Stage Review: Vibrant performances from two dance companies

Courtesy Ballet Memphis

Kendall G. Britt Jr. as the Little Prince and Virginia Pilgrim as the Snake in Julia Adam's "The Little Prince," part of Ballet Memphis' "2BLoved."

It’s tempting to divide Memphis’ dance scene into two camps, Ballet Memphis and everyone else. Sure, there’s a level of precision that the full-time professional company can achieve in its sunlit studio out in Cordova, but that isn’t to say other groups aren’t equally concerned with quality.

Over the same weekend that the 25-year-old troupe premiered its program “2BLoved,” consisting of two ballets loosely joined by the theme of “love,” the scrappy modern dance company Project: Motion was also celebrating its 25th Anniversary with a program of six short works, new and old, that ran a gamut of styles.

One might assume that Project: Motion’s modern dance was the hardest program to digest, while Ballet Memphis’ adaptation of “The Little Prince” — based on the book read by millions of schoolchildren — should have the audience eating out of its pointe shoes.

I thank my lucky asteroid that I read “The Little Prince” the night before seeing Julia Adam’s dance on Playhouse on the Square’s stage Sunday afternoon. Adam, who previously adapted Kate Chopin’s novel “The Awakening” for Ballet Memphis, may leave some viewers lost in space. Set against a backdrop of twinkling stars, the dance has the essential elements of the story without making narrative sense. Christine Darch’s vivid costumes, informed by Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s drawings of flowers, baobab trees, stars, sheep, a fox and a rose, among others, radiate intensely under Jack Carpenter’s lighting.

Matthew Pierce’s elegant live musical accompaniment, a duet of piano and violin, alludes to the novel’s two lonely main characters, the Little Prince (Kendall G. Britt) and the Pilot (Travis Bradley), who is stranded in the desert.

Exupery’s memorable book is full of humane observations on life, such as “One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

That which is visible to the eye, however, is essential in dance, and Adam’s choreography doesn’t shirk on fascinating and clever gestures or purely theatrical effects, such as when the Little Prince meets the inhabitants of six tiny planets whose inhabitants are all played by the shape-shifting dancer Steven McMahon.

Also on that program was Trey McIntyre’s 2004 ballet “The Naughty Boy,” a neoclassical work performed to Mozart’s Violin Concerto in G. While the company captures the lively vibrance of the work, some small technical changes make a big difference in this revival. Originally, the role of Cupid wore a coon-skin cap and a yellow flannel costume. Here, Stephanie Mei Hom is in red flannel and has a red adornment on her head. Her Cupid is not a feral hunter with a sly streak (as in the original), but a sweet, pretty influence in the lives of people in love. Just ask the Little Prince: there’s a big difference between a fox and a rose.

Saturday night at the Evergreen Theatre, Project: Motion dancers were similarly dedicated to telling stories. In “Floor #6,” an exceptional dance choreographed by Rebecca Cochran and Emily Hefley, a group of female workers elbow and claw their way through a day at the office. Cochran’s 2009 dance, “Apple,” is pure fun, sexy movement set to the music of Nina Simone.

Serious themes of identity and death emerge in “Selkie” and “Broken Myth (a subjective human construct),” both by the company’s co-founder Ann Halligan Donahue, and Ursula O. Payne’s “Standing In Wait… Part 1 — A House in Mourning.”

A little too much history and stylistic diversity are crammed into the company’s exhausting finale “25/25,” which refers to 25 dances in 25 minutes.

Project: Motion’s dancers were never less than electric. Kudos to the technique and energy of Ebone Amos, Jamie Broadaway, Lisa Clarkson, Ondine Geary, and Louisa Koeppel.

Project: Motion’s “25th Anniversary Edition”

8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Evergreen Theatre, 1705 Poplar. Tickets are $20 adults, $15 students and seniors. Call 214-5327.

Ballet Memphis’ “2BLoved”

7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday at Playhouse on the Square, 66 South Cooper. Tickets are $10-$72. Call 737-7322.

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