy Anderson used to be at the top of the light-classical hit parade. Turned to good use for dance here, it was just the kind of upbeat work we need as the performing arts return to in-person performances. Especially impressive was the episode for five women as a fugue unfolded in the recorded orchestra. There was a fetching duet for Robinson and a female dancer that mirrored an instrumental duet for piano and snare drums. A sort of combination of march and folk dance brought forth a danced complement of whirlwind rhythms and melodies. 

Chris Lingner and Yokiko Kamikusa in "Spring Waters."

Brevity helps to establish a smorgasboard atmosphere for such a program. Asaf Messerer's "Spring Waters" offered a superb example of the remarkable rapport between Lingner and Kamikusa, climaxed by a breathtaking lift that displayed exquisite daring and balance. It was sensuous and muscular throughout its concentrated duration.

In a departure from Kamikusa's elegant, sylph-like norm, Robinson composed for her "Boy from New York City" to a saucy pop song (Michelle Creber) of that title to bring the show up to intermission. The delightful, street-wise virtuosity, enhanced by the dancer's costuming, had a puzzling interruption at one point: either it was something in the choreography that didn't quite belong or a rare mistake by the dancer — a deep back bend that looked  fragmentary, as it ended abruptly with a turn to one side that resembled a fall. Whatever it was, it struck me as the slightest break from the integrity of the vital whole, which was a showcase worthy of the soloist and a tribute to her versatility.

"Veiled Visions" builds on the repetitive patterns of minimalism.

The adaptability of contemporary ballet to incorporate different ways of addressing the floor – not leaving all that to modern dance — was displayed in  Roberta Wong's earthy and ethereal "Cherished (for Weezie)" and "Salute to the Crusher (for Sophia). It was a setting of two movements from Bach's Cello Suites, vigorously danced by five women. 

A female trio (Miller, Sierra Levin, and Lucy Merz) was used eloquently in a geometrically severe, more mysterious piece, the creation of company alumna Kristin Young Toner, titled "Veiled Visions." The music, by Armand Amar, is rooted in minimalism. Within the strictures of that style, the work of the dancers showed well-integrated variety, hinting at ritual, and a continually imaginative response to the music. The dancing seemed to project the partly hidden emotional contours suggested by the work's title.

[Photos by Moonbug Photography]