[NEohioPAL]Berko review and commentary: POINT OF DEPARTURE

[Roy Berko]

Is Pointe of Departure the answer to the area’s ballet
void?

Roy Berko

(Member, Dance Critics Association)

--THE TIMES NEWSPAPERS--

Lorain County Times--Westlaker Times--Lakewood News
Times--Olmsted-Fairview Times


With the apparent demise of Ohio Ballet, the Cleveland
area is left without a major ballet company.  Yes,
there is Ohio Ballet Theatre, Denise Gula’s Oberlin
based group, but it mainly performs in Lorain County
and has no permanent company of dancers.  

A void exists.  Can that void be filled by Pointe of
Departure?

Pointe of Departure, which originated in 1998 as a
collaboration between Lev Polyakin, Karen Gabay and
Raymond Rodriguez, recently performed at Cain Park to
a fair-sized house.  The program notes state, “The
future of the company is to expand the length of the
season and to offer more performances throughout the
year.”  It can only be hoped that this is true.

Gabay and Rodriguez are best known as the wunderkinds
of the now-departed Cleveland-San Jose Ballet.  For
years, their local performances were met with critical
and public adulation  The duo still performs with the
company which now makes San Jose its home.  They are
getting rather old to continue to dance full time, and
their emotional fan base is in the Cleveland area, so
it is an obvious place for the duo to put down their
choreographic and teaching roots.

Making the company into a permanent resident company
will take lots of money.  With corporations abandoning
the local area, some of the financial fund raising
base is gone.  However, if the county commissioners’
proposed cigarette tax is enacted, and some local
donors, who gave heavily to the previous professional
company, can be convinced that this group will not
lavishly over spend, like the previous artistic
director did, then the purse strings may loosen.

Pointe of Departure, as it is presently constituted,
is not a world class, nor even a high-level dance
company.  Since it performs only sporadically, the
dancers  have little time to meld together.  This was
obvious in their Cain Park performance, where uneven
timing of corps movements was the general case.  In
addition, the professional dance level of the
performers is also questionable.  Yes, Gabay and
Rodriguez were superb, especially in their pas-de-deux
‘MOON REFLECTION OVER CRYSTAL SPRING,’ which got a
spontaneous and well-deserved screaming standing
ovation, but there was weakness among the others.

The women, especially lovely and sprightly Jim Zhang,
DeAnn Petrushke and Erena Ishii, were quite good; but
the males were generally weak.   Travis Walker, though
rather stone-faced, was the most consistent of the
gentlemen.  He performed some fine jumps, did a good
job of partnering and had an air of confidence. 
Jurijs Safanovs performed a competent Zorba-inspired
segment, but was awkward in other roles.  Peter Kozak
seems comfortable with the contemporary moves, but was
lacking in the classical segments.  Maximo Califano
was all affect, feigning hand movements and facial
expressions and doing a great deal of posing, but was
short on partnering skills and dance style.  

Karen Gabay has good choreographic instincts.  Her
‘HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD,’ though a little long, had many
highlight segments.  Rodriguez and Gabay’s ‘NAPOLI’
staging was innovative.

With strong modern and contemporary companies, such as
Verb Ballets, Groundworks and Inlet Dance that segment
of the local dance scene seems well covered.  It will
be interesting to see what develops on the classical
dance scene.  Hopefully, Pointe of Departure, or some
similar group, will come along and fill the void.  It
would be a shame that an area with such a strong arts
reputation should be lacking in this performance area.


Roy Berko's web page can be found at www.royberko.info.  His theatre and dance reviews appear on NeOHIOpal, an on-line source.   To subscribe to this free service via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.fredsternfeld.com/mailman/listinfo/neohiopal.

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