United States Salem, Ochoa, Doña Perón: Dancers of Ballet Hispánico / Ahmed Alon (conductor). Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, 14.7.2024. (JRo)

Manufacturing:
Composer – Peter Salem
Choreographer – Annabelle Lopez Ochoa
Creative collaborator – Nancy Meckler
Set, Lighting, Movies – Christopher Ash
Costumes – Mark Eric

Principal Dancers:
Eva ‘Evita’ Perón – Amanda del Valle
Juan Perón – Antonio Cangiano
Younger Evita – Laura Perich
Dad and mom and Baby – Omar Rivéra and Isabel Robles with Amanda Ostuni

Musicians: Hector del Curto (band chief/bandoneon), Ahmed Alon (piano), Brian Shankar Adler (percussion), Sami Merdinian (violin), Isabel Kwon (cello)

Ballet is rife with struggling heroines: Odette, Giselle, Nikiya and Juliet come instantly to thoughts. In modern ballet, choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa is drawn to the equally forlorn. For the Dutch Nationwide Ballet, she mounted the spectacular Frida, a portrayal of Frida Kahlo who lived with the painful aftermath of a horrific accident; and for Ballet Hispánico, Doña Perón, which traces the lifetime of Evita Perón who died of uterine most cancers on the age of 33.

Nevertheless, there’s a stark distinction between mounting a ballet of Frida Kahlo’s life verses Evita Perón’s. Kahlo was an artist who turned a lifetime of bodily ache into artwork in a sequence of exquisitely private work. Although Kahlo’s ache was featured in Ochoa’s ballet, it was seen by way of the lens of her transformative work.

In Doña Perón, Evita’s ache is repeatedly referenced within the choreography – Evita rounds her again, clutches her abdomen and grimaces – however it does little to lend which means to the work. It appears like a tool used to engender sympathy for the character – that by some means within the midst of fixed ache, she fought for the rights of the poor.

The opening of the ballet was promising – Evita was featured on a raised platform with a white, parachute-like gown fluttering round her. The ballet closed in the identical means – presumably to deify the character who achieved saintly standing in Argentina after her dying.

Nevertheless, the episodic nature of this bio-pic ballet’s construction confused quite than clarified the narrative because the story of her life unfolded. First there was Evita’s rejection as a baby by her father: searching for love, the kid Frida repeatedly jumped into his arms, solely to be thrown angrily to the ground repeatedly. This was adopted by her arrival within the huge metropolis the place she danced in a tango corridor with quite a lot of companions. Her standard radio reveals have been enacted, and she or he danced with a microphone in an excessively literal recreation of her time as a media character. Vamping across the stage in a simulation of Nineteen Fifties-style Hollywood glamour, the film star Evita was additionally introduced. When she lastly meets Juan Perón, pure dance takes over from the tedious narrative, and it was doable to get pleasure from dance with out cliché of their sequence of pas de deux all through the night.

Including to the confusion was the kid Evita who was launched within the early scene together with her father and interacted with the grownup Evita all through the ballet, typically comforted by the grownup, typically hidden or pushed away.

The music by Peter Salem, carried out dwell by a quintet of musicians, was harking back to Astor Piazzolla’s nuevo tango, fusing tango, jazz and classical. Salem added electronics with crowd noises and speeches, and the percussive addition of stamping toes as rendered by the corps de ballet portraying the Descamisados. Piazzolla’s instrument was the bandoneon, and Hector del Curto’s enjoying added immensely to the flavour of the ballet. Sadly, the music was overmiked and would have sounded extra genuine if the quantity had been toned down a bit.

Although much less unique than in Frida, Ochoa’s choreography for Doña Perón had a few of the similar qualities that made the previous memorable. Ochoa is ready to infuse motion with hints of conventional and standard dance with out sacrificing the scope of classical ballet. In a single occasion, a sideways bend and flick of the leg on the knee evoked tango and was adopted by a bluebird carry made well-known from Sleeping Magnificence.

Amanda del Valle was a convincing Evita, projecting power and fortitude which felt true to the character. Antonio Cangiano as Juan Perón proved to be the proper companion – their relationship because it unfolded appeared inevitable and their chemistry plain. Laura Perich because the youngster Evita, a sufferer of circumstance, endured the fraught relationships enacted on stage. Twelve dancers portrayed the Descamisados (the Shirtless) who shaped a vivid ensemble of the poor and disenfranchised of Argentina.

A good-looking set of floor-to-ceiling grey curtains and delicate lighting by Christopher Ash enhanced the manufacturing. The costumes, from navy garb to tango robes, have been designed by Mark Eric.

There have been contradictions within the political legacy of the Peróns, which a ballet bent on eulogizing Evita can not absolutely take care of. Juan Perón, although he strengthened the unions and acknowledged the wants of the Descamisados, was however a dictator who brutally silenced the opposition and reaped monetary rewards. It’s laborious in our politically fraught occasions to really feel absolutely snug overidentifying with the spouse of a dictator. Maybe, in spite of everything, that is the ultimate message of Doña Perón.

Jane Rosenberg