ROB DAVIDSON
Nimbus Dance performs with New Jersey Symphony at NJPAC in Newark.
New Jersey Symphony paired ravishing sounds and energetic rhythms with two new choreographies by Nimbus Dance at its “The Firebird with Xian Zhang” concerts at NJPAC in Newark and The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, March 7-9.
The Jersey City-based contemporary dance company unveiled dances for Qasim Naqvi’s God Docks at Death Harbor and Igor Stravinsky’s Suite from The Firebird (although the Stravinsky choreography was not included in the March 8 Red Bank performance).
ROB DAVIDSON
New Jersey Symphony musicians play Caroline Shaw’s “Valencia.”
The concert — which also included J.S. Bach’s Prelude from Suite No. 2 in D minor, Caroline Shaw’s Valencia and Stravinsky’s Divertimento from The Fairy’s Kiss — explored metaphysical themes of life and death through the elements of fire and water, which fit squarely into the orchestra’s 2024-25 season theme of the natural world.
The March 9 performance at NJPAC that I attended coincided with the daylight saving time switch — suggesting spring, and longer days of sunlight ahead. Zhang captured these thematic and tonal feelings in the second half of the program with the Stravinsky ballet scores.
The music of Stravinsky, one of the most important composers of the 20th century, has a fully modern spirit that blends European musical traditions with his own Russian ones. The Fairy’s Kiss — a neoclassical ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ice Maiden” fairy tale that was played here in its revised 1949 version — was written as a tribute to his favorite Russian composer, Tchaikovsky. Stravinsky borrows melodic and thematic elements from Tchaikovsky’s lesser-known works, and gives the piece a modernist twist through unexpected tempos and rhythms.
In this spirit, Zhang pushed and pulled phrases with superb rubato; the usually smooth horns carried a bouncy pulse and the tread of the woodwinds had additional verve. Everything Stravinsky wrote was masterfully crafted and Zhang was attentive to every detail. The musicians rose to the work’s technical demands and explored Stravinsky’s verse with a stylistic sense of delicacy and lustrous tone.
ROB DAVIDSON
Xian Zhang conducts New Jersey Symphony in Stravinsky’s ‘The Firebird.”
While Zhang used a restrained hand in The Fairy’s Kiss, her approach to The Firebird was full-bodied and fearless, similar to her adventurous The Rite of Spring that concluded the 2022-23 season in which she tapped into the expressive language of Stravinsky’s Russian folk tunes through vivid shades and sparkling dynamics.
Nimbus Dance added effective and sensitive storytelling of Stravinsky’s first ballet score, which was premiered by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1910, and played here in its 1919 revision. Nimbus, led by artistic director and choreographer Samuel Pott, was commissioned by the Symphony for the two dances.
Pott spoke from the stage about his vision: a radical departure from The Firebird‘s traditional storyline (based on the Russian fairy tale), in which the title character, a magical half-woman/half-bird creature, is saved from an evil king by a handsome prince. The journey includes magic feathers, enchanted gardens and powerful spells. But Pott wanted to make the story relevant to today’s world while conjuring the mythic quality embedded in the music. So his updated version revolves around a contemporary family in turmoil. A young woman is trapped in an abusive living situation and the dance unfolds from her perspective, showing her inner and outer conflict as she fights to escape her family and find peace and liberation with The Firebird, personified as a young man robed in a mantle of feathers.
Yes, said Pott, this is an allusion to Icarus, the boy from Greek mythology whose father Daedalus built wings for them to escape the labyrinth of Crete.
Bathed in golden light, the young woman and The Firebird danced a compassionate pas de deux in the “Dance of the Princesses,” only to be shattered by the “Infernal Dance of King Kastchei,” in which her family reappeared under stark white light. Zhang unleashed the orchestra full throttle to reflect the young woman’s terror at her family’s cruelty. In the “Berceuse” section, with an extraordinarily tender bassoon solo from Robert Wagner, the young woman tried to salvage the memory of The Firebird through wisps of feathers he had left behind. Though the story departed from the classic narrative, it was poignant and absorbing all the same.
ROB DAVIDSON
Nimbus Dance performs its “Dark Water,” to accompany Qasim Naqvi’s “God Docks at Death Harbor.”
Also powerful was “Dark Water,” Nimbus’ new choreography to accompany Naqvi’s God Docks at Death Harbor, inspired by the vastness of water and the oceans. This piece marked the third and final installation of a decade-long collaboration between Nimbus and Naqvi, a Pakistani-American composer and drummer, that has explored human relationships to the natural world.
Ben Corrigan recently rearranged the short piece, which was originally composed in 2023, into a piano quintet that made its United States premiere here. Its compositional personality is made of gentle, ambient harmonies and drawn-out phrases. Dense piano chords sustained an anchoring basso continuo.
According to the composer’s notes, the title was inspired by a dream Naqvi’s wife had in which she imagined a future planet devoid of mankind. Despite the doomsday scenario, the message is hopeful that Earth can heal itself in the absence of mankind. Nimbus reminded us that water is the stuff of life by beginning and ending the dance with a video of a rippling sea projected onto a large panel of waterlike fabric (created by artist Nicola López), held by dancers in loose athleisure gear in aquatic tones.
ROB DAVIDSON
Nimbus Dance performs its “Dark Water,” to accompany Qasim Naqvi’s “God Docks at Death Harbor.”
Choreography created a sense of liquidity. Dancers, who represented ocean spirits and sea goddesses, moved in long, languid lines or, grouped together, swayed as if being pushed along by tides. Blue lighting helped to create the undersea setting.
Death was through metaphor: two dancers represented a couple that grew older as the piece progressed. Another example came during the poetic finale. As the music ended, a solo dancer continued to dance at the front of the stage. One by one, the five musicians (conducted by Gregory D. McDaniel at the back of the stage) extinguished their music stand lights until they were left in total darkness.
Shaw’s Valencia (2012) offered a zestier color palette. The chamber work (scored for a string quartet) took inspiration from the citrus fruit named after the Spanish city. As with Stravinsky, it is an energetic work that keeps you on your toes with unexpected shifts in rhythm and phrasing. Musicians gave it a citrusy bite with bright, acidic tones and a handful of coloristic effects played across the strings.
ROB DAVIDSON
Jonathan Spitz plays Bach’s Prelude from Suite No. 2 in D minor.
The simplest of all works was the prelude to Suite No. 2 (1720) from Bach’s Cello Suites, written for unaccompanied cello. The six Baroque suites became the cornerstone of the cello literature through the Spanish cellist Pablo Casals, who found the sheet music in a secondhand shop in the 1890s, and brought it to fame through his definitive recordings in the 1930s.
The Symphony turned the spotlight on Jonathan Spitz, its principal cellist since 1991. As it goes with most Baroque music, very few performance markings on the manuscript give musicians free rein with interpretations. A fully immersed Spitz played with warm sensitivity that paid close attention to Bach’s freely flowing lines.
This was not a romantic rhapsody or a spiritual exploration but rather a showcase of Bach’s simple yet inviting harmonies. Spitz made a safe bet, and the bet paid off.
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