CND2 Good but Not Great at Jacob's Pillow
Nacho Duato Might Have Left the Program in Its Original Order.
By: Adrian Hill - Jul 31, 2010
Spain is on a roll lately.
They just won the World Cup for the first time.
Rafael Nadal has a few more Grand Slam trophies on his shelf this year.
Alberto Contador squeaked out another Tour de France win.
And on stage, few dance companies are as consistently good as Compania Nacional de Danza, better known as CND. If you ever do have a chance to see CND in Madrid, leap at it. There’s a reason why they’re the national dance company of Spain, as the name states. They’re hands down the best dance company in Spain. And they have one of the world’s great choreographers, Nacho Duato, as its artistic director.
This week, the dance company’s second group, CND2, returned to Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket. And if you think CND2 is a second-tier dance group, think again. Year after year, CND2 has presented one outstanding performance after another at theaters around the world.
But even the best sometimes are not always perfect. Maybe my expectations were too high given some of their past performances. But CND2’s show this week at Jacob’s Pillow was very good but not perfect from start to finish. The group performed three pieces. One was amazing, another was very good, but the third was all over the place.
And worst of all, the show might have been fantastic if Duato had not decided to tinker with the order of the program at the last minute. Originally, the show was supposed to begin with “Insected,” followed by “Kol Nidre” and “Gnawa.” Instead, Duato switched the order around and began with “Gnawa,” followed by “Insected” and “Kol Nidre.”
Big mistake.
The best piece of the night hands down was “Gnawa.” Created by Duato in 2005, this lush, sweeping work evokes the music and passion of Southern Spain and Northern Africa. I literally felt my spine tingle several times watching the men and women dance in rapture around the stage. The men mostly danced just wearing long pants and no shirt. But it was the black-haired women in long, following black dresses (except for one mysterious woman) who set the stage on fire. I could have watched the dancers dance “Gnawa” for the entire show and been perfectly satisfied.
But instead of finishing with this piece and sending the crowd out on a high note, Duato outsmarted himself and led with his best piece. He clearly doesn’t know anything about baseball. Never, ever, ever lead off with your best hitter. Always save the best for last. Or at least third or fourth in the order.
What came next was “Insected,” an incomprehensible, mish mash put together by choreographer Tony Fabre. As the title of the piece suggests, the dancers were meant to evoke insects at times as they scurried around the stage. But what the women wearing tall white paper hats on their heads were doing on stage was beyond me. There were definitely good ideas and brief flashes of inventiveness on stage. But “Insected” sadly lacked focus and seemed to be all over the place. And since it came right after “Gnawa,” the glaring deficiencies in “Insected” seemed even more pronounced. That’s why Duato should have stuck with his original arrangement and started the night off with “Insected.” If he had, he just might have been able to get away with getting the crowd into “Insected.”
The last piece, “Kol Nidre,” another Duato creation, is not a show stopper like “Gnawa.” But the work reminds people why Duato remains one of the best choreographers working today. Duato has that rare gift of being able to present abstract ideas on stage without giving too much away. This subtle, serious piece deals with the affects of war on children, the program explains. But you didn’t need to read the program to know that. In just a few simple flourishes and stage props (several sand bags, a white tower made of clear cloth) you knew what Duato was trying to get at in “Kol Nidre.”
If “Kol Nidre” had come before “Gnawa,” I probably would have been more intrigued and drawn back into the show after sitting through “Insected.” Instead, I felt a little let down. It’s like starting dinner with a sumptuous soufflé, followed by a strange soup and then a great - but not classic – main dish. All I kept thinking about was the first course and how I wished all the other offerings had been as equally amazing.