The Klezmer Ballet

By Eileen Wingard

In an unexpected marriage of klezmer and ballet, the Ninth Annual Lipinsky
Jewish Arts Festival wedded the San Diego Ballet with the Freilechs, a
Tijuana-based klezmer ensemble.

Result? A startling and innovative program for the festival and a treat for
the audience.

The Freilechs, directed by Alexander Gourevitch, provided music while
dancers, under the direction of Javier Velasco, presented extraordinary
choreography.

The program, “Klezmer Ballet,” repeated five times between June 5 and 9, was
presented in three parts. It opened with the Freilechs alone. The second
part featured two dancers interpreting a poem. The third segment was the
wedding of klezmer music and ballerinas in tuttus and toe shoes.

The third part offered a surprising contrast to traditional klezmer, which
usually evokes visions of men and women dancing separately, the women
wearing dresses with long sleeves, high collars and ankle-length hems, with
kerchiefs covering their heads. ³Klezmer Ballet,² however, featured klezmer
music interpreted by dancers with white transparent tights and spaghetti
straps over their bare shoulders.

At first, the effect seemed incongruous. Yet, as the dancers twirled,
pirouetted and leaped, they convincingly conveyed the joy and verve of the
klezmer music. The audience rewarded their exuberance and expertise with a
standing ovation.

No less impressive was the second segment of the program, a pas de deux
choreographed by Velasco to the poetry of Kenneth Fearing, a Jewish-American
poet of the Depression era. The poem, “Love: 20 Cents the First
Quarter-Mile,” was read by Doug Jacobs, one of San Diego’s most venerated
actors and cofounder of the San Diego Repertory Theater. Bert Turetsky,
professor of string bass at UCSD and member of the Second Avenue Klezmer
Ensemble, improvised accompaniments on the string bass. Using bow strokes,
pizzicato and sticks tapping the strings, he achieved a variety of unusual
effects that complemented Fearing’s words.

The choreography was innovative, sensuous and evocative, remarkably executed
by Stephanie Aubuchon and Gabriel Medina. The San Diego Ballet Alliance
recently selected this work as the most outstanding choreography in its
category.

Opening the program were the Freilechs, featuring the impressive klezmer
artistry of Alexander Gourevitch, who can make his clarinet literally speak..
He was accompanied by an ensemble of violin, piano and percussion. The
contrasting freilechs, bulgars and niggunim were all crowd-pleasers.

This group will be one of four participating in Klezmer Summit, the
concluding program of the Ninth Annual Lipinsky Family Jewish Arts Festival..
The other three groups will be Yale Strom’s Klazzj, the Second Avenue
Klezmer Ensemble and the Hollywood Klezmer. Performances will take place on
June 25 at the Lyceum Theater and on June 26 at the North Coast Rep in
Solana Beach.