Our Journey: A Review
April 19, 2023 • Written by Lourdes Hernandez
Our Journey is a captivating and dynamic event! Consisting of two contemporary ballets, Everywhere We Go and La Mer, Our Journey is a rollercoaster of emotion. Justin Peck’s Everywhere We Go is a bright-tempered ensemble piece consisting of nine cohesive orchestral movements written by Sufjan Stevens. Filled with staccato arm movements and mirrored footwork, Everywhere We Go at its core a story of teamwork and perseverance. A cast of 25 dancers flit on and off the stage. Not as characters with individual motives, but as elements of a greater motive through each movement. There are gorgeous ups and downs, moments of pure joy and glimpses of despair. But it all happens as a wave of emotion the ensemble experiences with the audience. In a beautiful sequence reprised a couple times throughout the show, the ballerinas dance high upon their tiptoes in fifth position. One by one, dancers begin to sink to the ground. As one ballerina sinks, another rushes to catch them and lay them gently on the ground until the whole ensemble is resting on the ground. All of them are either a wilted flower, or a mourning friend. In another sequence, the dancers spin in small circles whirling around the stage with their hands together as they leap and contort synchronously. These electric movements create a kaleidoscope effect, where repetition evolves onto itself and creates layers of twisting parts and geometric patterns that are constantly shifting. Each movement encapsulates a different emotion. By using straight and sharp dances alongside big and bright clamorous music, and fluid gentle gestures during movements with somber piano.
Photo courtesy of The Australian Ballet. Christopher Rogers-Wilson, Dana Stephensen and Artists of The Australian Ballet In Justin Peck’s Everywhere We Go, 2022. Photo by Jeff Busby.
La Mer, on the other hand, is a ballet of terror. In its World Premiere at the Boston Ballet, La Mer is a shout into the void that will echo through the audience's skulls for years to come. The music is thick and foreboding. The scene is deep sea carving through porous rock. A most contemporary expression of the limits of human movement, La Mer pushes its dancers to become inhuman. Dim lights and flowing silk chiffon costumes enforce the idea that the audience is watching life unfold deep under the waves. Dancers in full black body suits twitch and squirm on the floor. A handful of dancers dressed in nude-toned leotards shake and stretch through their movements. Acting as if possessed, these nude dancers become vulnerable. Exposing their bodies in unusual ways, convulsing on the floor, and all but screaming in the dark! These dancers leave everything on stage.
A most extraordinary moment that could rival the greatest paintings of the chiaroscuro genre: a man dancing alone on stage in the dark finds himself drawn to a swinging white light lilting slowly from above. Slowly the white light falls upon him. The stage is completely dark. And all the audience knows is his wonder and his heavy breathing, as slowly this light is two inches from his face and highlighting all the muscles and crooks and curves of this creature. And it pushes him down. Pushes him down onto the ground, where there is awe and revelation. La Mer is stunning in more ways than one and could be considered a must-see for students of performance art.
