Past and present Festival Ballet caps 25 years BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

Festival Ballet Providence is finishing off their 25th season with an homage to their past and a nod to their future. Co-founder Christine Hennessy’s original choreography for A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been re-staged by her daughter Elizabeth DeFanti for the first half of this weekend’s program (May 2-4 at the VMAArts &Cultural Center), and three premieres of contemporary pieces by Audrey Monahan, Colleen Cavanaugh, and Festival’s artistic director Mihailo Djuric fill the second half.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is set to Felix Mendelssohn’s evocative score and tells Shakespeare’s comedy with a full complement of fairies, sprites, and bewitched (and bewildered) lovers. In true classical form, it’s packed with pas de deux, in which the ballerinas’ en pointe turns and extensions are matched by their partners’ lifts and leaps. It’s a light-hearted, light-spirited romp through the Athenian woods, with a female twist on Puck, who sets the mix-ups in motion by using her magic potion on all the wrong people.

Audrey Monahan’s Swing Shift, danced to a mix of music from contemporary retro-swing groups, is a jazzy take on Shakespeare’s ageless theme of men and women looking for ways to link up with each other. With a loose plot woven around the comings and goings in one night at an urban nightclub, this is an up-tempo blend of old-style jazz and swing with up-to-the-minute club dance.

The last two pieces, by Cavanaugh and Djuric, are based on original music composed specifically for the dances. Cavanaugh worked with composer/vocalist Elaine Bearer to create I Corpi Celesti, which was inspired by the life of Galileo and the words of his daughter, a cloistered nun, Sister Maria Celeste. The theological implications of Galileo’s astronomical work and the anguish they caused him are heard in the high, piercing staccato notes of the string trio music. Also accompanying the dance are snatches of three whispering voices, urgent phrases in Italian that touch on the birth of stars and the mutability of belief. Cavanaugh uses eight dancers to represent the celestial bodies that swirl through the mind of Galileo and/or his daughter, portrayed by Jaclyn Ricci. Seen last week in rehearsal, I Corpi Celesti is a stunning, powerful piece, with images of Galileo’s struggle in the dancers’ individual gestures and in their interactions with each other.

They wrap their arms, one by one, around their shoulders, as if for comfort or to hold onto what they know deep inside. Then they stretch them into a rounded shape above their heads, palms out, in simulation of Galileo’s telescope or of one of the planets he was able to locate through it. When they let their hands loose, they stay aloft for a moment, the flat of their palms held upward as if surveying the vast expanse of the universe. Those three gestures are returned to again and again, in different permutations with other movements, but they form a basis for the questioning and longing in Galileo’s soul.

Ricci is very expressive in her solo role, beginning the piece in an arched back-bend, from which she slowly rises, a physical manifestation of her world having been turned inside out. She’s joined at various points by four and then eight dancers, all of whom orbit around each other until the eight abandon her and stand off to one side, facing away from her, as if the scientific discoveries sometimes abandon Galileo when he’s pondering his religious faith. But the eight return in different combinations to lift Ricci up, carrying her as if she floats in the sky like they do, supporting her with the firm knowledge of their existence. When she is set down again, she grasps each shoulder, gazing heavenward, as if she will stand her ground. Then she walks between the other dancers and ends in a kind of half back-bend, one arm supporting her from the floor, the other reaching up, a compromise found within herself.

Djuric’s new piece (also seen in rehearsal) is equally captivating, also with original music (and Dan Moretti’s trio accompanying the dance), and also taking its themes from the life of a famous person, in this case Billie Holiday. For toDay, Djuric collaborated with composer Barbara Kolb, who weaves her contemporary jazz sounds around the strains of one of Holiday’s signature songs, "Come Rain or Come Shine." Kolb came to Providence in 2001 as a composer in residency with WaterFire Providence, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and Festival Ballet Providence. This is the first product of her work with Festival; the second will be a dance/theater piece based on Chris van Allsburg’s The Widow’s Broom.

toDay features the long-legged precision of Tatiana Berenova as Billie, the strong presence and dancing of Gleb Lyamenkoff as her lover and the acrobatic finesse of Eivar Martinez and Davide Vittorino as her two dark sides, depression and addiction. Djuric characterized the look of this dance as "broken," a choreographic interpretation of the singer herself. Djuric is a long-time fan of Holiday’s music, beginning when he was a teenager in Yugoslavia and before he understood the lyrics. He first heard the vibrant emotions of the songs and the singer, and he wanted to make a dance that could convey that.

This piece is characterized by very imaginative partnering — it opens with Berenova curled up atop Lyamenkoff’s feet. He gradually lifts her with his legs, from a prone position, and then she slides horizontally back down them. It’s an eye-catching beginning, followed by unusual angles and lines, as she leans into him or dips under one arm, only to have him lift her slightly with the other. Djuric gets across quite vividly the push/pull of Holiday’s true lover — her career — in the interchanges between these two dancers.

Martinez and Vittorino burst onto the scene, landing in splits on the floor and then partnering each other before taking turns with Berenova and then spinning off onto the floor, up into the air and landing back down in a kind of reverse push-up, hands first, followed by torso. The flexibility and strength of these two, as they execute these difficult moves, is terrific to watch.

Festival Ballet Providence’s last show of the season draws on their classical history and their contemporary present. By bringing in new choreographers and new composers, the whole company seems infused with new enthusiasm for the works they are presenting.