In Defense of Donald Byrd's Recent Offering for PNB

 It feels a little strange for me to come to the defense of Donald Byrd, a nationally known ballet and dance choreographer based here in Seattle whose work I have tried to like in years past without much success.

But I did enjoy a recent piece he did for Pacific Northwest Ballet called "And the sky is not cloudy all day" that was dismissed for a couple of reasons by Brian Sibert in an April 2, 2021 review published in the New York Times. 

I wasn't originally going to write about this, but PNB recently announced that one upside of its 2020/2021 all-digital season was that the programming attracted ticket purchasers in over 30 foreign countries as well as in all 50 U.S. states.  As a result, the company's forthcoming season will continue to be offered digitally at the same time PNB resumes performances before live audiences.

"And the sky is not cloudy all day" are well-known lyrics from a song called "Home on the Range" that was most famously sung by Roy Rodgers, known as king of the cowboys.  Byrd, recalling his boyhood dreams of being a cowboy, said he choreographed the piece to Aaron Copeland-sounding music by John Adams by way of nostalgia.

Danced by six men dressed in cowboy attire right down to their boots, the piece "presents a picture of something that existed only in my boyhood imagination," Byrd explained in the program notes. "It is like the 'dream ballet' in a Broadway musical. It steps out of time and reality to present a vision free of harshness, where the bloody narrative of the massacre of the Native people is not there."

Sibert, in his review, beat up on the piece for two reasons. First, he called it "not much of an idea" that came across as sluggish and sloppy "compounded by the way boots blunt ballet footwork."  In contrast, I found Byrd's choreography for men in boots surprisingly convincing from a balletic point of view. 

Secondly, Sibert, who is white, raked Byrd, who is Black, over the coals for being insufficiently woke, calling the ballet disappointing from a choreographer "who can usually be counted on for a strong point of view, especially on matters of history and race."

Seattle performing arts companies, especially in the wake of Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd atrocity, have been falling all over themselves to both include more people of color in their programming and to be more attentive to various long-standing grievances of American minorities. In that context, Byrd's choice of subject matter may have come as a bit of a shock to PNB artistic director Peter Boal who felt compelled to put the following in his program notes to "And the sky is not cloudy ...":

"Tragically the dream of one group resulted in the conquest and genocide of another. As we grapple with our failures as a nation of many people -- some privileged and included, and some persecuted and excluded -- we also look for strands of hope, inspiration, and even dreams." (The boldface emphasis there is that of Mr. Boal.)

While art over the ages has from time to time had a sociopolitical focus, that has not always been the case and it need not be always the case at present. Aesthetics, which has to do with beauty and good taste, has long been the principle domain of art and there is no reason individual works of art can't continue to reside therein. Because Byrd has choreographed one particular dance that is fundamentally aesthetic in nature does not at all mean that he is insufficiently attuned to social justice concerns. 

Once released, a work of art can stand on it's own terms, can make it's own statement, independent of prevailing social currents. "And the sky is not cloudy .,," is in no respect flawed because it apparently fails to take into consideration conquest, genocide, privilege, exclusion, etc. etc.

One can criticize it on other grounds and despite the fact I liked the piece, it could have been better. In my obviously insufficiently woke opinion, Bryd came up a bit short not on grounds of Political Correctness, but rather because he fell short on character development.  His cowboys needed to get beyond being just "a type."

Early in the pandemic, I watched a video offered by the American Ballet Theater in which former ABT soloist Sascha Radetsky taught his wife, former ABT principal dancer Stella Abrera, how to dance one of the three sailors in Jerome Robbins iconic ballet "Fancy Free," choreography that Robbins also used for the Broadway Musical "On the Town."  Both are about the antics of girl-chasing sailors on a very brief shore leave in New York city.

While Robbins' characters were most definitely "a type," he was careful through a host of often small variations in choreography to make sure they came across as three distinct individuals as well,

That's where Byrd came up short, but there is no reason he can't improve his piece for future performances -- if there are any. I think it has great possibilities.

The Literature of Olivia Rodrigo's "Sour" & Elena Ferrante

This is another post in which I look at the lyrics of popular songs from a literary point of view. It deals with a recent, very popular album called “Sour,” written and sung by Olivia Rodrigo, that consists of a number of closely linked songs akin to the chapters of a book.

The point of view is first person singular and genre is essentially “chic lit,” the topics being mainly those that would resonate with women in the teenage to Young Adult age spectrum. Despite certain shortcomings, I think it is a very commendable effort and perhaps even more so if one listens to the music, which I didn’t.

The topic is all too familiar: a girl has lost her boyfriend to another girl and in that context, it is interesting to compare it to the approaches taken by both Taylor Swift, who dealt with a similar  situation by way of three songs on her recent “Folklore” album, and with Elena Ferrante, author of a number of books, most famously four novels known as the Neapolitan Quartet.

Let's take Ferrante first because Rodrigo's effort is all about a young woman who has been abandoned by her boyfriend and that is a recurring theme throughout Ferrante's writing. Indeed, one of her novels is entitled "The Days of Abandonment" and asked whether it was feminist in nature, Ferrante replied:

"Yes, because it's sustained by the female reaction to abandonment, from Medea and Dido on. No, because it doesn't aim at telling what is the theoretically and practically correct reaction of the contemporary woman faced with the loss of the beloved man nor does it brand male behaviors as vile."

That's a comment one should keep firmly in mind when considering "Sour."

Shifting gears, Taylor Swift, who Rodrigo has said she greatly admires, tried to get to the heart of her breakup story by looking at what happened through the differing points of view of the three protagonists whereas Rodrigo sticks to just that of the abandoned woman. But in my view, Swift failed to take good advantage of her technique.

Both Swift and Rodrigo seem to have difficulty fleshing out the character of a man and that's one of the reasons their lyrics are chic-lit in nature. In both instances, their men are one-dimensional – akin to cardboard cutouts -- and it’s hard to see why the women who lost them found them attractive in the first place. They are simply foils for the expression of female emotions ranging from love to hate plus much in between, which is probably nothing new when it comes to songwriting. But as literature, it can be a major shortcoming.

In any event, “Sour,” like a good opera, opens in media res with our 17-year-old songwriter heroine – why not call her Olivia? -- proclaiming insecurity and wallowing in self-pity.

“I’m not cool and I’m not smart and I can’t even parallel park,” she moans, declaring her ego to be in such a crushed state that she wishes she could disappear.

 Life is brutal thanks to a traitor -- a boyfriend who has just left her for another girl. She’s a loser (this will be of considerable significance in due course) and that’s tough apart from lost love, or perhaps lost late adolescent infatuation. In short, she's been abandoned and as a result, is left feeling both highly vulnerable and in her view, justifiably angry.

The young man’s departure was apparently not all that unexpected. As the story proceeds, it becomes increasingly clear that he meant a lot more to Olivia than she did to him, but Olivia has trouble believing that and accepting the idea that what a person says can easily be situational as opposed to valid for all time.

A major reason she can’t accept what has happened is because she consistently failed to be true to herself throughout the relationship.

“I kept quiet so I could keep you,” she says. Winning is apparently what it was all about.

While her boyfriend was clearly no great prize -- “loved you at your worst, but that didn’t matter” -- she wasn’t either.

The young man in question has taken up with an older girl (even a couple of years can seem significant when one is 17) who is more sophisticated and more comfortable in her own skin than is our heroine.

“She’s everything I’m insecure about,” Olivia bleats.

And to make matters worse, the new girl – no need to give her a name because she’s essentially a trope – has blonde hair. Life is unfair, Olivia eventually comes to understand -- to her credit.

As a budding teenage songwriter, Olivia finds comfort in the power and validity of music. As such she can’t believe her former boyfriend can actually get along without her because of what he said in a certain song he wrote. Surely a song is where truth lies.

But with such thoughts predictably going nowhere, Olivia turns to more prosaic matters, revolving around a teenage rite of passage – a driver’s license.

Despite her inability to parallel park, she somehow managed to get one just the previous week. This was at the urging of her boyfriend who had wanted her to be able to drive over to his place as opposed to him having to spend time picking her up.

“I know we weren’t perfect,” she admits, which is undoubtedly an understatement.

Moving on is necessary, but not easy. At times, Olivia feels she is taking 1 step forward only to then take not just the usual two, but 3 steps back.

Much of this has to do with her acquiesce to subservient status in a relationship within which she felt “pretty” or “fun” only if her boyfriend told her such was the case.

“I hate that I gave you power over that kind of stuff,” she complains, without much justification. After all, as she says, she was the one who set things up in that fashion.

But then the story gets murky as self-abasement rears its ugly head.

Maybe, she says, she found it exciting to never really know how her boyfriend was going to treat her next: love her, want her, hate her, walk her to her door, send her home crying?

“The roller coaster is all I’ve ever had,” she tells us, the word “ever” suggesting her recent failed relationship may be just the proverbial tip of an iceberg.

In fact, Olivia may well be in therapy (she has told us nothing about her background) and perhaps that’s how she was able to find a therapist for her boyfriend, who she sees as having  benefitted from such help – far more than she herself has, it appears.  Olivia still believes she has to make herself into someone she isn’t.

Her former boyfriend is looking happy and healthy since he left her and is even a better man for his current girl. He has purchased a new car and his career is taking off, leaving her crying on her bathroom floor, his apathy salt in her wounds.

Good 4 u she thinks (tweets?), with sarcasm rather more hopeful than genuine.

Then Olivia steers off in a different direction. Perhaps it was fortunate her boyfriend dumped her, she decides to believe, depicting him as damaged goods. His new relationship isn’t so great. Rather, (pardon Olivia’s French) it’s déjà vu.

While the blonde boasts to her friends the young man is “unique,” Olivia sees his prevailing behavior (which she seems to know a lot about), as just a replay of the things he did with her.

Like trading jackets, or recycling jokes Olivia told him, or enjoying a particular Billy Joel song with his new girl, like they did.

“When are you going to tell her we did that, too?”

To his credit – although perhaps unfortunately for others – the young man remains true to himself, a characteristic Olivia finds infuriating.

While he made no concessions, she eviscerated her true self in an effort to become the person she thought he wanted. This, by the way, could be straight out of "Days of Abandonment" and Ferrante's depiction of her heroine, Olga.

Rodrigo's heroine wore makeup because she thought her boyfriend liked the Prom Queen look. She learned how he wanted his coffee and memorized his favorite songs. She read his self-help books so he would think she was smart.

“All I ever wanted was to be enough for you.” (Such was the case with respect to Olga as well.)

But the remake didn’t work (Olivia failed to become "exciting") and is left feeling “I just want myself back.”

Time goes by – it’s now a month later – and Olivia is somewhat more reconciled to the loss of  “all the sunlight of our past.”

The young man’s current girl friend is sweet and pretty and apparently also able to bring out the better in him, but perhaps to an insufficient degree. Olivia believes he is lying to her as well.

She can't give up the notion she and the young man had really been happy together before it all unraveled and, with a certain degree of noblesse oblige, even expresses hope he’s happy with the new girl, as long as he isn’t happier. In other words, Olivia still isn’t willing to admit defeat. She was the real thing; he just hasn’t figured it out. She isn't a loser!

But wait a minute: there's at least one more possibility. Perhaps society is to blame. What a concept!

Girls are pushed into presenting themselves with perfect bodies and white teeth and there they all are, out on social media, looking too good to be true.

Olivia, fixated with having failed to measure up, wants to throw away the phone upon which she views the competition – Instagram or wherever.

“I know their beauty is not my lack, but it feels like that weight is on my back.” 

She so desperately wants to be like such girls: happier, prettier, jealously, jealously. This is straight out of Edvard Munch. Olivia would fit right into "The Frieze of Life."

Well, those thoughts, too, are unproductive so it’s time for yet another tack. How about a notion of complicity?

Dumping her was her boyfriend’s favorite crime, she decides, but what if she was his accomplice? Only one person’s heart was broken, but “four hands bloody.” Knowing full well what he was capable of, she told lies and defended him to others “just so I could call you mine.”

That pretty much brings us to the end of the story, except that, like a good, old-fashioned tale, it has a moral to it.

Olivia has become a better person as a result of her misfortune in the sense that she is now able to see less fortunate members of society – a somewhat dorky boy she once knew and a lonely girl struggling to get away from dreadful parents – in a new light.

The aren’t the losers she probably once thought they were when she was riding high. They simply were unlucky – they got a bad deal of the cards of life when they were born as she herself did if for a girl, looks, and especially blonde hair, are pretty much everything.

She hopes the boy somehow converted his lousy hand into a royal flush and she decides the girl is commendably courageous in her attempt to “unlearn all their hatred.”

Nothing is forever, nothing is as good as it once might have appeared, and every door is hard to close. Those are Olivia’s closing thoughts as she realizes her setback was nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary in the grand sweep of things. She’s learned the value of empathy and compassion. A life worth living is not “all about me.”

Her teenage Dream was just that and her boyfriend’s behavior was not all that bad.

“We don’t talk much, but I just gotta say. I miss you and I hope you’re ok.”

Like Ferrante, Rodrigo does not ultimately brand male behavior as vile.

The ending saves it and as a result, I'd give this one a B+.