SPRING: The Four Seasons

REVIEWS

BACHTRACK

“The finale, Trey McIntyre’s Spring, was wildly imaginative. At the start, technicolored dancers formed a tight cluster as they reached skyward toward a beaming light, their hands rapidly quivering like buzzing bee wings. The accompanying film portrayed bees pollinating flowers as a black air balloon floated over a valley, while a large, weighted black balloon drifted above the audience during pauses and intermission.

The dancers moved with determined, technical precision, embodying both pollinators and receptors themselves. In one sequence, a group formed a flower with a woman at its center shaped like a stigma; in another, three dancers held a woman upside down with her legs open, shaping a seed-like pod. Embodying both stamen and stigma, the dance teemed with sensuality and the potential of new life. As the music crescendoed, the dancers returned to their original cluster, arms extended eagerly with quivering hands as a burst of confetti rained down upon them.”

CRITICAL DANCE

“The evening’s final segment was Spring, choreographed by Trey McIntyre. Spring brought a brightness to the stage through the lighting and shift in costumes. The dancers were in short, brightly colored, monotone leotards encircled with swirling lines of other bright colors. The imagery was reminiscent of flowers about to burst into full bloom. McIntyre has described the miraculous inevitability of spring; the idea that no matter what we do, spring will come in a state of rebirth and growth that is beyond our control. The piece captured this sentiment perfectly.

Spring closes in an exclamation of movement and celebration. The dancers had stood tightly together, like buds awakening in the opening moments. Where their first movements had been rapid, simultaneous fluttering of their hands, they shifted into leaps, lifts, and extensions that encompassed the stage in its entirety. The sense of flourish and growth was palpable, and it was a truly beautiful note to end the evening on.”

THE BALLET HERALD

“There is something punk rock about Trey McIntyre’s “Spring” in the sense that it comes back resilient and renewed, year after year after year. The movement is fast, buoyant, large, and circular, not unlike a celebration.”