Review: Love In The Digital Age

The Ballet Nouveau Colorado’s production of Love In The Digital age ended yesterday after a two weekend stint.  The performance was both eye-opening and refreshing to someone like myself who has never been to the ballet.  However, as much as I did like this show, I’m not so naive to think that all ballet performances are this entertaining.  The ballet was altogether sensual, provocative, enticing, arousing, enthralling, and heartfelt.  BNC’s belief is that a healthy and thoughtful foundation in classical ballet develops discipline and incorporated with exploration and innovation, they are able to bring a somewhat old fashioned art form to the modern masses making it exciting again.

Dancers Sarah Tallman and Brandon "Private" Freeman

Love In The Digital Age is just an example of the avant garde type of ballet being performed by BNC in Denver today, this show was unlike anything that is being done in this area and is reminiscient of theatrical performances you would find on bigger market stages like New York or Los Angeles.  The mixture of great music, digital artwork, and creative storylines made artistic director Garret Ammon’s production a beautiful mix of dance, technology, and art that had the crowd talking afterword.

I heard several guests commenting on how wonderful they thought it was, and despite being of such little expertise I’d tend to agree based on what I saw for myself.  At intermission, I thought the performance had ended after 45min and was left somewhat unsatisfied as I was actually enjoying the ballet and I wanted to see more, to my delight there was a second act. 

Love was born of the idea that people have been using technology to interact with others over the last century in many different cultures and lifestyles.  The use of male and female dancers interacting with each other in varying scenarios to emphasize the chase, the comfort of someone being there to help you up when you are down, the sadness of being alone, the strength of being in control of your emotions, as well as the freedom of being able to express your love towards groups or same sex partners.

The show had an amazing soundtrack with pieces ranging from piano solos, to acoustic singer/songwriters crooning lyrics that tug at your heart, to bass heavy beats that you might find at a local night club.  The dancers performed as a whole and in individual groups.  Several of the group dances seemed like we were at Beta downtown and a flash mob was breaking out into a synchronized dance party.  The upbeat tunes were accompanied by asthetically pleasing videos of digital media being shown on a screen behind the stage.  Other slower, more serious peices were accompanied by a single frame of a sunset or some flowers blowing in the wind, or simply just words.

Dancers Meredith Strathmeyer and Colby Foss

I personally would have liked to see more creativity in the design of the wardrobe, being that the dancers did not change clothes at all during the entire two hour performance and what they were wearing was very modest to begin with.  But that minor detail aside I think this ballet was very well produced, performed, and also very well received.  What started out for me as a pre-emptive Valentines date to please the love in my life, served as a learning experience and garnered an acceptance for an art form that is being rethought for a new age, the digital age.

If you missed Love In The Digital Age, be sure to check out upcoming performances at Ballet Nouveau Colorado: Schedule