Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
FUGATE/BAHIRI BALLET NYThe Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave., between 18th and 19th streets; (212) 242-0800. Season runs through Sunday.
FORMED nine years ago by former New York City Ballet principal Judith Fugate and her husband, Medhi Bahiri, a dancer with the Bejart Ballet, the Fugate/Bahiri Ballet NY has survived through a mix of shrewd management and true grit.
There is always a need for a modestly sized, classically based company that can tour small venues for its prime audience, offering opportunities to dancers and choreographers alike.
Opening its weeklong season Tuesday night at the Joyce, the 11-member troupe gave two company premieres, together with three other works from its repertory.
The late John Butler's "Othello," staged by Donald Williams and set to music by Anton Dvorak, condenses Shakespeare's theme of malignant jealousy into the basic trio of Othello (Fidel Garcia), Desdemona (Anitra N. Nurnberger) and the villain Iago (Dante D. Adela).
Butler, who died in 1993, was a major choreographer whose work - apart from his fine rendering of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" - is almost completely, if unfairly, forgotten.
This "Othello" - notable for Adela's gloweringly tense Iago - suffers enormously from the obvious comparison with Jose Limon's superb Purcell quartet on the same theme, "The Moor's
Pavane," yet it still shows Butler's skill
at dance characterization.
The other company premiere was a pleasant little duet by Francis Patrelle. "Jazz Fools," set to the velvety foggy voice of Mel Torme singing "Ordinary Fool," and evocatively danced by Bonnie Pickard and Addul Manzano.
The rest of the overly bland program consisted of Stanton Welch's "Orange," Toni Pimble's "Two's Company" and Thaddeus Davis' "Once Before, Twice After," with both the first and the last work featuring the company's most interesting dancer, the lissome Kellye A. Saunders, a sometime principal with the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
Copyright 2004 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
