The Spoletians are Coming!
Nina Ananiashvili dancing Giselle
SPRINGTIME in Charleston is as close to perfection as it gets, unless of course your allergies make you miserable, the tourist traffic throws you into a rage, or the Blue Angel’s air show leaves you with an earache. But for me it means that the Spoleto Arts Festival is right around the corner and, though I must hide my excitement from some locals who groan upon the inundation of artists and art lovers, I always look for the first signs of its arrival.
Spoleto is the time when I can attend a music, dance, or theatrical event at any hour of the day—and, on most days, more than one event. It is a time when my family straddles the fence of being miffed that I am away from the domestic realm and relieved that I have not dragged them along.
People ask me each year what they should see and how to navigate the array of choices between the main Festival and Piccolo Spoleto, the local, lower budget—though never lower quality—venue (and deserving of its own article). My first disclaimer is that, since opera is usually a good bet and the only way to experience Spoleto fully, they should see one, but I usually wait for people who know more about opera to recommend what to see (although Philemon and Baucis by the Colla Marionette Company looks pretty interesting to me).
The Colla Marionette Company: Philemon and Baucis
Otherwise, my pat answer is, “Go to one chamber music (even without Charles Wadsworth’s charming MCing, it will still be great), the play (The Gate always offers something stunning: this year it’s Present Laughter), and a dance event.” And for the latter, of course, I can elaborate:
Giselle
Considered one of the greatest ballerinas to dance the title role, Nina Ananiashvili leads her company, the National Ballet of Georgia (the Republic). After careers with the Bolshoi and ABT she is no stranger to the role of a prima, and she illustrates the epitome of Romantic style where women portray ethereal, weightless beings in dramatic, technically challenging choreography from the 1800s. This is for purists who feel best when appreciating the traditional form. Ms. Ananiashvili’s performance should not be missed by young or old. Gaillard Auditorium • Fri 6/11 7:00 PM • Sat 6/12 2:00 PM, 8:00 PM • Sun 6/13 2:00 PM • $10 – $85
Gallim Dance: I Can See Myself in your Pupil
Gallim Dance
I Can See Myself in your Pupil
The choice for those who can handle the cutting edge (you know who you are). This company has been described as “fiercely physical and possessing a delicious strangeness and coiled sensuality.” The excerpt that I saw was wonderfully wild, resembling an early 60s improvisation jam in downtown NYC. Under the direction of Andrea Miller, this company has exploded on the dance scene and been influenced by Ohad Naharin (a personal favorite). To me it is what Spoleto is all about—keeping us down here culturally current by showing what’s hot now. Memminger Auditorium • Fri 5/28 8:00 PM • Sat 5/29 2:00 PM, 8:00 PM • Mon 5/31 6:00 PM • $32
The “Trocks”
Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo. Virtuosic camp. This is for those who can be humored by outlandish wit at its most bizarre (i.e., ballet in drag). Full of significant performances and interpretations, this all-male company performs classical ballets and dances on both sides of the pas de deux. The “Trocks” as they are known channel great ballerinas and create names for their personas, like Olga Tchikaboumskaya and Ida Nevasayneva with performances of impeccable ballet repertory. It’s hilarious parody that’s downright impressive in its reverence to the art of ballet. Gaillard Auditorium • Fri 5/28 7:00 PM • Sat 5/29 8:00 PM • Sun 5/30 2:00 PM • $15 – $75
Lucinda Childs: Dance
Lucinda Childs: Dance
Thirty years ago this was one of the most innovative collaborations that post-modernism had seen, with music by the enigmatic Philip Glass. A veil of film covers the stage and dancers in a work written by Sol LeWitt and choreographed by Childs. Looping movements, sound, and images transport you surprisingly somewhere else, even when you are not sure how you got there. This is for those interested in how experimental art can unfold from yesterday’s to today’s sensibilities—I bet it will still resonate. Gaillard Auditorium • Fri 6/4 8:00 PM • Sat 6/5 8:00 PM • $10 – $55
Oyster
Escape to the fantasy of the Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company which blends theatre, movement, and the world of circus. Based on a short film by Tim Burton, it has been described as “vivid and quirky” with its inventive costumes and use of props. Strikingly strange, this is for the visually minded who need a little more theatrics with their dance. Memminger Auditorium • Thu 6/10 8:00 PM • Fri 6/11 8:00 PM • Sat 6/12 8:00 PM • Sun 6/13 2:00 PM • $32.
Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company: Oyster
I hope you’ll join me for updates, reviews, and musings on this great festival which begins May 26 and runs through June 13.
Buy Tickets
• Online at www.spoleto.org
• By phone at (843) 579-3100
• In person at the Gaillard Auditorium box office, 77 Calhoun St. (open 10–6)
What a lovely blog. Beautiful, insightful, and informative. Look forward to more.
You make me want to attend every one! They sound delicious!
Thank you for reminding me that Spoleto is around the corner …
Great work. I have already picked out the ones I want to see. Thanks.
Very informative and inviting. Thanks, too, for extolling the virtue of “home grown” as well as the nationally acclaimed.
A wonderful jolt from Eliza to get us ready for Spoleto.
Wish I was there.
Super synopses, thanks for whetting my festival appetite. I’m all for “coiled sensuality.”