The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • E7

SUNDAY, APRIL 7, 2013 THE BALTIMORE SUN 7 Appalachian Spring' training KENNETH K. LAMBALTIMORE SUN PHOTOS Baltimore School for the Arts student Asya Shaw, left, rehearses with Miki Orihara, principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company. Frompagel This marks the first time that the Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance has granted permission to a high school to produce the ballet in its original form. The project has involved quite an eventful learning curve. "When I first heard the name 'Appalachian Spring I thought of the Appalachian Trail, which is pretty embarrassing" said Kimberly Bill, a 16-year-old violinist who will be playing in the orchestra for the ballet.

"But I can say it's now my favorite piece I've ever played. The way Copland writes it, the emotion is almost overwhelming when you play it." That music, with its spare harmonies and compelling use of the vintage Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts," requires a lot in the way of sensitivity and technical polish from players. But at least the notes are all recognizable. The choreography requires a new way of moving and thinking by dancers. The school does not offer training in the Martha Graham technique, a groundbreaking style of modern dance that is more likely to be taught at the college level.

Graham applied this technique, with its distinctive angular shapes and pelvis-centered movements, on "Appalachian Spring" to great effect. Lauren Simmons, one of the dancers in the school's production, entered the project as a novice and is finishing up as a convert. "I had heard of Appalachian but it never occurred to me how great it was," Simmons, 17, said. "We're continuing a legacy that's so amazing. I never had training in Graham technique before this.

It is not just step after step. There is a whole philosophy behind every move; every small movement has a story behind it." Auditions were held months ago to fill the eight roles in the ballet (two casts were chosen, allowing for alternating performances) and to form the small orchestra Copland wrote the original score for a chamber ensemble of 13 players, all that could fit in the Library of Congress' Coolidge Auditorium for the premiere. "The ballet fits young dancers, and the music fits young people, too," said Chris Ford, director of the Baltimore School for the Arts. Throughout the school year, others joined in the adventure. Student designers and technicians have re-created the original set by Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi, whose strikingly minimalist design became an integral part of the ballet.

A group of students made a trip to the Library of Congress in September to delve into the extensive Copland and Graham archives there. That research generated another element in this week's festival theater students have fashioned a prologue they will perform before the ballet, providing historical background. Two veterans of the New York-based Martha Graham Dance Company have been regular visitors to the school, providing the finishing touches on the project. Principal dancer Mild Orihara, a company member since 1987, is guiding the ballet students through their moves. She knows "Appalachian Spring" intimately, having frequently performed the role of the Bride that was created and danced by Graham.

Peabody Institute and Yale University alum Aaron Sherber, music director of the Graham company since 1998, is conducting the student orchestra for the ballet performances. "At the Martha Graham Dance Company, we like to foster collaborative things," Sherber said. "It's great to see how the whole school here is involved in this. The ldds really don't know the piece at all, but there's a really different energy the kids bring to this, a pure, raw excitement." The impetus for "An Appalachian Spring Festival" came from Rheda Becker, an arts advocate who is on the school's board of overseers. She was inspired by "Ballet for Martha," a 2010 children's book by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan (the book's illustrator, Brian Floca, will participate in the festival).

At the end of the book, which tells the story of the creation and first performance of "Appalachian Spring," the authors write: "New dancers will take their turns to move to Aaron Copland's music, to interpret Martha Graham's steps, to dance through Isamu Noguchi's set And the collaboration will be created anew." 'Appalachian Spring' Festival Opening of exhibit of student art work inspired by "Appalachian Spring" at 4 p.m. Monday. Free. "Artistic Vision Meets History," a discussiondemonstration on how historical theater is created, at 5 p.m. Monday.

Free. Student musicians perform chamber works by Copland and his contemporaries at 7 p.m. Wednesday. $5 to $10. Illustrator Brian Floca will participate in a discussiondemonstration about his work for the book "Ballet for Martha," at 5 p.m.

Friday. Free. "Appalachian Spring" will be performed by student dancers and musicians at 7 p.m. Friday; $10 to $15. A Family Day will combine children's activities, including dance and music, with performances of "Appalachian Spring" on Saturday.

The pre-shows will be at 9:45 a.m. and 1:45 p.m., the ballet at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. $10 to $35. All events at Baltimore School for the Arts, 712 Cathedral St.

Call 410-347-3043, or go to bsfa.org. Student musicians rehearse the "Appalachian Spring." Aaron Copland wrote the original score for a 13-member chamber ensemble. Becker took that message to heart. "I thought it would be so rich in possibilities for the school," she said. (The festival is dedicated to her.) In addition to giving students a rich educational and artistic experience, the festival gives Baltimore what is apparendy a long-overdue look at this famous ballet.

Sherber's search through touring records turned up a Graham Company performance of "Appalachian Spring" at the Lyric Opera House in 1947. The Graham Company takes its custodial role of the founder's ballets seriously. It doesn't routinely authorize student performances of "Appalachian Spring." "Simply because it's too hard," Orihara said. "It involves a different vocabulary. Even high-end dance departments at colleges don't work a lot with the Graham technique.

And if dancers don't have this technique, it takes a long time to really understand it. I was very amazed by these Baltimore School for the Arts kids." One of those kids is Lenai Wilkerson, 15, who will be dancing the role of the Bride. She has been getting into the mood for it. "Becoming the Bride has forced me to change my persona," Wilkerson said. "I have to be more reserved and pulled up.

I have done dances where I had to portray a character, but not like this. I absolutely live this character every day of my life." Wilkerson lives, too, with the aches from executing the steps devised by Graham, whose choreography was founded on a principal of "contraction and release." It's all about creating tension and energy, about how to breathe, and it's a far cry from the smooth curves and classical lines seen in a ballet corps performing "Swan Lake." "The way that you have to have your back and head rooting up, and how you have to initiate from the pelvis, is such a difference for me," Wilkerson said. Simmons has been adjusting, too. "Our knees hurt, our abs are sore, but it does get better," she said. She portrays one of the four Followers of the Preacher, a dark, mesmerizing figure who displays revivalist fervor in "Appalachian Spring." "This kind of dancing is outside our comfort zone," Simmons said.

"We were all so nervous when we started. It's weird. You're not just dancing; you feel something." The lasting power of "Appalachian Spring" is all the more remarkable given that Copland only had a vague idea what Graham planned to convey in the ballet when he started to compose the music. He didn't even know the title she would pick (he wrote on his score "Ballet for and only saw the choreography shortly before the premiere. As for the tide, Graham took that from a line in "The Bridge," a poem by Hart Crane.

Nothing else about the poem is connected to the ballet, just as nothing about Appa-lachia is connected to Copland's music. "People come up to me," the composer wrote, "and say, 'Mr. Copland, when I see that ballet and when I hear your music I can just see the Appalachians and just feel Well, I'm willing, if they are." Learning about the origins of the work has been part of the fun for 17-year-old violin student Aaron Cary, who said that nothing about the words "Appalachian Spring" "rang a bell" with him before he got involved in the project. "I read that Crane poem," Cary said, "and I thought, how could Graham pick out this one litde spot in that huge poem and make it fit so well as a tide? And the way the music and the dance fit together is really amazing." tim.smithbaltsun.com A sure-footed, angst-ridden 'Slipping' premiere If you go Iron Crow's production of "Slipping" runs through April 13 at Theatre Project, 45 W. Preston St.

Tickets are $15 for general admission and $10 for students, seniors, artists and members of the military. Call 443-637-2769 or go to ironcrowtheatre.com. ect, fluidly directed by Steven J. Satta and designed by Daniel Ettinger. Tanner Medding does admirable work as Eli.

He makes the character genuine and sympathetic, especially in the scenes when Eli is at his most vulnerable, recalling the father who smelled of Old Spice or the tortured relationship with Chris (vibrandy played by Christopher H. Zargarbashi). Medding is a young actor with a future. Rich Buchanan could use more nuance and flair as Jake, but he is effective when the drama intensifies. Michele Minnick gives a natural, telling performance as Eli's mother, a woman anxious to get on with her own life, eager to help Eli get on with his.

Even the stagehands who facilitate the scene-changing are caught up in the action, sometimes cheekily, sometimes as sensitive observers. It's a neat way to point out how we're all in danger of slipping, one way or another, and could all use a litde help hanging on. tim.smithbaltsun.com Talbott's concise drama manages to deal with all of this teen angst persuasively in "Slipping" (part of that persuasion comes from his keen ear for how young people talk and act). Plot strands that threaten to dissolve into pure soap opera get nicely detoured by unexpected litde twists so that incidents, mood and, especially, dialogue, ring true. And there's just enough of a things-get-better glimmer underneath it all to make the experience even more satisfying.

The playwright has structured the work out of short scenes, many seeming to last only about 90 seconds. And he spices the flow with an effective spin on such a well-worn theatrical device as the break-the-fourth-wall monologue, treating it like open-mike night. (Another well-worn device nudity may be employed a little more often than stricdy necessary.) Iron Crow has given this tale of young dreams and disappointments an impressive production at the Baltimore Theatre Proj By Tim Smith The Baltimore Sun With a confrontational streak of fire-red in his hair, Eli cannot help but be noticed when he shows up in an Iowa high school, an unwilling transplant from San Francisco, where his father recendy died. Even as he draws attention to himself, Eli does not let people in easily, using a defense mechanism of glibness, mixed with snark, to keep them at bay starting with his mother. But Eli, the center of Daniel Talbott's affecting play "Slipping," which is receiving its Baltimore premiere from Iron Crow Theatre Company, cannot disguise the fact that he's a romantic at heart.

He would love to be loved if only he could believe that such a thing is possible. He is still trying to get over his clandestine affair with Chris, the jock-jerk he left behind in California (Eli is not the first, and certainly not the last, person of either gender or orientation so desperate to be thought desirable that he will tolerate an abusive relationship.) Given his emotional scars, Eli is not about to fall for Jake, the apple-pie-and-baseball kid he meets in his new school. No way that could ever lead to anything, no way Jake could be the real deal. Eli, even at his tender age, is convinced he'll never be trustful again. "I hate things you can't take back," he says..