DANCE REVIEW : ABT Enters Twyla Tharp’s ‘Upper Room’

Two years ago, Twyla Tharp’s face peered out from one of those MasterCard “Master the Possibilities” ads, next to the statement (attributed to her): “Commitment brings substance to dance.”

That quote could also caption any photo of “In the Upper Room,” a large-scale work relying on commitment, versatility and stamina that Tharp choreographed for her company at about the same time. It, too, represented an advertisement of sorts: proof positive that she had mastered the possibilities of ballet as completely as modern dance--and that heavyweight, apocalyptic movement-theater fell well within her range.

American Ballet Theatre added “In the Upper Room” to its repertory Saturday evening at the Orange County Performing Arts Center--and this powerful, problematic creation looked nearly the same as it had when Tharp’s own troupe (now disbanded) danced it this April at UCLA.

To a titanic Philip Glass score (on tape), phalanxes of dancers once more emerged from clouds of smoke at the back of the stage into glaring light effects (by Jennifer Tipton) suggesting Madison Square Garden or an ancient gladiatorial arena. Squads of jogging, shadowboxing moderns (in sneakers) again kept alternating with the jumping, whirling shock troops of nouveau classicism (in ballet slippers) until some sort of inspired synthesis of forms felt inevitable. But fusion never came and the work seemed more than ever unfinished--or perhaps impossible to finish. (Do we really expect Twyla Tharp or any choreographer to make American dance whole?)

In the Tharp company performance at UCLA, modern dance and ballet proved evenly matched; in the ABT premiere on Saturday, the moderns couldn’t always compete, though Tharp veterans Kevin O’Day, Jamie Bishton and Daniel Sanchez led their forces with untiring skill and that unquenchable Tharpian commitment.

For involvement and exactitude, however, it would be hard to beat the performance of George Balanchine’s masterwork of quicksilver modernism, “Stravinsky Violin Concerto,” on Saturday night. In the sinewy first pas de deux, Leslie Browne and Ethan Brown (siblings, despite the extra e in her name) danced as if absorbed in some cryptic, high-stakes game--and who has ever seen the normally stoic Ross Stretton abandon himself to movement as passionately as he did in the more lyrical second pas de deux? But it was Amanda McKerrow, looking somehow fleshless and boneless, all spirit, who embodied the work’s amazing contrasts in mood, attack, rhythm and imagery through dancing of great urgency and superb control.

On the same program, Wes Chapman danced in Mikhail Fokine’s neo-romantic “Les Sylphides” for the first time--executing the solo carefully and bringing a suggestion of hopeless yearning to his encounters with the fleeting night spirits (Cheryl Yeager, Marianna Tcherkassky and Christine Dunham).

But the most newsworthy first performances on Saturday came at the matinee in Balanchine’s neoclassic “Ballet Imperial.” Here Andris Liepa (late of the Bolshoi) joined Cynthia Harvey in her return to ABT after two years in London with the Royal Ballet.

Though the moments of stillness often appeared vacant--not yet fully inhabited, much less interpreted--Harvey’s performance is clearly the one this production has been waiting for: regal, mature, effortlessly accomplished.

Liepa, however, made every lift seem a ghastly ordeal and projected florid grimaces of ecstasy at any woman who happened to dance in his direction. Yes, his solos had authority and even finesse most of the time, but he obviously needs more coaching before he’ll be stageworthy in this assignment.

Though she looked chunky in her oddly cut, strapless tutu, Deirdre Carberry danced with exceptional vivacity and sharpness of articulation in the second-ballerina role.

Mark Morris’ “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes” and Leonide Massine’s “Gaite Parisienne” (each previously reviewed) completed the matinee program. In the latter, Cheryl Yeager showed a new sophistication in her portrayal of the Glove Seller (though she hasn’t yet made all the feline mannerisms her own) and Guillaume Graffin proved a distinctively ardent, aristocratic Baron.

Jack Everly, Charles Barker and Emil de Cou shared conducting duties for the two programs and Lawrence Shapiro splendidly dispatched the solo passages of “Stravinsky Violin Concerto.”