Dwight Rhoden’s Ave Maria with Diana Yohe
As a retrospective of its 55-year history, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre (PBT) will perform five stunning classical and contemporary works in Spring Mix: 5 for 55 – including Dwight Rhoden’s intense and passionate Ave Maria. This Pas de Deux was originally created in 1995 as part of his ballet The Grapes of Wrath but was met with such acclaim that it has become one of Rhoden’s signature works and is regularly performed on its own. Set to Giulio Caccini’s beloved classical music of the same name, Ave Maria is innovative and athletic, characterized by deceptively complex lifts, jumps, slides and falls.
I was honored to perform this challenging work onstage in 2017. I’m delighted to share what it was like to dance this captivating piece.
The dance begins with the dancer standing upstage of their partner, close enough that when the first light shows a small circle over the center, you cannot be seen behind them. After the first few notes of the music play, I remember taking one deep breath together with my partner to start the performance because you have to be incredibly connected from beginning to end. Suddenly, you step out quickly from behind your partner and do three consecutive turns to développé a la seconde in what never feels like enough music but somehow always is… the rush becomes part of the musicality. From that moment on, you continue through a whirlwind of 4 minutes of movement and complex partnering, the only pause being a long, difficult balance.
Ave Maria, choreographed by Dwight Rhoden, has been performed on its own for years but is actually an excerpt from his ballet Grapes of Wrath, which premiered in 1995. I’ve done a few Dwight Rhoden pieces at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and his choreography always pushes the dancer into extreme positions while challenging you with fine details throughout. This pas de deux is a perfect example of stretching a position as far as you can while staying dynamic and true to the music. I was lucky to be coached by Dwight as well as stager Christina Johnson, who was in the original cast.
The partnering in Ave Maria is finely woven, and you are constantly speaking to your partner through touch and distance. I was in the absolute best hands dancing with Corey Bourbonniere, and while they made all the lifting and maneuvering look easy, it took coordination of movement and lots of fine-tuning to bring the beauty of this pas de deux to the stage. We were also fortunate to be very familiar partners when we learned this ballet together, and I think that kind of chemistry is essential for a piece where trust and awareness of one another is so integral.
Perhaps one of the most memorable moments in Ave Maria is the long balance done en pointe in a second position grand plié. There’s a moment before you arrive in the position where you guide your hands along the floor, and I was told to imagine I was preparing the ground. One of the most vital parts of that moment was finding a calm state of mind, which personally was like putting myself in a meditative state or a prayer. I would focus my gaze on a spot of the floor in front of me so that even when we got to the stage, the darkness and the lights wouldn’t throw off my balance. Visualizing myself floating in water or imagining that the air felt thick enough to support me from all sides would often help. Right when I thought I could not no longer hold the balance, Corey would come and sweep me off my feet for the final section of the piece.
One of my favorite attributes of certain ballets and pas de deuxs I’ve done in my ballet career is when they feel like a singular experience each time you dance it. Some ballets require so much awareness of what is going on throughout the entire run, that when you get to the end it feels like a pristine moment in time. This can even happen in rehearsal with certain special pieces. It usually comes at a point in the learning process where you’ve built the stamina to embody the movement completely, but it’s really the choreography itself that provides this feeling of absolute presence. In these particular ballets, there is no time to overthink what you are doing. You simply have to dance and afterwards think back to what could be improved. Ave Maria is definitely on the list of pas de deuxs that have felt this way for me. When performing, it feels like you and your partner are the only two people in the world.
The August Wilson African American Cultural Center provides the perfect venue for this pas de deux. The theater is intimate and the audience can really see the physicality of the dancers along with the intricate choreography that might get lost on a larger stage. I hope everyone who comes to the performance will experience what I felt when I danced Ave Maria, something deeper and bigger than themselves. The beauty of the movement and the music takes your breath away. When it’s over, I think Pittsburgh audiences will find that witnessing this touching pas de deux becomes a pristine moment in time they won’t likely forget.
Ave Maria is part of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s Spring Mix: 5 for 55, running at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center from April 4th to 6th.