On September 11, 2025 at the Hollywood Bowl, the flags flew at half mast, with an audience escaping the chaos of the moment to remember that day in September, 2001. A gentle breeze carried the sounds of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy setting the scene for Sergei Prokofiev’s dramatic, lyrical and powerful ballet version. The two pieces bookended Adolphus Hailstork’s Symphony No. 1. His music, elegant and melodic, traces his work back as a student of the great Nadia Boulanger. He is known for weaving a delightful potpourri of European and African American stylizations and musical ideas.
Dance Theatre of Harlem with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra – Photo by Elizabeth Asher.
The evening’s conductor was originally to be Jonathon Heyward, but his last-minute replacement, Franco-British conductor Stephanie Childress, was a compelling replacement. Childress brought to the orchestra a vitality and elegance indicative of her work as Principal Guest Conductor for Barcelona Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and L’Orchestre National Île-de-France among other noteworthy orchestras.
As the sun faded, the stage soon filled with the expansive Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Space was left down front for the large grey Marley dance floor. Thus creating location for the anticipated Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH), with the promise of the company’s brilliant past. The lyrical strains of Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture of Romeo and Juliet, sans dance, left the audience to their own visions.
Dance Theatre of Harlem with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra – Photo by Elizabeth Asher.
The next piece, Hailstork’s music evoked the possibility of numerous new dance ideas, but it was not to be. The male and female dancers entered dressed in white and sky blue, eager, strong, and capable. Robert Garland, the new Artistic Director and choreographer seemed not to rise to the level of the music. His designs leaned heavily on stock leaps, turns, and poses, leaving the dancers pushing and overcompensating for what the work itself lacked.
Then after long interludes of Prokofiev’s most iconic passages of Romeo and Juliet, (Dance of the Nights, balcony scene…) and onto young Juliet’s agonizing theme, as she is forced to choose between marriage to other than Romeo, VS death—three ballerinas skipped across stage on point in a single line, almost as though the choreography had been pre-packaged for another piece of music. A lighthearted “ditty” seemed utterly at odds with the heart wrenching music. Then a singular male, resplendent in a white romantic silk shirt and blue tights, was quite capable but disconnected from his female counterparts. Except for offerings of brief lifts and assisted pirouettes, there was no relationship between any of them. There was much posing, then as the group ran and leaped off, before their total exit, the three women stopped to do a cute shrug, quite inappropriate against Tybalt and Mercutio’s deadly sword fight.
Dance Theatre of Harlem with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra – Photo by Elizabeth Asher.
During the evening, the staging grew more problematic. The solemnity of the bier scene, with Prokofiev’s tragic music soaring with devastating power—four couples flitted and posed, their choreography bore no connection to the musical moment of the tragic death of the lovers. Male dancers did grand leaps across the stage, though physically impressive, rang hollow and reason-less against the weight of the music. The mismatch was jarring, so much so that one longed to close one’s eyes and simply listen and imagine the story told in the music.
Then, out of nowhere and for no reason, a ballerina and her Cavalier…ran on and to the heart wrenching music of the last interlude, came a big kick and dip with a final promenade in penché (leg in arabesque split) which seemed to add inappropriateness to injury. It was worlds apart from the art of the classic piece with nary a clever new idea or reworking. Instead of inhabiting the music, the choreography trivialized it…a true disappointment of the evening.
Dance Theatre of Harlem with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra – Photo by Elizabeth Asher.
It is unclear how this once spectacular company so defied their own historical gifts and the help of Prokofiev. It appeared a nonsensical defiance …that for some reason tried to make this classic a “walk in the park.” This night absolutely ignored the musical transcendence of some of the great ballet music ever written. It did not bode well for the once brilliant Dance Theatre of Harlem’s exceptional past. Remembering their thrilling Firebird, danced by the magnificent Stephanie Dabney in John Tara’s production, and Virginia Johnson’s vulnerable innocence and masterly Giselle.
DTH was unchallenged and not many companies ever came close. So as much as one wanted to be happy that DTH was back, it was a disappointment that can only be corrected by the hard work of artistry, inner reflection and respect for its own legacy,
Dance Theatre of Harlem with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra – Photo by Elizabeth Asher.
Dancers: Derek Brockington, Micah Bullard, Alexandra Hutchinson, Ingrid Silva, Delaney Washington, Ariana Dickerson, Carly Greene, Alexandra Rene Jones, Kamala Saara, Kouadio Davis, Kira Robinson, Ethan Wilson, Michaela Martin-Mason, Sean Miller, Renan Cerdeiro, Lindsey Donnell, Jhaelin McQuay.
For more information about Dance Theatre of Harlem, please visit their website.
For more information about the Hollywood Bowl, please visit their website.
Written by Joanne DiVito for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: Dance Theatre of Harlem with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra – Photo by Elizabeth Asher.
Credit: Source link