Wendy Whelan's "Restless Creature" At The Mondavi Center

On Saturday evening, I was over at the Mondavi Center with Sally. The event was Wendy Whelan's "Restless Creature": a modern dance show where she danced duets with four different partners, each of them her choreographer. Each of the dances were distinctly different in style.

Even though I follow ballet to some extent, I clearly don't follow it closely enough. Wendy Whelan is a major ballerina recently-departed from a long career with New York City Ballet (starting in the 80's), and now venturing into modern dance. My problem was that most people seemed to know who she was, but I hadn't heard of her. Throngs of ballet-bunhead girls filled the hall, and they clearly knew who she was. I felt a bit like the lost little brother who knew none of it, and kicked the seat in front of him instead.

Pam was there with Elaine. Saw Megan Stark too! Ruth Rosenberg led a question and answer session afterwards.

The four dances were:

Ego et Tu (with Alejandro Cerrudo);

Conditional Sentences (with Joshua Beamish)

The Serpent and the Smoke (with Kyle Abraham)

First Fall (with Brian Brooks)


I liked "The Serpent and the Smoke" the best (daydreaming that if "Breaking Bad" was set to music, Abraham and Whelan could be Walter and Skyler White). Lots of quick, serpentine motions. My second-favorite was "First Fall". This one was the real crowd-pleaser, with challenging and adroit shifts of weight. "Ego et Tu" was my third-favorite and "Conditional Sentences" my least-favorite. I found the Bach (Partita No. 2 in C Minor BMV 826) to be tedious after a while. Still, Beamish was the most well-spoken of the four choreographers, and described well his intentions with the dance.