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McIntyre watches Anne Mueller and Jon Drake
rehearse Just at Oregon Ballet Theatre.
McIntyre is close-mouthed about his sixth and
newest work for OBT, which premieres as part of the
company’s Winter Program. He explains that if the
piece doesn’t speak for itself, he hasn’t done his job.
That said, McIntyre does offer a few pre-curtain
hints. The new piece is called Just, and it is an
intense work, he says.
“It’s pretty physical. Challenging. His work is
always challenging,” confirms Anne Mueller, one
of the four dancers in the piece.
Just is set to music that McIntyre chose from
the repertoire of innovative U.S. composer Henry
Cowell. The dancers’ movements are entirely cen­
tered on the compositions, which McIntyre
describes as contemporary, melodic and rhythmic.
“There is no narrative,” he says. “It’s just about
the music.”
Mueller urges audience members to listen
carefully while watching the performance, because
she believes McIntyre’s sensitivity to musicality is
an essential part of what makes him special as a
choreographer.
She would know. Mueller has danced in nearly
all of McIntyre’s pieces for OBT, beginning with
White Noise in 1998. She has become familiar with
his trademark style, which involves significant
collaboration with the dancers.
Typically, says Mueller, McIntyre will start by
telling a dancer what moves to make, working from
his mental vision for a piece. The choreography
evolves from there.
“It’s within the process of watching you do that
that he really finds what he’s looking for,” says
Mueller. “You start with a looser description, and it
becomes more and more detailed.”
McIntyre elaborates: “A big part is what the
dancers bring to it...I riff a lot off their own
personality. Not just dancing, but in our exchanges
in the studio.”
Mueller adds, “It’s fascinating, because you
develop a language, a vocabulary with him.”
Mueller must be fluent in McIntyre’s choreo­
graphic language, because when he formed his own
company last summer, he invited her to act as
managing director. For the first season of the Trey
McIntyre Project, McIntyre handpicked a group of
dancers with whom he had worked at various
ballet companies. Including Mueller, there were
two dancers from OBT and others from companies
such as the Washington Ballet, Alonzo King’s
LINES Ballet and Ballet Memphis.
“There was lots of continuity in that we’d all
worked with him," Mueller says. “It was a group of
like-minded people, in a good way.”
McIntyre took his company on the road for
two weeks, hitting three major dance festivals:
Jacob’s Pillow, Vail International Dance Festival
and Aspen Dance Festival. It was a smashing
debut season.
“It exceeded even my wildest expectations,”
says McIntyre. “We were really embraced in every
city we went to.”
Festival organizers for Jacob’s Pillow and Vail
were so impressed that they both invited the group
back for 2006. The company’s 2006 season also
includes a performance in Boise, Idaho, and an
appearance at Wolf Trap in Virginia—known as
America’s National Park for the Performing Arts.
“It’s a really great feather in our cap to have
[Wolf Trap] booked in our second year already,”
says McIntyre.
For McIntyre, forming his own company gives
him a chance to build more substantial connec­
tions with individual dancers. “When I go from
company to company, I have this really intense
relationship with dancers and companies—and
then it’s over with," he says.
He sees the Trey McIntyre Project as an
experiment, a foray into “new models and new
ways of imagining a ballet company.” He might
choose to delve into dance film, for instance, or
other avenues of integrating dance into the larger
cultural fabric. “We very much take the ‘project’ in
our title seriously,” he says.
For the dancers, the company provides a new
outlet for their energies. Because a typical dance
season runs about the same length as a school year,
dancers are usually unemployed for the summer.
Most teach and take classes, but summer can still
be a frustrating time—financially, artistically,
mentally and physically.
“As much as you intellectually try to remember
where you were [at the end of the season! and grow
from there, it’s not entirely possible when you’ve
had a significant break in work,” Mueller says.
Dancing during the summer eliminates that
concern, especially when a dancer is working with
a choreographer as challenging as McIntyre.
“I’m really interested in what stops the dancer
from being their best self. The process of getting
through those things improves the choreography in
the end,” says McIntyre.
When asked how he determines just how hard
to push a dancer, McIntyre replies: “I guess I have
yet to find too far. It’s a difficult process, but every­
one in the end wants to be in a better place. It’s a
great feeling to achieve things you didn’t know
were possible.”
Mueller, for one, wholeheartedly enjoys the
challenges McIntyre sets before her.
“It enables me artistically to reach new
grounds,” she says. “I’m 30. I’ve been dancing a
long time. It’s incredibly satisfying to feel like I’m
on an upward slope.’ ©
4 r
Kimya
Dawson
Of The Moldy Peaches
Fri Mar 10 Berbati’s Pan
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231 ANKENY ST 8:00PM DOORS • 21 & OVER
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AN EVENING
TO COME OUT
LAUGHING!
Trey McIntyre’s JUST premieres as part of Oregon
Ballet Theatre’s Winter Program 7:30 p.m.
Feb. 18, 24 and 25 and 2 p.m. Feb. 19 at Keller
Auditorium, 222 S.W. Clay St. Tickets are $13-
$66 from 503-222-5538. '
Portland free-lance writer REBECCA R.AGAIN covers
topics ranging from the national organic fiber
industry to tattoo artists. She regularly contributes
dance articles to Just Out.
(MTfcfeetsMfest
Saturday April 15
Newmark Theater
1111 SW BROADWAY • 7:00PM DOORS • 21 & OVER
TICKETS AT ALL TICKETMASTER LOCATIONS.
CHARGE BY PHONE 503-224-4400
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