A bounty of bodies Festival Ballet’s dazzling ‘Up CLOSE, on HOPE’ BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

In the final program of this season’s "Up CLOSE, on HOPE" series at Festival Ballet Providence, eight choreographers are presenting eight pieces — five of them are premieres. What struck me from this widely varied presentation is how a dancer’s body type can fit the mood of a piece or how two bodies can work together to express something that wouldn’t be as effective if other dancers performed it.

For example, in ballet mistress Milica Bijelic’s restaging of Yuri Vamos’s choreography to the Rhapsody On a Theme of Paganini, Op.43, Eivar Martinez’s sturdy, muscular body and Heather O’Halloran’s wispy, delicate one seem matched to the ponderous chords and lighter woodwind runs of the music, respectively. Martinez’s jumps are always jaw-dropping for their height; here, a series of those leaps is followed by a chain of leg-whipping fouettés. That tremendous energy is sharply contrasted to the tender partnering between him and O’Halloran. At one point, Martinez holds her above him in the palm of one hand. As these dancers were cast for their differences, so Cameron Baldassarra seems to have chosen Elizabeth Jessee and Caitlin Novero for his debut duet, For Brian, for their similarity. Costumed in black shorts with one in a white top and black overshirt and the other in a black top with a white overshirt, they mirror each other in movement as well. They run in circles; they shove and pull; one falls into a classic push-up position and the other scoots perpendicularly under her, arches up, and dislodges her. That frantic, competitive edge slows a bit toward the close, and the duo end in a kind of friendly though still suspicious attitude.

In another premiere, "Be Free," Novero is the choreographer and Jessee the soloist, set to a piece of ’90s ambient techno music by Woob. Jessee is a precise and focussed dancer, and in her, Novero’s deft quick-time gestures find terrific expression.

In Little Girl Blue, built around three songs by Janis Joplin, Karla Kovatch’s long limbs and flowing hair accentuate Colleen Cavanaugh’s head-tossing, hip-swaying, arm-swinging choreography. The opening solo was seen in November’s program, with Cavanaugh translating Joplin’s full-throttle style into contemporary ballet. Kovatch pushes her hands through her hair and her arms along her torso, as she lets the blues slide down her spine in sinuous waves that flow all the way to her toe shoes. Two added sections complete the piece and bring in four more dancers (in great psychedelic tights), with a heart-wrenching trio as Kovatch careens between Baldassarra and Mark Harootian, while Joplin croons "One Good Man."

In a completely different vein, though still on toe, Kovatch joins Carolyn Dellinger (another long-limbed dancer) in Misha Djuric’s presentation of The Unexpected (1986), set to a sprightly Bach air. The two nod and smile and challenge each other to various turns and arabesques, all the while effecting coy postures: a shrug of the shoulders, a flourish of the hands. This playfulness turns serious when Harootian walks on and begins an intense courting of Kovatch in a pas de deux as memorable for its small, gentle moments (foreheads touching) as its large, dramatic ones (he catches her as she falls toward him on the floor).

Two pieces with larger casts are Viktor Plotnikov’s Elegant Souls (2004), with six dancers; and Mark Harootian’s Breaking the Limits, another premiere, with eight dancers. Harootian’s previous work has had a humorous undercurrent, and this work is more earnest, an exploration of forging relationships, woman to man, but also among men and among women. The women lean into each other, offering comfort; the men leap together, in camaraderie. But it is the urgent effort to be with each other that infuses the pas de deux between Martinez and Jennifer Ricci. She bends away from him as he holds her; he brushes the back of his hand along her face; eventually he picks her up on his shoulders. This is a totally enthralling piece.

As is Plotnikov’s, his work marked by unusual angles and surprising partnering. At one point Leticia Guerrero and Ricci twist under and around each other, as if in a puzzle. Guerrero and Gleb Lyamenkoff pair off for a moving duet, with beautiful lifts, one in which he holds her upside down.

The most stunning and theatrical piece of the evening is Piotr Ostaltsov’s Antonio and Wolfgang: The Little Tragedy, set to Mozart. Andrew Skeels and Ty Parmenter act out a scene between these composing rivals through Ostaltsov’s on-the-money choreography. Skeels, as Salieri, sweeps his hands back and forth in anguished self-loathing and frustration. He grabs at the air; he snaps his arms up and almost stomps his feet. Enter the chirpy Mozart, so well-presented by Parmenter. With steps that range from minuet to macarena, with grins and finger-wagging, with exuberant hops and twirls, he tries to coax Salieri from his gloom. But then the "little tragedy" occurs, as he drinks down a glass of poison Salieri had poured (for himself?).

Don’t miss this evocative evening of dance.

"UpCLOSE, on HOPE" will be presented on Saturday, March 19 at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday, March 20 at 6 p.m. at 825 Hope Street, Providence. Tickets are $30. Call (401) 353-1129.