Robinson dancers nail it at spring show

Viewed together, the separate pieces in the Robinson Ballet’s spring show seem to be telling one story – a child’s flight from the nest followed by a triumphant return home.

In another sense, from its first classical ballet piece, “Laren’s Waltz,” the story-telling of “Tennis Anyone?” to the stark impressionism of “Born Under a Bad Star,” the entire program could be a metaphor for the evolution of dance from ballet to modern dance to the current trend of choreographing for and performing in the outdoors.

The Bangor-based company’s annual show was a smash at the Bangor Opera House last weekend. The show will be performed at 7 p.m. Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at The Grand in Ellsworth.

Ian Robinson, star of the Queen City performances, will not be able to perform Down East because of a scheduling conflict, but his influence will felt in “Born Under a Bad Star.” Robinson’s father, Keith Robinson, was inspired to create it after he heard music by Canadian electronic musician Venetian Snare on his son’s iPod and watched Ian Robinson make a short film last winter atop snowy rooftops and streets in downtown Bangor.

A 2006 graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, the younger Robinson is traveling the world working at the cutting edge of dance with Canadian choreographer Aszure Barton. He works as her collaborative assistant and is a member of her dance company. He will travel to Montreal and Sydney, Australia, with her later this year. Last year, he joined her in Kenya for a collaborative project that engaged artists in honoring the environment.

A native of Edmonton, Alberta, Barton is on the cover of this month’s edition of Dance magazine.

“The dance – and every single body in it – can seem like a three-ring circus,” Eva Yaa Asantewaa wrote in her profile. “Each piece leaps at you from every direction, less a single entity than a batch of different dances clamoring for attention: vulnerable and feisty, brightly adept yet peculiar, witty and impetuously wild.”

That is an apt description of the Robinson Ballet show’s second act. It begins with the frenetic fun of “Something in Everything,” choreographed by Phaelon O’Donnell to the music of Phish. The dancers appear to be moving effortlessly in a joyous embrace of life. That mood suddenly gives way to the gloomy darkness the final piece inspired.

The Robinson Ballet always has used its spring show to showcase young, local talent. This year is no exception. Amanda Fahey, Stevie Dunham, Joseph Taylor, Erica Schweikert and Caleb McGary are standouts but the entire company gave a stellar and layered performance.

They were as comfortable and adept at Strauss’ Blue Danube as they were at the edgy “Rigidly Yielding.” Choreographed by Dunham, the later was inspired by her drives past telephone polls on Maine’s back roads.

This year’s show is a fine example of how the arts in Bangor can remember and honor the traditional while venturing out on a ledge to bring back what’s twirling at the artistic edges of the world.

For information, call 667-9500 or visit www.grandonline.org.