Choreography

The evening’s highlight for me was Brandon Ragland’s Rumination to Zoe Keating’s Exurgency. The compelling thrust of the music was beautifully complemented by Mr. Ragland’s multi-layered sequences for pairs of dancers (Albrechta, Corbitt Miller, Reinking O’Dell, Sellers, Forehand, Ichihashi, Krieger and Stokes) with intricate partnering and figures that tested the tension between forward energy and stasis. The deep red and black costuming contributed to the visual strength of this piece. Thursday night’s audience responded with a collective exhale as the ballet came to an end, attesting to the power of this eight-minute collaboration between choreographer and composer. Mr. Ragland also contributed Shostakovich to the evening with music, not surprisingly, by Dmitri Shostakovich. Working with a larger ensemble, Ragland’s choreography enters a more neoclassic style, demonstrating fluid transitions between the two principal pairs (Natalia Ashikhmina and Evgeni Dokoukine and Erica De La O and Kristopher Wojtera) and various combinations of the larger ensemble.