Review: STYX The Company’s irresistible charm comes through in ‘Not a Ballet’

 STYX The Company dancers in “Not a Ballet,” choreography by Brianna Campbell and Mika Santo. (Photo by Juan E. Cabrera, courtesy of STYX The Company)

The descriptive music accompanying classical ballets is full of suggestions for the choreographer, the performers, and the spectator. It is composed with that intention, and if you listen carefully and perhaps close your eyes, it is easy to visualize the choreography and the intentions that enrich its execution.

 Swanilda’s waltz in “Coppelia” and the first meeting of Prince Siegfried and Odette in “Swan Lake” – or Odile’s famous 32 fouettés – are enduring achievements that, until today, had not admitted substitutes in the collective memory of ballet lovers.

But something changed on Saturday Jan. 18, when STYX The Company, the group founded and directed by Brianna Campbell and Mika Santo, presented a program titled “Not a Ballet” at the Seminole Theater in Homestead. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s music for “Swan Lake” made an unusual appearance at the end of Campbell and Santo’s splendid group work that gave the program its name and opened the performance.

STYX The Company dancers in “Fallen Swan,” choreography by Daniela Cepero. (Photo by Juan E. Cabrera, courtesy of STYX The Company)

The second work with music by Tchaikovsky was titled “The Fallen Swan” with choreography by Daniela Cepero. The piece began with six dancers dressed in white who crawled in, stood up, and danced, immersed in a mood inherited from Isadora Duncan.

As a side note, the program offered something for everyone, including hip-hop, modern dance, commercial dance, expressive dance, musical theater, ballet, contemporary dance, and contemporary ballet.  

The faith and sense of truth of its interpreters were essential to appreciate the subtleties put into play by Cepero, and “The Fallen Swan” was pleasing as an exercise in sui generis delicacy. But it was much more than that as we soon discovered that it was also the first assault on the memory of the readings established by the great choreographers of the past.

 By then, Campbell and Santo as “curators” of a program that included eight choreographers and 15 works – had established three resources that significantly contributed to the communicative effectiveness of the entire proposal. 

Mika Santo in “Loophole,” choreography by Jade Mesa. (Photo by Juan E. Cabrera, courtesy of STYX The Company)

 The resources were the complicity of the lights, the monochromatic identity in the costumes (red in “Not a Ballet,” white in “The Fallen Swan”), and the management of the groups as if they were a well-trained army. 

 The transition between these first two works revealed a fourth resource: “Not a Ballet” (the program) was a concert of scenes intertwined. The dancers of the ending scene shared the stage for a moment with the dancers of the following one, and they even collaborated on the outcome of the work that preceded. There was no blackout between the choreographies, and the scenes were defined, as in the theater, by the entry and exit of the performers.

All of the works well deserved individual reviews because they possessed a strange quality: they were immune to an analysis based on tastes and merits. Often, when we look back on a performance, we think it may be better to have done it another way, but the irresistible charm of STYX The Company makes us feel the need to admit what they do, no questions asked.

Brianna Campbell in “Forgetting Coda,” choreography by Rachel Abelenda.(Photo by Juan E. Cabrera, courtesy of STYX The Company).

 In this context, it is enough to mention that the solos performed by Santo (“Loophole,” choreography by Jade Mesa and music by Biosphere) and Campbell (“Forgetting Coda,” choreography by Rachel Abelenda, with music by Kendrick Lamar and Jay Rock) work perfectly as “special material” at the service of their immense talent.  

 The craft behind the group choreographies is formidable. Santo’s “Monkey Barre” (with music by Caleb Arrendo and Lou Reed) and “Dress Code” (music by Yaeji) amply demonstrated this.

 STYX The Company frequently incorporates comedy into its performances, steering clear of crude and black humor. Their objective seems to be to bring a smile to the viewer’s face, and they achieve this with a blend of absurd and white humor, as seen in Campbell’s delightful “I Am Plant,” where Rachel Abelenda and Clarissa Castañeda stand out as comedians.

Rachel Abelenda and Clarissa Castañeda in “I Am Plant,” choreography by Brianna Campbell. (Photo by Juan E. Cabrera, courtesy of STYX The Company).

However, the peculiar idiosyncrasy of its responses to the suggestions of the descriptive music of Ludwig Minkus, Delibes, and Tchaikovsky made this program an exceptional creative achievement.

STYX The Company seems to have given its dancers basic instructions, such as “Do what you feel with that music.” In all cases, the result was a celebration. 

Take, for example, the excellent second half of the program that opened with “Arms of the Carriage,” a solo conceived by Campbell with music by Minkus where Daniela Cepero’s arms are the ones that perform Kitri’s variation of the pas de deux from the third act of “Don Quixote.” She remained on stage the entire time with her back to the audience.

Next, in “Not a Variation,” it was the recognizable music of “Paquita” (Minkus), “Don Quixote” (again), and Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty,” but Campbell’s fascinating choreographic juggling is all her own.

STYX The Company dancers in “Not a Variation,” choreography by Brianna Campbell. (Photo by Juan E. Cabrera, courtesy of STYX The Company).

It was a seismic event that – at least for those at this performance – Tchaikovsky’s music for the first meeting of Odette and Prince Siegfried in “Swan Lake” will be remembered from now on, also associated with the performance of the company’s six apprentices in Joaquín Espinosa’s “Swan’s Trance.” Perhaps because, at some moment in life, we have all wanted to dance to Tchaikovsky as we please.

“La Bayadont” (an indecipherable title) came next, and it was time for Minkus’ “La Bayadère.” As a climax, the music from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” (final waltz and apotheosis) was illustrated with overwhelming precision by the entire company, each one dressed as Pulcinella (a loose white suit with buttons on the front) in an unforgettable closing sequence that captivated the audience and gives pause for the question, “Who came up with this fantastic idea?” And then, “Who says you can’t achieve perfection on opening night?”

Euphoric closing (confetti and standing ovation included) for the successful performance of STYX The Company at the Seminole Theater in downtown Homestead. (Photo: Video screenshot taken by the author)

 Of course, before asking the most incisive question, “Does it take a huge budget to assemble a show with a closing worthy of a blockbuster like this one?”

STYX The Company’s website states that they are Miami’s first and only professional company doing commercial concert dance. The truth is that nobody in the vicinity does what they do, and “Not a Ballet” is reliable proof of the merit of their artistic manifesto.

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