This Thursday through Sunday, the Chamber Dance Project presents three world premieres by guest choreographers Victor Adebusola, Jennifer Archibald, and the Artistic Director of the company, Diane Coburn Bruning, at its production of Ballet & Brass at the Lansburgh Theatre in Washington, D.C. This production combines  the worlds of ballet, modern, and hip-hop style dancing with the musical stylings of the street band Brass Connection into something that is completely original and full of artistic energy. I spoke with one of the company dancers, Luz San Miguel, about the joys and challenges of performing these works, and what audiences should be expecting.

Anna Mae Kersey: What excites you most about Ballet & Brass?

Luz San Miguel: The fact that we have live music is always very exciting. The quartet right on stage with us. That is a wonderful experience, always. I’m very excited to push my body to do hip-hop. It’s been a fantastic experience-the first time I’ve ever done hip-hop in my life. So that’s what I’m excited about, and performing with the brass band.

AMK: What is the most challenging aspect of performing this work?

LSM: It’s a small group of dancers so we all do all the pieces, and we dance a lot, so that’s probably one of the hardest parts; and we change styles. It takes an adjustment to change from hip-hop, to modern, to even pointe shoes... We go from pointe shoes, to socks, to hip-hop shoes in one evening. It shows the diversity of all the dancers and how much we can do. So that’s the challenge, going from style to style.

AMK: What should audience members expect to experience at Ballet & Brass?

LSM: They should expect to be thrilled and entertained and enjoy our music and high energy; and appreciate the different kinds of dances. ​

I have a confession to make: I haven’t read the Harry Potter series.

For years I have had to smile and keep my mouth shut out of ignorance while my friends discussed and debated the various minutiae of the series. So, when I heard that “Potted Potter-The Unauthorized Harry Experience” (a parody that condenses all seven of the books into a 70 minute show with only two actors) was coming to Portland, I figured now was a good a time as ever to get an education in the “world of wizarding.”

Imagine my surprise then, when I took my seat in the theatre and saw that the set was not something resembling what I envisioned Hogwarts to look like, or some quintessentially British scene, but was rather a conglomeration of a giant choo-choo train, and illustration of an island, a bookshelf, an upright coffin, and the wardrobe from C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

As it turns out, although one of the actors (James) was an authority on Harry Potter, the other one (Joe, who incidentally was responsible for the scenic design) was just as clueless as I was. What ensued a delightful (and what I could only assume was a very loose) adaptation of Rowling’s books, with a live Quidditch match (with audience participation), an “I Will Survive” duet between Harry and Voldemort, and some of “The Hobbit” and “50 Shades of Grey” thrown in by “accident.”

The comedic timing of the actors was brilliant, as was some of their word play such as “muggle our way through” and “99 problems but this snitch ain’t one.” What was most entertaining was Joe’s interpretations of Hermione, Ron, Snape, Hagrid and Dumbledore.

Although I didn’t leave the theatre with the comprehensive understanding of series that I was hoping to gain, I thoroughly enjoyed the performance—as I’m sure did the other members of the audience who were as diverse in ages and backgrounds as Rowling’s characters. 

Journeys from darkness to light, light to darkness and back into the light again were the theme of the Seattle Symphony’s “Brahms No. 1” concert.

The program opened with the overture to Wolfgang von Goethe’s “Egmont” by Ludwig van Beethoven*. Regarding this overture, Beethoven once said “Goethe’s poems have tremendous power over me…I am tuned up and stimulated to composition by his language, which builds itself into higher orders as if through the work of spirits, and already bears in itself the mysteries of harmonies.” Beethoven’s orchestrations in this piece are meant to convey the elements present in Goethe’s drama of self-sacrifice for the sake of liberty and of love.

The piece begins with ominous chords; the struggle between the hero, Count Egmont, and the despotic invader, Duke of Albe. The desperate pleas for Egmont’s life by his mistress, Klarchen, are then heard in the poignant melodies in the woodwinds. These escalate with Egmont’s death sentence and Klarchen’s suicide, but then transition into a conquering finish as the string section latches onto the light and, (through a four-note pattern likely self-quoting Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony) transports the listener to Egmont’s martyrdom in his refusal to give way to tyranny.  

The second piece in the program was the U.S. Premiere of Julian Anderson’s “In Lieblicher Blaue” (“In Lovely Blue”) for violin and orchestra. This piece was inspired by the poem of the same name attributed to Friedrich Holderlin: “In lovely blue the steeple stands,/ Like the stamen inside a flower,/ And the day unfolds around its needle;/ The flock of swallows circling the steeple/ Flies there each day through the same blue air/ That carries their cries from me to you.”

Unlike the previous piece, however, these cries are not of transcendence but rather, of a dizzying downward descent. The strings act as percussive instruments at first, scattering the sound across the section through the use of harmonics, pizzicatos, non-traditional bowing techniques and even the use of a wooden pencil.

With the central movement of the piece comes the plunge into darkness, marked by the lightness of the strings giving way to bolder, stronger melodies that eventually diffuse into one final haunting line voiced by the soloist.

The program concluded in the light with Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68. Although this piece is an impressive feat in and of itself (five movements, each comprised of intricate orchestrations and formed with sonnet-like precision), what is even more significant is the story of how the piece came into being.

When he first began this undertaking, Brahms had for a long time been working in the shadow of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. He composed with trepidation for some 20 years, reportedly remarking when asked to unveil the piece prematurely  “A symphony is no laughing matter…You cannot imagine what it is like to hear behind you the tramp of a giant like him,” the “him” in this instance being Beethoven.

At last, after several meticulous revisions, Brahms believed he had produced a work that lived up to the standards set by Beethoven. The body of the symphony is in many ways a tribute to Beethoven, and listeners can hear echoes of “Ode to Joy,” “Overture to Egmont” and even Beethoven’s Ninth in the various motifs that Brahms employs. However, in the finale, Brahms comes into his own with a triumphant trombone and horn chorale.

The Seattle Symphony performed each of these works with the masterful artistic sensitivity that was demanded, allowing the listener to traverse the realms of darkness, light and the shadows in between with Beethoven, Anderson and Brahms.

*Fun fact: I learned on NPR’s “Performance Today” that Ludwig van Beethoven translates literally into Ludwig of the beet fields.

**Background information on Beethoven, Anderson and Brahms from concert talks and Paul Schiavo’s program notes.

“The unimagined life is not worth living.” Such is the premise of the Artists Repertory Theatre’s production of David Ives’ “translaptation” of Pierre Corneille’s “The Liar.”

Set in colorful Cavalier period Paris, and in verse, this highly imaginative work tells the story of Dorante, a compulsive (yet not all that competent) liar who has come to the city for the purpose of finding a wife. Upon his arrival, he meets a man named Clinton who, in desperate need of employment is auctioning himself off to the highest bidder. After Clinton reveals that he cannot tell a lie, Dorante takes him on as a servant and guide to the city.

Through a chance encounter, Dorante and Clinton meet two women of society, Clarice and Lucrece, and Lucrece’s maid Isabelle. Upon setting eyes on Clarice, Dorante is immediately smitten and convinced that he can win her hand; there’s just one catch, well two actually—she’s betrothed to his friend Alcippe and Dorante thinks that her name is in fact Lucrece. Clinton meanwhile has fallen for Isabelle, who unbeknownst to him has a twin sister named Sabine.

Cleverly orchestrated chaos in the form of secret meetings, an imaginary duel, love notes received by unintended recipients, arranged marriages and so forth ensue as the mistaken identities and Dorante’s faulty (yet inventive) memory cause his strings of lies to turn into an mangled web. Eventually the truth surfaces in a big reveal and all is untangled and set right in a conclusion that is “all a lie and yet the truth.”

What is most impressive about the piece is how it manages to work on so many different levels. Those familiar with the style and other works of that time are treated to allusions to Macbeth (“All the world’s a lie, and all the men and women merely liars”), Hamlet (“trippingly on the tongue”) Moliere (The Imaginary Invalid), and there is even a reference to Socrates (“The unimagined life is not worth living”). There are also several groan-worthy rhymes thrown in for good measure such as “you may be a bivalve, but you’re my valve.”

Although the play is in many ways an inversion of “The Comedy of Errors” in that it shares a similar plot structure and quite a few parallels with the character conflicts, the modernized pentameter and ingenious use of half-rhymes is such that audiences, regardless of their familiarity with Shakespearean language, will find the piece laugh-till-you-cry entertaining.

When the words “Frank” and “Washington, D.C.” are used in the same sentence, what likely comes to mind is House of Cards’ powerhouse of political corruption, greed and unchecked ambition manifest in a sophisticated southern drawl. This past weekend, however, a very different Frank captivated audiences at the National Symphony Orchestra Pops performances of “Let’s Be Frank: The Songs of Frank Sinatra.”

Under the baton of conductor Steven Reineke, the NSO and soloists Tony DeSare, Storm Large, Frankie Moreno and Ryan Silverman transported audiences back to a time when it was Frank Sinatra, and not the fictitious Frank Underwood, who had “the world on a string.”

The orchestra set the tone for the concert with an infectiously energetic instrumental arrangement of the theme from “New York, New York.” The evening continued with such classic favorites as  “It Had to Be You,” “That’s Life,” “Night and Day,” “My Funny Valentine,” “Something’s Gotta Give,” “The Best Is Yet to Come,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die,” “Moonlight Becomes You,” “The Birth of the Blues,” “Mack the Knife,” “I have Dreamed,” “One For My Baby (and One More for the Road),” “All of Me,” “Just in Time,” “Somethin’ Stupid“ and “My Way,” concluding with an encore medley of several Sinatra favorites.

Each of the four soloists embodied a different aspect of Sinatra’s persona. Frankie Moreno, the Las Vegas headliner, brought out the electrifying entertainer, filling the entire concert hall with his unamplified vocals, and even breaking out the harmonica for an unbelievable virtuosic solo during his rendition of “That’s Life.”

Singer and composer Tony DeSare exuded confident and cool New York essence in both his demeanor and the audible smile in his vocal stylings. His ability to perfectly capture the lilt in Sinatra’s voice in his piano duet of “All of Me” with Moreno demonstrated a tremendous amount of artistry.

Storm Large possessed a punk-rock flavored sensual quality that harkened back to such classic knock-outs as Rosemary Clooney—and a voice to match. The range and sensitivity in her interpretation of “My Way” at the concert’s close was absolutely breathtaking.

Broadway’s Ryan Silverman encapsulated the many facets of Sinatra’s personality; mischievous and playful at one moment, all elegance at the next. His stunning deep baritone in “Moonlight Becomes You” towards the close of the first portion of the program sent me into the intermission with chills.

There’s always a danger when doing a tribute concert to a musical icon of Sinatra’s stature of simply emulating the style without adding anything new, and consequently falling short. “Let’s Be Frank” managed to sidestep this issue completely by reimagining and reinventing, yet staying true to Sinatra’s “scrumptious” sound.

The meaning behind Tennessee Williams’ words is taking a new form in the Scottish Ballet’s version of the classic Southern drama, “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

The ballet, which was recently performed at the Spoleto Festival, gave a dramatically different spin on the piece, particularly with the character of Blanche.

In past productions on both the stage and screen, Blanche has had a tendency to come off as an unsympathetic character who is, for the most part, a snobbish, compulsive liar with self-destructive tendencies who has little regard for those around her.

However, in the ballet version of “Streetcar,” under the direction of Nancy Meckler and choreography by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, the audience has the opportunity to better understand where Blanche is coming from and why she acts and reacts in the manner that she does.

Blanche’s imbalance and instability that she suffers from is illuminated through the use of various pas de trois pieces featuring Blanche and male representations of her alcoholism and initial promiscuity.

The audience experiences just how emotionally fragile her psychological state is as she haunted by the sudden appearance of the apparition of her dead husband at any given moment, culminating in some instances in the terrible, echoing sound of his suicide.

Blanche, through her fluttering movements, becomes moth-like; drawn to several different flames and paper moons, false notions of reality and make believe, until she is at last consumed by her past and unable to live a normal life in the present or future.

In addition to the insight into Blanche’s character, all of the production elements of the ballet from the minimalist set and costumes, to the almost symbolic treatment of light and exposure, came together to surround the audience with an inventive and imaginative production that was both visually and musically stunning.

Each partnering sequence was seamless and fluid, almost as if the dancers were extensions of one another. The pas de deux between Alan and his lover was especially striking as it escalated into a pas de trois with the addition of Blanche in her blissful and determined ignorance of her marital situation as she tried to ignore the pull of the other partner.

The use of crates as transitional and transformative set pieces was# particularly clever, and allowed for the #symbolic crumbling down of Blanche’s family estate, which had served as the backdrop for the beginning of the production, into ruin.

Peter Salem’s incorporations of spoken word and silence into the score served as devices to further enhance the impact of the key moments, such as Stanley’s iconic “Stella!” scream and Alan’s suicide. His layering of “Paper Moon” and the echoes of the flower peddlers’ cries of “flores para los muertos” in the final scene was chillingly brilliant and perfectly encapsulated the inescapable presence of death in both Blanche’s reality and fantasy.

By translating Williams’ text into movement, only the raw emotions remained, allowing the subtext to shine through and give the audience the opportunity to see behind, and actually want to believe in, Blanche’s paper moon.