Ballet BC receives rave reviews at U.S. dance festival

Ballet BC has impressed critics at one of America's most important contemporary dance festivals.

The Vancouver-based troupe kicked off the 83^rd edition of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival 2015, which presents over 50 dance companies from Canada, Cuba, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the U.S., from June 20 to August 30 in Becket, Massachusetts.

From June 24 to 28, the dance company performed William Forsythe's workwithinwork, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano's Consagracion, and Cayetano Soto's Twenty Eight Thousand Waves.

MassLive's Ken Ross heaped praise upon Ballet BC, situating them among the elite ranks of dance companies. Comparing them to the likes of the Joffrey Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theatre, no less, Ross commended the troupe's ability to pull off the monumental challenge of cohesively presenting different dances by different choreographers within the same performance.

"Each of the three pieces had a very distinct look and feel. And yet, the entire program felt as if it were created by a single choreographer," Ross wrote.

Tresca Weinstein of Times Union echoed this sentiment, impressed at how the works by three different choreographers "looked as if they could have come from a single mind".

She also expressed admiration for artistic director Emily Molnar's ability to foreground the dancers' technical execution.

"While repertory programs typically showcase multiple sides of a company, here artistic director Emily Molnar drew from the same palette of emotional and vibrational hues to focus attention on the troupe’s singular strength: the dancers’ breathtaking technique and clarity of line."

Similarly, over at The Boston Globe, Janine Parker noted that the "superb contemporary ballet company" that had last performed there in 2013, was "packed with charismatic dancers performing at full-strength".

At the Daily Gazette, Wendy Liberatore called it a strong and striking opening for the dance season.

"The dancing was amazing, and some sections were interesting, especially the solos by [Darren] Devaney where he twisted as if caught a windstorm," she stated. "Two dancers, Darren Devaney and Christoph von Riedemann, stood in the center of all the couplings — embracing in a deep kiss and tangling in a push and pull of limbs and torsos, astonishing for its speed and syncopation that matched the rough-hew of the compelling score."

Here's a brief clip of the performance to give you a taste of what the reviewers were in awe of: