Young Staten Island Ballet students brighten 'The Eternal Return'

By Michael J. Fressola

March 02, 2010, 6:20AM

 

The Staten Island Ballet has many gifted performers on the books this season, including Kristine Camane LaManno, Jacqui Dean, Laura DiOrio, KateLoh, Ksenia Belavina, Saki Masuda, Ariel Shepley, Jose Sebastian, Kerville Jack, Antonio Pio Fini and Edgar Ovando

.


STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Put kids on stage and they may block out anything else that's happening. But they didn't hog the attention last weekend at the College of Staten Island, at least not until the end of "The Eternal Return," the dark (but well-lit) piece that Staten Island Ballet director Ellen Rubich Tharp choreographed 15 years ago.

Before the company's students brightened the picture, the ballet is an uneasy boy-meets-girl story. Its central Eve-like character, embodied by the sinuous Anna Liceica, has two suitors, one from "society," and one who is not.

Plenty happens in the piece. There's a courtship, a brawl and a wedding. The best sections have Ms. Liceica, flexing a foot, arching her back or floating, seemingly, in mid-air.

The all-repertory program opened with "Women," for five dancers dressed in short, wrapped, colorful costumes. Their exotic arm-and-upper body voguing patterns gradually morph into real ballet steps.

With an irresistibly rousing Bollywood score by NewWorld, it gets over pretty well. The appealing dancers are musical and confident.

"Women," also choreographed by Ms. Tharp, has a bigger second section, but it wasn't included because rehearsals were snowed out last week. Saturday's curtain was delayed a half hour, while the company held a last-minute technical run-through.

"Gershwin in Hollywood," danced to a terrific, strictly instrumental Gershwin selection, is a parade of movie types, squired some of the time by Frank Dellapolland Vitali Krauchenka

Glamorous in black, Ursula Verduzco might have been Ava Gardner at the height of her power and Andrea Wachholtz, radiant in a marabou trimmed gown, could have been a young Bette Davis or even a twentysomething Tallulah Bankhead.

The ballet stays in the on-camera limelight of the era, where the music and the glamour is evergreen. The company has many gifted performers on the books this season, including Kristine Camane LaManno, Jacqui Dean, Laura DiOrio, KateLoh, Ksenia Belavina, Saki Masuda, Ariel Shepley, Jose Sebastian, Kerville Jack, Antonio Pio Fini and Edgar Ovando.

Longtime Island-based lighting designer Bob Elia did the glowing night sky of "The Eternal Return" and the other schemes.

Attracting boy students is the perennial challenge of ballet schools, although it may be easier today thanks to the fervent endorsement of "Billy Elliot." Staten Island Ballet, it was, good to see, had two boys on stage. Another 15 are enrolled at the school.