With Don Quixote’s sleepy-eyed illusions, bumbling friend Sancho Panza, and punctilious valet, we journeyed from Barcelona to the countryside, danced with gypsies, sought true love, and tilted at windmills. In its 10th season, the steadfast and elegant Los Angeles Ballet impressed us with technical achievement, emotional expressivity, musicality, spirit and focus. The choreography was consistently strong, the performance often exquisite, and the storytelling focused. With choreography after Marius Petipa (1869) and Alexander Gorsky (1900), Colleen Neary and Thordal Christensen wove a lively evening of ballet story-telling through classical styling and mime that ranged from bold to delicate, darting to sustained, coquettish to macho, and sneaky to daring.
The lively townspeople engaged in lively seguidillas and fandangos in the marketplace and tavern, with dazzling figures, woven steps and leaps. Gypsies danced amidst the windmills performing backbends and shoulder shimmies and matadors performed lively dances with capes. The Los Angeles Ballet corps created another world for us. The principal dancers transported us, especially the dancing by Julia Cinquemani, who played Kitri, and her beloved Basilio, played by Kenta Shimizu. Cinquemani’s skill with sustainment, quickness, balance, turns, jumps, precision of timing with music and articulation of details in the body while expressing her emotions was most impressive. Her partner Shimizu performed beautifully executed barrel turns and showed gentle bravado and sensitivity. When partnering, they delivered equipoise of desire and support for each other. Their consistency with accuracy during powerful, direct, strong, fast movements balanced with their ability to engage whimsically with family, friends and suitors.
Supporting characters also resonated. Allyssa Bross was delightful as Mercedes, showing technical proficiency and lively spirit, and Dustin True was captivating and commanding in his small but exciting role as the solo male Gypsy. Surely he will be seen more in the future. Saxon Wood precisely transformed himself into Lorenzo, Kitri’s father, so well that I believed he was indeed much older than his years. Don Quixote, played by Adam Lüders, and Panza, played by David Renaud, were endearing with their misguided adventures and confused interactions each time they appeared. I felt their roles could have been made bolder, even campier, to balance the strong dancing throughout the evening.