Ballet's Hot Choreographer Is from Austral

NEW YORK, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- A new and distinctive voice in ballet choreography is a 32-year-old Australian, Stanton Welch, who has just won the heart of America's ballet capital with an enchanting work for the American Ballet Theater.

Welch, who is resident choreographer of the Australian Ballet, has done commission work for the Houston Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet, but the plotless, 18-minute dance piece he created for ABT's annual fall season at New York City Center is probably his finest work to date.

Titled "Clear," it is set to J.S. Bach's Concerto for Violin and Oboe, a work Welch considers "masculine" in its essence. His ballet is predominantly male -- seven men and one woman -- to suit the music and because ABT is strong in male dancers at this particular time in its 61-year history.

"You don't always find this amount of wonderful men in a company, so it just kept playing in my mind that I had to find a way to use as many as possible and really have all of them dance," Welch, a slender, bearded man said in an interview. "I felt I could use men in every part of this score, even the adagio. Adagio male dancers are even rarer than good male dancers."

Welch asked to have Julie Kent, whom he admires, dance the only women's role at the ballet's world premiere, and the men chosen for the other roles were Angel Corella, the company's current hottest male dancer, Maxim Belotserkovsky, Marcelo Gomes, Herman Cornejo, Joaquin De Luz, Jerry Douglas, and Sascha Radetsky.

The introspective adagio for two men, who make no physical contact, was danced by Belotserkovsky, a Ukraine-born principal dancer, and Gomes, a Brazilian-born soloist, the former moving to the violin, the latter to the oboe as though they were one with the music. Belotserkovsky movements were echoed by Gomes, and then resolved with diverse movements in the manner of eloquent commentary.

Corella and Kent danced the leads, marvelously blending their individual approaches to the dance. The Spanish-born male star ignites the stage like fluid flame with exuberant leaps, jumps, and turns in bravura style. Kent fascinates with leaps and pirouettes that emphasize the long, stretching sweep of her technique. Their final duet ends the ballet with wonderfully intricate footwork that twines their bodies in repeated demonstrations of lyrical tenderness and sweet sexuality.

The ballet is essentially a series of duets, trios, and ensemble numbers that blend in an overall tapestry of movement against an all-black background and a stage floor of muted arabesque patterns. Michael Kors, designer for the fashion house of Celine, has created flesh-colored bellbottom matte jersey trousers for the cast. The men are bare-chested and the woman wears a midriff-exposing top.

Welch's talent for choreography would seem to be his exploration of a neoclassical style, a hybrid technique using classical movements while not being strictly classical.

It is a highly energized style that suits the contemporary dance idiom but still interprets the emotions implicit in the music or the drama of a work. In "Clear" he uses a lot of plowing gestures with arms extended, hands brought to the face or slapping the abdomen, and crouching positions with hands clenched.

Welch has ballet in his genes. His father and mother, Garth Welsh and Marilyn Jones, are former dancers and artistic directors of Australian ballet companies, and his brother, Damien Welch, dances with Netherlands Dance Theater. Stanton Welch didn't decide to study dance until he was 17, somewhat late for ballet, but was accepted by The Australian Ballet three years later.

He developed his bent for choreography while dancing as a soloist with the Australian company and received his first commission for a work in 1990. When his "Of Blessed Memory" was performed by the Australians in Europe, he was voted Best New Choreographer of 1992 by readers of the British magazine Dance and Dancers.

His work was first seen in the United States when The Australian Ballet toured with his "Divergence" in 1994. The following year, his most ambitious work, "Madame Butterfly" with music from Giacomo Puccini's opera, received its world premiere with The Australian Ballet, and he was appointed a resident choreographer. "Madame Butterfly" was performed in New York in 1999.

Commissions from the San Francisco Ballet ("Maninyas," "Taiko"), the Houston Ballet ("Indigo," "Bruiser"), the Atlanta Ballet ("The Garden of Mirth"), and the Cincinnati Ballet ("Finger Prints") followed. His ballets also have been performed in Singapore, Moscow, and Toronto. "Clear" is his first work for ABT.

Ethan Steifel and Gillian Murphy headed the cast in alternate performances of the work.